Monthly Archives: May 2007

The first time you hear the Boom!… Boom!… Boom!… of the enormous field artillery cannons firing, like the regular chiming of some vastly destructive grandfather clock, it’s bewildering and unnerving. You wonder if an IED has gone off nearby. But when you realize what it is, it becomes oddly comforting. The powerful thumping, which shakes the walls of the barracks and the HQ building each night, becomes quite a soothing sound, the powerful strikes of some thunder god on our behalf, a fist of righteous justice smiting those who intend to harm us. I imagine an impassable field of scorched craters around our camp, and I actually sleep better when I hear the sound.

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