Rip

These hands have helped it go, and even race;
Not all the motion, though, they ever lent,
Not all the miles it may have thought it went,
Have got it one step from the starting place.
-Frost

Well, here we are again. Another AO, another set of towns and enemies and uncaring skies. Another few months, maybe? How long? Will we move again?

I was merely annoyed and a little disheartened to watch the first unit we relieved go home, cheery and bright-eyed and making plans plans for vacation and debauchery and relaxation. Now we're having to watch the second and third unit go off at the same time. I am tired of relieving people. I'm tired of listening to people talk about the first thing they're going to do, or what scheme they have to get some alone time with their wife away from the kids, or how much time they have left in theater, down to the hour and minute.

This new FOB is different. We live in c-huts (or "Chus"), not bunkers, and each of us will have a room to himself when we all get here. There are no paved roads except for right up near the TOC, but there is gravel everywhere. The gravel is either six inches deep and very fine, or smooth softball-sized chunks of rock that turn your ankle every five steps. There are also a LOT of KBR employees here. It was all my soldiers talked about, the first few days: "Did you see that hot KBR girl?" "There's another KBR girl!" "Man, check out that chick from KBR!" "Did you smell that KBR girl when she went past? I forgot what real women smell like!" Etcetera. The soldiers are lonely. I hope they keep control of themselves.

There are less than half of us here yet, with the other half being still on the other FOB, closing it down. I am growing more and more exasperated with officers asking me why this or that hasn't been done yet. I don't know how to be more clear without being rude: we just don't have enough people here to do everything right now. My platoon sergeant is doing headcount in the DFAC. You heard me right. An E7 with sixteen years in the army holding a clicker in the chow hall. That's how short we are. Nobody is getting any sleep. I'm getting very upset thinking about how much muscle I'm losing, after working out like a body builder the last few months. I just don't have time to go to the gym the last week or so.

I got to talk with Jen on my anniversary, and on Christmas. That was nice. My email and internet are back up again, too. I am waiting for the rest of us to arrive so I can get back to my real job. This should be a good FOB when it settles back into a routine. I hope we stay here, and don't move again. Like I said, I can't watch anybody else go home before me.

Papa Smurf Will Bring You Home

And tho' thou notest from thy safe recess
Old Friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air,
Love them for what they are; nor love them less,
Because to thee they are not what they were.
-Coleridge

I am packing for our upcoming move. I am reminded, getting ready, of the 101st as they moved into the area surrounding the Eagle’s Nest at the close of the European phase of World War II. The people in that town were all diehard Nazis, all high up in the party. They couldn’t claim ignorance of the death camps or pretend not to support the war like other towns.

I am disappointed with how Saddam is being allowed to manipulate the imagery of his trial. They shouldn’t allow him to speak. They should stick him in a glass box like they did with Eichmann. What a tinfoil-hat-crazy bastard that guy is. I watched “Uncle Saddam,” the documentary made just before the war about him and his family and his palaces and wealth. I am amazed at how corrupt and greedy his people were. I am saddened to think about what he did to his country. Baghdad used to be the most civilized city in the world. Free hospitals, public education, no crime, universities, and banks with branches as far away as China. I know you can’t blame one sadistic dictator for what the country is now compared to what it was a few hundred years ago, but Arabs used to be the most advanced civilization in the world. While the Eastern Empire was still trying to survive and what was left of the Western Empire was hemorrhaging like an Ebola victim, the Arab world was studying advanced mathematics and astronomy and medicine. There are still documents that hint of technologies and techniques they used that have never been rediscovered, or have never been applied to everyday life the way they did it.

It’s intriguing to think what the world would be like if Charles Martel and Charlemaigne had never driven these people out of Europe. Or if the Crusades hadn’t subjected them to an era of piracy and banditry and pillage. Would they have been the next Greece, or the next Rome? Would the world be one enormous Arab state? Would we ever have gone into space? Would the Dark Ages have ended sooner? Would I be able to have a flying car or grow a third arm?

Who knows. I have to get some rest. I’ve got an early morning, a long day, and an exciting drive ahead of me.

Quartered Safe

O aching time! O moments big as years!
All as ye pass swell out the monstrous truth,
And press it so upon our weary griefs
That unbelief has not a space to breathe.
-Keats

Our unit is not nearly as big as the one we replaced, so there is an empty room at the front of the bunker that we’ve made into a gym. I’m sure county jails have better gyms, but it has a little bench and some barbells, so it is better than nothing. I work out at noon, while the O’Reilly factor is on the TV. I work out for about forty-five minutes and then eat my lunch, and then go back to work. I used to work out in the afternoons, but now we have meetings then.

I am getting more and more irritated with the amount and duration of meetings I have to attend. I think everybody in the army needs to be required to read some of Scott Adams’ books, especially The Dilbert Principle. I am alarmed and disgusted by the amount of officers who read faddish management books and then apply the “techniques” they learned to their command. Adams’ books are not about success with management; they are more like success in spite of management. The military today needs less management and more leadership. This is just my observation, but it is hard to imagine I’m wrong since we’re in a hot combat zone and are still acting like we’re in garrison.

Anyway, I am pleased with my weightlifting. Hopefully when we get to our new FOB I’ll be able to get to the real gym more often.

I have packed up most of the things I don’t need, so I’m back to living out of my ruck, like a savage. I don’t have anything to read or watch or play, so I’m watching a lot of AFN, which I don’t recommend to anybody. It’s AFN Europe, so we’re always getting these annoying commercials about K-town football games or the Rammstein choir recital or stuff like that. There are also only ten channels, and they are loaded with inane programming. Soldiers do not want to watch Trading Spaces, reality shows or soap operas. I guess that stuff is on for spouses back in Europe, but they need to get some programming for us deployed grunts. Since it’s AFN, they could also endeavor to be a little more “with it” politically. You’d think they’d have Fox News instead of CNN or even, Good Lord, MSNBC. I think I’d rather get smacked in the teeth with a beer bottle than watch Chris Matthews rip on my mission, my soldiers or my commander in chief one more time. I am always amused, however, at the policy experts he gets to talk about “how badly the war is going.” They look like they’ve never pounded ground in their lives. They wouldn’t know war if it bit them in the ass. I doubt they even know any soldiers.

Thanks to everybody who has sent packages or mail. We are all fine here so far, and we’re moving into month four of our tour. Doesn’t feel like that long.

Heartbreak

“And when you’re consoled (everyone eventually is consoled), you’ll be glad you’ve known me. You’ll always be my friend. You’ll feel like laughing with me. And you’ll open your window sometimes just for the fun of it… And your friends will be amazed to see you laughing while you’re looking up at the sky. Then you’ll tell them, ‘Yes, it’s the stars; they always make me laugh!’ And they’ll think you’re crazy. It’ll be a nasty trick I played on you…

“It’ll look as if I’m suffering. It’ll look a little as if I’m dying. It’ll look that way. Don’t come to see that; it’s not worth the trouble.”
-St. Exupery, The Little Prince

I have lost my dearest, truest and oldest friend and mentor today. I am utterly heartbroken. I am so grateful to have known him. I have never known a better person; I do not much care to imagine a world without him in it. That world is less splendid, less bright, and more cynical. But I can’t go back to the old one.

I have never felt so far away from home.