It's 4:00am and the temperature is 101 degrees outside. I had expectations of desert heat, but I had no idea what I was in for. I was deployed to Iraq, and had to stay in Kuwait for three weeks before driving to Baghdad. With temperatures soaring above 130 degrees and terrible living conditions, it's no surprise that my appreciation for my life and the people in my life increased dramatically.
             It was our second day in Kuwait and the temperature outside was 139 degrees. There was a breeze floating around, but a hot breeze. It was as if a giant hair dryer was blowing in my face. My Army buddies and I would put our 1.5 liter bottles of water in a wet tube sock to keep the water cool enough to drink. It was virtually impossible to cool ourselves down. The only tent in our camp that was air conditioned was the dining facility; the walk to this tent was at least a half of a mile. Granted, that doesn't seem too difficult. However, we were required to be in our full desert uniform (hat, t-shirt, jacket top, pants, black wool socks, and boots); the half mile walk felt like 10,000 miles. While the air conditioning was a wonderful option, most of the time we stayed in our tents attempting sleep. The heat made us all too miserable to do anything else.
             The tents were surrounded by miles and miles of sand. It was an endless beach with no water. The four open flaps that were our doors let in a large delivery of sand. Whether or not these doors were open or tied down, the sand would somehow sneak in. With the occasional sandstorm approaching at 60 miles per hour sand was in or on everything we had; sand was on our military gear, in our mouths, anything showing (or not showing) had sand on it. With men and women sharing tents it was easy to form friendships. How many people can honestly say they have helped someone take a shower with bottled water? So now we had our "battle buddies" to help clean the sand off our gear and...