...Non-smoking Compatible...

15 MAY 2010

Our mission is halted due to weather. The CET is held up at some FOB in southern Iraq just waiting for the sand to settle back on itself. It’s been three days here now and if we’re delayed again tomorrow, we will have spent more time stuck than on the actual mission.

Each day that we’ve stayed over I’ve had to run my truck over to maintenance to have a fuel leak checked. It’s coming from a little hose right next to the tank. At each visit the hose is replaced but hours later the line is swollen and a puddle of go-juice is pooled in the dirt below. Apparently, there aren’t any lines on this FOB rated to hold diesel. So it goes. I think of a story from my dad’s youth, when a little plastic piece to his flat-bottomed boat, maybe a 45-cent part, broke apart and had him drifting out to sea.

This was our first mission where Nigel was able to tag along. He was a quiet passenger in the back seat and went hardly noticed until the trucks came to a halt coming down a main supply route, where he hopped out to see what-was-what. The what-was-what had been a transmission issue with one of the transit trucks. It seems they had allowed their fluids to run bone-dry, neglecting to stow extra supplies in case of emergency. This is a unit, whose job it is to drive up and down Babylon; this is their only job, and they appear to attempt this without 10 weight on hand. I say it’s like the Infantry trying to roll without bullets and so on.

The hurry up and wait that somehow found me on mission is driving my thoughts off to silliness. I think of my replacement gunner and though he’s capable of the task at hand he’s still not my gunner, like I have some nonsensical right to ownership of my usual crew. I’ve dreamt of NYC and what adventures I might find when this tour has ended. But mostly the silliness has been found in jibber-jabber with the men. I asked a Joe for a smoke and he produced a clove, which, naturally lead to the rant of silly…

I started, “Do you know why we use the 9mil round and not a 45?” He answered—which wouldn’t be a bad guess, “Because it’s cheaper?” “The 9mil round is a NATO round,” I corrected him, “and all members of NATO have to use compatible ammunition. So that, if you walked up on a dead Canadian Joe, you could fall in on his bullets.” “Oh,” was all he said. So I went on, “Now let me ask you this: If I came up on your dead body and I needed a smoke, but you didn’t have any Marlboro Lights, you’d be non-smoking compatible, wouldn’t you?” And then he chuckled just a bit until the thought of his dead body sank his face sore, which is when I had a chuckle. So we both got a good laugh out of it I guess.

- The Exodus