Hello All,

In the words of Paul Harvey (if you don’t know who that is, look him up, he’ s a great storyteller), it’s time for the rest of the story. Last time I told you about the Sergeant Major outside the gate at Doha, and now let me tell you about the inside.

Doha is a fairly nice post, considering that I was previously in the middle of the desert. My previous time there (all 3 days) was very nice, and I had no arguments with it. There was even some excitement with SCUD warnings and one VERY loud silkworm missile attack that shook the rafters, so I have nothing against it. Um, well I had nothing against it. During subsequent trips to Doha, I saw that it was becoming more and more congested. Lines for the PX, barber etc were significantly longer than I remembered, and for good reason. There are too many people on that post. At least for my liking. I like small posts with minimal officers and staff-type soldiers (ok, so I’m going to be an officer when I get home, but I’m going to try not to be one of these types).

You may or may not know the type of person I’m talking about - the ones with far too much time no their hands, a power complex and a power point presentation for everything from digging a fighting position (see Foxhole) to jerking off. I know that I’m a remf, and I am proud to serve my country, but I also know that most of these staff-pukes are part of a bureaucratic system that encourages micro-management (see Sergeant Major outside the gate telling soldiers to wear their helmets and body armor). Another example, sure I can do that.

Doha is split into two separate parts: North and South. The North side is for tactical (see Hummers, Tanks, etc) and the South side is for billeting (see housing), the PX and other soldier needs. Mail is on the south side, and since there isn’t enough space on Doha for the troops that are trying to live there as they transition to somewhere else, access onto the South side with a tactical vehicle is severely limited. In fact, you have to get a pass before security will let you drive onto South Doha.

No problem, we’ve got 2 hummers because there is an ass load of mail waiting for us. We go to the permit office (I’d never been there before, but one of the other guys, Dustin, had been) and I’m thinking that this will be no problem at all. We roll in, grab the mail, two guys hit the PX, one guy goes to finance and I’ll watch the gear, mail and the trucks while they’re gone. Simple. Easy. Done. Um, no, this is where part two gets a little retarded.

We were only allowed one permit. I told the Lieutenant (another sign of gross micro-management, an officer acting as a traffic cop) that we had two trucks worth of mail and really needed both vehicles on post, but he was unfazed.

“Sergeant, you should have been picking up your mail on a regular basis, and this would not be a problem.”

Oh, this is how it’s gonna be. “Sir, we have been picking up mail daily-daily, but my commander,” and that son-of-a-bitch cut me off.

“Sergeant, I don’t want to hear it. Make due with what you have, and be off my post in an hour.”

“Yes Sir.” I bit my tongue, performed a right face and walked out of his office. I wasn’t exceptionally pissed off, oh-no. I was way beyond anything so civil as that. While I was visualizing tying that having no common sense prick to a chair and working him over with a pair of my worst smelling socks (now that’s biological warfare!), Dustin steps up and gets me refocused on the situation by pulling a blank pass out of his pocket.

Apparently, Dustin has met this guy before, and being a good soldier, has found a way to adapt and overcome the hostile situation. This looks like a great idea, but there’s only one problem: the official stamp with the Lieutenant’s official signature.

“If I flash it quick, nobody will notice,” Dustin’s logic sounded good and looked great on paper. The bad part, somebody had already been busted with that ruse, and Dustin was denied access to South Doha. Damn.

I had already planned for this contingency. We would meet up back outside the not-so-helpful (does this remind anyone else of Wisconsin?) Lieutenant’s office, transfer the mail from one truck to another then make a second run to the South. No problem, and as Matt and I were loading our hummer with the warehouse (I’m not kidding, there was a ton of mail, and no, no packages for me) of mail, guess who rolls up with the biggest shit eating grin you ever did see. Yep, my pal Dustin.

Seems that Dustin went back to the prick's office, sent in another troop and got another pass by telling the Lieutenant that he was with another (and completely fictional) unit. The Lieutenant bought the story, issued another pass, and told him too, “Be off my post in an hour.” I believe that PT Barnum was right, there is a sucker born every minute.

We loaded the packages, and they filled both the hummers, drove the trucks to the North side of the post, I watched the gear, mail and trucks and the others went and took care of their own personal business. You might be wondering where all these packages came from, considering that we’ve been checking our mail daily. They came down from the Marine unit we were attached to at Camp Coyote. I guess they found all our mail when they were told that they were rotating home in 30 days. Funny how that works, don’t you think? But I was just happy that we got our mail and maneuvered around that Lieutenant.

