Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Life is good

Some big shots from the Dept of the Army flew in today, and I was essentially the emcee. I picked them up at the flight deck, took them to their appointment, and to chow, and back to the airport.

I took them on a windshield tour of the FOB. Part of our FOB, most of it, is surrounded by some type of barrior. Much of it is a concrete barrier (T barrier; shaped like an upside down T), around 15 feet tall. It is formed in 6 foot interlocking sections, which are emplaced with a brobdingnagian forklift. These barriers are all over, surrounding our housing areas, the PX and Gym, and other places soldiers gather. In addition to the T barriers, much of the FOB has a high dirt berm. In most places fencing or barbed wire augments the berms or T barriers.

There is a long stretch which just has a chain link fince, topped by concertina wire, a form of barbed wire. We drove that fence line today, and saw sheep herds and Iraqi shepards. In one area, some Iraqis are living in homes that appear to be ruins to me. The homes are interspersed by large rubblepiles. Pieces of concrete a foot across are piled loosly about 6 feet high. It looks like these used to be buildings, but I supposed we bombed them into rubble in the 1st gulf war. Some of the remaining buildings are inhabited, even though the walls are pitted by shrapnel and the windows are blank holes. We saw kids playing, colorful clothing hanging on lines, some thrashed cars, and people moving around the rubble piles. Very much a post apocalypse picture of people clinging to the remains of civilization. And above it, off in the distance, the flames from a petroleum cracking plant birthing plumes of black smoke.

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