The Daily Grind

As I am limited with what I can tell you due to security purposes as far as Ty is concerned, I will do my best to give you a fair description of his job and his surroundings while living in Iraq. We do not crowd our telephone conversations with details to such things simply because it would jeopardize him and the others, military included, and their mission. He can, however, write me and tell me things that I can post in a very general sense on this blog.

He has been stationed at his permanent camp for the duration of his stay in Iraq for nearly a month now. His job entails hauling supplies for the military, all the while having military escorts. Their convoy has not been hit in six months, therefore, they are not considered "hot" at the moment and do not need armed military personnel inside the armoured trucks with them.

During his training, he spent a lot of time learning how to drive the European semis and familiarizing himself with the many different trailers they use over there. We use 12 Volt systems in the United States, but it appears that everywhere else uses 24 Volt systems. He has to be very careful when hooking up certain trailers to certain trucks. If he would happen to hook up a 24 Volt European truck to a 12 Volt United States trailer, it would blow every light in the trailer. I can imagine that would be quite an "oops".

He has yet to see any camel spiders (if you care to see one yourself, there is a link on the righthand side of this blog) and says they don't come out very often. However, they are not poisonous, so even though they are enormous in size, they are pretty much the least of his worries. There are several other kinds of spiders, scorpions and snakes that are running free though that he needs to keep an eye out for.

One being the King Cobra. I don't think he'll be trying to charm one of them anytime soon. Yellow sack spiders are nasty little suckers (I'm quoting him word-for-word on that) that have a poison in them strong enough to deteriorate your flesh if you get bitten. Nice. And no, he's not shipping any home for those of you who don't like your inlaws LOL. Could you imagine that for a Christmas present?

Apparently there are also alot of jackels and hyenas as well, and I will quote Ty when he says "I, for one, wouldn't make this a tourist spot." LOL