Close Call...

So we're taking a ride down the Iraqi highway, I'm the gunner in the rear truck, watching the traffic steadily piling up behind us. As we get close to one of the checkpoints along the way, a pickup decides to jump out of line about five rows back and comes flying up behind us. I don't know if he just wanted to get through the checkpoint faster or if he was testing me or what, but he was about 1/10th of a second from getting his truck shredded by my weapon. I tried to wave him off, I guess he didn't think I was serious until the machine gun was pointing through his windshield. For those that have hunted before, you know that moment before you squeeze the trigger where you kind of lean into the weapon to help brace against the recoil? That's where I was at before he backed off. Lucky day for both of us I guess.

In other news, the Iraqi's are making the best of their new living space. They have electricity running to some of the buildings from a generator and are working on getting permanent power set up. One bad thing is their morale, it's still hot, still Ramadan, and the General that made them move into the garbage dump comes and yells at them for it looking like a garbage dump. Hopefully their conditions start looking up soon. It's hard for me to keep going there and not be able to do anything for them. I feel pretty useless right now, hopefully that changes soon too. I have to run, I just wanted to get some thoughts down before they slip away... I'll post more soon.