Happy birthday

It’s Sunday afternoon, and I’m going to try to get back into posting something on here weekly, if only quickly to let you know that I’m still OK.  I’ll be doing a little traveling over the next month or so (nothing to worry about) but I should be able to post at least that often.

For now, it’s been a while since I described what things are like here, which I think is the one thing I can offer you, my fanatically loyal reader(s?), that you might not get somewhere else.

Some things never change of course – it’s always dusty.  But at least it’s not hot, in fact it’s getting to feel quite cool.  At dawn it’s in the low 50’s or high 40’s, and in the day it gets up to the 60’s or 70’s.  Yesterday was a gorgeous day, and even the sunset was amazing since we had some clouds.  In fact it actually rained here one night last week – first precipitation since April.  Winter in this part of the country is mostly a cold, rainy season, though it will drop below freezing at night here and there.  Further north even a little bit, where there’s some pretty fierce fighting going on, will be colder and more miserable, so keep those guys in your thoughts and treat them well when they get home. 

As I write this the sun (and the temperature) is going down.  Per usual, the ranges are providing an appropriately martial sound-track for my thoughts – impressive booms and crunches from artillery and mortars with shockwaves you can feel in your ribcage; the rattle of all caliber of machine guns, a sound unmatched in its ability to motivate; the muffled thump of grenades – probably the 40mm variety, not the more commonly known hand-grenades but who knows. 

At night it’s really an impressive show, between the tracers, the explosions and the battlefield illumination that reveals hidden clouds of smoke and dust.  And of course, at all times of the day or night, one of the world’s busiest airfields lies just a few clicks away on the British side of the base.  I don’t think anyone even notices anymore the almost constant, if usually distant, thumping of rotor blades and the occasional roar of some behemoth of a cargo plane landing.

Similarly, at work the constant flow of intel has resolved into a sort of background hum.  I’ve gotten good at picking out what’s relevant to my work, and I skim through the rest quickly, somehow avoiding thinking too much about what incredibly (potentially) dangerous information is contained when it doesn’t pertain to me.  (BOOM!)  I can only assume – and it’s a safe assumption I think – that the Marines to whom that info is relevant are doing the same thing.  

Well it’s getting late and I have to run.  Literally.

Wish me a happy birthday.

 November 10, 1775