Sand Storms, Water Outages, and Other Perils of War
The past two days have seen a sand storm, a water outage, and an ineffective rocket attack (just when I said we hadn’t been attacked). Life goes on here in the Wild West.
Yes, it’s wild here, and it’s definitely Marlboro country, so I’m just glad that smoking is prohibited inside and within 50 feet of buildings. Everyone walks around “packing heat,” and I wonder if there have been any incidents resulting from such a well-armed society. Maybe the gun advocates are right – if everyone had guns, there would be less gun violence. I doubt it. This is a controlled situation with well-trained people who respect their weapons. Another interesting thing is a widespread disregard of stop signs, particularly among the non-American workers. It would be a shame to be run over by the porta-john sucker, so you better look carefully before crossing the intersection!
The sand storm blew up rather quickly, first noticeable as an indistinct brown cloud in the sky, then quickly filling the air. A person could taste and smell the dust, even inside, as it got thicker. The light faded from the sky, and I was reminded of accounts I’ve read of dust storms during the Great Depression that turned day into night. It wasn’t quite that bad, and it didn’t last very long.
Speaking of stuff in the air, I’ve observed two things since being “in country” that have made me think about the environmental impacts of our presence here. Much has been made of the effects of unexploded ordnance, depleted uranium, and burning oil wells, but there are some smaller scale effects too. First of all, we go through hundreds if not thousands of plastic bottles of water every day. I bet not one of them is recycled, and many of them may be burned, releasing toxic chemicals into the air. A lot of them end up on the ground, stuck under concertina wire, or in the porta-johns. Not a pretty sight. Whatever’s left over surely goes into a landfill, to sit for thousands of years. Do plastic bottles ever decompose? Second, there are lots of diesel trucks and generators, sending up a constant stream of particulate-laden exhaust. This surely contributes to making this an unhealthy place to live. Who knows what other lovely things are in the air and soil? Maybe I should start wearing a respirator, especially during sandstorms.
Yesterday evening (soon after I took a shower, thankfully) I heard that the showers had been secured due to a water shortage/outage. I also heard that “the enemy” had actually destroyed part of the water pipeline serving the base, but I don’t know if that’s true or not. What I do know is that there are a bunch of STINKY Marines running around now, with temps in the 90’s and a whole lotta sweatin’ goin’ on. Yuck. We are pretty spoiled – one of my new friends related a story about some helicopter pilots in Vietnam who had so little water that when it rained, they would run outside naked with a bar of soap and lather up! At least all of our technological advancement has made life better in some ways, and not just made us more efficient at killing each other.
Today’s other bit of excitement was a (hardly noticeable) rocket attack, the only evidence of which I saw was a cloud of brownish smoke floating in the air. I didn’t hear any explosions so I’m not sure what really happened. I’m not too eager to see a rocket or mortar attack up close. Keep your fingers crossed.
Yes, it’s wild here, and it’s definitely Marlboro country, so I’m just glad that smoking is prohibited inside and within 50 feet of buildings. Everyone walks around “packing heat,” and I wonder if there have been any incidents resulting from such a well-armed society. Maybe the gun advocates are right – if everyone had guns, there would be less gun violence. I doubt it. This is a controlled situation with well-trained people who respect their weapons. Another interesting thing is a widespread disregard of stop signs, particularly among the non-American workers. It would be a shame to be run over by the porta-john sucker, so you better look carefully before crossing the intersection!
The sand storm blew up rather quickly, first noticeable as an indistinct brown cloud in the sky, then quickly filling the air. A person could taste and smell the dust, even inside, as it got thicker. The light faded from the sky, and I was reminded of accounts I’ve read of dust storms during the Great Depression that turned day into night. It wasn’t quite that bad, and it didn’t last very long.
Speaking of stuff in the air, I’ve observed two things since being “in country” that have made me think about the environmental impacts of our presence here. Much has been made of the effects of unexploded ordnance, depleted uranium, and burning oil wells, but there are some smaller scale effects too. First of all, we go through hundreds if not thousands of plastic bottles of water every day. I bet not one of them is recycled, and many of them may be burned, releasing toxic chemicals into the air. A lot of them end up on the ground, stuck under concertina wire, or in the porta-johns. Not a pretty sight. Whatever’s left over surely goes into a landfill, to sit for thousands of years. Do plastic bottles ever decompose? Second, there are lots of diesel trucks and generators, sending up a constant stream of particulate-laden exhaust. This surely contributes to making this an unhealthy place to live. Who knows what other lovely things are in the air and soil? Maybe I should start wearing a respirator, especially during sandstorms.Yesterday evening (soon after I took a shower, thankfully) I heard that the showers had been secured due to a water shortage/outage. I also heard that “the enemy” had actually destroyed part of the water pipeline serving the base, but I don’t know if that’s true or not. What I do know is that there are a bunch of STINKY Marines running around now, with temps in the 90’s and a whole lotta sweatin’ goin’ on. Yuck. We are pretty spoiled – one of my new friends related a story about some helicopter pilots in Vietnam who had so little water that when it rained, they would run outside naked with a bar of soap and lather up! At least all of our technological advancement has made life better in some ways, and not just made us more efficient at killing each other.
Today’s other bit of excitement was a (hardly noticeable) rocket attack, the only evidence of which I saw was a cloud of brownish smoke floating in the air. I didn’t hear any explosions so I’m not sure what really happened. I’m not too eager to see a rocket or mortar attack up close. Keep your fingers crossed.
posted by Greg at 10/15/2004 02:46:00 PM
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