How did I end up here? Part 1

Well, I am wondering how and why I ended up in the situation I am in. All I wanted to do is find a shady spot to try to eat my chicken patty MRE real quick and literally ended up biting off more than I could chew. The wind was blowing a little and it all the sudden blew this dirt and orange crud up into my face, mouth and my left eye. and my chicken patty was all nasty with the same stuff all over it.

Now, anyone who has ever eaten a MRE Chicken Patty, knows what I am talking about....the clear gel that covers the damn thing is like a glue. I am not sure what that stuff is, but it is really slimy, probably because the chicken is pretty dry, maybe it is a lubricant so it doesn't tear your bowels out when you go to crap. Well after I get covered in that stuff...I try to wipe my face and eye out...all the while swearing up a storm. My eye was burning and my mouth was on fire and the damn wind kept blowing that stuff up everywhere.

Now, as an infantryman of quite a few years, I have chewed my share of dirt, but this was no dirt like I had ever tasted. It had this horrendous metallic taste and I wanted to barf real bad. Some of the crap I ended up swallowing and I could still taste it in my mouth. I swished some water around and washed my mouth out, but could still feel the stuff at the back of my throat. I drank some of my water to wash it down, figuring the stomach acid would do it in, NOT...up it came, it burned going down and coming back up. I was stunned...what the hell was this about? I looked up into the sky and asked G-D "Was that really necessary?" anyway, I left the area and stood by this big tank and tried to clean myself up. The Iraqi workers were laughing at me, they were wearing shemaghs and other things to protect themselves from breathing in the sand and debris..I guess they would know better. while I was washing my eye out and rewashing my mouth out, I realized that I had tasted that before while being at the plant on a previous occasion.

While trading MRE components with the British Contingent, there was a hint of the same metallic taste in the air..and I thought that was weird. The British soldiers I was trading with were sleeping outside on cots with mosquito nets covering them and they had dirt with orange colored stuff all over. Now for the folks who were not there, when you think of Iraq and places like that, you think of sand...I would say it is more like talcum powder and sticks like glue to anything moist. Anyway, after my encounter with the orange dirt crap, I was hungry from barfing and looked at my chicken patty, it was dirty and had orange stuff on it, so I washed if off as best as I could with my canteen water and figured that I should not waste it if it could be salvaged. I had a really strange sensation in my stomach, I couldn't tell if it hurt or I was hungry. So I ate it, well some of it managed to stay down, but I threw up again, but not as bad as the first time.

I also realized that were my fingers were cracked from the dry heat, they started to bleed and it stung bad. I cleaned them up with water and took some super glue out of my combat lifesaver kit and glued the cracks shut. My eye still burned and was red, but I just continued on with the mission.

Stay tuned for part 2


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