[Xist]

I did not count the time on my Prelude that I coasted into a gas station after driving 600.2 miles.

That was beautiful and it is frustrating that I do not know what I need to do to hit 600.3 miles in my HX, although the Prelude reached 37.75 MPG and my average is 42.9 in the Civic.

So, due to popular demand (of the voices in my head).

There I was, in a rock-covered motor pool in Afghanistan! My Sergeant yelled at me to hurry up and bring a truck to the front gate. I asked which truck and he threatened physical, emotional, career, and psychic harm if I did not drive a truck to the gate impossibly quickly. I complied as quickly as I could and he yelled at me to take it back and bring another. We rolled out the gate and I realized that we were below half a tank. We drove further than we usually did, stopping at several small bases. I was not very familiar with each of them, trying to remember which ones had fuel points and where they were. At one, while some dog tried to dominate my leg, I asked our Soldier to start his fuel truck, and he said he was empty. At another we had just barely finished with our cargo when someone shouted that our escort was leaving, so we ran to our trucks and I donned my body armor as I drove out the gate.

I looked down and I watched our fuel gauge drop from 1/4 to empty. I looked back and forth from it to my Lieutenant and finally told him about it. He said that we would be fine. I asked if he thought it would hurt to stop at the next base and put in some fuel.

"We will be okay."

"Can we just borrow one can of fuel from a gun truck?"

"Xist! Lock it up!"

So, we passed the last base and were headed back, but still an hour out when my truck died. Our fuel cans do not have nozzles, I guess that we use so many that it makes sense to have the nozzles separate. Nobody calls them "nozzles," though, and I refuse to tell you what they do call them. We found the nozzle and they poured in one can, a second, and then a third, but the truck would not start. We kept trying to figure out what was wrong, but did not have any idea. Our Motor Sergeant was at the other end of the convoy, the head mechanic, responsible for all of the vehicles in our fleet.

He refused to get out of his truck or even talk to any of us.

So, we dropped the trailer, one gun truck towed that, and they connected our truck to the back of another gun truck. Gun trucks are equipped with tow bars, but someone thought that it was a good idea to have collapsible ones, which immediately broke, so we hooked up a chain or cable. I insisted that it was my responsibility, I needed to ride in the truck, but another Soldier refused, and LT told me to get out.

That hour drive multiplied as we crawled back at 7 MPH, while our truck repeatedly bounced off the back of the gun truck.