Things That Go Boom

At dusk after we received 3 inches of new snow outside my tent Feb 19 The weather here is up and down. It seems to be the same for a few days, then changes. It will be snow and rain for 2-3 days, then clear skies for 2-3 days. When it is snowing and raining, everything is socked in. The satellite goes down and no internet for a while. Long distance phones go down. The place is snow covered for a while, then turns to mud everywhere. The mud gets tracked into the tents and covers everything. You get used to it. It gets to the point where you just accept it and don’t bother cleaning it off things. When the sun comes out, it takes 2 or 3 days to finally dry, then the mud is replaced by brown dirt and dust. Then it rains and repeats the whole process again. The other night it snowed about 2 or 3 inches. It looked pretty for a while until the next day when it turned to slush and mud. The 155 Holwitzer. The ground shakes when this goes off The other day I was sitting in my tent on my computer and heard a loud boom. The ground and entire tent shook like the ground does when T-Rex was coming in Jurassic Park. About 5 minutes later, it would happen again. We were not getting mortared or rocketed. I walked around a bit and found our huge guns going off. We have 3 large, 155 Howlitzers. We also have four 119 Howlitzers that shoot 105 rounds. Each of these shells weigh from 65 to over 100lbs. These are cannons that they pull in the back of a truck. The barrel is bigger than the barrel on a tank. My friend and I walked up to them, got within about 25 ft and they shot another round. The shock wave from firing can almost knock you over. You had to have earplugs in or you would go deaf. They tell us that the range is 26 miles, incredible. I don’t know if it was a training exercise or they were shooting a specific location to support a mission. I would hate to be on the receiving end of that thing. I am glad we were shooting out instead of receiving it. The smaller 119 Holwitzer shoots 105mm rounds. After the 119 fires, you can hardly see due to the gun powder smoke Things have been slow which is a good thing. With the weather so bad, nothing is moving. I have clinic twice a week in which I see a few simple things, like broken hands, minor cuts, etc. I think they are waiting for the weather to get better, and then I think we will make up for the down time. I guess I should enjoy it while I can.

Tom