DAY 42 / JAN 10

DAY 42 / JAN 10

 

            Once again a slow day.  Although this morning I did manage to get to a meeting, pick up some big guns for the company and coordinate with the mayors cell to get another radio shot in.   The radio that these guys are using is huge and puts out enough RF energy to bake a hotdog just sitting in front of it and to make sterile anyone who stands in front of it long enough.   Good stuff.  And its not even a weapon!

            We sent a patrol out to some of the FOBs and they returned without incident.   We still need to get together a patrol team or two to make this easier, but its coming along.

            I also managed to put together a maintenance plan for the company showing where all of our equipment is and its maintenance stats.

            All in all, we're getting along.

 

            At dinner I sat down with a contractor who runs fuel around the FOB filling generators and the like.   We got to talking, just casual – where you from, married, kids, what do you do, and so on.  This contractor was from Louisiana, just north of Fort Polk and in the US he was a truck driver.   He sounded a little like Bubba from Forrest Gump, but just a little.  I asked him why he took a job working here, far from his kids and family, danger all around, and his answer wasn't surprising.   He said that he was a truck driver and that the gas price increases on diesel made it so he didn't make enough to survive back home.  So, he had to take a job here, running diesel to all of the numerous generators on post.   And then he mentioned something that is completely ironic and understandable at the same time.  Back home, he couldn't afford to keep his truck full of diesel because of the prices.   Here, at the end of the day, he says he sprays 2500 gallons of fuel on the burn pit – really a complete waste of fuel.  It seems to me that that's like a person coming from a place with no food, nearly starving – coming to a place where food it just throw out at the end of the day.   He would look at that and think, "how can I have not had enough back home, when here they waste it."  An interesting commentary on where and how the government spends money and what its priorities are.

 

            But, that's life and nothing we can do about it.  Another day down, and its bed time.  Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite.