I was an 18 year old grunt, fresh out of basic training, when I went to Iraq in 1991. After about 48 hours of living on tarmac at the airport (where I experien

I was an 18 year old grunt, fresh out of basic training, when I went to Iraq in 1991. After about 48 hours of living on tarmac at the airport (where I experienced the first of many MOPP-4 chemical warnings: let me tell you how fun it is to have a gas mask, charcoal suit and rubber accoutrements while laying on tarmac, psychosomatically creating the nerve agent symptoms they just taught us), I moved to the a high-rise apartment complex. I was in a North-facing room, on the northernmost edge of the complex. Open desert as far as the eye can see to the North. I watched scuds get shot down (seems like every night, but memories are wont to be inaccurate). Here's the thing: I hear all this talk about the Patriot missle being inaccurate, and I seem to remember something like "no patriot ever shot down a scud". That takes some serious parsing to arrive at-- because I saw patriots "hit" scuds, but of course they could have "exploded in the vicinity of" scuds, destroying them. From what I hear, the Patriots were running on 100-mile-an-hour tape (you did know that the military has its own version of duct tape, right?!) and bubble gum, but I'm thankful for them nonetheless; you tend to take what defense you can when folks shoot at you.