A CAU by any other name ...

The Crew Access Units (CAU, pronounced "cow") that network into the Command Post Platform (C.P.P.) vehicles I mentioned yesterday are touch-screen machines that sit on our desks in the Tactical Operations Center (TOC, pronounced "talk"). They feature noise-cancelling headphones, through which one can listen to various radio networks, phone conversations, and intercom chatter. Using a CAU, you can call people on a radio that's physically located many tents away from you. You can call people on the phone. You can even text-message them, albeit using an ungainly and agonizingly slow user-interface.

Hey, kids--could you show Sherpa how 2 abbreviate "incoming artillery" on this here ding-dang iPhone contraption?

Since we live here in hog heaven and cow county, Iowa, and since our unit patch is a red bull, I found myself incapable of fighting the urge to udder every bovine pun I could come up with during CAU training:

• "We'll be here until the CAUs come home."
• "Hey, what's spooking the CAUs?"
• "Turn it up! We need more CAU-bell!"
• With apologies to Sandra Boynton, "did I mention they're CAUs?"

Of course, my absolute favorite in this bull run of punnery was the visual one captured above, with a CAU laying on its side ...

"CAU-tipping."