A letter from home.[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 12 January 08 Dear Little Brother, It was great to get your letter. So, you've begun your First tour in Iraq. I'm sure it's pure culture shock. It was for me. At the risk of sounding like a know-it-all, I want to share a few lessons I learned from my time in that hot, dusty sandbox. Just some friendly advice from a big bro who's been there. First and foremost, practice preventive maintenance-for you and your equipment. PM for you comes down to a few basics: Drink plenty of water to replace what you sweat out. Rub insect repellant with DEET on your skin so the bugs don't eat you alive. Protect your skin with sun screen, your hearing with combat arms earplugs and your eyes with combat eyewear. As for PM on your equipment, start with the hydration system In recreation and other sustained outdoor activities, a hydration system is an apparatus intended to promote its user's drinking enough liquid to support the physical effort involved in the activity. , because you can't soldier long in the desert without water. Check for leaks. Disinfect To remove the virus code that has attached itself to a legitimate file. Sometimes, the antivirus program cannot untangle the code, and the infected file has to be deleted. See quarantine. the' bladder so your water doesn't taste like a stagnant pond. Then take a close look at the soft panels and hard inserts in your IBA IBA abbr. International Bar Association IBA (in Britain) Independent Broadcasting Authority IBA n abbr (Brit) (= Independent Broadcasting Authority . If they've taken hits by bullets or fragments, they can't protect you worth a darn. Replace them. Make no mistake, little brother, sand can sabotage your gear pronto pron·to adv. Informal Without delay; quickly. [Spanish, from Latin pr  mptus; see prompt. . To keep communicating, put dust caps on radio connectors. To
keep shooting, clean your rifle and magazines twice as often-and keep
their outsides wiped dry.
One last thing: your HMMWV HMMWV High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV is a trademark of AM General LLC; aka HUMVEE, also a trademark of AM General LLC) . When the action heats up, you'll need to roll and roll fast. So check the radiator's coolant coolant (kōō´l  nt),n level once a day. And make sure to clean the air Filter. Don't get stuck on the side of the road. A downed vehicle attracts enemy fire like flies to-well, you know. Above all, stay frosty and come home safe. Best of luck. Love, Your Big Bad Bro |
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