It's A Small World

or perhaps this ia process is more devastating in its reach than anyone realizes.

billeted on a top bunk at fort jackson, it eventually surfaced that the gent racked directly below me lived in san diego with one of the fellows i roomed with for my freshman year at usna. across the room and just one bunk over slept a submariner who served on the same hull as two english major submarine compariots of mine... one of whom i was teaching with up until this past december.

so i suppose it ought not to have surprised me when the first person i ran into upon stepping off the plane and into kuwait was the hospitalman chief (hmc) who was my sub's "doc" during my tour out of pearl harbor.

ought not to have. i'm still floored that he and i are two of seven former shortbus (uss columbus) shipmates currently augmented.

i am now temporarily at camp virginia, in kuwait, conducting more training before i head further into the fire. really, getting to one's destination in a war zone seems awfully similar to traversing the nine circles of hell. this one is all manner of nondescript earthtone, covered with an odd fine sand and gravel, and flat. the sand coats your throat, even when you breath through your nose, and the site looks like a refugee camp, only with less abject squalor.

on a high note, the showers here are partitioned! huzzah!

i'm off to sleep my one night for jet lag recovery, so that i can be at my absolute best tomorrow when we go to train on a 360 degree live range (which means we'll be shooting real bullets in all directions) for 48 hours. bitchin'.

the refugee camp... we actually pay folks to sweep the sand off the tentflapsteps every morning. seriously.


ah, yes. grease: the universal tongue.


"food court"