Hillah, Iraq.

And at last we have realized Step 6a of Levi’s Six Step Buff and Tan Plan! The pool is finally complete. We still have to hook up the pumps, and we need to build the deck, but the pool itself is ready for water. In fact, we have already begun….liberating….water from the potable water tanks!

We got up yesterday morning to find that the regular Bobcat driver had failed to show up. However, in keeping with the spirit and tenacity that comes from practicing Levi’s Six Step Buff and Tan Plan, Levi set out to find out if there was ANY other way to do this. Other than actually picking up a shovel, that is. And did he ever come through! He found a Slovakian that was more than willing to trade off his guard duty and operate one of the coolest pieces of heavy equipment that I have seen in years!

You read that right: a remote controlled Bobcat. By the way, years of Communist rule has made Eastern Europeans more than willing to shirk their duty for booze. Firstly, here are (most of) the guys that made it happen:

The Green Berets have been pretty evenly split on the pool project. Many didn’t think we would ever actually finish it.

Here is the pool as we started today. We began by filling the Hescos in place.

Then we put down a layer of sand in the bottom. The liner will rest on this layer.

Next, we hauled the liner into the pool.

Then we completed the inner ring of Hescos.

Followed by the outer ring of Hescos.

Then we leveled all the tops of the Hescos.

Then we spread the liner.

This was hard because the liner was heavy, slippery, and pretty dang hot! About now the Nonbelievers decided that we were going to pull this off after all, and everybody pitched in to finish. Once the liner was snug into the pool, we draped the excess over the Hescos to keep dust down. This is how the pool looked by the end of the day.

We need to uncover the mortar pit. We began to fill it with a siphon from the potable water tanks.

Tomorrow I am going to wire our two pumps. We are already gathering up our illumination mortar rounds and drink boxes for the grand opening on the Fourth. All was not well with the day, however. One of our El Salvadoran soldiers was working on replacing a tire on a truck. Another truck swung in to shine the headlights on the work, but the brakes failed and the truck hit the soldier. They tried hard to save him, but the soldier died. It took the happiness off the day.

Again, thanks to all those who have been asking after the progress of the pool. We calculated the volume of the pool to be 90,000 (ninety, sir) gallons. That is 90 kilo-gallons of aquatic cooling goodness, which will be welcome as the
summer progresses.