Camp Buering

While we were in Camp Buering, Kuwait doing some training and "hurry up and waiting" we got a camel's welcome at the firing range. This entire herd belonged to one guy who was leading these animals right by our line of fire. We were told that these guys do this all the time. They come to our ranges to pick up the brass we leave behind and sell it. It was a nice distraction from the unbearable heat of that day. I think it got up to like 120 that day, it was really hot. But as you can tell from the picture, Camp Buering is in the middle of one big-ass desert. Kuwait city was supposed to be close by, but I never made it out that way. The camp wasn't too bad, if you were permanent party that is. A whole bunch of soldiers just pass through this camp on their way to Iraq. The transient soldiers sleep in the several tents they have there with about 50 men per tent. There were only 3 females in my unit so I ended up sharing a tent with 50 other guys much to the dissapproval of my husband. While our sleeping and bathing quarters weren't all that nice, we did have access to some other great stuff. Burger King, Subway, Baskin Robbins, a coffee shop, a px, and a killer chow hall. We spent about a week and a half there doing some training, but mostly just sleeping and calling home. Oh, and we also got to watch the premire of Star Wars episode III. All in all, it was a good experience there. We were introduced to our very first sandstorm and also to camel spiders. Our training also introduced us to some of the locals and we were able to observe some of their unique customs. Our training with them included conducting vehicle searches and searches of persons. My contribution to the training exercise included the search of females as this culture forbid men to touch their women much less look at them. Life is much different now that Camp Buering is far behind us. Sandstorms are the norm as are searches. We have detainees every few days. There are no such things as Burger King or Subway or Baskin Robbins, though we do have a px now. Our chow hall does not serve midnight chow or even lunch for that matter. But life is still good, because we're still standing. We're out there everyday fighting for our country, no matter if we believe it's a just war or not. That's not our job. Our job is to be soldiers.