NSTR

Given the length of the last two posts, we thought we'd keep this week (relatively) brief. Spoke with Ed this morning, apparently the beautiful fall weather we're having at home has made its way to Iraq as well. Temperatures in the 80s, pleasant evenings, sounds like it's making life a little more bearable. Although, apparently it's still hot enough to ruin the soldiers' water. See, clean water in Iraq is, well, not quite as common as it is here (can anyone say, cholera?). So the "FOBBITS" get treated, bottled water delivered to them (no, Dasani, Aqufina et al aren't shipping it over, it's treated on-site). The water is delivered in plastic bottles and left on pallets outside the soldiers' living quarters to pick-up as needed. It is recommended however, that before drinking it, one should first tap the bottle top. Apparently a light tap of the finger suffices. If the plastic top shatters, it's been in the sun too long and you probably shouldn't drink the water. Ed recently walked by an entire pallet of shattered bottle tops. Oops. Now it wasn't quite clear from Ed's description if the plastic shatters because it's been designed that way so as to prevent dysentery and all those other time-honored war-zone stomach ailments or simply because the sun is so fierce in the desert that it can break down plastic, but either way it's another example of the difference of life in the sandbox.

So, for those of you not fluent in bureaucracy (a complex language spoken by ever growing numbers), if you hadn't guessed by now, NSTR is nothing significant to report. However, be sure to check back in the coming weeks, if all goes according to plans (always a dangerous assumption when the U.S. Army is involved), we may have some new news and different locales to report from.