Hello All!One thing is for sure... the Army makes nothing easy, their website / email service not excluded. After much list scrubbing and multiple entry deletions, I think I have come up with a distribution list where the same person gets the same email three times over. Sorry, dad!
Anyhow... time for Dispatch #2 from the land of dust and well, dust...
What is new you ask? Funny you should mention that, because NOTHING is new. JUst finished a fun-filled week of Security Tower duty. Believe me, all of you who read this from the confines of a cubicle. Cubicle-Hell would be a welcome reprieve. Imagine your 8x8' cube being elevated 20-25 feet over a desert, with no AC, no radio, nothing. Lunch is delivered, which is a perk, if you are able to eat it before the flies carry it away (they're big here, trust me). Anyhow... so 7 days, 8 hours a day of nothing but myself for company... hmmm... got real friendly with those voices in the ole' noggin! BUt, on the bright side, on my last day, I did manage to bag my first baddie. It seems IRaqis love American trash. No, they aren't calling us trash... they actually love our TRASH. Misled privates and loony lieutenants alike manage to throw out all sorts of things that shouldn't be carelessly disposed of (hey, how DID that detailed map of Camp Bucca make it onto the internet?)
And the sheep-herding, camel-tending nomads in the area have discovered a new source of income. Their plan is simple... entreprenuers, take note.
1. Walk your herd into the neighboring area and wait for the contractors to dump a fresh load of garbage in the burn pit.
2. ONce the truck has cleared the area, do the Iraqi-Yard-Dash for the burn pit. Hurdle the retaining wall and start sifting before the flames engulf everything.
3. Grab anything remotely informative.
4. Run hell-bent-for-leather before the towers spot you and call out the QRF (Quick Reaction Force) team on duty for the day.
5. Provided you make a get-away, sell said material to al-Qaeda or any other insurgent organization willing to pay you for information on us dirty infidels.
Sometimes, it works. Most times, they are spotted and detained, but not before they manage to throw trash all over the desert landscape in a furtive attempt to ditch the evidence. Well, in our week, Haji the Shepard was spotted and caught most every day. With it being our last day on the towers for a month, I was feeling particularly snarky. Rumble, rumble, the truck rolls away from the pit and what do my spying eyes see? Haji running the Camel-Mile for the pit with three of his friends.
The call goes in, QRF goes out. Three of the four are rounded up. One seems to have gotten away. Seems that is, because, unbeknownst to him, ole' Eagle-Eye-In-The-Sky, yours truly, had my binoculars trained steadily on the foxhole he managed to dive in. After many frustrating calls to the QRF team ("No, jackass, your OTHER left) the boys caught on to the directions I provided from my eye in the sky. Minutes later, Haji II emerges, hands held high, from the foxhole to the sight of three M-16A2's and a 12-Guage shotgun pointed right in his face. Haji, Haji II, III, and IV have not been seen in the area since.
All humor aside, it felt good getting him at his own game, and thankfully, my presence, in light of my superior job as the eye in the sky, was not requested back at the towers this week. Nice week ahead... QRF for a few days (NO sleep!), then a few convoy runs. Nothing too extraordinary, but then again, the only extraordinary thing in this entire country is that people actually LIVE here!
Hope this dispatch finds everyone well. If I have been negligent in including everyone who should be, please feel free to forward the message along. Thank you to everyone who has sent mail... I'm in the lead in the platoon so far. And to those who haven't, get crackin' slackers! I'm bustin' my butt in a freakin' desert, for chrissakes!
Keep in touch. And if I get ONE email about "how much fun St. Patrick's Day was" this year, it's on. The Army has caused me to miss two consecutive St. Paddy's day Drinkfests and I'm none to pleased about it! (Harv, if you couldn't see how directed at you that was, you need new glasses, brotha! Where's my emails and NYC stories???... 'tever...)
Keep well and write back soon!
D
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