Deployment Pictures (Set 2)
17 more days.
If there ever were a single piece of advice I'd give someone regarding today's interconnected new-media-driven world, It'd be this:
Gauge your environment, and then select some kind of audio/visual recording device.
Solid-state memory has now replaced film in every conventional technology. Theoretically, there is virtually nothing preventing you from capturing hundreds of images (or hours of audio) in a day. Yeah, you may do this at the additional expense of losing one's personal sense of normalcy; after all, who carries a camera around, waiting to take random pictures in odd places?
Being an eccentric may not be such a bad thing. Even for the most talented writer or artist, images and memory are an especially hard thing to convey to people. But these are the kinds of images that help define what I've experienced here forever.
A look down a corridor of concrete barriers protecting the living quarters for coalition service members.
A maze of barriers protecting one of many "housing areas" on the installation. Kind of reminds you of the movie Labyrinth, doesn't it? I live in the one by the gray set of barriers.
Along the way to work, you sometimes find some pretty inventive attempts at humor in an otherwise very humorless place. There's gotta be an inside joke somewhere in that inscription.
Hey, if his job allows him to go "outside the wire," it's not entirely inconceivable. I think the Euphrates sits only about a mile or so away.
Courtesy of someone who got bored sitting on the john.
Sometimes, this humor takes on err... especially inventive dimensions. Eh, I guess they can't all be winners. Hmmm... kinky ;)
Toward the end of the deployment cycle, the morning pranks grow more daring. I found this tied down to a bike right outside my next-door-neighbor's living quarters.
I had to take these next two shots for the sheer irony of the packaging, given the game content. Want to inflict nuclear destruction on your neighbor, and induce irrecoverable damage to the global ecosystem?
...wait. I'm confused.
Good to know there's always equal oppurtunity.
This is a view of our rooftop "movie screen" I wrote about in my last entry. On Friday nights, the squadron logo is removed from the white background wall, and a few of us muster the will to stay a couple of hours after work to watch a film. I can't say I've regretted a single time I did.
The higher ranking members of our squadron...also mentioned in my last post. =) Eh... sadly, there's one in this picture who never quite succeeded in avoiding getting sent home early. Human nature, I guess. Not everyone comes psychologically prepared to handle the stress of the environment.
This is a view from the rooftop during one of Iraq's notorious "sand storms." There were probably about 7 days altogether when the weather conditions ever got this bad during this deployment cycle.
Very little about this actually resembled a true "storm," however. It was more like an unbelievably thick fog of dust which penetrated every nook and cranny of a building.
There were times, while walking "home" from work when my jet-black hair seemed to have turn a light brown. Too bad walking back from the showers meant still having to go outdoors again. :P
Just another view of the dust storm that evening. Consider how this stuff has been around since the dawn of human civilization... Amazing to think how old this fine-ground sand must be, eh?
Last one of the dust storm, I promise. I just don't have a better picture that illustrates just how dangerous it was to drive (or even walk, for that matter) in this bizarre weather.
I must have walked by hundreds of living quarter areas. This was one of the very few whose occupant had a means (or perhaps just the idea) to display (in some small way) pride in his service.
The small beacon also kept watch at night.
Well, that's all for now guys. There's a few more where this came from, but given the time of night, I should probably get to sleep pretty soon. I should be well into my short vacation by this time next month.
See you all soon!
If there ever were a single piece of advice I'd give someone regarding today's interconnected new-media-driven world, It'd be this:
Gauge your environment, and then select some kind of audio/visual recording device.
Solid-state memory has now replaced film in every conventional technology. Theoretically, there is virtually nothing preventing you from capturing hundreds of images (or hours of audio) in a day. Yeah, you may do this at the additional expense of losing one's personal sense of normalcy; after all, who carries a camera around, waiting to take random pictures in odd places?
Being an eccentric may not be such a bad thing. Even for the most talented writer or artist, images and memory are an especially hard thing to convey to people. But these are the kinds of images that help define what I've experienced here forever.
A look down a corridor of concrete barriers protecting the living quarters for coalition service members.
A maze of barriers protecting one of many "housing areas" on the installation. Kind of reminds you of the movie Labyrinth, doesn't it? I live in the one by the gray set of barriers.
Along the way to work, you sometimes find some pretty inventive attempts at humor in an otherwise very humorless place. There's gotta be an inside joke somewhere in that inscription.
Hey, if his job allows him to go "outside the wire," it's not entirely inconceivable. I think the Euphrates sits only about a mile or so away.
Courtesy of someone who got bored sitting on the john.
Sometimes, this humor takes on err... especially inventive dimensions. Eh, I guess they can't all be winners. Hmmm... kinky ;)
Toward the end of the deployment cycle, the morning pranks grow more daring. I found this tied down to a bike right outside my next-door-neighbor's living quarters.
I had to take these next two shots for the sheer irony of the packaging, given the game content. Want to inflict nuclear destruction on your neighbor, and induce irrecoverable damage to the global ecosystem?
...wait. I'm confused.
Good to know there's always equal oppurtunity.
This is a view of our rooftop "movie screen" I wrote about in my last entry. On Friday nights, the squadron logo is removed from the white background wall, and a few of us muster the will to stay a couple of hours after work to watch a film. I can't say I've regretted a single time I did.
The higher ranking members of our squadron...also mentioned in my last post. =) Eh... sadly, there's one in this picture who never quite succeeded in avoiding getting sent home early. Human nature, I guess. Not everyone comes psychologically prepared to handle the stress of the environment.
This is a view from the rooftop during one of Iraq's notorious "sand storms." There were probably about 7 days altogether when the weather conditions ever got this bad during this deployment cycle.
Very little about this actually resembled a true "storm," however. It was more like an unbelievably thick fog of dust which penetrated every nook and cranny of a building.
There were times, while walking "home" from work when my jet-black hair seemed to have turn a light brown. Too bad walking back from the showers meant still having to go outdoors again. :P
Just another view of the dust storm that evening. Consider how this stuff has been around since the dawn of human civilization... Amazing to think how old this fine-ground sand must be, eh?
Last one of the dust storm, I promise. I just don't have a better picture that illustrates just how dangerous it was to drive (or even walk, for that matter) in this bizarre weather.
I must have walked by hundreds of living quarter areas. This was one of the very few whose occupant had a means (or perhaps just the idea) to display (in some small way) pride in his service.
The small beacon also kept watch at night.
Well, that's all for now guys. There's a few more where this came from, but given the time of night, I should probably get to sleep pretty soon. I should be well into my short vacation by this time next month.
See you all soon!