The Midnight Hour

I wrote the following story about three months into my deployment but didn’t feel comfortable posting it until I returned.
It took us over an hour to get to Camp Smitty. The trip from Camp Fallujah had been a grueling 30-35 mile per hour ride with 3/5’s logistics train convoy. I vastly preferred hauling […]

This morning Wired.com posted an informative article on the political impact of military bloggers and their perception by military leaders. You can check it out here. I also want to welcome all the new visitors to The Midnight Hour that are linking from Wired.com. While I returned from Iraq two months ago, […]

I enjoy Nicaraguan cigars because tobacco from Nicaragua seems to share a smooth, rich flavor that succeeds in creating a medium-full bodied cigar without the spiciness associated with some full-flavored smokes. Maduro wrappers and double maduro inner/outer wrappers seem to intensify this effect. My favorite Nicaraguan smoke is the Remedios 92 and 95 […]

The title “Midnight in Iraq” doesn’t work very well if I’m not in Iraq, does it? That fact also brings to mind the question “What will I write about now? Will I write about anything?” I could always write some stories from Iraq that I never posted, and that will happen sooner or later, but […]

The website Five Minutes to Midnight (the title is not related to me or my use of the word “Midnight”), a page focusing on human rights and international affairs, recently posted an article about this blog at
http://www.11-55.org/issues2/issue.php?iss=39&art=39.7

The author, Wojciech Gryc, asked permission to use some of my flickr photos along with my captions. He then […]

Note: While a little off-topic, I wrote this during some uneventful downtime in Iraq, and thought I would post it now.

When my wife and I married and moved into our first apartment together, our cable provider was different than our separate homes out in the county. I quickly learned of a new channel I had […]

Rapture has written an excellent summary of the past year’s goings-on in The Hushed Casket (THX) on his blog
http://rapture.hushedcasket.com/08/29/2006/4_years_of_a_hushed_casket

THX is a community of friends and gamers based in Huntsville, AL. I co-founded the group at UAH in 2002 with FoulBreed as a way to promote Halo LANning. It has since evolved into a large […]

As we rode the bus from March Air Reserve Base back to Camp Pendleton my friend Grant remarked, “You know, I don’t want to speak too soon, but it’s almost like I never left.” I agreed. I had been leisurely gazing at the southern California landscape for no more than ten minutes, but the desert […]

“RPG!!!” was the first thing I heard. The three staccato letters emanated in a flurry of excitement and confusion from my turret gunner. The rocket had sailed about three feet over the top of our HMMWV, actually coming closer to his head than the truck. It benignly exploded in mid-air on the other […]