The local airport was our "base". It was closed to all civilian traffic while we were there.

Tent City - our home away from home - and anything else remotely civilized.

Of course we had to weather the occasional sandstorm. Nothing beats having grit in your mouth, clothes, nose......

Two of the guys I worked with. They were both Brits. As you can see from the guy on the right, we were always covered from the dust. It had a bad habit of turning us a bit orange.

One of the many dust devils that were always passing through camp.They were like mini tordadoes, you could actually watch the dirt and dust swirling up to the sky. It was always fun turning around just in time to see a large one coming right at you. All you could do was turn away, close your eyes and cover your mouth & nose as the wall of sand hit.

The marshalling yard where I spent most of my time. Equipment was turned into us here so we could ship it out to the next location.

Me trying to figure out the cell phone the company gave me right before I left. Dummy me left the owner's manual at home.

These are various shots of me spotting for the forklift driver as we loaded everything on trucks. I'd have to say that at least 98% of the trucks we loaded would never have been allowed on the streets of America unless they were being towed to the dump.

Nothing like having to walk between two large moving tires to keep you on your toes....

Other various shots.

The serving line inside the dining tent while it was up.

Supply troops packing up tents.

Very large, plastic water tanks we loaded.

Our "secretarial staff" trying to keep up with the inputs from everything that was turned in.

And the planes kept coming.....

C-17 landing.

C-5 taking off.

C-130 flyby.

C-130 banking for it's "combat landing".

Another C-130 flyby overhead.

C-130 parked on the ramp.

This was a strange one. An Uzbekistan Airlines IL-76 landed one day. Never found out why it showed up since the airport was closed.

A little stress relief.... Al Khabon was the trucking company hired to move the equipment by road. We had so many problems with arranging for trucks everyday, that as a lark I made a "grave marker" with a small pile of rocks. The other guys kept adding to the pile as we went along.

Big stress relief.... for whatever reason, the Air Force decided to blow up a cruise missle. That's C-4 wrapped around the missle. Think they used enough? Of course they forgot to make a general announcement about it, so when it went BOOM! across the runway, there was a bit of consternation amongst the troops.

If you want, you can download a short MPG movie of the blast. For whatever reason, the guy taking the picture had his camera sideways so the movie runs on its side.

And finally the day is done in the desert.