070408 Floor Hockey, bugs and the ASV

070408 Floor Hockey, bugs and the ASV

So if one is still bored here at JBB (Joint Base Balad) after the
pools, movies, the gym, salsa dancing there is Floor Hockey! You can
read the article below but the point is, soldiers and civilans
certainly cannot say "there is nothing to do". The Army has done a
fine job at providing ample recreational opportunitites.

Evidently there has also been a breakout of beetles here. (Oh the
dangers of playing night-time beach vollyball!) A few years back it
was scorpion beatles. Scorpion beatle are harmless but they do posess
two pinchers as front legs (much like a scorpion, thus the name). But
scorpion beatle are Big. They are about 1-2 inches in length and can
fly. They also reproduce prodigiously. There were a billion of them
here and while walking to work you'd accumulate dead beatles on your
boots and be hit by at least a few of them flying. And after a few
weeks, all signs of them were gone.

Also below is a story on the ASV. In any endeavor there are lessons
learned and while during the initial boots-on-the-ground stage it was
tough on the Army, there has been much progress all around at Balad
and in Iraq. For most people in the states, failure to learn from the
past in order to change your behavior in the future won't get you hurt
(or worse). But life in Iraq is simply much less forgiving.
R/Chris