Hillah, Iraq.

Today is one of the Green Beret’s birthday, so we celebrated with a bonfire, some (nonalcoholic) Coronas, and some (nonalcoholic) 151 proof rum. We backed my humvee up to the fire, and thanks to the easily removable speaker box, we had exceptional tunes as we got the bonfire going. Regrettably, there was a stray round buried in the gravel where we had chosen to build the bonfire. After it cooked off, surprising everyone, there was no more excitement. Well, not exactly. One of the Green Berets used to be a bartender, and he was showing us how he could toss bottles around like the movie “Cocktail”. To do this, he soaked a napkin in the (nonalcoholic) 151, stuffed into the end of a bottle, and put on quite an impressive display.

I retired after the beer ran out, wanting nothing to do with the 151. I dreamt that it was raining. I could hear the rain on the roof of our house in Atlanta. I woke up, and I would swear that it was raining.

I found out later that the Polish fire department had showed up out of concern for our bonfire. The Green Berets and Marines had taken over their fire truck and sprayed all the water out of the truck onto the hooches.So, I suppose that it did rain, which was fine by me because for a while, I was back home.