Here's to a long life and a merry one.

A quick death and an easy one.
A pretty girl and an honest one.
A cold beer—and another one!

An Irish Drinking Toast seems suitable here eh? Happy St. Patrick's Day. I'll admit the only green I have on is a small green pocket for a medical bandage, but it's saved me from being pinched by the thugs in my humvee already. Alas, the only beer here is near beer, which for those not in the know is non-alcoholic beer. But it will do, in all it's 0.3 glory, a Becks no less and somewhat tasty.

My apologies for the long interval inbetween posts. A lot of nothing has been going on, though there are a few somethings worth noting.

Last week marked the first spike of a true emergency since the inanimate and quite belligerent tools aided by their mischievous box tried to attack the washracks. A call went out about a reported accident and we were off from our break tent and on the nearby highway where we joined a glob of emergency vehicles choking the roadway. Two vehicles hit head on, one an American contractor in an SUV and the other a car with two Kuwaiti police officers.

The contractor's vehicle looked barely scraped while the Kuwaiti car's front end was completely smashed in. One was scooted off in an american ambulance, while the other waited to be pulled free with the jaws of life from the fire department located in our living area. (Private american contractors, a.k.a. - KBR a.k.a Halliburton.)

For once I was seeing soldiers, sailors, Kuwaiti's and american civilian contractors working together to help people. It was a nice change from the usual tension we face when dealing each other. Emergencies seem to have that effect on people, and it's a great sight to see differences set aside and everyone focused on acheiving one thing, especially when it involves rescueing an injured person. All right, I'll stop my preachy gush story right there.

Last week was marked by some heavy rains, occasionally on par with Florida storms if you've experienced those giant drops of rain. The lightning has been pretty spectacular as well, rivaling anything I've seen anywhere. It's mostly off in the distance devoid of sound and mesmerizing to watch.

Along with the storms has come the bain of my existance, the mud puddle. Our drivers are so keen on hitting these things at break neck speed that barely a day passed last week that I didn't have to dive in the turret at every turn. I'll admit it was funny to see our counterparts humvee fly through these slop pits. In retrospect it was all in good fun but a few times I was ready to uh... nudge the driver in the head with my boots for splattering me.

As I've said, things this past couple of weeks have been slow but we are managing to entertain ourselves. Actually, we're resorting to completely ridiculous dares and weird taunting in the absence of adult beverages but hey, it passes the time! What do you do at 3:00am when you're bored? Well how about a paper eating contest? I didn't partake in this but two other guys did, and I was amazed that they could fit 25 notepad pages in each mouth. I'm sure The Guiness Book of World Records would not be impressed or interested.

What's left to do after you eat paper? How about a Tabasco eating contest. This one, I'm sheepishly proud to say, I participated in and was severly beaten at. Though, can you really be classified as a winner if your mouth is seared, and your gut full of hot sauce? I'll ask the winner tomorrow how that all worked out.

Ah, and the taunting. Yet another "trapped in the Port-O-Potty by the bumper of the Humvee" but this time the victim was a new Private from Michigan who for some unkown reason brought along his DVD collection which included "The Golden Girls: The Complete First Season". We spiced it up a bit by doing a stirring rendition of the theme music to the show. I'm not sure which is scarier, him owning those DVDs or us knowing the lyrics to the theme music by heart.

A lot of foolishness no doubt but it does break up the long bouts of monotony and boredom that plague our patrols.

I've received a lot of care packages, packed with DVDs, snacks and other items that I'm enjoying and I want to thank everyone taking the time to send them. Everyone is starting to know me as the package guy, and crowding around to get a bit of beef jerky, borrow things or fiddle with the latest toy and gadget that is included. Again, thanks!

I'm off to snag more of that Becks, so I'll leave the post with an Irish Blessing.

"May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again,
May God hold you
In the palm of his hand."