Saturday, July 16, 2011

What a day …


Today has been interesting.  I started off by hitting the road shortly after 6AM to attend Counter-IED training.  It compressed everything you (n)ever wanted to know about Improvised Explosive Devices into a 4 - 5 hour class.  How they’re constructed, how they’re emplaced, how they’re activated, you name it.  There’s a reason we recycle dead batteries here, and it has nothing to do with the environment.  The insurgents have been known to extract the cores and string them together and use the residual power left in them to set off an explosive.  They’re little freakin’ MacGyvers, taking our trash and turning it into bombs.

I wish I’d attended this class early on during my deployment, rather than a month before my departure.  But I’ll be sure to get my relief signed up to take it.  We don’t go outside the wire much here, and thus far never in a vehicle convoy, but it’s still good info.  I have a whole new respect for the grunts that face these things on patrol every day, as well as the EOD techs who defuse them.

At a very early breakfast before class started, I got another inkling of that “You’re in prison” feeling.  The DFAC closest to the training site actually had boxes of grapefruit juice!  None of our regular DFACs have had it lately, and we’ve taken to hoarding when we do find some, then stashing the juice in the fridges in our hooches.  I’ve been on a dry spell for about a week, and was ecstatic when I was able to snatch up three boxes.  It’s amazing … frightening, even … what I get excited about.

Speaking of getting excited, I came back into the office this afternoon to find a box from my beloved waiting for me.  The vultures had already spotted the word “cookies” on the customs slip.  They started circling.

So I teased them.  First, I pulled out the three boxes of Ocean Spray Cran-Pomegranate drink mix.  Plain old bottled water gets old real fast, you know.  Then the two cans of pizza sauce, in anticipation of our next Hajji Pizza night.  Then the two tins of anchovies to go on said pizza.  After playing with the foam peanuts, I finally gave them what they were waiting for … milk chocolate-macadamia cookies and oatmeal-cranberry cookies, which have surfaced as the current favorite.  The last shipment of cookies (a bag of each type) didn’t last 24 hours.  We’ll see how long these last.

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