What Is An Expat?

Well, kind of a lot is happening this week, huh?

Started off the week with the malaria tablets. Haven’t had too much in the way of problems with that except for some rough dreams that seem to have gone away. Add to that my smallpox poke on Wednesday and I wasn’t much of a happy camper. The Z Monster came up and perched on my shoulders like a lonely vulture. Soothingly it whispered, “just close your eyes, it’ll be okay…all that stuff can wait. Sleeeeepppp…” From about 2PM on I was beat, among other things. “I will watch over and protect you, just rest your weary head…” But nay! The wanderings must go on! “Why? Why do you do this? Just a lil’ break…” Supper was uninspiring. That is to say, I simply couldn’t eat much. The food itself was probably fine. “Ah yes, after a meal, they always fall apart! Victory is mine!”

And it was. By 7:30PM I was a cot-confined individual. Just fine the next day. My blister looks like it is starting to raise up. Soon it will get nasty looking — I’d take pictures, but my camera died, sent back to the states for repair and those sorry bastiges won’t have it back to me before I leave on R&R most likely. Then it becomes a delightful scab before falling off in the third week to crawl away and attempt to infect other unwary souls. It’s not actually smallpox you get, but some live cowpox. Afterwards you are protected from smallpox, cowpox, and…monkeypox. Remember kids, it’s always a bad idea to consort too closely with monkeys. Sure they’re cute and all, and look like beloved members of your family, but they carry disease and throw shit. Nobody needs that.

So far no word on the Anthrax shots. I’d hope this thing will be over with by then and people can start calming down.

I guess it got around to the shooting. If that came as a suprise to anyone, you may hang your head in shame. For quite a while now there has been no doubt it was going to happen, and that was late last year. Hopefully it will be prosecuted in such a manner as to have the best possible outcome. So far it looks like a professional job, but it’s the aftermath you really have to be concerned with. Knocking down the 98 pound weakling is only the first step, and body counts and bad things aside, it’s the easy part. We’re at the highest threatcon right now but things are fairly quiet here. I am not concerned. Let me step back from that a bit — here in more-or-less REMF-land, I notice these kids don’t seem entirely comfortable with their weapons. They’ll all be carrying for the next couple of days at least, with two magazines in pockets but none loaded. Can’t have any ADs, you know. “Oops! Didn’t mean to shoot you, sorry!” Some of the poor bastards are required to wander around rucked up, too. So you have folks that have their chemical gear with them, some that don’t, and some that don’t have any at all. (Like us! But here I think it would be only a waste.)

Journalists…I am sure they are respected by their peers, and loved by their families. I wonder if they are aware how banal and inane their prattle is, and whether it bothers them. I am speaking more of the “I gotta fill time, so I am going to repeat everything you are saying back” syndrome. I think a lot of the questions they ask are probably equally stupid. The fact that they have no understanding of anything they are saying is probably somewhat more forgivable. After all, you can’t be a subject matter expert on everything. For example, there was one guy who was talking about being in an area with all these Bradleys, and he has the camera guy pan 360 degrees around to show them. There isn’t a damn Bradley in the bunch. He’s with a command group of some kind since the only tracks they do have are M113s and M577s. Who’s going to catch that one? Only a small percentage of the people. I guess it’s the questions that the anchors ask that bother me the most. “So, if the Iraqi forces don’t surrender, could they be fired upon, and potentially killed?” Well yes, you fucking idiot, that’s pretty much the way it works. What other brutally obvious observation could you make? “I notice there is a lot of dust in the area of desert you are travelling in. Why is that?” ACK!

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 22nd, 2003 at 9:40 am by Robert and is filed under Camp Life, Thoughts, Uzbekistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.