January 19, 2005

Iraqi alarm clock

Laying in bed this morning, asleep, and BOOM the trailer shakes with something big.

I can't yet tell a far away car bomb for a nearby mortar, at least not when I'm asleep, so I didn't know if more were coming or not (mortars tend to come in clusters, car bombs are usually singular). So I have already thought this through. My bed runs parallel to the outside, sandbagged, wall of the trailer. Along my bed I stacked, on their sides, my two bullet proof vests (the big obnoxious one issued to me and the smaller concealable one I brought myself) as well as my Kevlar helmet. So in this gap between bed and wall I have sandbags on one side and Kevlar on the other. Something goes boom and I roll out of bed and into the gap.

Laying naked on the floor of your trailer between sand bags and Kevlar, listening for another boom is a strange feeling. It really gives you an opportunity to think ... and examine your own sanity. I'm all about the numbers, I always play the numbers, the numbers say that even though danger is near, I'm well insulated from it and quite safe. So I choose to stay here; and while I'm here I maximize my numbers by doing things like rolling into the gap when things go boom. Ironically, I think this means I'm sane.

It was a car bomb outside the GZ that woke me up:
Australian Embassy.
While typing this we had another smaller one, but I haven't seen it on the web yet.

Posted by rick at January 19, 2005 12:41 AM