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Date: July 19, 2004
Location: Arabian Desert, Saudi Arabia
So, it's been an interesting week... It started out as the final week of training in the desert at Ras al Zur, except that having taken one look at the mortar men and TOW missile men, our boss decided they would need ANOTHER week of training, soooo, guess where I get to go back to next week?
So, Max and the Skipper go to work with the mortars, and I get assigned to work with the TOWs... Just for clarity, a mortar is a small artillery piece, basically just a metal tube attached to a heavy plate and propped up with a bipod. You drop the mortar round (which looks like a small, heavy rocket) and it shoots out a few seconds later... The general idea is you point the tube in the direction of your target, see where the first round explodes, and adjust the angle of the tube from there until your shells are hitting the target... It's a little more complicated than that, but you get the picture.
Mostly those guys were just trying to make sure the Saud didn't shoot their own hands off (a danger when you're dropping rounds down the tube)... Which left me in charge of shooting of a bunch of $48K missiles...
Now, a TOW is a Tube-launched Optically-tracked Wire-guided missile... Mounted on a Humvee, fired by one Marine with another Marine assisting in the loading, unloading, and safety checks... When you fire it, the missile zips out of the launch tube, and is aimed by the gunner, who has to keep his crosshairs on the target. If he moves the sight, the missile goes wherever he's looking... Providing nothing goes wrong. And we all know what Murphy says about things going wrong...
The first day went smoothly enough, relatively speaking - I got them to go through all the safety checks, all the gunners launched a missile, and 5 out of 6 hit the target...
The second day was something else... It began with a 4 am wakeup to drive to Ras al Zur, only to find that Special Forces were shooting on the our range, and we wouldn't be starting until 8 am... Which meant, of course, that the
Saudis weren't really ready to shoot until about 930... Now, today we were supposed to practice firing as teams. This consists of using two vehicles and weapons to hit one target... That way, if one missile misses, or if someone shoots one of the vehicles, you still have another to fire...
So, for starters, I had to give a class... Rudely interrupted by the Company Executive Officer, who thought I was trying to take control of the missiles away from him. Imbecile. Finally, I gave up arguing with him and told him he could teach the class, and went off to read one of my books (I managed to get through "The Gunslinger", the start of Stephen King's DARK TOWER series, "The Fourth Hand", a book by John Irving, and an investment book in the course of the week's shenanigans...) Presently, Major Nail, the head of the school, smoothed things over with the XO and asked me to please finish the class... Which I did, only to come up against the Saudi TOW instructors, who had the absurd notion that you weren't safe within 300 meters of a missile launcher. So, they were against me putting the 2 team vehicles a mere 50 meters apart. First I showed them the book. Then I tried to explain that the range of the missile was 3750 meters, and that unless you were beyond that, in theory, there is no safe place. Finally, I pointed out that spacing the vehicles at 300 meters apart would place one of them over a hill and out of sight of the target. Cretins. They grudgingly assented, and I put the first team in place and instructed them to fire. The first missile misfired. While that gunner went through the corrective procedure, the second gunner fired his missile... This one hit the ground about 800 meters in front of the target... The first gunner had his missile ready again, and fired... Out shot the missile, about 50 meters straight, then suddenly cartwheeled through the air and exploded in front of us...
The Saudi instructors and company officers got scared and refused to let the Marines fire. I said f*#k it, threw my book at them, and left to get some lunch... Driving through the desert by-ways and disturbing camels at their rest while Snoop Dog blared on the radio and Max and I kvetched about the training.
The afternoon was somewhat better - Major Nail banished the unbelievers among the Saud and left me to my own devices with the TOW gunners - despite losing a missile that inexplicably shot straight up in the air right before it hit the target and sailed out to explode in the bay (probably the result of a broken wire) - I managed to get all teams to hit the targets repeatedly... Success.
Then it was back to the ranch to work the planning for the next company, set to start on November 20th... Only now, it turns out, it's not going to be one company - it's gonna be three... And they're splitting up the advisors, so instead of six advisors, there's gonna be three... Of course, there's no translators, etc, etc... It's gonna be a mess...
The only silver lining to the dark cloud looming on my horizon is that I've been picked to go to Bahrain for 3 weeks of martial arts training. So I'll be getting my ass kicked on a daily basis, but the good thing is I'll be somewhere new, and getting paid extra... Plus, at the end, I'll be halfway to a black belt, and be certified as an instructor. So I can teach the Saud to fight. Kick ass!
Well, that's probably enough of my tales of woe... I'm way behind on my personal correspondence, so to all of you who have written lately, be assured I'll be in touch when time allows... For the rest of the day, though, I need to get my tan on, do a little housework (or find our houseboy, Ibrahim - good servants are soooo hard to find!) practice piano and juggling, and get ready for a little party in Khobar tonight... I get to play dress-up and go dancing with nurses... Yay!
So, until next time, may you have a most wonderful weekend, and may life's cornucopia overflow for you and yours...
-- Edward.
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