Mud & Rain

Mud, I have had many experiences with different types of mud. From the grey mud at Ft. Bragg that is so slick that it is like grease. That stuff was really nasty and it was not odd for your truck to get stuck in it even if it was only a couple inches deep, that’s how slick it was. Or the nasty red clay mud at Ft. Benning that either wet or dry would eventually cover you and turn your clothes red if you spent any time at all out in the field. Even the clay mud at home which can be measured not only in inches deep but in feet. But nothing I have come across in all my travels comes even close to the mud we get here in Iraq. The mud is so thick and nasty here that it is like concrete. This is the type of mud that sticks to your boots and does not come off. It cakes to the bottom of your boots and as you walk more and more of it cakes on and squishes out from the bottom of your boot. You would think that as it squishes out that it would fall off as new mud was added. That is not the case; instead it just keeps squishing out until it covers your whole boot. The end result is that whenever you walk somewhere you end up with 10 pounds of mud on your feet. And when you finally reach whatever destination that you were headed to you have to find whatever you can to scrape the mud off. At one point they added pea gravel and regular size gravel to some of the really low areas around our bunker to fill holes and low spots. This seemed like a great idea when it was dry around here but turned out to be not so great when you add the mud factor. Now when you walk on those areas not only do you get mud but you also get rocks stuck on the bottom of your boots, very annoying.

Up here in northern Iraq we do not have a lot of sand. Instead the ground consists mostly of dirt and rocks with scattered pockets of moon dust. It is the dirt that makes the horrible concrete mud. The moon dust just turns into a slurry mess when it gets wet. This slurry can sometimes be up to 6 inches deep which a wonderful thing is when you are stumbling home in the dark and you step into a hole of it (string of expletives). The major thing about the mud is that it is everywhere and covers everything. A few of the roads here on base are actually asphalt but for the most part they are dirt. And of course the rest of the base is dirt so when I say the mud is everywhere I do mean everywhere, there is no escaping it. Even when it stops raining the mud persists for several days after words.

Currently we are in the middle of the rainy season here in Iraq. It is much cooler in the days and actually a bit nippy at night. Nothing compared to back home I assure you. The days are usually 50-60 degrees and at night it gets down into the 40’s. Not bad by Michigan standards but when you are used to 120 degrees it is a bit of a temperature change. Not that it is depressing enough being in Iraq but to add days on end of grey cloudy cold days sometimes with a steady downpour it all seems a bit too much. The days that I really enjoy the rain (Not) are the days that it is cold, wet and raining and we have to go out on a mission. There is really nothing quite like standing in a truck with the top half of your body sticking out rolling down the road and getting rained on. If you do not cover every square inch of your face it feels as if hundreds of tiny ice daggers are stabbing you in the face. If you don’t believe me try sticking your head out of your car window next time it rains. If you really do this and tell me that you did it I am going to point at you and laugh, best to just take my word for it, really.

The rain here can be anything from a constant drizzle to a constant downpour that lasts for days at a time. Which at home would not be bad since you would be able to stay inside or if you had to go outside you could just take the car? But over here (except on missions of course) everywhere you go you are walking. And if you are in your CHU and you want to take a shower or you have to go to the bathroom, guess what, you’re going to get wet. This is especially nice when it is 40 degrees and a steady downpour. The CHU’s are metal so you get that nice patter sound when it rains which I always enjoy (the sound of rain on a metal roof not rain) but the problem lies in the fact that all our roofs are flat. I do not think these things were meant for this environment because when it rains the roof usually leaks and to get it fixed you have to walk a mile to the Mayors cell to contact KBR to come fix it which usually takes a few days because everyone’s roof is leaking. The Mayors cell is where the base sergeant major stays and his job is to insure that everything is running smoothly on base and to solve any problems that might arise concerning basic services and housing.

That's it for Mud & Rain , my next group of blogs is going to cover the different ethnicity's and religions here and I will try and explain some what the big picture over here. Until then...............