60. Water Means Life

Written: Monday, June 16th, 2003

Today was my day to fill up the 5 gallon water jugs for the people in our company. We have about 20 - 5 gallon jugs that people to use for drinking, showering and washing clothes. Everyday someone fills the jugs so we have enough of a supply to live off of.

Filling the jugs requires a drive to the water point where we log in how much water we are taking then fill our jugs with freshly purified water that was drawn right out of the irrigation ditch/canal right outside the fence-line surrounding our base. The Army has a reverse osmosis water purification unit (ROWPU) that processes the water to make it safe for drinking.

As a supplement to the 5 gallon jugs, each soldier gets an additional daily supply of 1 liter water bottles ever day. Water means life. With the temperatures in August soaring well above 125 degrees celsius, it is a life and death matter of not having water. Luckily we have systems to provide such water to us. Each person in the Army plays their role--sometimes your role may seem insignificant but when you weigh it in along side of all the tasks that must be accomplished to support this effort--the impacts of each individual soldier is staggering.

I woke up at 9:30am and it was hot. The air conditioner was off and the tent was quickly filling from top to bottom with hot air. I got up and walked to the CP where Chad and Sam were working on creating a test for the pilots. I helped with that a bit but mostly worked on an evaluation checklist for us to use when evaluating pilots.

There were only 3 water jugs empty when I woke up so I kept checking them throughout the day.

Glenn came over around 2pm. We talked for a while then I went with him to the PX. We parked and stood in line for about 3 seconds then left. The line was too long and it was too hot to stand in it. Then we went to finance. The line there was too long also. We jumped back in the Humvee and drove to A. Company 3/158th. We stayed there and talked with Tim Gilroy, Benjamin Pletcher and some other guys for a few hours. They are the only company out of our two Battalions to actually live in barracks. They seem to be living pretty well and the only draw back is that they are about a mile from the helicopters.

We left and drove over to the other side of the airfield where Glenn lives. Glenn took me over to B/159th. They are a Chinook unit out of Savanah, Georgia. I have a friend there, Donny Rubenstein, who I met on my first major hike on the Appalachian trail. Donny came to see me twice but I was never around. This time I made it a point to see him. I found him and we talked for an hour or more. His unit is leaving Iraq on June 24th and is scheduled to head home around July 10th. They may be headed to Afghanistan but there is no word on that for sure. The did, however, deploy to Afghanistan from December 2001 to August 2002 followed by Operation Enduring Freedom/Iraqi Freedom from February – July 2003. They have had their fair share of deployment time.

Donny and I talked and reminisced about the common friends and experiences that we have. We spent much time talking about deployments and the Army in general. It was great talking to him. Amazing how small the world is. He used to be a Captain in the Signal Corps. While we were hiking the Appalachian Trail, we happened upon an Army recruiter who gave him some advice for getting a flight slot in the Guard or Reserves. Donny pursued that dream, got out of the Regular Army, went to flight school, reverted to a Warrant Officer, then came back in the Active Army! He followed a similar path as our friend Todd Heins did except that Todd is still a Captain and is now an Aviation Company Commander! Great stuff.

Glenn brought me back at 6:30pm. I found out that I missed a call from Stefanie. I was not too happy about that but what can I do? Glenn and I talked for a while then he left.

Chad and I walked to the chow truck to eat and found crappy lasagna…we ate bread instead. We haven’t been eating much for the past few weeks. It seems that everyone’s appetites have declined sharply and it is probably due to the excessive heat. I eat a few bits of Gardettos snack mix for a combined breakfast and lunch then usually eat dinner if it is worthwhile. There is no real substance to what we are eating. We could eat MRE’s, but everyone is tired of them after have them in our daily rations for over 4 months.

Watched, “Zoolander.” Not too funny. Finished grading the tests (taken by the pilots) after the movie then headed to bed.

I am flying with LT Camp and Phil tomorrow. We will fly an NVG training mission to the training area around Samara airfield.

Went to bed at 1:30am.