  No shit, there I was, moving north from Kuwait to Baghdad on a three-day hell convoy. I had a PFC driving, the ambient temperature with the asphalt and whatnot was about 130º, we wore full body armor, and the first thing we saw outside the gate was a dead camel stretched halfway across the road. Unbelievable stench attendant. &nbsp; You would think that the road connecting Kuwait to Baghdad, roughly the same route Saddam marched years back, would involve a nice, four-lane interstate. And parts of it were. But mostly, it&nbsp;was worse than the back roads of Mississippi.
I had neither door nor seatbelt to keep my body-armored butt in the vehicle, so spent a significant amount of energy just holding on. That and pointing my rifle out the door, ready to tear somebody's ass up if they messed with us. &nbsp; The radio consumed the rest of my effort--I had no speaker, so had to hold the handmike under the kevlar helmet the whole trip. My ear was purple when we finally arrived. But we're not there yet. &nbsp; The first flat tire hit just after the dead camel.
We'd been out the gate maybe twenty minutes. It took almost an hour to change it...the truck was huge and heavy and bent the jack like a paperclip. The next flat tire hit the next day. There were six in all. And then the coup de grace . &nbsp; "Shit, is that a wheel in the road?
" I drove at this point, the PFC almost passed out from the heat and fatigue. Sure enough, an entire wheel spun off the road, the heaviest truck we have beached to the left of the road. Thank Allah there was no fuel truck convoy from the opposite direction at that particular moment. &nbsp; For three hours, midday heat, we stood on the side of the road. Everyone kept both hands on weapons, fully alert despite the face-melting heat--we were, after all, in Iraq by this time. &nbsp; The third day began with the outpost where we'd "slept" getting mortared.
Time to hit the road, folks, let's move. Next, I fully exploded on a Staff Sergeant from another unit who dismounted his vehicle moments before we were to depart in order to inform me, snidely, that our trailer/big satellite dish had a tail light out. He'd been openly disrespectful the whole trip, and my Flip Mode went something like this: "No shit, Sergeant! It's been like that for four days, jackass! Get back in your goddamn vehicle and get your head out of your ass! And take whatever personal bullshit problem you have with you!
" I think there was more as he slunk back to his truck. &nbsp; We finally arrived here. I have my own room in an air-conditioned trailer. I bought a fridge. But that is where the luxury ends. We're two miles from the chow hall.
A mile to work. Three miles to the higher headquarters. No vehicles. Very hot. I'm buying a bike today. &nbsp; Three days of holding urine for hours on end to my GREAT discomfort culminated in a bladder/kidney infection that hit me like a bag of bricks yesterday.
It went from "Hmm, I may have to go to sick call tomorrow" to "Holy shit is there an emergency room around here? " in the span of an hour. Nothing like pissing volumes of blood and suffering pain that doubles you over speechless to make you move toward the doc. &nbsp; What's next? Possibly, some days of frustration and more jackassery from my commander. I'm getting better at avoiding him entirely. 
