OK, So Iraq has two oil platforms in the North Persian Gulf. They have fancy names but the US knows them as A.B.O.T and K.O.T. The .O.T stands for Oil Terminal. KOT is the old plat and ABOT is the new plat. KOT was shot to shit in the Iran Iraqi war and ABOT is still pretty nice. I broke my camera after one day on KOT, so you only get what I have on this one. TO bad to, these places are so bad that I felt like I was in the real world Water World, hanging with Kevin Costner and shit.

Bahrain from a Blackhawk transport Chopper.

The USS Underwood. Their Ship Motto was "Fear the Wood." I guess they could not keep that one with all the PC crap in the world today so they have a new motto, I didn't give a fuck to learn it. I like the old one and I am sticking with it. When you land on a ship like this, you are coming out of the sky, all you can see is water, then all the sudden when your about 20' above the water you feel the wheels hit the deck. Nerving to not know what and when your going to land on something.

From the Wood we went to KOT by a RIB (Fancy name for a hard bottom inflatable boat made to carry people around on). Every boat had a dude in the front with a big ass machine gun. This kid is about the age I was when I got my first salaried job. I am sure mine was a lot more then his is. He can thank GWB for putting him there. Hey man, I didn't vote for him.

Welcome to KOT. The land of shit ass living for the workers. The Navy calls this building the White House. It is made of containers. It is where most of the Iraqi oil works live.

A super tanker getting it's drink on. Let me see if I can get this fun fact right. Three Feed Tubes from the platform to the ship (Note the three tall things in the middle of the ship), each feeding the ship at the rate of $11,000 a second. It takes about 3 days for a tanker to fill up. This one is about a quarter full. The ship will show up with about 85 feet of freeboard (that is space from the deck of the ship to the water for you none water types) and drop that when it leaves it has about 30 feet. With that said, when this things takes off from here you will not see any of the red painted on the hull. You do the math, I would rather not.

This is the old platform. They had a problem on this part of the plat at some point. Saddam showed up to see what the issue was as in, why am I not getting paid from the oil platform. He goes to the number one of the place and asks, "How long will it take to fix this problem?" The guy that was number one says, "I don't know, 6 months?" Our good ole Buddy Saddam pulls out his handy pistolie and pops the poor fella in the mind space. Steps down the line to Yup you guessed it, number 2. "How long will it take to fix this?" Number 2, the all mighty took note on the lesson number 1 learned and replied with, "As fast as we can." Saddam happily got back on his boat and went back the mainland. This is a story I was toil while on this thing. I in no way can vouch for any truth or non-truths. Good story even if I was lied to.

This is where a bunch of fella live on this 5 start beach resort. Note the bullet holes in the tower in the upper right. This is around when my camera broke. I returned the next day with a 40Mega Pixel Hasselblad but those images are so flipping big that I need more time to get them posted for you folk.

Write me and complain that you want more. If I get enough interest I will force myself to get them done up for you all to enjoy. If I don't, well then I will just cry at night. Enjoy you selfish bastards.