Chris' Deployment Journal

When it’s 115 out and you’re wearing body armor, climbing into/onto Humvees, and carrying weapons and ammo, you cannot drink water fast enough. Exposed areas hardly seem to sweat since it evaporates so quickly, although my uniform blouse needs to be peeled off when I get back here, since the body armor blocks the sweat from evaporating and the blouse just soaks it all up.

While we have city water in our base, we do not ever drink it, just bathe and flush with it. All our potable water comes in 1.5 liter bottles from Kuwait or Turkey. We pick these up from the KRAB in pallets (obviously too large for Humvees so we need to bring a truck on water days). We also have a freezer truck full of potable ice that's cubed in bags which must also come from the KRAB.

The pool is filled with city water but also mixed with healthy doses of chlorine and bleach. I don't use the pool a lot but it's certainly nice to have it around. It takes a lot of upkeep, especially when a shimal (sand/dust storm) blows dust all into it, leaving a few inches of grit at the bottom. A couple of guys emptied it last week and SHOVELED out the crud at the bottom.