Saturday, December 30, 2006

Christmas was sometime this week. I must've missed it.

The last few days have been a confusing mess of daytime and nighttime, sleep, work and time off, in the midst of which I purely and simply lost track of days.

Honestly, losing track of days wasn't much of a bad thing. I would work from, say, twelve to midnight one day, stay up reading a book until ten in the morning, when I would sleep through the afternoon and wake up for a shift starting at midnight. I feel like someone who has just come out of tumbling underwater in the surf - the ride was unpleasant and confusing, but quicker than expected.

I did listen to several episodes of "This American Life" and "Speaking of Faith" - two radio shows that I enjoy downloading and listening to. I haven't had the brain energy to read anything significant in spanish, and I am still hurting too much to really work out.

I also read "Empire Falls" by Richard Russo. I didn't really know what to expect because Russo was introduced to me by an fictitious character in a comic strip (Caulfield in "Frazz"), but "Empire Falls" was a very good read. I was simply awed by the wide range of interesting, believeable, endearing characters. Also, Russo can bring up every feeling from hope to despair and humor to horror in the space of just a few sentences. Some of the images, like that of an abducted, senile priest taking confessions at the end of a bar, are unforgettable. It looks like I'll be taking literary advice from comic strip characters again!

The high point of this past week was definitely today's MOUT (Military Operations in Urban Terrain) range. A lot of much-needed going back over basics, getting used to yet another set of SOPs, and some good live-fire. We drilled the targets, and moved quickly through the iterations to stay warm in the chilly wind. My weapon worked flawlessly, which always gives me a good feeling.

And the low point of the week was working a few shifts at the command post, which was beyond boring. Probably the worst thing about the command post is being close to the company's high-ranking personel. Apparently, they are great leaders... I think they'd be a great team for Operation Colonize Pluto.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

A long shortest day of the year

Last night, with the area reaction force, I spent the night at a forward location (Camp Yankee). I only got about three hours of sleep, since I got done running around 2200, then went straight to my guard shift until 2300, then spent about a half hour trying to communicate with some Egyptian workers who were smoking the narguile pipe. They didn't smoke the fruity strawberry and apple tobaccoes I usually saw in Iraq, but a straight tobacco of the brand "Burj," with a picture of the same birdhouse towers I see in farms sometimes. Not one of them spoke any english, which rather surprised me because most of them had been in Kuwait for several years, and english is widespread here.

We woke up at 0115 and took off to stage by the Navistar-Safwan border crossing. The drive through the desert was quite long, because a very thick fog kept visibility down to just a few meters. Once on the border, we did a few patrols, drove through the Northeastern farmlands, and reacted to some unauthorized activity. When our mission was done we returned to Camp Yankee at breakneck speed, and almost had a bad accident.

The roads are destroyed from the many soaking and drying cycles we have endured in the last few weeks. Any wet place we drive through that isn't paved quickly becomes deeply rutted, and as the ruts dry they turn concrete-hard. As we went over a particularly nasty series of potholes and a small wadi in the dirt road the humvee bucked and pitched like a rodeo bull. I was thrown into the M240B machine gun, and slammed back into the hatch cover. As the humvee landed, I was shaken back and forth with tremendous force and speed, crashing against the sides of the turret like the clapper knocking inside a bell. The truck commander tried to get a hold of me as per rollover procedures (the humvee almost did flip completely forward), but by the time he reached I was already out the hatch. I had no idea which way was up or down, so I was lucky to have ended back in the vehicle. The whole ordeal truly hurt, and I stayed by the radios while the OE254 antennae were getting broken down, even though I had set them up and I should have at least participated. Most of the equipment was fine, but my camera was broken, which is unfortunate but not too great a loss.

By the time we returned to base the heavy dew from the morning had evaporated and been replaced by sand, and I had to clean the weapons again. We stayed on watch until midnight, and then I couldn't go to sleep so I listened to the latest "This American Life" radio show, read the news, and wrote this. Tomorrow I have to re-re-re-re-re-qualify on crew-served weapons maintenance at 1000, right in the middle of my planned "night" of sleep.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

The deluge is over. But stick around, Christmas is coming!

Yesterday was one continuous downpour. Everything is flooded, and my living quarters are surrounded by a giant pool of five-inch deep, light brown, trash-strewn water which is slowly being sucked in by the desert. I was thankful to be off duty yesterday, for gunning in the rain is unpleasant, and cleaning soaked weapons can be a headache.

I got a nice Christmas card today from my talented family. Mathieu knew just what to say: "un flocon de fraicheur dans le desert pour un joyeux Noel." And my father reminded me a bit of St Exupery when he asked: "Et toi, dans ce desert defonce, avec comme seule veilleuse un vieux puits de petrole qui brule, est-ce que, ce 25 decembre quand le jour se leve sur ton desert juste un peu avant de se lever sur Bethlehem, on peut toujours esperer qu'un jour la paix promise viendra dans ces deserts?" He also quoted a line that I liked: "Le mot jadis, quand l'ombre est sur la mer." Something like: "the word of times gone by, when the shadow is over the sea." Sorry about all the accents I ignored.

I learned from that same card that the same little plastic Christmas tree that we had when I was little is still fulfilling its duties as centerpiece of the seasonal display. It had been given to us - as my father helpfully reminded me - over ten years ago by the wonderful Madame Omari.

Here in Kuwait, the little plastic christmas tree that I planted in the sand in front of our window is still around. It has valiantly withstood the flood, although the candy canes are eroded down to slivers. Also, as the waters recede they festoon the branches with dingy cigarette butts.

In the "weird things I learned today" category: Iguazu, which I had always thought of as the paradise on Earth in which Julien worked for a while, turns out to be the center of an area where thousands of expatriated Arabs live, and where money is being sent out to "terrorist organizations." It's a strange new world...

Sunday, December 10, 2006

First post

It is strange writing a blog entry for the first time. Reader: this is perhaps as much for myself in the future as for you, so please bear with the trivialities.

I am presently located in Northwestern Kuwait, where I serve my second Army National Guard long tour of duty.

Today I went out as turret gunner on three random patrols in the desert - the first one in the middle of the night and the other two in the daytime. The highlight of the day was a sand fox Vulpes ruepelli. The sand fox was exactly the same color as the desert, so that I almost didn't see it at first (in fact, only two of us saw it). It had huge ears, and moved very fast. I am guessing that he must live off the big gerbils and lizards that we see on a regular basis.

After work, I borrowed a movie (the first Harry Potter), watched it, and read Isabel Allende's Si me tocaras el corazon (a short story named after one of my favorite poems by Neruda), while listening to Grupo Fantasma.