In Country

Greetings from Iraq. Still have not made it to my final destination but at least we are in country. We are living in temporary tent quarters while awaiting movement from our camp to our next destination. In the short time we have been here we have already been adopted by a stray cat. It first introduced itself to our females last night. In the middle of the night the cat cruises on into the tent and jumps up on IT2 B’s cot. The cat proceeds to crawl into here sleeping bag. Our heroin suddenly awakes because something besides her is moving around in her bag and promptly begins screaming bloody murder. Much hilarity ensued. In the morning the cat just cruises into my tent, which Det 1 (mine) and Det 2 are sharing, like he freaking owns the place. Firstly, cats are inherently evil, secondly strays are flea ridden disease vectors, thirdly I tend to love all animals and become very easily attached to them, fourthly that fool little disease vector is intolerably cute; therefore, I want all animals to stay the freakin’ heck away from me. The other denizens of my tent love the little sumbitch. They play with it and pet it and feed it but cats have preternatural senses. They know who does not want them around and that’s who they make it their mission to be with. Earlier today I was napping (I am real good at sleeping and ya gotta go with whatcha know) and all of a sudden…THUMP… Cat on my chest purring. I chase him off (gently cuz even though cats are inherently evil I still love ’em), a little later I was sitting on the edge of my cot reading and WHAM…flying cat banzai attacks my pillow and sends it flying off my rack. Again, still later I head out explorin’ with the fellas. When I come back, there is that dang fool cat lying right smack in the middle of my cut all curled up on my sleeping bag looking terminally cute with a bunch of jackass shipmates taking pictures of him. What does a guy hafta do the keep the cute fuzzies away from himself. I don’t know why but for some reason (known only to themselves) animals flock to me. Reckon’ I better bathe more often, maybe that’s the problem.

TO THE TYRANT NEVER YIELD