Oh, but this isn’t the happy ending. The happy ending came on the drive home. Matt was riding shotgun, and a civilian SUV pulls up alongside us with a female driver and 5 girls, the oldest one around 12 and the youngest maybe 6. Matt is an incorrigible flirt, and those little girls didn’t mind waving and pointing and giggling when he started making funny faces and goofing off. It was the first time I’ve seen anyone local to this place smile, and the fact that the mom driving the SUV slowed down so the kids could play along was a good sign. Maybe the next generation won’t grow up hating Americans, thinking that we’re devils and warmongers. Maybe the next generation will remember that we’ve all got little kids in us, and we’re just looking for a reason to goof-off and play. That the real reason we came over here was so that little kids can be little kids, and grown ups can let their kids grow up safe.

I love you all,
Will

PS – While I didn’t receive any packages that day, I have received more than my fair share. I would like to thank all my friends and relatives for their packages and well wishes.

Hello All,

Greeting from the land of sandstorms and heatstroke! I know that some of you were wondering when I was going to write again, especially after my last blurb about almost nothing. I admit that things have been a little slow around here, and the stupidness level was down for most of this week, however I went on a mail run to Doha yesterday, and the stupidness level is right back to a normal (Army normal, that is) level.

Now if you remember, Doha was the nice place I was at during my first week here in Kuwait. I liked it then, we had a spacious warehouse to live in, cots to sleep on, almost (no, not really) clean showers and really good chow four times a day (Midnight meals RULE!). Subsequent trips to Doha had soured me a bit, it had become much busier, and since I no longer lived there, I had to drive around and try to find a parking place. Trust me, I would rather go to the mall during the Christmas rush than try to find parking on Doha. However, I was assigned to go and get the mail and to take two Hummers instead of one because of the large number of packages that have arrived.

My mood quickly improved when I heard of the number of packages arriving for the company. First of all, the folks from work sent a large number of them with lots of goodies for me, and secondly, I kinda like playing Santa Claus to all the troops with their mail. It’s good for the soul, you might say. I was also assigned two soldiers that had to go to Doha to see the finance department about a couple pay issues. No problem, I needed anther two soldiers to drive the second hummer and Matt wanted to come along to go to the PX (see Mini-Mall in Army terms). What could be better than a cool drive with a pal to up to pick up presents for your buddies?

Well, how about a hot drive up to a rolling cluster fuck to pick up presents for your buddies? To say that it was hot out would be a mild understatement. I saw the devil on the corner as I was driving out the gate
and he asked to borrow my sun-block. Those of you that live in the desert
know how a hot wind feels when you’re driving down the highway (Hummers don’ t have air-conditioning) opposed to the cool wind blowing in your face in the Midwest (see Home). I didn’t mind the breeze too much, the body armor was more of a nuisance, keeping the hot wind from evaporating the sweat off my body. When we reached Doha I had a weird reverse pit-stain going and my T-shirt was soaked on the chest and back, but not on my pits or sleeves.

Before you can go onto any military post you have to clear your weapon. This is a procedure that ensures your weapon doesn’t have a live round in the chamber, and is a very good idea. If things aren’t too busy, I like to take off my body armor and let my T-shirt dry out at this place, and considering the climate here, it only takes a couple minutes. I did this, then put my helmet and armor in the back seat of the hummer and wore my soft cap (it’s like a baseball cap, but different) up to the final gate to enter Doha.

My logic, you see, was that since we’re inside the perimeter of Doha, and therefore protected from any would-be terrorist dickheads, it would be safe
to move about without any additional protection. You might agree with me,
but then you would be wrong as well. As we approached the gate there was a bit of a traffic jam. I muttered to myself about lousy drivers and using the vertical pedal on the right side when a female soldier walked up to my hummer. It wasn’t until she was standing right next to me that I noticed her rank; Sergeant Major. For those of you that don’t know, Sergeant Majors are the top of the Enlisted food chain. They generally report to Colonels or Generals and rarely take shit from anybody else. I have met several in my career, and have no personal grudges toward any I met, unlike many of the officers I have met in my years. Being experienced with the species, and knowing that I hadn’t done anything wrong (um, yeah, I didn’t think that I had done anything wrong) I greeted her calmly.

