August 30, 2004

The heat here is absurd. I’ll drink about six liters of water in the morning and not have to pee at all because I’ve sweated it all out. My rifle will get almost too hot to hold and burn my hands. The LAV hulls will just radiate heat. The only wind is a hot one that feels like a blow dryer and just sucks the moisture out of your skin.

And so bright, too! Stepping out of our tent, I always want to turn down the saturation. Even with my sunglasses on. It’s crazy.

Despite the amazing inhospitability of this horrible wasteland, life seems to manage to find foothold. Today I saw a flock of sheep grazing on what looked like sand. I guess there was some grass so sparse I couldn’t even see it from a couple hundred meters away. The other day I noticed all kinds of little tracks in the sand while standing post at some range. There were what I guess were rabbit tracks, little lizard tracks with the tail dragging in between, and the wide padded prints of camels, marked periodically with big poopies that look like giant rabbit pellets. It’s hard to imagine the apparent vegetation supporting all that wildlife.

Presently, we’re in this weird transient base called either Camp Udairi or Camp Buehring, depending on whom you ask. Yeah, I’m confused, too. Geographically I have no idea where we are more specific than: Kuwait. It’s an army base so amenities abound: a Burger King, a Subway, a contracted laundry service, a P/X, and a chow hall that in many respects is better than the one back in Twentynine Palms, seriously. Shower trailers are a few minutes’ walk away, and we’re billeted in these little air-conditioned (sort of) tents with aluminum frame cots to sleep on. I miss real toilets, though. A couple of times now I’ve had to go poo really bad during midday, and the portajohns turn into ovens starting around noon.

We’ll be moving up to our Area of Operation in Iraq sometime soon, I’m not sure how specific I’m allowed to be opsec-wise. We’ll be moving to a Marine Corps base, so it probably won’t be nearly as nice as this. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for internet access.

We really haven’t been doing much, though. For several days we mostly just sat around getting fat on army chow. I’ve been eating so much for breakfast that I usually skip lunch.

I’m muddling my way through Leaves of Grass (after a friend of mine e-mailed me verse 6 of “Song of Myself”), and as hard as it is for me to read poetry, especially page upon page of it, I’m really, really enjoying a lot of it. I mean, seriously. Some of this stuff is awesome. I’ve got more to say about it, but I’ll save it for later.

My time’s about up now, I’ll try to get on and post a couple more times before we head up to Iraq.