I have heard Ramadi called that before, but I experienced it for myself this last weekend. I was in Ramadi to look at a bridge project being executed by an Army Engineer Company that works for us and it was a mess – the camp not the bridge. The camp is know for having very deep “moon dust” in the summer and when it rains it turns into the thickest, stickiest, nastiest gunk you can picture. It is not the “let’s go play football” kind of mud, but a type that goes with you everywhere you go. They have huge grates outside the buildings to try and scrape off what you can, but it really does not do any good. As for the bridge – it was going well and would replace some assault bridging with a more permanent solution. The cool thing was it is the same bridging I worked with back in 2002-2003. One of my main missions back before the invasion was to get the Marines bridging to cross certain key rivers during the march north. I worked with the Marines to find the right solution and then toured the factory in the UK to make sure it met our needs. The tech rep I worked with back then is back out here and still helping us out. It was nice to see the relationship is continuing.
On another note, the annual Key West Half Marathon was this past
weekend. I have been training with the soon to be famous Camp Fallujah Seabee Regiment Running Club (okay really just 5-6 us running a couple times a week) and we had the course lined up. Well, after bad weather, eight hours stuck in the A/DACG (passenger waiting area), and more mud, I was stranded in Ramuddy. I scouted the camp for a dry part of the road, but ended up doing the Half Marathon on a treadmill. It was terrible. Bad enough to run on a treadmill for 13 miles, but it was in the corner of a room facing a blank wall with nothi
ng to look at. The only entertainment was when the treadmill stopped after an hour and I had to restart it. Not quite what I expected, but I did it just the same. I can add it to the list of places I have run the race. My buddies Mark/Karen did the run in Key West (and sent an email to rub it in) and two of my running partners did the race in Fallujah.
This week has been crazy already and it is off again for a Conference and more project visits. The light is starting to glow at the end of the tunnel.
weekend. I have been training with the soon to be famous Camp Fallujah Seabee Regiment Running Club (okay really just 5-6 us running a couple times a week) and we had the course lined up. Well, after bad weather, eight hours stuck in the A/DACG (passenger waiting area), and more mud, I was stranded in Ramuddy. I scouted the camp for a dry part of the road, but ended up doing the Half Marathon on a treadmill. It was terrible. Bad enough to run on a treadmill for 13 miles, but it was in the corner of a room facing a blank wall with nothi
ng to look at. The only entertainment was when the treadmill stopped after an hour and I had to restart it. Not quite what I expected, but I did it just the same. I can add it to the list of places I have run the race. My buddies Mark/Karen did the run in Key West (and sent an email to rub it in) and two of my running partners did the race in Fallujah.
1 comment:
Someday when you are running the Key West Half Marathon in sunny Florida, you will look back with humor about all the weird places you ran it over the years. Hopefully you will be stateside in2009.
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