In the Moment Improvising

When the American military trucks and tanks arrived in Iraq, they were completely unprepared to deal with the incredibly dusty conditions.   They had to drive very slowly in order for the engines not to be overwhelmed by the dust.   Even at slow speeds the engines could never go more than a single day without the air filters being cleaned out.  

The American military questioned me about this:  "You ran ninety-eight trucks in the Iraqi Desert for two years.   How did you deal with the dust?"   I told them this story:    

One evening, shortly after sunset and after still another incredible hot Iraqi day,  I was not only hot and exhausted, I was really pissed because some of my drivers had  left their trucks without cleaning the air filters.   I had two choices, clean them myself or delay work in the morning while the drivers cleaned them.  

In my anger, I cursed the dust, but I knew that cursing and carrying on was not going to solve my problem, so I sat for brief time contemplating what to do.    I immediately knew that I was too angry to fully connect to the inner guidance that normally flows into me at the slightest beck and call, so I decided to go the swimming pool and cool off.   I walked out the the pool area, sat on a bench nearby,  pulled off my left shoe and dumped the sand out.   I  pulled off my right  shoe and again dumped the sand out.   

I pulled off my socks and shook the sand off them.  At that point I realized that although my shoes had been full of sand, my socks were not.   Suddenly, the bells went off in my head.   My socks were acting as a sand filter.    What if my trucks wore socks?   What if my trucks had sand filters?   What if, before the air got to my truck's air filters,  something like my socks filtered our the bulk of the sand and dust?   

My mood instantly changed.   I forgot about the heat and the pool.   I went back to the shop area and began figuring out how to put my socks over the truck's air filters.   My socks were a poor fit, but I was sure that partial success was better than no success at all.   I retrofitted six trucks, each with one of my own socks.   The next evening, upon examining the trucks, it was obvious that I was onto something.   After a second day of the six trucks wearing my socks, I was  sure that I had the answer.   

Now, all I had to do was refine and improve my new dust filers.   OK, I thought, if my socks help, what would be even more helpful?   "Women's nylons" was the immediate answer to my question, but where could I get them?   I'm in the middle of this highly sexist country where a woman  would be  severely beaten or even killed if she showed even a foot, never mind a leg with a nylon stocking on it?   

The obvious answer was to go to the smugglers is Baghdad, but that was 400 Kilometers away.  The following morning, I put my two assistants  in charge and headed for Baghdad.   I told them I was leaving.  I told them nothing else except that they had to handle any problems until I returned.    

Once in Baghdad, the smugglers were easy to find, but convincing them that I was serious about wanting women's nylons was something else.  At first they snickered and gave each other the look that said, "This guys a fruit cake."  When I said I wanted 5oo pairs and placed 200 Iraqi dinar on the counter, (the equivalent of about a thousand dollars) they stopped the funny glances and got serious.  We negotiated the deal, and I left, leaving the 200 dinar on the counter as my deposit.  Fourteen days later I returned to pick up my merchandise and leave another 1,400 dinar.   

To make this a short story, the women's nylons proved to be a vast improvement over my socks, but it wasn't until if figured out that by leaving the foot of the nylon to flop in the air, I got the best result.  The looseness allowed much of the dust to shake off.   

My interrogators immediately passed my technique, minus  the story, of course, on to General Schwarzkopf.    Within a matter of days all the American trucks, tanks, cars and the like were wearing women's nylons.