Saudi Arabia has always been a land shrouded in mystery and legend.    A vast sea of sand with an endless horizon.  I was fortunate enough that my position allowed me  the opportunity to travel across the deserts of Saudi Arabia.  In the town areas, the Saudis took great pride in making things green.  Their architecture was fascinating as well as beautiful.  I saw it mostly in their mosques.  To the left is a beautiful mosque that jutted out into the gulf on the road between Al Khobar and Ad Dammam.  We usually had the opportunity to drive downtown into the cities on occasion.  Unique  about the layout of Saudi towns, is that specific type of stores were concentrated in one area.  All the gold shops were clustered together as were all the hardware stores, garment stores, etc....   It did make things easy to find.  The gold shops were amazing.  You made purchases by the gram; and be prepared to haggle.  The culture is very restrictive, their women covered from head to toe in a black abaya (we nicknamed them ninjas). The Saudi men were usually dressed in a white thobe with a gutra and igall (the red and white checkered cloth headdress with the black cord respectively).  Getting about Saudi wasn't too difficult.  Fortunately the Saudis printed most of their signs in English also.  So you had at least a rough idea of where you were heading....  then again some signs didn't matter what language they were printed in.  

Once you left the city proper the desert road stretched across a vast wasteland of shifting sand.   Some of the  sand dunes were several stories high towering above the road.  It was not uncommon to find large excavating equipment digging at a sand dune that was encroaching upon the highway.  A number of times I would stop along a less traveled portion and walk out into the desert, the only sounds would be the wind and the blowing sand.  It was a stillness not to be found anywhere.  I was amazed however to find a huge herd of camels traveling across the desert.  No photo can capture the magnitude of this herd.  They stretched out to the horizon; there were thousands of the them.  I tried to get amongst  several camels while my partner tried to take a snapshot.  The wild camels feed upon the brown scrub grass.  They say in the winter months this area is as green as Montana.  If you look closely you can see the brown grass.  

The temperature out in the middle of the desert is withering.  I saw the temperatures at Log Base Bravo (King Khalid Military City - just south of Iraq) reach close to 135 degrees Fahrenheit.  Our mechanics would have to work outside in these conditions.  They used to carry two water bottles; one for themselves and another to splash over the tools before they could grasp it.  The desert was one of the most inhospitable environments that I have traversed.  To this day I am fascinated by it, maybe why  I enjoy hiking across the deserts of the U.S.

US Army Central Command (ARCENT) was located in Dhahran, specifically 22nd Support Command, to which the USASG was assigned.  That's me at the unit HQ, kickin' back going through the daily reports.  Even in a combat zone the Army has got to have its paperwork.  Fortunately we were far away from ARCENT so we can get some work done.  

The Bradley is one that I took out for a little spin across the desert.  The field unit detachment that I had stationed at Log Base Bravo had to complete TOW missile tests. They would then turn the vehicles over to the new combat  units rotating into country.  The combat unit would pick up their vehicles at Log Base Bravo then head up to Kuwait.  The Bradley of course  needed to be test driven before we gave it back to the troops.  Safety first.  I know you believe me.....

It was  an interesting time in the desert kingdom............