A dark desert hiway

Another day, another mission, different destination. As the last hints of a brilliant desert sunset fade to black. Once we get away from the base and all the bright lights, it is just us, and the civilian style trucks we are escorting. A river of red lights stretches out in front of me, and another one of white behind.
I turn my turret to block the glow from in front and behind and look off into the infinite blackness. Dim lights from a house float in the distance, with no horizon to judge by I can not tell how far. A half moon is climbing the sky, faintly red from dust in the air. Only the ocean on an overcast night is as dark and featureless as this. There is something I can do about that.
I reach up and pull the night vision goggle down over my right eye. A green world overlays itself onto the inky blackness. The house shows other lights, dim ones, probably inside, behind curtained windows. Closer there are buildings without any light. I scan to the limits of the equipment, bright light washes out any details. Stretching my neck I look up to reveal thousands of stars, more then visible with the naked eye.
I turn the turret to the left side of the vehicle, feeling the vibration of gears under my hand. A few more distant lights, and at the corner of my sector the field of glowing gems of a city. Low over the horizon Orion climbs into the sky, tonight he will hunt the moon. I complete a scan and traverse again.
With the dramatic vistas of this land it is no surprise that the Arab mind so often moves to poetry. The Koran is laid out in verse, come to think of it so is parts of the bible, if read in the original. I never have been good with other languages, other than English so I will just trust the chaplain on this one.
The temperature is dropping, the intel guys said it would drop to forty degrees. If I add in wind chill I am easily below freezing. SSG Lifeguard and SGT Zohan ask me to get them drinks from the cooler strapped to the back of the turret. It takes a little doing but I dig in for a Gatorade and a Monster respectively. My Nomex gloves get a little damp. The wind makes then extremely cold.
After I hand down the drinks I hand Life guard the gloves. He will put them on the fire wall that sits on top of the transmission. He hands up the other set, warm from the engine heat. Our heater has been broken since we showed up and the new one id on order. We think the new one will arrive around April or May, about the time the AC breaks.
Warm gloves are a thing of beauty. Keep them out of the wind until I have to traverse again. The radio is very quiet tonight, not as much banter. It is on nights like this, during a long ride up a piece of super slab that I have found my mind wandering. At times I have taken these opportunities to ‘take my soul out and examine it’. Figure out where I am in life and where I am going. Doing it at 85 or 90 mph is good for the soul, but not the best idea for the body.
A spot of introspection is an even worse idea here. My soul is fine, I will leave it to fight its own battles for a while. I lean down to light a cigarette, ( I mean I think about lighting a cigarette as there is no smoking allowed on military vehicles) and catch Lifeguard in the glow of his computer screen tapping away at the touch screen. I know how to wire that particular piece of equipment in, but have never used it up here. All my tools are much more basic.
With this I decide to check the belt of ammunition, the free movement of the gun and location of my pen flare launcher. They tend to vibrate out of whack. Always, always, always keeping up the scan.
We get to the other end and dump one convoy. Chow is closed until much later. We scarf down parts of MREs and grab another convoy heading home. Turn and burn, my favorite type of mission.
On the way south things are much the same, except that Orion has chased the moon out of the sky. We make it home, fuel the trucks down load gear and do our after checks. We finish just in time to hang out in front of the chow hall for fifteen minutes before the breakfast opens. My second breakfast since getting here, but my first sit down meal since lunch yesterday. By 0630 we are all in our racks, refilling our overdrawn sleep accounts.
Tomorrow is another mission.