A Grinch's Xmas in the Desert

It’s hard to stay a Grinch while being one of a small group where every time you tell someone that you don’t care for the holidays their face falls from a look of jubilation to that like little kids give you if you kick their puppy. While it is kind of amusing to see that look on the faces of grown adults, it starts to get old after a while and you just have to give in, settle back, and enjoy the mayhem that revelers create.
For most of the people that are in my unit, ACME, they started planning for Christmas two months ago. They came up with the idea to have a unit party and have thus been preparing for a while. I’ve watched as package after package arrived from loved ones back at home. The packages included a variety of foods, enough sugar to make us all diabetic, and even an oven to make pies in. I even received a Christmas stocking made by the Captain’s Jewish wife that contained enough nail files that I could open my own nail salon back home if I chose to.

Mostly everything made it in one piece, or at least in of salvageable quality, but there was a terrible mishap and two pumpkin pies and two pecan pies arrived looking like regurgitated baby food that marinated in cat puke for a week first. It was sad, but the pies were dumped. Watching the Staff Sergeant’s face fall, his mouth attempt to work for a few minutes, and then his cry that he didn’t care he would have eaten then anyways, when we told him the pumpkin pies didn’t survive – priceless. As much as I love pumpkin pie myself, it was just too funny not to enjoy.

To replace to dead pies, the Staff Sergeant bought a no bake pumpkin pie mix online and one of the triage guys had his wife send apple pie fixings and he used the small over to make two apple pies. We then ran around like juveniles quoting a particular American Pie line.

The Captain and the Staff Sergeant decided to create a Redneck oven using an old 55-gallon metal drum, a fire pit, and a thermometer. The Captain wanted to prove his manly hood by making an entire ham out in the desert, but his wife clicked the wrong link on the webpage when ordering and he ended up with individually vacuum sealed slices of ham. I think he staked them together in the make-shift oven in order to still have the challenge of cooking them.

Potatoes were roasted in the fire and smashed with a hammer for mashed potatoes, stuffing made from hot water and mix and stirred with a wooden stick wrapped in tin-foil was photographed extensively, a green bean casserole was created in the oven, a near disaster was avoided when people tried to use the chemical oven in the Bio lab to keep food warm and then got wise to the potential health risks associated with that, and the German’s kindly showed up with some chicken so that I could also have something to eat.

As typical feasts go and men’s’ time estimates tend to be, dinner which was scheduled for 2pm (why that’s called dinner, I do not know), was enjoyed by all at the wonderful hour of 4:30pm.

With bellies stuffed to bursting and enough left over food for a few more meals packed away, one last xmas present was had; that of a small crowded restroom packed with males, all cleaning their own pots and pans and dishes and make-shift utensils.

Yes, even a Grinch can celebrate Christmas in the desert. Hope everyone had a good holiday season.

Learning to Survive at MeS

In the ten or so days that I’ve been at MeS, these are the things that I’ve learned:


1: Don’t go rucking (a form of speed walking where you load as much gear onto your person as you can before starting) in new boots that aren’t broken in. If you do decide to go rucking in such inappropriate footwear and start to feel blisters forming at a half mile, don’t wait until 3.5 miles to shuck your boots and finish the last mile barefoot. If after you create lovely new heels for yourself that are gooey and bloody, don’t wait three days to see the medic to get your note exempting you from having to wear shoes to the DFAC (dining hall). Doing such will only increases your pain levels as you have to put shoes on for each meal and then listen to your co-workers gibes of “Why you walking so slow?” “You look like you’re in pain. I don’t know why that could be” and others of that ilk. Once your heels have started to heal (no open sores anymore), do go around and gross said co-workers out by showing them how gross they still look.

2. If it’s the middle of the night and you start feeling drops of water fall on your head and notice your pillow is damp: (1) check that there’s no a monster that crawled out from under the bed standing over you, (2) listen for the sounds of rain lashing against the side of the tent, (3) get your brain to focus on the fact that it is raining and that means there’s a leak, (4) find your trusty Duct Tape and fix problem, (5) go back to sleep. It’s the middle of the night for crying out loud.

3. Test each and every vehicle that you attempt to drive as they all have their own personalities and issues and you might get along with one more than another.

Polaris 1 had a dying battery and may or may not start. Once it does start, it may or may not turn itself off while you’re driving it.

Polaris 2: Helps you gain upper body strength as it had no automatic steering.

The John Deers work but require a helmet and a heavy jacket (they’re open air vehicles) and guess work as to the speed that you’re going as there’s no odometer.

The Toyota is a stick shift so that means I can’t drive it.

Big green the giant Chevy truck drives well, but you can’t park it anywhere and you have to figure out what gear you’re in by guesswork.

4. Rules of the road constantly change. Since this is an international base and there is an actual wall that divides the “American” side from the “German” side the rules change depending upon what side of the wall you’re on and who’s driving. The Germans understand the rules, the Americans get confused, the Mongolian ignore the rules and try to run everyone off the road, and the other nationalities are a toss up. The good thing is that the speed limit is a steady crawl of 12 miles (20 Km) an hour so collisions most likely won’t result in serious injury. Also with that speed limit you can watch the walkers and runners beat you almost everywhere on base.

5. Food. There are two main dining halls: the German DFAC and the Coalition DFAC. The Coalition DFAC offers much more choice than the German DFAC, but most of it is fried or swimming in oil. Also you have to wait in line outside (rain or shine) for 15 mins to 1.5 hrs (holidays) to get in. The German dining hall had no line, about three options and a guy that makes coffee to order in the center. Also, apparently the cleanest restrooms on base (haven’t seen them so I’ll take the word of others on this) are located here. Still, the Coalition DFAC is my first choice.

Other things I’ve learned about the DFACs are that if you can’t see 100% what something is, don’t eat it. The signs aren’t always accurate and vegetarian has a different definition apparently than what the dictionary says. At the German DFAC you have to fight for the truly vegetarian items sometimes because the servers will tell you that the non-pork items are for Muslims only. This requires a supervisor to rectify.

6. Even if you’ve made it all the way out here, it doesn’t mean that everyone has you marked as being here. Regardless of me standing in person in front of someone, they will respond with, “Well you’re not on the list…etc…etc…” Gotta love red tape.

7. Co-ed bathrooms tend to freak some people out, even if they know that’s what they are. There are so many times that a guy has walked in while I’m brushing my teeth and does a half-second stutter step while trying to remember where they are, although I will give them credit that this is mostly an occurrence that happens earlier in the morning when they aren’t awake yet. I did have one guy though turn around and say that he was going to go back to his compound to use the restroom and then return. Guess he was less comfortable with the situation than me.

8. Nothing here is like it was during training. Hmmm…never saw that one coming (eye roll). We make do with what we have. At the same time though, we enjoy our little compound that we have all to ourselves.

Hope this entry provided people with some laughs.