Perspective: Six months on an Iraqi oil rig

A Petty Officer prepares to throw a grappling hook

Six months is a long time to live in a shipping container on a giant steel grate at least 85 feet above the ocean.

That’s a lot of metal, a lot of salt, a lot of sun, and why sailors with Mobile Security Squadron 7, Detachment 73, at U.S. Naval Base Guam are happy to be home.

But despite the austere living in the northern Persian Gulf, there was something special about the deployment, the sailors said, because of the importance of the mission and camaraderie that grew from toughing it on an oil rig 14 miles out to sea.

Read the rest at the Stars and Stripes