Shooting in the Desert

Yesterday we went out to the range and shot off our M-16s. It's a little different shooting out here than elsewhere. You see, Kuwait is in many ways a modern society. Large cities, computers, satellite television, the works. In other ways, however, the culture here has remained mostly untouched for centuries. When we fly around, I still see caravans of camels using centuries-old trails through the desert. Sometimes even within spitting distance of modern paved roads. Also scattered throughout the desert are nomad camps of camel and sheep herders. Yesterday, we had to change our firing range because there was a nomadic camp downrange of where we were supposed to be shooting. So we moved over to a new range and had to wait as a camel herder moved his camels right through the middle of the range. I guess that they've been herding camels through that area a lot longer than we've been shooting there.

It was also very, very hot. No air-conditioned buildings out there. Just big pavilion-style sunshades. I know that I lived in St. George, Utah for a while and I thought that was desert. It gets well into the triple-digits during the summer and it is mostly dry. I hadn't seen anything. Yesterday was the first time I can remember that things I left in the shade became hot to the touch. When we went to actually shoot, that was out in the sun and the rifles were almost unbearably hot. One other thing I learned yesterday is that I'm not a huge fan of automatic weapons. Maybe I'm not red-blooded enough, but I really didn't get anything out of shooting the M-16 on full auto. Except maybe a sore shoulder. I love shooting it in semi-auto.

Got to go up flying again today. That always makes for a great day. I can't stress enough how different the climate is here. In a lot of ways it is like living on the moon. Case in point: on the moon there are footprints and such left over from the first astronauts in 1969, right? Well here there are still tank pits (areas dug into the earth to use to conceal a tank) that the Iraqis dug during the first gulf war in 1990. They still look much the same as they did back then (minus the tanks, of course). These are not concrete reinforced structures or anything, just holes dug into the ground that slope up on one side to aim the turret. It's kind of cool.

I'm getting ready to go to dinner now. I'm not sure what's on tonight's menu. This afternoon they had bacon-cheeseburgers for lunch. I found myself wondering if that presents a dilema to the locals who work in the chow hall since Muslims do not eat pork and consider anything to do with pork to be unclean. Maybe they don't tell them or maybe it was turkey bacon or something. Or maybe it was real bacon and they just told the guys it was turkey. How would they know? OK, so that might, just might be considered unethical in some circles. Maybe.