ABA Journal - Law News Now

Well, i'm having a blast here in Kuwait. It's the middle of the desert. The sun is incredible. The sand is fine. It's like being at the beach but there is no ocean anywhere near us. Nor is there anything else as far as I can tell, other than the base. It's 117 degrees and utterly brutal. The wind warms you up - not down. There's a fine brown haze around the horizon. Your mouth drys out walking the 200 yards from your tent to the Dining hall. The sand is so bright it hurts my eyes during the day. I should have gotten some clip on sunglasses that go over my regular glasses. I'll survive that though.

I'm living in a tent with 3 other O-6 s - rank has its privileges as others are in 9 man tents the same size. The cot I'm sleeping on is not comfortable and I'm still tired from the lack of sleep last night, but tomorrow we head out to the range and there I won't even get a cot - just a concrete floor.

The food is good. Actually quite better than I expected. Even the heads are better than I expected - not porta potties which I was bracing for. There's a decent USO tent that is almost comfortable.

But we have to keep our weapons with us at all times - even while going to the head. Of course we don't have any ammo yet. They don't trust us with something that important until after we get through the range.

The range sounds even worse - there is no air conditioned building in which to duck while walking around. On Friday we expect to spend all day until sometime in the afternoon in that - training. It will be like working on some kind of skillet. Not fun I'm sure. But necessary training. The Udari Range is the old "highway of death" from the first Gulf War. We learn Close Quarter Combat training skills and Convoy operations in more detail as well as counter IED. But from the health lecture we had today, heat stroke/exhaustion is an everyday problem and there's always a medevac in every class. I survived Fort Jackson without any problems so I'm hoping I'm not going to be the one. I've been drinking lots of water in preparation and according to my piss I'm adequately hydrated. Despite the good chow - I'm concentrating on the salads and fruits and vegetables. After tomorrow we will only get MRE's. Yum! Yum! Actually the ones we had at Fort Jackson weren't all that bad.

I hope to be out of here on Saturday and into Kabul later that day. It's a four hour flight because we have to go South, then East then North to avoid Iranian Airspace. We fly with our weapons and full magazines and are told to be ready the moment the plane lands as the Taliban might like to take down a plane if they could possibly aim. Frankly, I don't care. I just want to leave Kuwait.

Sterling

All photos courtesy of Sterling DeRamus.