Insulated Tents for Troops

In todays blog I'm going to talk about the T word. Yes I said it the T word. I don't understand why the hippies and the tree hugging green thinkers aren't talking T either but I am, and I'm here to talk about "TENTS!" Tents are for some reason considered TEMPORARY!!! But, I'm here to say that they're not. The tents that are used in Iraq today are the same old crappy tents used in in WWII, they packed them up put them in storage and dug them out and reused them again for todays war. Now, If that shows you how well a tent can hold up to the elements and time, lets face it they are in a war zone with weekly mortar attacks and still standing. Thats more then I can say about those California homes and a landslide. If you want to go green and cheap, and have a home that can be built in a day and will outlast a terrorist attack we need to start building permanent tent structures. Now the way we do that is by adding insulation.

So what are these tents with insulation anyway? Well, I talked about them on my CLS day 1 blog, but what exactly are they? To start you off these things are COOL! I personally have spent two days in one and I will tell you from first hand experience that they are comfortable to be in. The biggest thing thats so noticeable about them is the warmth immediately as you enter inside. Now granted if you leave the door open some lengthiness duration of time the stored heat escapes and is definitely noticeably cooler in the room after about an hour worths. So what happens when you leave the space idle and doors closed well lets just say they retain an incredible amount of heat. Now, I went on a little journey today and checked out the smaller 12 man tents they got set up around the FOB. The tents from the outside appear to be really small, small as in one bedroom house small. These tents fit comfortably and in an open barracks fashion 6 bunkbeds and allow a decent sized walkway between them. The major difference I noticed was that it appeared to be a little bit colder in there, then I checked the A/C unit and discovered it was turned off, so the tent by itself with no lights on was keeping all that cold air from getting in, the A/C unit must be for the heat...or is it? Going back to what I said earlier about the differences, well lets just say the moment I stepped in I heared nothing, no noise from outside, no A/C units running, it was dead quite in there. As a prior US soldier who was out in Iraq, our tents did not have this foam sprayed on them, and you could hear everything, the helicopters would pass every half hour or so, the generators could be heard off in the distance, as people would pass by you could hear their full conversations, and the biggest problem of all is the wind. The wind would scare the living daylights out of me at night because the tents walls would smack me in the face if we got a big gust and the ceiling would act like it was about the be torn open by T-rex. I really noticed a major difference between these tents and the ones I had to endure in memories past.

I checked the firmness of the tent walls and it was a little springy as I pushed against it, but nothing that a kick or jab would do any damage to. My point in all of this is to show how comfortable the envirnment is to the soldier in Iraq now. His exposure to the outside conflict has been greatly reduced by having one of these insulated.

Now, what is this foam and how do they do it and how much does it cost or save? The foam is called polyurethane (PU) foam. Its the same stuff you can buy in a can for about 3 bucks at Lowes. Now PU is very strong and insulative, once applied it mimics the insulation properties of a regular house and conforms to the tents shape and strengthens the lose fabric. Now the foam is sprayed on 2in thick all the way around on everything, poles, fabric, A/C vents and ducts, you name it. The exception is the doors and the inside which remained untouched. The foam cures in about 20 minutes and must be sprayed again with two coats of Acrylic weather paint. The Acrylic paint cakes into the crevaces of the foam and mimics painted plaster at this point. The whole process can be done to a regular camping tent for under $500 if you are interested. I myself am shooting a bit bigger then a camping tent and plan to foam a hoop house for its bigger size and shape. The biggest advantage of a rounded roof is the added interior space and strength of the curves. I will eventually be putting one together from scratch and will make a blog about my experience in the future. The whole concept of this is really kind of clever, I like it so much because I know just how cheap and quick it would be to set up a few of these tents on my 5 acres in the desert and live comfortably out of them. The sky is the limit with this approach and should be considered as a valuable alternative to home materials.

