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Somehow, It Fits...

Since the last of us helicontractor pilots have arrived back in the Land of Continuous Electricity, OPSEC's no longer a factor and I won't have to worry about a satchel charge going off outside my door if I tell you where we were when we weren't where we were.

Legend has it that Alexander the Great was wounded there and eventually died from the infection. That's the rationale for not cleaning the streets -- they keep it dusty in self-defense.

Multan, Pakistan, the City of Dust. Or, in this case, the Airfield of Dust.

It's one of the oldest continuously-inhabited cities in Asia, if not the oldest -- it's definitely one of the *hottest*...

And, since I was the oldest continuously-breathing pilot the company -- *not* "The Company" -- sent over, I felt right at home (snarking myself so *you* don't have to; that's the kind of service the Castle provides, yessirree).

More later -- right now, I'm off to lovely, dust-free Carlisle, PA, to see if I can turn that Shangri-La gig into another paying job...


10 Comments

Dang, Chief, you shoulda had a mystical Masonic pendant depending from your neck. You Would Be King. (One of my favorite movies, but am glad your whole body came back, not just the head) P.s. Yeah, Alex got hit and infected, but I don't think Roxane did him any good, either.
 
Good luck in PA!
 
Welcome back, Chief!
 
Welcome home. You need some nice healthy LA air to purge the layers of earth from your lungs.
 
Carlisle? Dust-free? What about all the longstanding lessons they never take down off the shelf and bother to learn? /gratuitous snark
 
I'd take it as a personal favor if you would decline any job offers in locations where the paper has "detonation forecasts" right next to the weather report. You think *you* feel old? It feels like I just added a few millenia myself between your shenanigans and the FNGs. Oh, and the local GAs weren't too happy with you teaching your students the "Tuttle's Maneuver for avoiding sudden Giant Man-eating Spiders in Trees". Quite profane on the subject, they were. Especially when I told them we had never encountered Giant Man-eating Spiders in 'Nam. Or even in Joisey.
 
Oh, and the local GAs weren't too happy with you teaching your students the "Tuttle's Maneuver for avoiding sudden Giant Man-eating Spiders in Trees". I wasn't teaching them to avoid the spiders, I was teaching them to avoid the *trees*. Well, okay -- the *tree*. There's only one in the entire Indus Valley. But it's chock-full of Giant Man-Eating Spiders. Well, okay -- they're only about the size of a squirrel. And they eat mangoes. But they could get bigger if they wanted to...
 
I wasn't teaching them to avoid the spiders, I was teaching them to avoid the *trees*.
Suuuuure. That's why you told them to keep the rotor(s) "perpendicular to the ground and facing the tree so if the spiders try and jump you, they get creamed! Ahahahahaha" There might have been more but I couldn't make it out over the screaming.
 
What about all the longstanding lessons they never take down off the shelf and bother to learn? They held the shindig in the Community Club. *Not* dusty-musty. Except for the coffee...
 
There might have been more but I couldn't make it out over the screaming. That wasn't screaming -- that was whining.
 
© 2008 John Donovan
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