Hillah, Iraq.
We have decided to stage another, bigger helicopter borne assault. The mission is not for several days, so we have plenty of time to plan. I attended all the briefings, and the SSGT and I generated paperwork. As I was submitting the paperwork, I happened to glance at the grease board where they keep track of bad guys we are looking for, including name, aliases, descriptions, locations, etc. Somebody had written the following:
Sheik Abu Smurfa (aka Poppa Smurf)
Description: short blue elf with cap. Three apples tall. Has magical abilities.
Nemesis: Gargamel. Lives in Smurf Village by river in forest.
I must admit that I made one of the mistakes that I have repeatedly made here: I listened to a Lance Corporal. A couple of weeks ago, this Lance Corporal insisted that he knew how to install a car stereo. My Beautiful Bride had mailed me a car stereo for my humvee, so I figured I would give him a chance. While the LCPL was working on the wiring, I worked on mounting the stereo. I cut some of the bottom out of a 5.56 ammo can. Then I built a tray that fits snugly inside the ammo can. To this tray, I mounted the stereo.
The Lance Corporal returned later to report, “Um..sir..see, I was hooking it up to the power to, you know, see if it worked. And…um…it was working, but then made sort of a pop, and now it won’t work.”I have been struggling with this problem since, and I decided that I was going to solve it today. I didn’t think the stereo was damaged, as the fuse wasn’t blown. Ultimately, I got it to work when I realized that the case of the stereo must also be grounded. I connected the stereo case to the battery’s ground, and the stereo came on.
One of the other Lance Corporals built a nice box for the speakers:
The stereo tray slid nicely into the ammo can, which I bungeed to the top of the radio stack:
The speakers have long enough wires that we can put the box on the hood, which will be great for pool parties. Everybody was generally impressed with the setup, and a stereo arms race has begun. Some guys are going with just a boom box in their cars, while others are going for an amplifier for an iPod. But mine is the best because:
1. I was first.
2. It has a remote.
Heavy weapons and a good sound system. Probably the hippest humvee in Iraq.