“Good morning, Sergeant Major,” I was grinning like an idiot.

She looked back like I WAS an idiot, crumpled up her nose, cocked her head for a second and said, “You aren’t from here, are you?”

“No, Sergeant Major, we’re just in from Camp Coyote to pick up 2 months worth of mail.” Technically this was a lie, however, when the Sergeant Major tells you the answer to a question, only a fool (not an idiot, mind
you) would answer incorrectly.

“Well,” she said rolling her head and sizing me up (this is usually not a good sign), “you need to put on your flak and Kevlar before you go on post.”

“Roger that Sergeant Major, I’ll get squared away.” And quickly reached back to grab my armor and helmet, thinking to myself, ‘What the hell is all this about?’

“Pass the word to your First Sergeant, now.”

“Roger that, Sergeant Major.”

“Drive on soldier.”

And we drove into Doha. Matt looked at me and said, “Two months of mail?”

“Trust me, remf’s don’t mess with guys in the field, even if we’re remf’s too, if they don’t have to. Can you believe that a Sergeant Major was playing Kevlar cop?” A remf stands for Rear-Echelon-Mother-Fucker, a little pet name that front line troops (see Infantry, Armor and Artillery) came up for guys in the rear, and yes, I am one of them. I played on the Sergeant Major's weak side, because Sergeant Majors are supposed to look out for their troops, and nobody had told me about the policy change on Doha.

“I’ve never even heard of it before.” Matt said.

But I had, from the first gulf war. I didn’t attend that expedition, but those veterans that did told me a story about a full bird Colonel that did the same thing. He would walk up and down the convoy before it was heading out and scream at soldiers that weren’t wearing their helmets. All I could think of when I heard that story, years ago, was the same thing I was thinking as we rolled thru the gate on Doha, ‘Don’t these people have better things to do?’

I’m beginning to understand what drives postal employees over the edge. I’d better get going, if this keeps up, I might be going ‘postal’ a little myself. Kidding, well.... almost.

I love you all,
Will

PS – This will be the first of two messages about the mail run. I ran out of space and time, but there will be a happy ending for this one.

Hello All,

This is just a quick message, not because I'm short on time, just that I'm short on material. Don't worry, stupid things are happening daily, it's just that some of them are too dumb to post (trust me, I don't want to bore you). One bunch of Marines is moving out and another one is moving in. Hopefully this batch will be a little better than the last, especially when it comes to unexpended ordinance (see Grenades!).

There are loads of rumors still flying, but none that has caught my ear lately. I'm a bit concerned about the lack of actual news from my chain of command, but I guess no news is good news (see Pray!). My anxiety lies in the history of this deployment. My company has been given VERY steep deadlines to meet (see Pervious Rants about Railhead and the Plane), and while we always meet them, we end up jumping through our collective asses to get the job done. We are trying to be smart about this, and cleaning as much of our gear as possible right here in the port, but I fear that this will be another vain attempt to stay one step ahead of the power curve. Oh, and the sand storm that has been dumping dust and sand on our heads for the past two days isn't helping too much either. Yes, the weather is just as nice here as it was in the middle of the desert, except that the tent doesn't leak and we haven’t had near as much rain (yep, no more shivering in my birthday suit and cursing General Winter).

Oh, and for the very helpful reader that pointed out that my little stash of booze is a UCMJ (Uniformed Code of Military Justice, i.e. military law) violation, I do appreciate the pointer, and as I didn't think too much of the bottle before, I decided that it would probably be best if I disposed of it. Of course you're thinking that I drank it, well normally you would be right, but not this time. You see, my tolerance for alcohol has dropped a bit, and trying to kill that bottle might just kill me (and Mom would be so pissed about that one, she might try to come after me to kick my butt). So I decided the next best thing would be to make some cash on the whole deal, and sold the remaining scotch to a Marine. For 50 bucks. Half of a 10 dollar bottle. Sucker. I have lost a little respect for Marines on this trip, but I do love how some people are just plain gullible. Now I can buy some more Cuban Cigars.

Another reader was concerned with sand getting stuck where the sun doesn't shine. This isn't too big of a problem because I wear a belt pulled tight, and avoid Plummer Butt as much as possible (see Pants sliding down and butt crack showing, arrhh, I just got the mental image and I can't poke out my minds eye!!!!).

