Hillah, Iraq.

We are still required to wear all the gear to chow, so driving to the chow hall is very popular. As previously mentioned, if you spend a lot of time with the same small group of people, topics of conversation can run a bit thin. Today, however, we had a lively and often loud discussion on the actual rules for calling “Shotgun” for the ride back to the team room. And the end of the meal, the following rules were all agreed to:

1. Vehicle must be in sight.
2. With intent to leave.
3. Unimpeded by glass.

Thus, for a call of shotgun to be legal, one must be the first to see the car with nothing but air between you and the vehicle as you head to the vehicle to leave.Some dissension was heard over the suggestion of being the first to touch the vehicle to call shotgun, but that was overwhelmingly disapproved because nobody wants to run with all their gear on.

One of the ODA gunners doesn’t really remember the 80s, and asked me to put together an 80s CD. I decided to turn it into a team project. The gunner needs an actual audio CD, so I am limited to about nineteen songs. I numbered nineteen spaces on the greaseboard, and people began calling out song names. Before long, we had dozens of suggestions. It is nearly impossible to get half a dozen people to agree on a restaurant for dinner, and even more difficult to get two dozen people to agree on which songs belong on the quintessential 80s CD. I was afraid that I had nearly started a holy war as each faction campaigned hard for their favorites. After starting over for the third time, we all agreed to a cooling down period before we would try again.There was nothing going on in the afternoon, so we declared a pool party. I received a package from my friend Larry and Susan in yesterday’s mail. They included such a wealth of pool gear that the success of the party was assured. They sent beach balls, floats, squirt guns, a floating basketball game, as well as sponge balls. The sponge balls are going to have to be banned, as they incite mayhem in the pool. We created a rule that you could only throw sponges while sitting in a float, but the rule is little regarded. Those things hurt if you get on in the head. In other news, one of our interpreters has finally learned to swim.