Appalachian Patria

Appalachian Intellectual. To me that means plain thinking. I am A Non Commissioned Officer in the Army Reserves. Let me say...My views expressed here are mine and not those of The U.S. Army, Army Reserve or my fellow brethren in The National Guard. This is entirely Sua Sponte. This is My Thinking. I'm single and in my mid 30's. Politicaly, I'm a Libertarian. (Again, Sua Sponte.I do not represent the Libertarian Party.)I love my native Appalachia, Rock n Roll and...I love God.

Name:
Location: Brevard, North Caroilina

I started blogging for two reasons. I was concerned about the changes to the area I live in, Southern Appalachia and I was about to go to the war. I was in Iraq in 06 and 07 and now Kuwait in 11 and 12. Blogging was a means of documenting my experiences and hoping it would help gain clarity. I don't feel that way about it any more. It's said people write blogs because they are frustrated, that's why people read them too. That makes us sound apocalyptic. Are we? Let it be said, what I say here is of my own thinking. This is entirely Sua Sponte and not an official representation of the U.S. Military or the U.S. Government as a whole.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

This Ain't The Pisgah National Forest

It's a little cool and breezy today. The sky is crystal clear except for a tan haze towards the ocean. The other day I mentioned a dust cloud hanging towards the ocean. It could have very well have been smoke and I suspected that it was. Well, it turns out I was right. I believe it was the day before yesterday that I saw a dark cloud of smoke emitting from the horizon and blowing towards the west. Once I got onto a high spot I could see it was coming from two smoke stacks. So...It's smoke.

Yesterday I made a trip to Camp Virginia and "K-Crossing". I've been to Camp Virginia before. I passed through there as I left Iraq in June of 2007. K-Crossing is where U.S. Convoys cross the border into Iraq. The land out there is wide and open, it's like the moon. It's bare, blah and ugly. The land slopes gently, there is nothing abrupt to it. This ain't the Pisgah National Forest.

At Camp Virginia I got the treat of McDonald's. Not that I am a huge fan of McDonald's, I barely went into the one in Buttholeville until my lovely Step Daughter started working there and then less when she left. It was just different and anything different is a treat. I think the biggest treat I've had here is when I went to Qatar and got to sleep in a real bed.

From K-Crossing I stared back into the abyss...AKA Iraq, not much there to look at. It wasn't iconic.

But, all along the highways going there was plenty to look at. Kuwaitis love to camp and from the roads toy can see their camps going into the distance. It was like KOA Kuwait, except allot less organized and their tents are not the North Face variety. They more resemble General Purpose Mediums (GP Medium), something about every Veteran can identify. Except their tents are cream colored or a dark brown with a cream stripe. Several tents are grouped together and sometimes there is an elevated water tank. Their there for a duration. Many of them have a little fence blocking off a square and even some have lights around the little compound. In a country of open land, everything is blocked off it seems. Of course the roads here are littered with trash and the remnants of obviously fatal wrecks. Hulks of bent and twisted cars sit along the road. They are always by them self and had to run into another, but it's only the one...It makes you wonder. Also, we drove a way down Hwy 80. That was the infamous "Highway of Death" from the Gulf War. It was once littered with the destruction that was the Iraqi Army of Occupation. It's gone now. When I came to Kuwait in the summer of 2006 there was some of that left sitting out near the Ali Al Salem Air Base. That was gone when I came back through a few months later.

"And the moment that you lived for it doesn't live for you..."
The Appalachianist

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4 Comments:

Blogger exMI said...

Been through that crossing several times. It is a barren wasted place.
I don't miss it at all.

1:38 PM  
Blogger Hill Billy Rave said...

Amen!

10:36 PM  
Blogger sage said...

I'll take the Pisgah National Forest! Good descriptions though of a place that's not only list of places to see!

10:53 AM  
Blogger Hill Billy Rave said...

Sage, take it from me and exMI, if you never see this place, you didn't miss much. LOL.

11:45 AM  

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