Chapter 54: War Story
My first night in Somalia. We had to set up a camp. We used the embassy golf coarse. There was nearly no moon. There were gaping artillery holes in the wall surrounding the compound. We wired them all. A bulldozer dug the defensive holes after the sun went down. I pulled duty on one of the holes a little before midnight for a few hours.
The guys we relieved complained about the smell of the hole. I got in and they did not exaggerate. The smell in the fighting hole was horrid and we were being poked by jagged rocks.
I was able to sleep in the next morning after the night duty. When I got up and went outside to wash up, there was a lot of activity by the hole I was in a few hours before.
The hole was dug in a poorly marked graveyard. The activity at the site was loved ones claiming remains. The smell, decomposition. The jagged "rocks", bone shards.