For everyone that asked if I'd see their family/friends/husbands ect. in the Marines passing thru, I'm sorry but I haven't been able to locate anyone. There are thousands of Marines passing thru this camp, and it's next to impossible for me to look for them all. I wish you all luck and that you are reunited with your loved ones as soon as possible.

I love you all,

Will

Hello All,

I know that I've promised to tell you all about the laundry experience in the past, and I have let you down. I would like to apologize for that and make it up to you today with a double header. First, the laundry situation.

Laundry here at Camp Patriot is pretty nice, a drop off service and a 3 day turn around. This is the time where you're happy that all your clothes look the same, and picking out something to wear is a no brainer. However, back at Camp Coyote, in the middle of the Kuwati desert, there was no laundry service, and we soldiers had to improvise (see Wash by hand). I have never washed my clothes by hand, outside of wearing them and then jumping into a river, but that wasn't exactly washing, and neither was what we were doing in Camp Coyote.

The process began with one of your buddies looking over at you with a crinkled nose and saying, "Man, you fucking reek," or something along those lines. The next step was looking into your duffle bag and seeing the bottom of the bag and one odd sock (I don't know how it happens, but I am always missing one sock. This has happened on 3 continents now, and I no longer care about the how, why or where). Coming to the painful realization that it's time to do laundry, again (see Damn), I would always remove the offending garments and perform my own, no bullshit, assessment of the odor. Nine times out of ten I didn't think it was that bad, and then I quit smoking, and regained my olfactory senses. That was actually the worst part of quitting this time. Smelling myself. Next I would secure two or three containers for water, large bowls worked fairly well, a couple people bought large drip pans and shared them with the company. Fill both (I never had three, there was always someone else using the third bowl) with warm water and add detergent to one of them. If you have no detergent, one may substitute a bar of soap, but I would recommend using someone else's bar of soap, 'cause this is where things get nasty.

It is important to remember that we were in the middle of the desert, and the cleanest thing around was probably my mind (believe it or not, NOT!). So, as I was washing my first article of clothing, usually a uniform (want to use clean water for that) in the soapy water. Some people brought wash boards (you might have to try to find a picture online) and they were smarter than I was. I would rub the most malodorous areas together, trying to scrub the garment on itself, I'll bet you can imagine how well that worked. Scrub, scrub, scrub, dunk, dunk, dunk and it's time to rinse the soap out of the item in question. Wait, before you just throw that sucker into your rinse water (see Second Bowl), you need to ring that sucker out. Ring, ring, ring and squeeeeeeze, and then repeat. Then you throw the sucker into the rinse water, dunk it, swirl it around and repeat. Repeat that again cause it's still got suds coming out of it. Again. Now ring it out, squeeze the shit out of it and hang it on a line between two tents. Continue this process for every article of clothing, and now you're seeing another reason NOT to wear underwear around here. One less thing to wash. You're also seeing the reason to wash as often as possible to minimize the actual work involved on a daily basis. Oh, but I haven't told you about the best part.

The best part is that in the middle of the desert, there are sand storms. And even a still breeze, while feeling pretty good, is enough to coat your previously clean (see Almost) clothes with a fine layer of sand. I was really beginning to hate the place when I took a walk one night and realized that the winds died down with the sun, usually, and my clothes would probably be dry by morning. Unless it decided to rain, and I think I've already told you about that little experience (see Poncho and Birthday suit.
ARRRUUUGGHHH!)

I guess it wasn't too terrible an experience. I have learned to love washing machines and dryers, and I have a new found respect for my grandmothers who washed clothes like that all the time (and I'll bet they're nodding in agreement with me right now).

The second part of this message concerns Boom-Booms. You see, as the Marines we're supporting transition from a war-fighter mode to a moving home mode, they have to turn in all their weapons and explosives that they didn't use (this is a safety measure and a good one at that!). However, accidents happen (no this isn't the boom-booms) and sometimes people "forget" to turn in little things, like bullets, flares, or even grenades.

Grenades are relatively small things, just a little bigger than a baseball and packed with explosives. They are very handy to have around, and have been around in one form or another for centuries. Now, if a soldier, or a Marine, "forgets" to turn in a grenade, there is an "Amnesty Box" where anyone can go and drop off unexpended ordnance without fear of punishment. However, if a soldier, or more aptly for this situation, a Marine (we were never issued grenades, probably a good thing) is not smart enough to use the Amnesty Box, and is too stupid to think clearly, he might just drop a grenade he had "forgotten" about into a Port-o-John.

