Rat Monster

The roads on Victory Base Camp are not paved. They are made of compacted mud. None of the streets are lit up with any kind of light source. Many of the roads I travel at night I so lovingly refer to as "rape alleys" because they are lined with noisy generators that would easily drown out cries for help.

So while walking down one of these delightful roads coming back from dinner chow this evening, I saw something move in the road. I thought it was a toad. I have no idea why I thought it was a toad since I don't think Iraq is an environment that supports toads. Thinking it was a toad, I advanced on this mystery creature, only to discover it was a giant stinking rat monster!

It scurried off away from me on it's disgusting rat claws, at which point I was already screaming to my battle buddies, "IT'S A RAT!" And as if that rat thought I was calling for it, it busted a fat U-turn and started hauling ass back across the dark road back towards Wolfie and myself. Even though I'm not really scared of mouse-like-creatures, I was being a stupid girl and screaming and panic-dancing in place pointing at the thing. Wolfie took action and when the rat came into range, he punted the damn thing like a football. He kicked it in it's face and sent it flying up into the air. It's furry body landed with an audible thud on the other side of the road, white belly up, still and deader than dead.

In our office on the dry erase board we have a KIA (killed in action) Chart. We have tallied all the flies' lives we have ended. We're up to 138 just in our office since September. We have 138 little flies drawn on the board. And now we've added a cartoon rat. Another confirmed kill.