The Beauty In The Sand

It was a warm day by Iraqi winter standards. The sun was barely peeking out from behind the clounds, and the sand still smelled of rain from the night before though it was still bone dry. I looked up and could see it coming. A wall of orange and brown. Sandstorms look like they are moving slow, but they aren't. From a faint red hue on the horizon to a wall of orange who's edges can't be seen in any direction within minutes. It was truly awe-inspiring. The feeling is somewhere between a blow dryer and when you clip your toe with the pressure washer, but on your whole body. To think it's just tiny grains of sand and wind is truly humbling when you are in the middle of it. The power, the smell, the heat... It's all larger and stronger than anything else I've ever experienced. It was all over in a matter of minutes. The wall of dust had gone from nothing to the hand of God and back to nothing more than a few wisps of sand flittering across the hood of my Humvee in less time than the average commercial break, leaving everything in its wake covered in a fine powder that reminded me of baby powder and not the rough grain sand I was accustomed to on beaches.