Sinai Peninsula, Egypt

I have looked at this picture a thousand times while trying to put myself into the boots of this soldier. With a plastic water bottle in his hand, a gun on his back and holding his helmet, he pauses before entering his concrete booth at the edge of the desert. What may be going through his head? Not long before this picture was taken, terrorists fired upon a freighter as it passed through the canal. Now, the Suez is lined with hundreds of soldiers like him. It is a dangerous post and definitely not too pleasant when mid-day temperatures soar above 40 degr C (104 degr. F).

~ RT