HOT

Yeah, it's hot but it could be worse. If you are stationed in Baghdad, it's 113 degrees as we speak. One of my most miserable stints in the service was when I was assigned to a naval air station in Beeville, Texas. I worked on the flight line as plane captain of an F-11 fighter jet. South Texas is usually not as hot as Baghdad but when you added in the reflection of the sun's heat off the tarmac and the exhaust blast from the jets, it did get a tad warm. One big difference, I wasn't being shot at like our troops overseas.

I gotta tell you a quick story about my recently departed cousin Ron that flew A4 bombers in Vietnam. I asked him once what it was like to land that plane on the deck of a carrier at night. He thought for a moment and said "You're so puckered up they couldn't pull a needle out of your ass with a tractor."

Now that, my friends, is puckered.