No, there’s not a punchline here; merely one of those odd events that occurred when we were in Saudi Arabia for Desert Storm. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Hubby and I were assigned to the same very large organization that provided logistical support, to include water production and distribution. That actually is another subject, but when people think of what it takes to equip and support a large fighting force, ammunition, fuel, food, and maybe medical support come to mind, rather than something like water. Each country, however, can have different foodstuff requirements for their personnel. Americans for example, include pork products in rations, whereas Muslim units obviously do not.

Anyway, French troops were part of the Coalition put together to defeat Saddam Hussein. Our unit was set up out in the desert about 150 miles toward Kuwait, although not very close to the border. After the “Lightning Victory”, forces were drawn down as quickly as they could be and redeployed back to their respective countries. That, too, is a massive effort and in some cases, items needed during the war were left behind for different reasons. Now, I wasn’t in the location where this particular event took place although the individual who told me about it was generally accurate. Large metal shipping containers that get loaded on trains and ships come in two standard sizes of 20 feet and 40 feet long. They are about 5 feet high – maybe 6. Apparently, part of the French logistics support was Perrier in the small green glass bottles and for whatever reason, they had two 40 foot containers packed full they decided not to ship back. (It was probably a matter of available transport.) They simply turned the containers over to our guys and next thing we know, little bottles of Perrier are being distributed among a number of our units. Now, it so happens as we relocated out of the desert and into the edge of a major Saudi Arabia military complex, an ice plant was part of the complex. Not surprisingly, shipping ice out to our units was greatly appreciated and for the remaining several weeks, we had a pretty steady supply of ice. I will admit, swigging iced-down Perrier while winding up desert operations wasn’t something I expected to do. On the other hand, it is a memory that’s stayed with us.