A few days ago at chow we were discussing a certain individual that has since gone home. During his tour here a health and welfare inspection of his room discovered multiple water bottles full of pee.
Apparently the walk to the flushing toilets was too much at night. Or so we like to assume. I guess there could be other motives but we don't want to know. And why did he keep them?
Anyway, it was agreed that if there are flushing toilets and running water for showers, you don't need to pee in a bottle.
If you have a room with four walls, electricity, air conditioning, and cable TV then you don't need to be peeing in bottles.
If there is a functioning chow hall with regular hot food and a sandwich bar complete with panini maker 24/7, then you have no excuse for peeing in a bottle.
We could go on. If you have a Green Beans coffee down the road, if you have large PX's, etc.
For the record, I do have cable in my room, but I do not have a TV and have no need for one. I enjoy the break. I work. I PT. I eat. I read. I get my news on-line during work and there are flatscreens in the JOC w/AFN News. So I get all the news the internet and the worst of cable talk shows on demand while on duty.
The crazy array of comforts on this post led to a similar talk of the situation off post on our way back from chow today. One of the guys misses being on a team where they could go out into the towns, stop in the souk, get tea, and just be with people. In all reality, we could probably grab one of the SUVs, drive it right out the gate here and stop in a market. Maybe get a cold soda, maybe tea, and just chill with Iraqis.
The most dangerous part would be trying to get back through the base security checkpoint in a beat up old SUV. Not that they'd ever let us off post in the SUV in the first place, but that's besides the point.
There are definitely places where we couldn't do that. But there are places back home where we wouldn't want to do it either.
It's not perfect here, but I'm not exagerating either. Especially if we could go out of uniform so it was clear we were just people out to spend a few bucks and enjoy the 118F/48C weather and not there to monkey stomp their cousin the terrorist, it would likely be fine.
If we made a habit of it we'd probably be targeted by some nasty kidnapping cell.
Babysteps.
And in other news, the group rifle buy is moving forward in a hilarious manner. Since my neighbor is the coordinator, the rest of us in the row have become his agents. People come by with questions, we take messages or have the answers.
Today we counseled an SF troop on caliber options, configurations, and the terminal ballistics of the calibers for which upper receivers are available for either AR-15 or AR-10 lowers.
He is looking for a hunting rifle for his children that is lightweight and can be configured as either a small caliber plinking/practicing gun and also as a larger caliber deer gun. His kids are already experienced hunters but there are ergnomic advantages for them to exploit here.
I think we helped.
Yes, it is an evil-black-super-innocent-people-die-just-by-being-in-its-presence-assault-rifle. Not that it matters. But it's fun to poke some times.
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