21 January

"Another mission today …this was gonna be an easy short trip…just downtown to the Governor’s compound…it’s been a long time since I have been there…so, I got up around 0700 and got ready for the day…got my weapon—M249—and ammo loaded up and we hit the road—well, we hit the main gate and once again had some commo problem…one of the comm. shop guys came up and fixed it in a jiffy and we hit the road…the whole trip took about 4 minutes—again with the kids running out to the road, moving people out of our way by waving and yelling…and there we were, turning into the big iron gates centered in the solid concrete walls that reach up about 8-10 feet around the two-story Governor’s building…we rolled in, flipped a U-turn and came to a halt…did our little sweep of the area to make sure nothing was around to hurt us and the main players got out of the trucks, went inside the building and the rest of us sat—bored out of our minds"
Desert Consciousness