Busy day

Had a busy day today, a lot of combat and a lot of killing. Scored 82 confirmed kills, as you can see in the list above (Yes, I really did kill that many bugs today, and yes I really was bored enough to document each one. My partner killed about the same amount).

It is getting hotter here, up to 95 degrees today, so the bugs are coming out. Iraqi bugs are not like American bugs. Iraqi bugs are pissed off, apparently have radioactive super-strength, and do not die by traditional bug-killing methods.

Our truck of course does not have A/C, so we have the windows rolled all the way down or the doors open, just to survive, which makes a nice big entrance for the bugs to come through. The flies here are incredibly aggressive. A simple "shoo" normally doesn't work. They'll just sit on your hand while you wave it around, most likely laughing at you in a tiny fly laugh. If they do fly off, they immediately land somewhere else on your body, undeterred by the threatening waving going on above them. They are also apparently armor plated. The bigger flies have shiny blue/green armor on, so I assume they are the soldier flies. The smaller armor-less flies are likely scouts that report back to base and bring in the heavy fighters. The flies do seem to work together as well. When we'd move the truck to a new place, there wouldn't be any flies for the first few minutes. Then one or two would trickle in, but apparently they called for reinforcements, as soon we would be swatting at them constantly.

We began the day swatting with our hats, but we soon realized that wasn't a great idea for two reasons. First, we were getting fly guts on our hats from some of the more gruesome kills, which was gross. Second, the hat frequently did not kill the flies! We would smack them, and assume they were dead, as they would lay on their backs and not move, as a dead fly should. However a few minutes later, we'd notice a wounded fly walking around in circles, as if drunk or suffering from a minor concussion. The only way to kill an Iraqi fly is to squish it until it becomes small pieces of an Iraqi fly held together only by some smeared fly goo.

A couple of hours into the battle, we acquired new weaponry. Thanks to the heat we were drinking our bottled water, and upon emptying a bottle (they are pretty big 1 liter bottles), we began to use them as our weapons of choice in the battle against the winged insurgents. The bottle, being more rigid than a floppy boonie hat, provides better accuracy and speed, which is essential in aerial combat.

Once we calibrated our new munitions, the enemy began to fall in greater and greater numbers. The bottles allowed us to make more devastating in-air attacks, with solid hits making a satisfying "thwick" sound as it made contact with the target and sent it speeding into the ground. Having learned from combat earlier that day however, we had to finish them off once they were on the ground, as we did not want any surprise attacks from a stunned, but alive enemy.

The only bugs we spared were the lady bugs, as they are not gross looking and as far as I know their diet does not consist of poo and other disgusting things.

I originally planned to document each kill with a picture, but after I realized how many kills I would have, and that there are only so many ways to show a smear of goo as a successful kill, I decided against it and went with the written scorecard instead.

I may have to try to acquire even more advanced weaponry for tomorrow. I am not above chemical warfare or electrocution.