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The Trib in Kuwait: No time to sleep
Tribune reporter Michael Gisick is embedding with New Mexico soldiers stationed in Iraq. This is a personal account of his experience.
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There's no time to sleep when you're waiting
"Jonathan Wilson."
"Here."
"Ahmed Zeala--...Zeeal...Zeealaham...Zeea..."
"Here."
"Michael Geese-neck."
"Here."
Welcome to my day.
Like I said, most of the people at this base are either coming or going. Many of us are waiting for a space-available flight. That means showing up for about a dozen roll calls a day. Even if there are 20 people ahead of you (or in my case, 31, at last count,) and you know you're not going to get on the flight, you still have to show up or they drop you to the bottom of the list.
"Michael Gisling."
"Here."
At my last roll call, I responded to two different names because I thought the first one (which turned out to be Michael Dietrich) was just a mispronunciation of mine. Michael Dietrich, anyway, wasn't there, so I went up and told the lady I'd sounded off on the wrong name, hoping they'd kick him off so I could move up.
"I thought you just mis-pronounced it," I said.
"That would be possible," she said.
Sometimes, it's not really worth it to go back to your tent before the next roll call, so me and Jonathan Wilson and Ahmed Zeala-whoever and everybody else sit there and watch the movies they have on the big-screen. Today it was "Transformers" and, oddly, "Weekend at Bernie's." Hopefully they'll have "A Fish Called Wanda" on later.
