After a well-intended, but lengthy send off by the various civil and military dignitaries, our unit has reached Camp Shelby, MS. And all it took was 17 hours on the bus. Which we found that, when the airconditioning malfunctions, takes about five minutes to turn into an oven given ambient temperature in the high 90s and over fifty bodies inside of it.
Thankfully, the Army has seen fit to have functioning air conditioning in the barracks. The heat index here often runs above 100 degrees lately, and the humidity is impressive. It's amazing to think that people dealt with these conditions without A/C until relatively recently.
Of course, being an Army post, there's a few other things to watch out for: fire ants, black widows, brown recluses, cottonmouths, rattlesnakes, and coral snakes. All of which we are told the post has an abundance of. Oh, and skunks that will actually chase you if they feel you are between them and their preferred dumpster.
This makes me actually miss Camp Dodge.
4 comments:
When son was in CAP at a summer encampment at Fort Sill, he had fire watch one night. Heard a hell of a fight outside, looked around the corner and found a big raccoon arguing with a momma skunk- with five kids- over who had rights to the trash cans.
He let them settle it amongst themselves.
Fort Polk, Fort Sill and Fort Benning were the same for wildlife back in 1970. Only we didn't have AC then.
YeOldFurt
Firehand,
Given what we're told about rabiers hereabouts, I'm staying away from everything, be it mammal or reptile.
YOF,
I've seen pictures of early activities on this. I'm guessing troops with excess weight either lost it fast or got out after heat injuries.
\Well, hell, even if they're clean they can still bike and claw the bleep out of you, so that's a good idea.
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