0500 - Iraqi silence; the low hum of a thousand generators is occasionally broken by the repetitious thump, thump of helicopter blades and the whine of the rotor winds washing the ground as the sun peaks over the blast barriers, the distant echoes of calls to morning prayer from the inner city mosques across the ancient Tigris meander like the river itself to our tired ears.
0600 - FOB Delta begins to stir; the crunching sounds, foot against stone outside my door of hundreds of soldiers, still individuals in the early dawn light, making their way from tents and CHUs to shower units and shitters. HMMWVs begin to roar to life as the American beast, now in hiding and caged outside the cities, wakes.
0700 - the silent heat; strangely the waves of hot air rising from the crushed stone FOB floor seem to dampen the rumbles of the military machine. It’s difficult to hear anything but your own labored breathing in the fast approaching triple-digit heat.
1200 - move through the thickness; the air is thick, yet dry. only sheer determination can make any move in this burn. yet the hollow crunching, still resonates, distant gunfire in the streets of Al Kut sharply cut through the background generator noises, someone out there is making money. Apache gunships rise to meet our Iraqi friends, holding a desperate curb against fate's overwhelming odds.
2100 - FOB conventioneers; laughter of soldiers smoking cigarettes and cigars, trading stories about this OIF or that OIF or this COP or that FOB, or this fire fight or that one, and the women of their lives they mock and secretly lust after come to life in their nostalgic voices.
2300ish- the windows shake and the deep thud of rockets fired into the FOB: once, twice, three times. will there be a fourth? will they ever hit anything? Wiz-boom, damn it, that was close. now these fellow soldiers and i move with a quickness to the shelters; not shelters at all, but prisons within deeper prisons within this prison life.
0100ish - i awake to sounds of voices outside and the familiar crunch of feet against FOB floor. i can’t wait to walk on cement again. "did you hear that?" they ask... anonymous voices in the pitch black of early morning. "did we get hit again?" "damn, why won’t they leave us alone?" "because they are idiots!" "get in the bunker and shut the hell up." our nightly meeting in the rocket bunkers. yet another place to trade stories before it begins again.
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