Now a quick word on safeties. On a fragmentation grenade there are two safety mechanisms. The first is the widely known pin, as seen in countless movies, that holds the spoon (the part that flies off the grenade when the fuse starts and the grenade is about to explode). The second is a small wire that holds down the spoon, which prevents the spoon from flying off when the pin is pulled and thereby igniting the fuse. If you're confused by this, you can probably find more info on it at howitworks.com, they've got everything.

Back to the matter at hand, there was a grenade in the Port-o-John, and thank God it still had the safeties on. Well, when the nice man came along to suck the excrement out of the John, he was surprised when the hose became clogged, and even more upset when he discovered a grenade was doing the clogging! No, the grenade did not go off, the boom-booms are coming up now. The boom-booms came when the Marine First Sergeant heard about the grenade in the Port-o-John.

The First Sergeant is the highest ranking NCO in a company. He is also the end of the line as far as NCO ass-kicking goes, and if he's a Marine, he is not a man to trifle with. The Boom-Booms came when he found out about the grenade and began kicking Marine Ass all around the compound. The man is an artist, linking vulgarities in twisted and obscure sentences to form a tapestry of pain and filth. I stood in awe as he shattered my personal record of 23 consecutive curses and didn't stop until well after 50. He isn't a small man, but not exceptionally tall either, but Marines were running like he was one of the four horsemen, and his words were like fire. By the time it was over, no ordnance had been "forgotten" anymore. To verify this, they brought an ammo sniffing (I didn't know they had them either) dog down to check every tent.

It was one hell of a show, and reinforced my belief that I am VERY glad to be a soldier, and not a Marine. They never caught the guy who dumped the grenade, but I'll bet he never tells anyone about his grievous sin. I'll bet he won't even confess it to a priest. I wouldn't.

Time to get going, I just heard a Marine shout, and this could be pretty good. They should sell tickets to this, might help pay for the war!

I love you all,
Will

PS - On a quick note, does anyone know how much this is costing you lucky civilians? Soldiers in a combat zone, yep Kuwait counts, don't pay taxes, and we're just sitting around washing Marine vehicles.

Hello All,

Those of you that know me personally, know that I like a little adventure every now and then, and when the opportunity comes around, I usually jump on it. Now you're probably thinking, "He's already in Kuwait, how much more adventure can he want?" And that is exactly what I was thinking when I was told about a boat, excuse me, ship ride two days ago. I don't want to go on a dumb-ass boat, excuse me, ship ride around the Persian Gulf because there's no beer and I've got better things to do. But when they told me the ship was going to Bahrain well now, that is another story. Bahrain is good.

Bahrain is a small place, I'm not sure if it is a port, a city, a country or all three, but what I do know is that it allows alcohol. Yep, alcohol, booze, Captain Will's Fun Juice, whatever you want to call it, they've got it in Bahrain (I'm still rooting for Army, but the Navy is starting to look better). So I got on the list to go, and made preparations for the trip.

We were not informed how long the trip would last, when we would be back, how long the ship would be docked or if we'd even be allowed to get off the ship, but we were going. Only responsible (and yes that's me, really) NCO's were allowed to go on this trip, considering that it was to another country and NO officers were going with us (YIPPIE!!!!). However, considering our complete lack of information, packing was a shot in the dark. I decided to go light, wearing only BDU's (Battle Dress Uniform, my green cammo's), toothbrush, razor and pit-stick. My logic being that if I needed civilian clothes, I would buy them there. I hate carrying too much crap around with me, a product of my college days when I moved 7 times in 5 years. Others brought large rucksacks, filled with things that I was sure they would never need, but they did have a plan.

There were nine of us, two from each platoon and one from headquarters. We were told to report to the ship at 2300 (11 p.m. for you lucky, and intoxicated, civilians) and it would get underway (leave, in Navy terms). Turns out though, this was no regular Navy ship, this was the HSV-X1 (that means, High Speed Vessel – eXperimental #1), Joint Venture. The Joint Venture is a Army/Navy ship, hence the name, Joint Venture. It seems that the Army is in the ship business, and has quite a few of them, unknown to me all these years as I thought that's why we had a Navy! But I won’t complain, because we were going to Bahrain, and Bahrain is good.

