Just back from entertaining the troops in the Middle East, and morale is high despite the heat and the imminent danger all around them. In Tina Turner’s song “One of the Living” from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, she says, “In the desert sun every step that you take can be your final one.” And it’s no wonder: the desert is full of dangerous things just waiting for a bunch of comedians to lean up against.
And not all of the dangerous things are man made. I came across specimens of some of the desert’s own natural horrors. By the way, the outlandish stories you hear about poisonous camel spiders the size of house cats are pure fiction. “They aren’t poisonous,” an Air Force doctor reassured me. “But they do have a numbing bite which allows them to eat chunks from your leg without you knowing.” Oh, thanks, I feel much better.
The M60 is a fully-automatic machine gun that usually takes a team of three to operate. There’s even a version made for civilian use, because fuck deer, that’s why.
Lots of simulated danger in the desert, as well. I got to fire a bunch of weapons at a simulated firing range, complete with air-powered real-life recoil. And then got to climb into a crash rollover simulator, which prepares troops for the disorienting escape from an overturned vehicle.
And as if there isn’t enough dangerous stuff in the desert, the bad guys are prepared to send more dangerous stuff over in the form of ballistic missiles. Our guys came up with an answer to that: the Patriot Missile. When the bad guys shoot a missile at us, we shoot a missile at their missile. But it’s only a matter of time before the enemy comes up with an anti-anti-missile-missile. I can only hope that we are already hard at work on the anti-anti-anti-missile-missile-missile.
Interesting stuff. You’re captions, as always are quite funny Paul.
Thanks for reading, April! Can’t wait to get back out there.