Hillah, Iraq.

Now that the believers are on board, we are working hard to finish the pool. I wired up the pumps (a feat that earned me the Ace of the Day award, as they were worried about connecting the power), while the Warrant Officer plumbed them.

They are sitting on the edge of the pool on a packing pallet, weighted down with sandbags. The piping is lashed to another packing pallet for protection and stability.

The El Salvadorans packed over 500 sandbags with the remaining sand. The sandbags will go on the top of the liner and Hescos. They also put up stringer poles to cover the massive cammie netting they are sewing together to cover the pool. We have ordered a boatload of water through the base, and the pool is 75% full with no leaks or Hesco migration. The Poles that filled the pool are pissed because they have a little dinky pool that will seat four, and now we have a much bigger pool than them. They were making comments about Americans “always having to do everything bigger.” Right on, Team America!

We are working a ‘deal’ with the KBR folks to build our deck. Initially, they refused any help with work on a pool. However, our “command bunker” was in need of a wooden decking around the top layer, and they appear willing to buy off on that.