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Date: January 8, 2005
Location: Arabian Desert, Saudi Arabia
Well, I haven't written much lately, but I did scribe down a few notes while I was out in the field the last few weeks... I'm going back out today, to spend another week at my home-away-from home, the windswept bluffs on the Arabian Gulf... Here are some words and pictures from my last expedition...
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"I think we will start preparing the range at 0530, then by 0630, we will be ready to shoot..."
So my Arabian counterpart, Major Nial, had said the evening before... At the time, I laughed, and said, "Let's be serious... Perhaps we will start by 0700... Inshallah." Now, it's 0730, and we're barely getting the range set up, the way it should have been 2 days ago... One of the things that had to be done was to replace a set of old barrels that we use as targets for the machineguns. The old ones were shot-up, rusted, and couldn't be seen clearly. I'd asked for some barrels to be freshly painted in a bright color, to make them visible against the sand. Instead, I was assured, some bright, shiny new barrels were being brought - already painted!
And indeed, the barrels were as advertised - a nice green-with-white-stripe, and, oh yes. They were full. Of diesel.
 This, I said, might pose some small problem, as we were shooting explosive shells, and I suspected that the barrels would erupt in a fiery cloud of diesel and shrapnel as soon as we hit them. And seeing as how I'd be standing about 100 meters away, this was a subject of no small concern.
Well, I hadn't counted on Saudi ingenuity to remedy the problem so quickly. They simply knocked the caps off the barrels with a piece of rusty angle iron, and drained them on the spot. So, now I had a 550 gallon puddle of diesel, and 10 empty barrels for targets. Groovy. I can stil see the gleaming pool of flammable liquid in the distance. Soon we'll start shooting, and I have no doubt that my glistening little toxic pond will explode when an errant shell hits it, as it sits conveniently next to the first target, but oh, well... Spice of life, I suppose...
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The desert is cold, and the wind blows constantly, whistling by the window of my little SUV as I write... I, however, am snug as the proverbial bug, as I am layered with a poly-pro undershirt, and a field jacket liner under my blouse, and have covered my grape with a neat little poly-pro watchcap... My hands are clad in an old pair of Nomex flight gloves, the leather dark and smooth from hours of hard wear... The training is moving slowly, but patience is one of my few virtues, so I content myself with reading and writing...
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In the end, we do not fire machineguns the first day, although as the sun begins to drop in the West, we do manage to fire the mortars - a weapon that I have never used, and yet, I am obliged to calibrate the sights because no one, not even the instructors, know how. Fortunately, I've never let a lack of experience stand in the way of getting a job done right, especially not when I have the tech manuals, so I make short work of the process, and pronounce the tube ready to fire.
And fire we do, whereupon I ascertain that not only do they not know how to calibrate the sight, they also don't know how to use it to hit a target. So I make the mental note to give a little class before the next day's firing...
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What a lovely evening... Despite a day of tribulations, I find myself under a full moon on the edge of the ocean, sitting in a small masonry building, really just four walls and a roof and a pit for a fire, which has been built and now crackles merrily in the corner, as I sit in the circle with my Saudi brethren around a plastic bag laid on the ground, on which has been heaped a pile of spiced rice and a few whole and quartered chickens, roasted, seasoned, and steaming hot... We've had the traditional gahwa and chai, and now dispense with all conversation and engage in the primitive ritual of eating, the silence broken only by the sounds of mastications, of the tearing of flesh and the breaking of small bones...
Presently, we are done, and the room fills again with conversation and cigarette smoke and laughter. I'm good for a laugh, a drink or a joke, but not just now... The full moon is calling and so I take a notebook and pen out into the night, away from the fire and into the cold, where I can better hear the words whispered in the stillness of my heart. Sitting high above the water, on a crumbling cliff of porous stone, the accretion of a few millenia worth of tiny mollusk shells, I surrender my right hand to my Muse, and write and write...
Some time later, fingers numb, but soul strangely warmed, I return to our simple dwelling, unroll my sleeping bag and lay it on the concrete, and slip inside... Were it not for the feelings of my compatriots, I should have carried it outside, beneath the moonlight, found a small, soft spot between a pair of sandy hummocks, and taken my rest there.
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A long day passes... I teach the mortar gunners how to find the target using a pair of simple algorithms... I get the machineguns firing, at last - they haven't been properly cared for, and jam a lot. I despair of the machinegunners mathematical abilities, as their only task is to fire a string of 4 shots at each target. Instead, the gun pops once. Three times. Now twice... Never do 4 consecutive bullets exit the barrel. The accuracy of the gunners is good, though, and the barrels, still redolent with diesel, fly into the air in a predictable cloud of fire and smoke.
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I make a three-hour round trip into Jubail, listening to the rattle of Arabic from my traveling companions, lost in my own thoughts. The meeting is grim - none of the tasks we'd set out to accomplish this week have been realized. The officers of the company refuse to take responsibility for their actions, or lack thereof. The velvet glove comes off. My boss congratulates me on my patience and restraint, which makes me laugh.
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Later, I receive a loud round of laughter from my Saudi brethren as we sit around smoking shisha (hookah) pipes and talking - Major Nial mentions that there is a beauty contest for camels, where the most attractive beast is crowned, and I suggest that perhaps I will enter myself in the contest, because while I may I may not be an attractive man, but I'm pretty handsome for a camel...
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All in all, I count the week a sucess only because it shows the Saud that failure to plan equates to a plan to fail... They've taken the lesson to heart, and I expect this week should go much smoother... Among other things, the debacle was grounds for firing the old platoon commanders, so now I have Major Ali and Lieutenant Fahad, much more capable and pliable than the previous moron. During the last seven days, we've managed to scrounge or cobble together most of the missing machinegun parts, given extensive classes, and practiced driving the vehicles in combat formations, so, inshallah...
I shall write again, I suppose, when I have returned from this latest redundant adventure...
Meanwhile, fi amman Allah... Go in the hands of God...
-- Edward.
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