So like I was saying, the drivers of Kuwait are crazy. We were told in our safety briefings before traveling on the roads that the main highway running North/South the length of the country is one of the deadliest stretches of road in the world. A wrecked car such as this was not an uncommon site. We drove this stretch just about every day and one morning there it was. It was gone by the next day. Closer into town there wrecked cars along the freeway that stayed there the whole time we were in the country. We would see them daily and they just stayed there on the side of the road as a reminder as to how dangerous the driving is. But those wreckages sure didn’t deter or frighten those who wanted to drive crazy.

Other sites of interest while driving around Kuwait are camels. Here are a few we encountered.

Finally, on the topic of road trips I want to show off the vehicle being used to patrol and transport troops currently in Iraq and Afghanistan. The MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicle. These big guys have been phasing out the up-armored HMMWV (Hummer). There were a lot of them on the desolate roads of Kuwait so the soldiers can get lots of training and experience on the vehicles before moving on to serve in those conflict countries. This first one is equip with a mine rollers in order to detonate any pressure activated explosives.

So as mentioned before, I stayed in Kuwait an additional 2 weeks after my unit moved up into Iraq. During the course of those two weeks I supported the training and operations of the other 4 battalions that make up the brigade. What that meant for me and my friend (battle buddy) Ryan was a lot of driving. 

This is not Ryan. This is the friendly guy who would pump our gas to fuel our road trips. He had this great couch, but sat on a metal chair. So I sat on the couch to see if there was something wrong. It felt great to me, although I never sat in his metal chair, maybe it was even better.

I made an earlier post about how desolate the country is and how all our road trips were just looking at vast flat stretches of sand as far as the eye could see. Well there is a lot of that as is again evident by this picture of my friend Brian Dopp sitting at this bus stop that appears to be in the middle of nowhere. But there is civilization as well,...

...like this Burger King. These next three pics are just a few of the many Mosques that we would see while driving.

 You may have also noticed that there is a bit of vegetation in each of these pictures also.

 There were also a lot of these water towers, and they were always in big groups of six or more together. These next pics are of the houses. They are all quite big and most are some what ornate. The country is very wealthy, and there were always a lot of houses being built.

 

 Driving in Kuwait can be hazardous. The drivers are nuts and speed limits are only suggestions for the locals.

 And it seemed like they never use their side view mirrors. Then I looked closer and noticed some of them actually had covers over the mirrors like this guy. And Yes most of the locals dress in these stereo typical traditional clothing of white "man dress" and head cloth. The folks not wearing these types of clothes are often from others countries such as India and the Philippines living in the country as workers. The Kuwaiti citizens receive a lot of money from the government just for being citizens so there are a lot of immigrant workers for the manual labor tasks.

Kuwait is not that big of a country and we were able to see a very good portion of it. We made trips daily to other bases and the air fields escorting convoys of busses loaded with soldiers being transported from Kuwait international Airport to camp Beuhring or from Camp Beuhring to Ali Al Saleem LSA where they would fly to Iraq. We even made a few trips to other bases to retrieve soldiers from medical treatment facilities or to pick up equipment. We would try new ways to get from here to there and would often end up lost. This picture above was taken one of those many times we were lost in town. I don't know what that thing is that this guy is stepping into, but it is on wheels. It may be the worlds longest gypsy wagon. During our travels Ryan and I would try out the local military dining facilities of the various installations we would visit. One in particular had really tall urinals so Ryan had to stand on his tip toes.

Thanksgiving

 

The dining facility employees are mostly from India and the Philippines or some other third world countries. They really went all out in decorating the place for Thanksgiving Day.

  

The men in uniform with the tall white hats were the servers. All the highest ranking servicemen of the base served the food instead of the normal dining facility employees. It’s not every day you get to say to a Colonel “Give me a few more sweet potatoes…Uhhh…Please…Sir”

 

The bouquet of flowers on the left is radish flowers on cucumber stems in a squash/gourd vase.

Yep. That's all different food cut to look like plants. The initials are for the dinning facility.

This guy is decorated with frosting.

There were a couple ice sculptures too but I must not have got any pictures.

This soldier’s clothes are made of pineapple rinds and his binoculars are cucumbers.

 

Who needs Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade? In fact Macy’s could benefit from a soldier on a camel in their parade. By the way, this one is not edible.

This little Thanksgiving scene was intriguing.

Whoever made the big Indian in this scene not only confused the Indian with a feather for the Indian with a dot, but they also confused the length of arms with the length of legs.

This was all non-alcoholic beverage of course. There is no alcohol allowed to be consumed by service men in Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan. The sacrifice of serving your country means different things for some than what it means for others.

And there it is. My feast. It was amazing. If it hadn’t have been for all this effort, Thanksgiving day would have just been like any other day. The weather was really warm and Sunny. And Ryan Kohlbecker and I made an airport run road trip just like we did about every day for the two weeks after our squadron left.