It's a dog-eat-dog world

It isn’t like back home when you see a dead animal on the side of the road and drive past hoping the city cleans it up soon so you don’t have to look at it again. Here road kill can be the death of you. It isn’t uncommon for insurgents to pack dead animals full of explosives and detonate them as military convoys go past or while a cleanup crew is inspecting it. So like a million other things around here, to make sure it’s safe you have to blow the damn things up. For some strange reason this week has been an especially busy one in that regard. So far we have had to destroy two cows and a dog. The dog was particularly memorable. After dropping a few pounds of C-4 on the thing it was blown to a million pieces. More disturbing still was the sight of all the other stray dogs running over to eat the chunks. I feel sick just writing about it. The cow was a little more spectacular and slightly less disgusting. When that one blew the kids came over and began tossing the tail back and forth. It’s nasty business, but better to be safe than sorry. The damn insurgents will think of any creative ways they can to blow us up. And the last thing I want is for my parents to receive a letter explaining that a stupid cow killed me.