The Mega base

If there is one thing Iraq is not short of it is space. Vast spaces of land that the locals are more than happy to lease to us at reasonable rates. Add to that a now deceased dictator with a penchant for building airbases in the middle of nowhere and you get the super base. Located on former Iraqi Air Force bases, they don’t lack for space. You can get lost on these places. I have gotten lost on these places.
We roll on to the base and drop off our charges, fuel up and dump the body armor. Now to find food. Riding through this place I can tell we need to watch our steps. I understand, wearing a reflective belt to jog, work out. These guys are having to wear reflective belts at night, in ACUs. It is not like there is a lack of lights, you can see the glow of the base from well below the horizon, hours before you reach the gate.
The worst of it is the rules. There are rules posted everywhere, no earphones anywhere. Reflective belts required after dark. These places have police forces and people who spend their time enforcing the rules. There are even civilian contractor traffic cops with radar guns.
This I made worse by the huge number of Non-Tactical Vehicles. This is mil speak for civilian, stateside cars, that are prohibited from leaving base. The only reason for these vehicles to be here, imported at government expense, so that senior personnel don’t have to walk. The circular irony here is that I have never had a close call with a tactical vehicle. It is hard to miss the dozen plus tons of steel rolling down on top of you. I got bumped by a pickup truck backing up coming out of finance once. Then there is the PX parking lot and squealing tires. More dangerous than out on the road.
So we take off the head rags and balaclavas, and swagger into chow, sans reflective belts. The chow is good, but we don’t idle long. Back to the trucks then to transient housing.
The billets for transients here is better than my room. More room and all the heaters/AC work. I don’t even think about going shopping, shit, shower and shave, then pass out. It isn’t until the next morning when some strange NCO wakes me up that I realize that something is wrong. SGT Linebacker, and his crew are in the barracks, so it Mighty Mouse, but for some reason SSG Lifeguard is not here. I inform the strange NCO that I am not on his mission and begin to wake up.
Thirty minutes later SSG Lifeguard shows up. It would appear that there was a minor miscommunication. There are Transient Barracks numbers 1-20something, and then there are Cheeseboxes number 1-20something. Linebacker, and I had not known this. SO we simply wandered into some other unit’s barracks, and passed out. That other unit didn’t know who we were, but also simply passed out.
As we begin to roll out and head home I spot the ultimate indicator of the Super Base, a street cleaner, like a mud zamboni cleaning the streets. Is this really what we need here?
Away from the Super Base, away from the thousand and one rules and NTVs trying to kill me. Simply the road.