SHARING THE SHORTAGE

I'm not sure how this applies to CPT Patti and the Gators, because they had received that very large generator.

Still, the 1-36 Infantry guys are ours too, and obviously it affects them.

Follow-on units that rotate into Iraq in 2004 may have enough power to keep air conditioning on 24 hours a day through the sweltering summer, but the troops who are there now will be lucky to keep their current half-on, half-off power schedule through the rest of their yearlong deployment, according to U.S. officials.

“It ain’t going to get any better while we’re here,” 1st Armored Division commander Brig. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey told soldiers from Headquarters and Headquarters Company, the 1-36th Infantry, earlier in August.

Iraq’s largest city, Baghdad, where the 35,000 deployed soldiers from the 1st AD are based, is getting about half of the 2,600 daily megawatts it requires to operate full-time, Dempsey said.

“That’s about as good as it’s going to get for us,” said Dempsey, whose division is scheduled to return to Wiesbaden, Germany, in March or April...

Individual military units often purchase smaller generators for their sleeping and living quarters, but the extreme heat and dust cause frequent breakdowns.

Power has been one of the biggest headaches since the end of the war, when coalition engineers were astonished not only by the extensive looting of Iraq’s power plants, but by the 1960’s-era technology and jury-rigged nature of the facilities.