Madhouse
The helo came in and we got resupplied recently and man did we need it. It seemed like I’ve been living off cans of tunafish and beans for the last week now. Don’t even have an opener and my leatherman got punked so I’ve been forced to use a fucking wrench. Fuck it… I’d use a clothes hanger if I had to – hunger kicking in the way it has. 
The only thing we had here besides canned food is peanut butter and a shitload of candy. We got enough Jolly Ranchers and chocolate bars to put half this country into sugar shock, god knows why. First thing I grabbed when the crates hit the deck was the box labeled “Starbucks”. At least we got some good caffeine now. Gym fuel. Keeps everybody level especially when all our assets get pulled to support some faggy 2-star’s dog & pony. You can almost measure our sanity with coffee mugs sometimes. But its cool, you know, just gotta focus on the small things. The smell of trash burning, diesel fuel spilled out into the sand, guessing how far away and what type of ied just went off, the sound of rotor blades in the early morning. I got back from the resupply feeling pretty good. Wiped the sand out of my eyes, took a piss, looked myself in the mirror. 
Ran my hands under the sink to wet back my frazzled hair and feel the thousands of little pebbles and grit stuck to my rogaine soaked scalp.
I’ve been getting a lot of windshield time lately. It wears you out, you wouldn’t think it would – just sitting in a fucking car driving around doing whatever, but it does, its fucking draining. It’s the heat, the sun, the stress, just breathing seems to tax the shit out of you sometimes. This town started out a maze to me at first. Flat, dusty, dangerous. Now it’s a familiar collection of acronyms, nicknames, callsigns, prowords, checkpoints, and phase-lines. They build the cities backwards here. Buildings first, roads second, plumbing drainage and electricity last. The whole place is constantly being upgraded, repaired, finalized. Always random, a new spot each day without warning. Traffic constantly being diverted. Detour after detour. 
Through the dusty back alleys and unfinished streets filled with blown out tires and old rusty mufflers. The electricity is just as sporadic as the traffic. Throbbing aimlessly as the traffic surges from the city’s sunbaked heart.
There’s been a rash of dog killings lately. I see them all the time on the side of the road. Swelling, eyes bulging out of their sockets, jaws open and tongue hanging halfway out while perched within a weightless bubble of blood. Nobody can quite figure it out, why the dogs are being killed. Is it a tactic, maybe load the corpses with high-ex.. maybe its necessity – some unrealized bleakness to the daily life here? Maybe its just for fun.
The hot new word on the street has been the EFP. It stands for Explosively Fired Projectile. Basically a shape charge triggered by one of those infa-red beams that sets off bells when you walk into a stationary store. We been hit by a few of them in a short amount of time with deadly effects. Turns out the brass they used for some of the shape charges was made out of melted down 5.56 shells from some firing range here in country. We used to let the hajis collect the brass to sell because we don’t need it and it’s a pain in the ass to pick that shit up, plus it might actually help out these fuckers financially. Well they’ve turned even our trash into a weapon against us. Most of the things come straight from Iran though. They make them is factories there. Mass produced and quality controlled.
I was down in the PsyOps tent asking about those propaganda pamphlets. Apparently they’ve been out for months and haven’t been able to get any more shipped out here for whatever reason. We started shooting the shit and they told me that the Iraqis keep asking them the same question when they go out in town. The same fucking question over and over… “Why do the Americans keep setting up IED’s here?” I was kind of stunned. We’re dealing with the prospect of complete and utter misunderstanding here. Giving these people democracy is like trying to fuck-start a corpse. The whole place feels ready to explode and we’re just barely keeping it together like the buttons on a fat guy’s shirt.
I saw the chief of base wandering aimlessly yesterday. Dodging in and out between the t-walls. I crept closer to see what he was doing, I couldn’t quite figure it out, his movements seemed erratic, unfamiliar, and defied what my brain told me was logical. I turn a corner only to realize point blank that he was out there picking weeds. Picking fucking weeds. This is a madhouse.
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