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Billy Fehr: Just got back from a ride around Sherman B-Ranch, twice around the RC. Honeysuckle was blooming in both yellow and pink creating a tunnel of color and smell in spots on the Roller Coaster. The new berms are amazing, thanks you guys. Dust and a bit of Oxygen transfer is easing the pain. Now time for a cold hoppy vegan approved malt beverage while I cut lettuce from the garden and head to the roof for some down home gutting cleaning.

Open Birthday Card to Bono

aka Paul Hewson, born on the tenth day of May in the year of our Lord 1960. I have no idea who made this image but it is a lasting one. Happy Early Birthday Dvde, yer the first person to get me to shed a tear when I was a child that coulda jumped off the stage or had been on the cover of the 'War Album'. HAPPY 50th BIRTHDAY, THE DAY AFTER TOONMORROW....

CMA Presents: Homemade Rain Poncho of the Week

Part I will continue on Monday.
*Dude, check out this fellow's gym bag. Go Hornets!

Part I 'King Fahd gave us Plenty of Fuel'

I found this image of King Fahd(1921-2005) being given an AK-47 tutorial from none other than Saddam Hussein. This photo was obviously made before the King invited us into his Kingdom in 1990. Photographer unidentified. When we reached the Battalion refueling depot it was early evening of Day 1, some 16 hours into the ground operation. The sky at this spot in the desert was less filled with oil smoke which allowed the sun to cast a solid pale gray hue on the chaotic scene in front of me. We had driven from under the wet oil veil and now although I could see, it was in total absence of color. At the head of the two lines, side by side, sat huge gas tanker trucks next to these big round rubber fuel bladders.

There were dozens of Amtracks queued up to receive the precious diesel. Off to the right several M1 Abrams Tanks stood silently waiting their turn to get in the procession leading to the blessing of oil in the form of gas. Their guns sat level, the color of the sand. Hundreds of Marines stood off to the side watching and waiting for further instruction. An occasional Cobra Helicopter Gunship flew overhead keeping watch on this refueling war plan project from above. After our late Amtracks were filled with what we needed, we lined up with the rest of Golf Co. and shortly there after started rolling north again.

More hours pass as we move into the middle of the night some 24hrs after this thing started back south in the House of Saud. Sleep came in the form of intermittent dozes sitting back to the metal wall wedged in between the shoulders of my combat loaded colleagues. We moved forward across the sand through the night stopping occasionally for minutes at a time. A few of the pauses lasted as long as an hour with motors turned off while the command figured out our next tactical move based on the reports coming in from the forward scouts a few clicks ahead of us. These forward scouts were fast moving Humvee Heavy Gun Teams from Weapons Co. 2/4 that stayed out ahead of the BN looking for trouble before we ran into it. One of our friends and ex-G Co. platoon mates Eric 'Row-Bow-Sahn' Robison from Pascagoula Mississippi was riding in the turret behind a Browning M-2 .50cal on one of those BN scout vehicles. Something sort of exciting happens to him and his vehicle crew two days from this point in the operation but we will get to that later.

We continued moving north until shortly after sunrise on Day 2 when our track commander leaned down from his hatch above us and let us know that we were back under another thick layer of dense sun blocking oil smoke. Then our track stopped and the driver shut off the motor. A silent Golf Co. was spread out over the desert under the dark night daytime sky. Sleep came to all of us at various times over the next few hours. This was the longest stop so far in the ground operation. Spartan was receiving data transfer from the BN and we would be moving again soon enough.

Part I 'Through the first Darkness'

Unfortunately I do not have any photos supporting the next few posts of Part I. Instead for your viewing pleasure I will put up more recent images that I feel are interesting and correlate to the entry. I took this cloudscape picture on tripod last Sunday out in the way back. For a minute the hole in the center of the cloud looked like a moving broken heart. Far off in front of our position a small orange flame flickered. We laid there watching the vast emptiness while a crew member pounded one of the pins on the broken track with a sledge hammer. Time passed. I turned around, looked up and saw orange light dancing on the side of the silent broken track just under the driver's compartment. The reflective surface of the armored vehicle surrounded in darkness acted like a tan movie screen playing back the refraction of light burning flames off in the distance. I can still see a hologram image of that light in my mind's eye.