Before I go into too much detail about Bahrain, and Bahrain is good, I'll tell you about the ship. The Joint Venture is cool. How cool? Well, it used to be a water taxi type ferry used in Tasmania and Australia, but the Army saw it and had big plans for it. It is a catamaran, meaning that it has two narrow hulls, instead of one big one. Inside the hulls are 4 VERY large Caterpillar engines, V-18's in fact. Those engines are larger, in every way, than my civilian pick-up truck. In fact, they're bigger than my Humvee pulling a trailer. The propulsion system is not based on propellers, but on water jets like a Jet Ski, and this baby smokes across the water. There were rooster tails 20 feet high behind the ship, and we moving at 39 knots, and according to the ranking soldier on the ship, that was about 50+ miles per hour. But that was not the top speed. She can move much faster, I'm told. But I'm going to have to wait for another trip before I can find out just how fast she can go. I can't wait.

When we arrived in Bahrain, 8 hours later, we were told that we had to be back on board by 1200 (noon for you lucky, and intoxicated, civilians). No problem, we can do that. In three and a half hours I can get all kinds of things done, like 12 beers, or many, many shots. After some quick directions, we set out on foot, looking for the duty free shop, and the front gate.

I love duty free shops. I love duty free shop personnel that don't ask too many questions even better. Technically, we shouldn't have been allowed in the shop, considering that we weren't crew, and we headed right back to Kuwait, but how was that guy at the cash register supposed to know that? Exactly. That's where I bought some nice Cuban cigars and a small bottle of Johnny Walker Red. Oops, while I was enjoying a cigar, some of the scotch fell out of the bottle and into my mouth. How ever did that happen accidentally, five times, I wonder??? By this time, we've all had our fun in the duty free, and head for the front gate. There's supposed to be a Hard Rock Café in Bahrain, and t-shirts are always good presents, ask my sister. At the gate, however, we were denied. Apparently, no U.S. personnel are allowed off the port in uniform, damn. Were we broken? Was this the end of our adventure? Did our Hero and his companions return to the ship empty handed and sober? I think not! We returned to the duty free shop, bought a LOT of beer and sat down in the shade and drank it all. I'm not sure if public consumption of alcohol is legal in Bahrain, but none of us cared. We stumbled back to the ship at 1200 (*hic* er, that would be noon to you, lucky, and, uh, sober *hic* civilians) and took a little nap.

Three hours later we woke up and watched the replacement Navy crew practice firing their weapons. I hope they keep practicing - a lot. Had a great dinner, the Navy cooks way better than the Marines, trust me on that one, and returned around 0100 (that's 1 a.m. for you lucky, oh my head hurts, civilians) the next day.

We've told everyone that we couldn't get into the class 6 (see Army for liquor store) in Bahrain, and that is true, technically. We bought our beer at the duty free store, and that way nobody will bug us about sharing what we brought back. Call it selfish, but we're not supposed to have alcohol here, and I don't want some jackass spilling the beans and getting my scotch confiscated. So, if any family members of the unit read this little note, please don't tell your loved ones about my little stash. I going to save it for when we get our going home date, and have a little party with the fellas, and drink it all.

I love you all,

Will

PS – I forgot to let you all know about the laundry experience here, and next time I'll get you all up to speed on that happy experience. Oh, and there are lots of rumors on when I'll be home, but I'm still sitting on them until I heard something reasonable, i.e. I'm not buying the one I heard about us leaving yesterday.

Hello All,

It's just another day in paradise here, in sunny Kuwait, where nobody wants to know the temperature, it’s too friggin' hot. In my last message home I said I was gonna complain about the Reverend, and here it is.

The Reverend, as I like to call him, is the Muslim Holy Man (I can’t remember the title of a Muslim Cleric) and we're lucky enough to hear him. You see, my good friends, here at Camp Patriot there is a mosque on post. Actually, it's right in the middle of this wonderful place, and I just happen to sleep within half a mile of it. It is not an unpleasing structure to look at, aesthetically, especially when you consider where it is located. The gripe I have today (and for many of the previous days, thank you) is that the Muslim religion makes several announcements during the day. And night.

