well, i'm back home, in my apartment drinking a wonderful american beer (so what if it's before noon, i'm still on egypt time
)
ok, where to start...
well, pictures will be up hopefully 2nite, if not then, by tomarrow, i will also have a zip file up of them all (something like 155 of them)
so we took a bus from devils lake ND to ft mccoy wis (about 10 hours) sat there for about 8 hours, finally loaded the plane (charter) and flew to shannon ireland. had a few 6 dollar beers and sat there for about 3 hours. then we flew to BFE (figure it out)
sat at the airstrip for a few hours, processed in, unloaded the plane, sat some more, got on a hahji bus (no A/C) and had a 4 hour drive to MMC (where we stayed)
more circle jerking (unloading/loading, security briefings etc..)
and finally we get set up in our "apartment"
ugh.
can't drink the water, can't use the toilet (has a 1 inch line) can't use the "shower" ***roaches all over, but only 3 per room, so wasn't as bad as it could have been.
first of all, i must point out that the flies in egypt are unlike any insect i have ever come across, they are slightly smaller than american house flies, but they are a hundred times faster and a million times more annoying. you could be just done showering, or unshowered for a few days and it wouldn't affect them at all, they'd swarm you just the same. relentless bastards, and they love your eyes/ears/nose/mouth.
MMC was about 5-10 miles from the mediterranian sea so we had a pretty constant breeze which of course means than there was dust in every crevase of your body 5 seconds after you stepped outside.
the next day we set out to our work site to start working.
i do TWDS (tactical water distribution system) in other words, i lay hose.
so we layed a few miles of hose, set up a few pumps (while others set up the bag farms and rowpu's (reverse osmosis water purification system).
we'd have some people telling us to do this at night, while others would tell us do NOT leave MMC after dark for security reasons.
more circle jerking commenced.
we stayed out well past dark the first couple nights.
however on around the third or fourth day, one of the duration NCO's told me and 3 other guys that we had a special mission the next day.
we had to get in a bus convoy to goto port, and get the rest of our vehicles and convoy them back that afternoon.
****Note****
the egyption government recieved over 2B dollars from the 13 countries taking part in this exercise. they were *very* strict. NO going off post w/o an MP escort, egyption security, AND egyption special forces. it was rumored that if anything happened to anyone, heads would roll (literally).
****End Note****
so we get on the buses at around 7ish in the morning, and leave around 10ish on our way to port (Agami).
we go through some little dirt towns (oh wait, that is the entire F'ing country) we get into a larger city.
****Note****
in egypt there are NO traffic laws.
NONE.
hahji will drive where ever he pleases.
if you are driving in your lane, and in a 5 ton vehicle, if someone is in "his" lane, he feels he has every right to pull into your lane (or the shoulder, or the ditch, or anywhere else for that matter) and pass the vehicle in his lane and you are now in *his* way.
he will show you this by flashing his headlights at you.
he flashes them day or night, because they don't use them at night.
they feel that using headlights is an insult to oncoming traffic.
also they honk at *everyone*
****End Note****
anywho, on our way there we get stuck at an intersection.
we sit for a bit, and i look out my window.
i see this little car kinda pull sideways next to us and a hahji jumps out (not in military uniform) and he is holding this wicked looking submachine gun.
i thought i was gonna die.
however, he was holding up traffic, he was one of the special forces.
we eventually reached the port, the convoy was gone, so we had to sit at port overnight and wait till the convoy the next day.
no clothes, no contact stuff, no toothbrush, no shampoo, etc..
it was not fun.
we convoyed our way back the next day, and threw out crap from MRE's to the little hahji kids.
ok, wife just got home, gonna try to sum up the rest.
we didn't do much else, very few flushing toilets, no toilet paper (we had to bring our own, hahji's use their left hand)
no hot water, no real meals.
it sucked.
there is more, but i'll go into more detail later, the wife... "needs me"
Slim
but really glad u made it home...oh and say hi to the wife for me and tell her i wont be calling anymore now that your back! lol j/k