While the crew continued to work, someone in charge and paying close attention called off our defensive response. That left one team on forward watch which allowed the rest of us to mill about just as we had been training to do around the world for years. The wet ebony oil smoke ceiling hung flat not far above our heads giving the illusion in all directions towards the horizon that we were in some sort of a building structure. I do not remember there ever being any actual liquid particulate falling from the sky as has been portrayed by the fiction film industry. But I do remember thinking to myself that I had never witnessed anything like what I was seeing before me.

In the back drop of our quietly chatting smoke circles we could sporadically hear Spartan and other officers of Golf Co. give their sit-reps(situation reports) over the net. Near the rear hatch of the track close to the red bulb there was a speaker that we could hear clearly broadcasting the occasional reports from the field to the north of us. I believe that at one point Spartan talked about us, the two tracks back. He instructed us to get the vehicle fixed then proceed to a forward gas distribution point where the Co. would wait for us before proceeding. Just before the track fix was complete there were a few loud explosions way off to our west and north. Friendly fire, a reoccurring theme during the Persian Gulf was most likely the source. There were other Companies from 2/4 and some Army Tanks from the Tiger Brigade out there in the darkness of daytime picking their way through and north. By the time we loaded back up our charcoal suits were off but our flack jackets and helmets were securely on.

Business as Usual

At least nothing is chaotic yet. Part I will continue tomorrow but today I bring you my observations from our now in Charlotte. It started as a normal Monday for me riding around in the rain taking care of an average amount of legal work between the big buildings and the court. Early in the lobby of the Hearst Tower for my first schedule I noticed a professional dog handler and his four legged partner talking with Bank Corporate Security. The event that took place Saturday night in Times Square NYC was near the Bank of America's Bryant Park Office. As of yesterday there was an obvious and very much visible security response at the Bank's interests here in Charlotte. I went on with my work and an hour later found the team outside of the building where I was able to make this picture of them. It was a little awkward at first and my emotional chakras were vibrating with the same nervousness that I have been aware of since I was a child but I approached the two and asked the human half if it would be okay if I made their portrait. Meet Donnie Dolinger and his 6 year old black lab bomb sniffer Sonny. I think this image is unique in its representation of what is really happening here and how that is intrinsically connected to our power of manifestation around the globe.

Part I 'Into, out of and back into Kuwait'

Notice the 5.56mm green tip armor piercing rounds that I had loaded into two magazines. I made this picture at our last position in Saudi Arabia. The grinding strain of the tracks tearing their weighty load across the desert seemed louder than ever. A small red light bulb glowed from near the back ramped hatch dimly illuminating the inside compartment. I could barely make out the familiar eyes of my friends sitting right next to and across from me. The weight of all of my gear felt heavy on my legs as I sat with my back against the inside starboard wall inhaling diesel fumes and the spiritual breaths of my fellow Marines. A loud grinding noise continued as time and distance pass by delivering us to the edge of the berm. The vehicle slowed then sped up only to slow again. None of us had any idea what was going on outside the skin of our armored transportation.

All of a sudden the track jerked hard like we had hit something and bounced off of it. In our armored box it was difficult to determine which way we were turning but we cut hard and the metal on metal grinding sound became louder. We soon found out that we had made it through the berm but as soon as we cleared it on the Kuwaiti side we were ordered to turn around and get back on the Saudi side as soon as possible. Once back on Saudi sand again we disembarked and were instructed to break open the charcoal suits and put them on. When I opened my foil package I was not surprised to see that the suits were woodland green/brown forest cammie. The inside seemed more crowded once we loaded back up. Our carbon filled trousers and jackets added diameter to all of us.

Back through the left hand breach in the berm into Kuwait all over again. It seemed that for hours our track rumbled slowly forward stopping occasionally for a minute or two then continuing north. It was late morning when we made our first stop inside Kuwait. The back door of our track lowered introducing us to this new land. As soon as my boots hit the sand I realized that the sun was being completely blocked out by the thick oil smoke. Weeks before Saddam Hussein had order his military to set fire to the wells in most of Kuwait's southern oil fields. For the first few minutes I could not even see the hand in front of my face as I tried to understand what I was perceiving. Even when my eyes adjusted I found it difficult to make out the landscape around me. It was apparent that we had stopped on a little rise close to another vehicle that had thrown a track. The rest of Golf Co. and the BN were out there somewhere in front of us. We set up a hasty perimeter around the two vehicles while the crews went to work on the fix.