Count
PS. This letter thing ain't too bad. I don't think I'll have a problem writing home like you asked. Hell, I think I'm going to need to. Keep me from going nuts.
***
Shannie, August 26th, 1990
This place is the twilight zone!. We didn't step out of a plane into Saudi. We stepped out into hell! In hell there ain't no fire and brimstone, there's sun, dust and flies. Remember the Amityville horror? The one with all the flies - that's almost as bad as this dung pile. And the heat, it presses so hard against you, you feel claustrophobic in the wide open desert. You best say your prayers girl, 'cause if you don't, when you croak, you going to find yourself in Saudi Arabia.
The fan belts, that's what we call the Saudis, are building this tent city for us. These tents are called Hajs, they use these things for the pilgrims who visit Mecca. Other than keeping out the sun, I wouldn't use 'em for toilet paper; the goddamn things are cheap. When a wind blows up, the tents blow away. I guess it's the fan belts way of telling us to hurry the hell up and get the job done.
There's a lot of mistrust between the Saudi's and us. Because of the terrorist threat, they're only permitted to work under the eyes of our MPs. I guess they think we're going to like corrupt their morals, rape their women or soil their sand or something. I mean they're always throwing you the evil eye, lets you know that they don't like us being here, but they're also smart enough to know the alternative is worse. One thing I like about those fuckers is this rule they have with each other. When they're standing up the hajs, and they go about hammering the stakes into the ground, if one of them smashes the other guy's hand with the sledge, they switch spots, you know, the spotter becomes the sledge swinger and the sledge swinger becomes the spotter, pretty clever if you ask me. I think the army should take note, if officers fuck up, they should switch spots with some of us NCOs, that'll learn their asses.
Other then that, it's typical army bullshit. You know, hurry up and wait. And waiting means you can stand around for hours scratching your nuts. You always said racing to the red light. You pegged army life. Rumors run wild, most of them so buku crazy even a piss on like me knows they're full of shit. Every night a new one circulates that tonight's the night the Iraqis cross the border.