Ramadan is the ninth month in the Muslim Calender. It is during this month that Muslims fast. It is called the Fast of Ramadan and lasts the entire month. Ramadan is a time when Muslims concentrate on their faith and spend less time on the concerns of their everyday lives. It is a time of worship and contemplation.

     During the Fast of Ramadan strict restraints are placed on the daily lives of Muslims. They are not allowed to eat or drink during the daylight hours. Smoking and sexual relations are also forbidden during fasting. At the end of the day the fast is broken with prayer and a meal called the iftar. In the evening following the iftar it is customary for Muslims to go out visiting family and friends. The fast is resumed the next morning.

     This is also the time that anti-american, anti-coalition people decide to work on their 'holy jihad' and start blowing things up.  Things were quiet here the first few days of Ramadan, but now they've picked up. We had a drive by shooting at one of our checkpoints the other day, and yesterday a man that was either Chechen or Arab (hard to tell by what's left of the body parts) went to the bazaar down the street and blew himself up with 5 hand grenades. Over in Iraq, Timmay was lucky to be in the Palace on shift talking to me over chat, when a rocket impacted 100 ft from his trailer.  His roommate is ok.

     I must admit, it makes no sense on the surface that people would choose this time to conduct these attacks. But if you look at the twisted beliefs of these fanatics, you'll see that they don't believe the REAL muslim faith, they have a twisted version.