And then if the dung beetles weren't enough, outside town, next to this old airstrip, a patrol I was on came across a bunch of these mounds in the sand. At first no one thought anything of them, I figured 'em for little dunes or something. That's until someone walked over one; the poor bastard heard a crack a second before he sunk up to his knees in some soft fleshy gunk. He looks down and sees a bunch of scorpions and shit swarming out of the mound and over his boots and up his legs. Fucker screamed like a banshee, like Morrison when he's pissed. To make a long story short, he sunk into the guts of some dead animal, probably a camel. At least that's what we think, really couldn't tell, it was way too rotted. So we go about digging into the rest of these mounds and inside every one of 'em there's a rotting camel or goat or something. At home, I lived on a cemetery, here I'm bivouacked next to an animal graveyard. Well that's not quite what it is, we found out that it's a dying ground. Get this, when the fanbelts' animals get sick, instead of putting them down, they bring them out here, tie their legs together, and let 'em die. And then they let the wind take care of burying them.
Since we have an unlimited supply of scorpions, we hold scorpion fights for shits and giggles. Each squad has a scorpion, we throw him in a jar with another squad's, shake the jar; this gets 'em good and pissed, and then we bet on 'em when they start fighting. To tell you the truth, I'm better at betting on football, and you know how bad I'm at that. Till next time.
Count
PS. Oasis is a revolting place, it kinda reminds me of Wildwood during senior week.
***
Shannie, October 10th, 1990
Got your care package. Thanks a million! I hung the picture of you and Diane in my tent back here at Fort Camel. Yep you read me right, for the time being, we're back in Dhahran, Good old King Fucking Fahd, Camp Eagle II, Tent City, who'd thing that one place could have so many names. It's all too confusing. Anyway, you guys' picture gets many compliments. Everyone wants to know how my girlfriend looks so young having a daughter your age. I tell them she has great genes. They tell me, no shit; she looks great in jeans. I tell 'em back that it's 'cause I'm a great jean mechanic, that it takes skilled hands to maintain such a masterpiece.