I went on a couple missions recently and tooks some pics of the countryside. I will put some in this post and some in my photo gallery.. Its starting to get hot here. Some of our hummers have A/C, but even with it on, we measured the temperature as 100F inside the vehicle. It was 110-120 in the sun outside of the vehicle. One of the missions was fortunate enough to have overcast skies. I am beginning to loooove clouds since they do help cool this dry, hot, and lonely country. I am more out in the farm land, but do travel to cities sometimes. Life here is definitely tougher as it has gotten hotter. We had a couple days when the temp guage showed 120, but not sure if it was working right. Others were showing 110 and 115. I think my boys should handle it ok since we are used to the intense southeastern heat and humidity. I remember finishing OCS at Fort Benning with region A's candidates. They were all from the northeast, and boy these guys were falling out like crazy (heat injuries).
Due to living in New Jersey for 12 years, I know there is humidity in the NE, but its nothing like Georgia. We southern boys do handle heat well. I now have my platoon drinking a set amount of water everyday, and most of them drink double that amount. I mainly worry about my older guys who drink coffee a lot. The younger guys work out a lot, and seem to stay hydrated. Once its gets hotter here, I will raise the minimum amount that they have to drink. Life here is moving along now, and each day seems to roll by faster than the last. I am not sure when we will get to go home, and hopefully we will not get extended to stay another 3 or 6 months. Only time will tell on that one.
The towns that we passed during the two missions were very similar to the previous towns. Some had mud huts, some had stuctures that look like the middle east's version of the projects. The guys in my vehicle did notice this house and its unique columns. It might be a current resident who is wealthy or a previous one, who knows? We don't see many houses like this, so taking a pic of it was priority.
Also, some of the guys in my platoon like to wrestle as you have seen in my photo album. Two of my guys decided to beat up on a different platoon leader, other than me, ha ha. I jeered his platoon because they weren't sticking up for him, and let my guys just man handle him. It was funny.. We have to do what we can to entertain ourselves.
On the way to our destination, we had to stop and pull security for another unit we met. While pulling security, we decided to hand out some candy and beanie babies to the kids and parents waiting for the road to clear. The adults were even more eager to get one than the kids. Each were saying how many children they had. One guy kept trying to reach inside my box for one, so I had to firmly tell him to back off. I still ended up giving him one. Many bystanders did not get one since we only carried a small box of them on the convoy. Once we gave them out, there seemed to be more smiling faces around, so that was a good sign.
Overall, the two missions went well, and no one was injured or killed. It is a nice feeling to get back to the hooch and relax. There is always a chance of taking a mortar round even after we get back, but hey, it ain't summer camp, as we keep reminding each other. Well, gotta run to a meeting.
An article about the release of photos of fallen troops.
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