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All the king's horses and all the king's men.

One of the many power outages during my lovely vacation in Afghanistan.

During the Summer you'd burn up in your bed and let every bug lather up every pint of sweat. In the Winter you'd get so cold your Kidneys would start to shut down and would have to drag the ass back to work because the heater was always working there (Not really).

The truth is I never bothered with either the cold or the heat. I knew somewhere not too far a Marine was sleeping in a foxhole, only to wake with a foot of rainwater in it. Seriously, some of the stories I recall were awful. But hey, it's war right? Stories are one thing but when you see a group of guys leave and return a month later looking like a human shouldn't… you can only imagine. Oddly, they would be around for a few days, get they're full dose of needed sleep, hot shower, hot chow, a visit to the commissary and off they went, back to the Green Zone (not the Iraq one either).

So no, I cared less how bad my time got in Afghanistan. It was a gift from heaven when that generator broke. No more noise and humming from everything plugged into it… what a relief and short lick of sanity.

I've always given the same answer for this frequented question: What is the worst thing about being over there?

The sound of it.

Minus the snow of course.

Pretty amazing to see something like this: A used U.S. 155mm Howitzer projectile packaging being used to repair a damaged section of a water well. With so much of the infrastructure destroyed, it's not like this family could hop in the ol' minivan and drive to the nearest Home Depot.

Actually, this was quite common in Iraq. Resourcefulness at it's best.