CLS Training Day 3

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CLS Training Day 2

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CLS Training Day 1

So I started Combat Life Saver training today. Its is a refresher for me but a first time for most of the other guys I'm training with, Its very funny to watch peoples expressions while your working on them. That's me on the left and a friend of mine on the right. The class started off with a dull set of powerpoints that lasted like three hours or so, we went over everything that we would learn in the coarse, we even talked a bit about what coarse material we might run up against in Iraq. The whole time I sat and stared at the tent I was in, the guys who put it all together used a two-inch layer of polyurethane (PU) foam. This stuff usually takes about 20 minutes to set after spraying on and was sprayed directly onto the tent material. Strangely enough it was freezing outside and as soon as I walked in you could tell right away by the heat in the tent how effective this stuff works. As we finished up the powerpoints and ran off to lunch I could help but remember 1 and a half years ago when the last time it was that I took this class. I was so worried, so concerned that I would mess up something, I remember that feeling of uncertainty about my abilities to perform. Now that I've been through the coarse I feel so confident about it, and even have a sense of muscle memory. The picture on the right is of me getting stuck with the catheter in my under arm. We had to flush the catheter as soon as the saline lock was screwed on and the tegaderm dressing was in place. The picture on the bottom left is of the saline be drawn out by the syringe. My friend did a really good job sticking me, he had found my vein pretty well even though it wasn't visible at all, he went by touch in this case and had me worried for a second until he actually got the saline attached to me in the picture on the right.

As soon as I was done I overheard a bunch of screaming over on the far side of the tent. One of the trainnies was freaking out and lost control of the catheter, blood was spraying everywhere. I ran over as quick as I could to take a snap shot of the picture below.
After the excitement settled down, I went back to my table and we had to clean up everything, I also had to empty out the rest of the saline out of the bag outside. These guys were outside emptying there liquids.

Outback Steakhouse

So, I finally left the closet. I went to outback steakhouse. It was my first time and I was with some of my fellow Navy rats. I ordered a Roasted Pork Tenderloin. The meat really wasn't that good, however the mashed potatoes and french green beans were outstanding. I highly recommend just ordering the veggies on the side and skip the meats all together. While I was there I tried a "bloomin' onion." I figured I mid-as-well try it because they're the folks that invented the thing. I was quite surprised by the taste, It was very peppery and salty, with a strong taste of onion. I would give it an A for effort, and I ate more of that then I did of the main entree. The whole experience went rather well, I had some good practice with the Navy girls, even though I'd never consider anything with them, its good to get the experience with talking with girls in general, especially if you need the extra confidence boost when you finally talk to that cute one you've been interested in for three weeks now, Anyways enough on that. I have to muster tommorrow morning at 7:30AM, Its the first of the week and Chief & LT are wanted to check to see if we are all present before we head of to training. The biggest problem for me is not waking up so early, its the fact that its so dang cold outside. Well, thats really all I have to talk about at the moment. My adventure went well, and now I'm staying up to finish my laundry before I go to bed, so Good Night and Sleep Tight.

The Epic Begins

As I sit in my fold up chair inside my closet, I wonder about my life. Where is it going, where does the journey of this life take me. I have many choices in life and here I am siting in a closet. My dreams are slowly collapsing into locations, digits, costs, and friendly or deadly faces. I must decide now where I want to be for years to come.

I received the keys to my house yesterday, I just finished closing on my first home. It was probably the most interesting experience I've ever faced. On one hand, it was like wondering in a forest after dark, I didn't know where I was going, I didn't even know if I would qualify for the loan, and yet here I was perpetuating the experience that was slowly squashing the breathe out of my lungs. Now I have the keys, that trial of life is passed, and I'm finally taking my first breathe of fresh air, its incredibly toxic, I have the biggest bounty on my head I have ever seen. A loan that has attached itself to my body as if to feed off of the blood that flows in my veins. A parasite of epic proportions. This parasite though very deadly harbors the most intense and pleasurable chance to start my own experience of life. Even after closing, and having the keys I still find it difficult to imagine that I own a home, this house is mine...outside of the fact that I still owe money on it.