10 June 2009

Fort Hood Archaeology again

I am having even more fun conducting archaeology in Fort Hood now that the marines are encamped! They have taken positions on the ridge we drive across to get to the site and on the next ridge over . . .and probably on some others I don't know about. We were discovered by a lone marine on a mission to find a place to go to the bathroom. We were taking lunch, blasting some Irish drinking songs and a marine with gun slung across his chest and holding an entrenching tool (folding shove) came walking up. We talked with him for a bit, told him what we were doing and he then told us they were part of a massive live fire exercise involving a whole bunch of marines from the northeast coast (New Jersey and Pennsylvania). When he told us we might need to be careful, given the live fire and all, we determined our route into the site crossed in front of the guns . . . so now we get an escort as we drive in and out from the site. The escort involves a marine walking in front of us, just behind their line of howitzers.

Today while we worked we heard howitzers on the ridges around us being fired. The ones closes to us were so loud we could here the whistling of the round as it sailed through the air. Pretty cool. On our way out, they actually fired while we were still next to them. It was VERY VERY loud. You could feel the earth move and the wind rushed by us . .. very cool

This video shows nothing but you can hear the firing of the howitzers in the background

fun fun

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