Howdy Howdy,
Good gracious, I feel so out of touch. I thought I was with the most powerful military in the world!!! Where the eff is my internet? I had like 15 vampire bites on facebook. APPARENTLY the internet is highly requested, and since I’m not even like a soldier and I don’t have a news organization backing me, I don’t get satellite time as often as I’d like. An AT&T wi-fi card would be crushe right now…so would a shower.
It’s like 2:30AM over “here” and we had a fairly routine week in this Sandbox…and by “routine” I mean “routinely” feeling like my heart was having diarrhea and realizing that sweat is not infinite, that after all the moisture is gone, you simply start incinerating. This place is hotter than Satan’s asshole. I don’t know how these guys endure this heat, or maybe this is a testament to my cushy middle class bubble-wrapped life.
I heard the Dark Knight came out last week to a ridiculous opening. I would totally be there nerding it up. A pretty cool soldier I met, Private Driggers, was watching a bootleg version in his bunk the other night. I watched most of it, but found myself passing out right in the middle and the Korean dude filming it kept coughing. I can’t believe how much money that thing made. We need Batman over here, someone who doesn’t follow protocol and doesn’t care. Despite what horror stories you might hear, though, our boys aren’t burning babies. Most of them have babies waiting on them back in the States. That kind of cheap-shot journalism makes me angry.
On an even more serious note, we’re shipping out tomorrow to go on some sort of recon mission. I’m a little nervous, not because it’s a mission, but because of its circumstances. You may or may not know that Iran recently fired test missiles and broadcasted it to flex nuts to anyone watching. This may or may not be a big deal, I’m not sure how concerned I would be yet. All the troops do here is shrug their shoulders. They seem to take everything in stride, almost like they expect it. I thought I would be going North, toward Baghdad, over the course of a few weeks, but it seems like we might be going Southeast. Maybe toward Dubai? I’m not sure. Like I said, they don’t tell me much. But, from what I can gather, the threat by Iran to seal off the Straight of Hormuz, through which 40% of the world’s oil travels, poses a BIG threat. I hear gas prices back home have spiked this summer. Good thing I sold my truck. I’m assuming we’llstart by going to Qatar, that seems to be the most logical choice since, well, we have a base there and, well, I was just there. I was hoping to see parts of Iraq that I read about on the news, but that might have to wait. But it does mean a shower!
I do know this, though. Nuclear weapons still pose a threat today, even though my generation never really grew up under the shadow of the Cold War. I don’t necessarily worry about a global nuclear war, but I do worry about the destruction that a hand full could do to a few strategic cities. Iran just might be batshit crazy enough to use them too. It might not be this week, or next month, or this year. I do believe, however, that if we don’t douse this fire, we might even look back on these days, however turbulent, with envy. A real nuclear threat would change everything. A real nuclear detonation changes things forever. There is no going back. Not trying to get phylisophical, but this kind of chatter makes me nervous, escpecially when the military reacts, like we are now. You never know when a few falling pebbles are preceeding a landlside.
Otherwise, I’m in good spirits. British Reporter Hottie emailed me! She left Qatar 2 days before I did. She’s in Kandahar, Afghanistan now I think. Totally wanted to V-Chat her, but it might be too early for that. I did find out that she likes Rush’s 2112 album, though, so yeah, going ring shopping tomorrow.
~Paul
“You’re gonna stand there, and tell me you don’t have no whistling bungholes, no spleen spliters, whisker biscuits, honkey lighters, hoosker doos, hoosker donts, cherry bombs, nipsy daisers, with or without the scooter stick, or one single whistling kitty chaser?”
Tags: Iran, Iraq, Middle East, Nuclear war, Qatar, War on Terror
