Beat the Heat
With temperatures rising past 100 sometimes hitting 130+ you have to come up with ideas of how to keep cool. The Iraqi Sun is merciless and will drop a full grown man in a matter of hours.
The Desert Cowboys once again have taken the lead and changed to night shift. Working with the darkness to try and keep the heat at bay, we work 13 hour days and push the vehicles in and out with precision. Our team can complete a full service in one night. It takes about four days for a complete platoon to do a 100% refit on them. This of course is if there is no major damage that was created while off post.
In Iraq your brain works overtime, perhaps it’s the heat. Some people write song, others paint, some just have arts and crafts in there blood. I personally come up with a million different ideas on jobs to do once I retire. I have them stuck in my head just waiting to come out. The worst case scenario that comes with each one of these is that it takes money to make money. I also enjoy making logo’s and websites. It really doesn’t matter if it is playing video games, writing, fishing, or throwing a rope at a trash can each thing that we come up with it helps pass that week or month by quicker.
Time has passed and lets us reach the pivotal point in our deployment. The half way point is here and now it is all down hill from here. The exact 6 months mark has come and gone and has left us waiting for the time when that plane takes off for the states, when our trip home is guaranteed.
Home! That is what each one of us are doing over here, waiting to return back home. It doesn’t matter if a person is married or single, the simple word “Home” brings to mind a flood of different memories.
It could be the pool in the backyard, the weekend fishing trips, riding your motorcycle for hours on end, hanging out with friends, riding down the trail on your favorite horse, it could be as simple as watching a movie with the entire family on Pizza Night. Soldiers have always thought of home during each major conflict. This is undeniable and is inevitable.
How do we tell the ones we love back home that we think about them everyday and miss them and Love them with everything that we have? By doing just that, when we call home we tell them we miss them and love them with all we have. Sometimes they want to hear more than that and sometimes they just want to hear our voices.
How do we tell our mothers and wives/husbands who worry about us each time the news comes on? We are OK, we know what we are doing over here and we will try to return home safe. Please turn off the news and find something else to do. Just because you hear something on the news doesn’t mean that it is happening where we are. If something is happening around us it doesn’t mean that it is the Desert Cowboys every time.
Is there an open ended promise that we can make to ensure everyone is going to make it home? NO. I wish there was for all of the spouses, children, and parents out there. But we are doing our best and we are trying to return home with the most dignity and pride that we can keep while stationed over here.
How do all of these questions come out of Beating the Heat? Simple while it gets hotter and hotter over here each one of these soldiers want to return home. They want the comfort zone that they are used to. Strange places and strange surrounding make your home an even better place. It gives the cake some ice-cream to go on the side. At this point it doesn’t matter if you are black, white, yellow or what ever you are; You are American. American born and bred, with everything you have there are the stars of the American flag flowing within our own veins, pumping us full of vitality to make it from one day to the next. It would be easy to just stay in our room and sulk that we are over here. But, I am here to tell you this is not how we handle it over here. We are the Heart and Soul of the entire United States of America and we will face whatever is thrown our way and we will do it with the Pride that makes our Country great.
America already has spread the word about the Desert Cowboys and we have been honored to be recognized by several different organizations. But at this time we want to tell everyone back home that we are over here doing OUR JOB. We did not join for college money, or for the pay (the Lord knows that’s true), or for the popularity, and we didn’t join to become famous. We joined to protect our front door. No one will stand on our own soil and throw rocks at our houses.
We will support and defend the constitution against all Enemies, Foreign and Domestic. America does not like fighting battles on our own soil. We are a very mobile force and we take the fight to the enemy. This means that we give up years and years of our life to ensure that Joe from down the street has the right to walk outside and put up a sign, “Thank God for I.E.D’s”, even though this hurts down to the soul. It is the American way. A Kansas Church is doing just this and no matter how much we want to stop it we can’t. Does that mean we give them publicity by telling you which church it is? Not for a moment. These people are not worth our time or effort. We talked about driving a Dozer threw there church, but they are probably insured threw there noses because people are going to retaliate, so this would only further there cause. So America instead of getting mad at these people, just turn your back on them. If you ignore them, they are not there!
The Heat will be beaten and we will survive yet another month in Iraq. We will be home in our own Home, come this time next year. Yet another wave of Desert Cowboys will be coming to replace us. Another set of Red-Blooded Americans will step up and decided to join the Army because it is the correct thing to do. Without our Military Forces another 9-11 is more than possible, it is probable.
Thanks again America for lending me your ears. Until next time.
Desert Cowboys © 2006
Beat the Heat