Now before you go calling me a bigot that hates other cultures and religions, I'd like you all to know that I have nothing against the religion, as a whole. It's just this one little thing that is starting to grate me, and my wits. I do not know what the fine Reverend is announcing, or if he is praying or if he’s reading off his grocery list to one of the altar boys across the post, but I do know that he is beginning to piss me off. It's a matter of timing that is pushing my buttons, and let me tell you why.

He is on the air at the oddest times, and since I'm working the Midnight to Noon shift, I'm usually sleeping when he begins. Thereby waking our hero from his slumber, and shortening the fuse on his cannon (not that cannon you perverts!). My emotional cannon that is. The good Reverend is very consistent in his message, it's always long enough to wake me, and it's never so long that I can run down the street with a club and find the prick on the mike. Not to say that I have any ill will toward the Reverend, it's just that I want to shut him up. A lot. Just bashing in the PA system would help me feel a lot better.

You might be thinking that this is liked to nicotine withdrawals, and you might be right, but it's a moot (English degree pays off!) point, don't you think…I'm beginning to feel like Jack Nicholson's character in The Shining, "Kill you Wendy, I'm not gonna to kill you, Wendy. I'M JUST GONNA BASH YOUR BRAINS OUT WENDY, THAT’S ALL, SO GIVE ME THE FUCKING BAT!" Oops, I might have been raving there when I mean to be ranting… sorry, I'll try to calm down a bit.

There, now with a fresh piece of Hubba Bubba bubble gum (thanks to everybody at work!) I'm feeling much better now. Lets just say the our gracious hosts (Kuwait, not the Navy, the Navy still sucks) and their religious customs are interesting, and require further study, by someone else, at a distance.

I love you all,
Will

PS Maybe the Reverend's chant would go over better with a rhythm section and some horns… or would that be too much like ripping off Sting.

Hello All,

Greetings from hot, sandy and really smelly Kuwait. I know that during my last tirade I bitched and moaned a little, and I apologize for that, because I have come to accept my fate in this place of Naval Retardation. What helped me find this balance between the logical and the absurd? Well, lets just say that I just can't be pissed off any more.

Not pissed off anymore, how can he do that? This man that loves to rant and rave. The man that hates idiotic actions and the ineptitude that inspires them? Yep, me. What happened? Well, I took a hard look around, weighed my options, and thought to myself, is this really worth bitching about? Yep, psych!

HA, I'll bet that I had you going there, didn't I? Today's list of complaints stems from the travel restrictions. Not that I can't go anywhere, because there is no place in Kuwait that I want to visit and say, "I was there", except for the airport, that is. There's a rumor going around that Bahrain allows alcohol, but I have no idea how to get there, and doubt that I could find my way back with a hangover. That would probably get me detained in the stockade, and kept here even longer, so I guess I'll just be a good boy and wait my turn for the freedom bird home. Back to the rant in progress...

I should probably specify that I'm not exactly perturbed about the gear required to wear when exiting the camp that I now call home. It's the fact that I'm looking forward to NOT wearing all this stuff when I get home. Also, I don't want too many people being confused by the President's statement about hostilities being finished here in the middle-east - while the official war is over, bad things/people still remain. That is the reason that when I drive off this post I am wearing a Kevlar Helmet, Body Armour, Full Canteens, a days worth of food (see MRE, yummy) and as much ammo as I can get hold of. Why would I need all this equipment if the war is over and peace is breaking out all over? Well, terrorists are friggin' everywhere, and we can't be too careful, especially since I'm due to be home any year now. It would suck mightily if I were to get zapped after the war by some Zealot that can't read and believes everything that he's told.

I'm not terribly worried about getting zapped by a terrorist. I've had some training on the creepy little bastards and have a basic understanding on how they work, and who they want to kill, and I'm not that guy. Terrorists want high-ranking people to shoot that will make them famous in a weird John Hinkley (the guy that shot President Regan because he thought that if he did Jodie Foster would want to go out with him, for all of you that can't remember) way. I guess they hope to instill fear that they can get anyone if they can get someone powerful or famous, and since I'm neither powerful nor famous, I should be good. Unless they're having a bad week and just wanna pop an American, and then I'm gonna have to shoot back (good thing that I can shoot, even with General Winter biting me in the ass!).

Looks like it's time to get some chow and sleep, I'm working the car wash from Midnight to 0600 (6am for all you lucky, and cool civilians).

Love,
Will

PS - Next time I'll write you about the Mosque and the good Reverend's need for a rhythm section.