Debacle

A long December, and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last.
I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell myself to
Hold on to these moments as they pass.
-Duritz, Long December

I was sparring with a buddy of mine yesterday, practicing combatives, and bruised my ribs. I went to the medics and they gave me all these pills to take. Muscle relaxants and this elephant-strength ibuprofen. I feel uncomfortable taking drugs, even if the medics give them to me, so I will probably just save them for headaches. I get at least one really bad headache every week or so. Once I had to lie down. I think I was dehydrated that day. Because it’s so windy in the winter, here, you forget that it’s actually much warmer than it feels, and you forget to drink water.

My iPod quit working again. This time is much like the last few times—I had been listening to a very long track. Eddie Murphy’s “Delirious” show, actually. And after I turned it off, it wouldn’t come back on. Hopefully it’ll revive itself in a day or so, like all the times before. I guess it’s not just the Douglas Adams audiobooks that do it. Maybe it’s just all very long tracks. I don’t understand why this could be, though. This is one of those times you really wish you were home. Best Buy is only about four minutes from my house.

I received perhaps the coolest package I have ever gotten in my life from my parents today. I opened it and there was a Styrofoam cooler inside. And it was…cool. I wondered, what the hell is in here? Dry ice? I opened the cooler and there was a Ziploc bag of sausage balls inside, and some mostly-thawed freezer packs. There was also a paper bag inside, with incomprehensible permanent-marker writing on it. I said, now, this seems familiar, but why? I realized why when I saw what was inside: two Freebird burritos. The writing on the outside is what they do so you know which order is yours. I can’t believe my parents sent me two Freebirds. I am going to eat one for lunch tomorrow, and I’m trying hard to make up my mind as to what to do with the other one. Should I eat that one as well? Should I give it to somebody? If I give it away, to whom should it go? One of my soldiers used to live in College Station, and loves Freebird. On the other hand, maybe it should go to someone who has never tasted one. I have no idea. I will probably end up eating both, but I am having fun thinking about whether to give the second one away. To my parents, thank you. I feel very close to home today. Tomorrow I’ll heat one of them up in the microwave, put in a country CD, and lock the door to my office while I eat.

There is a kind of crazy soap opera going on here right now. I can’t believe how unprofessional some people can be. It is amazing, in the middle of one of the most dangerous combat zones in theater, with our crazy op tempo, and all the things we should be focusing on—it is amazing how distracted and sidetracked we get by people just acting stupid. This is not a vacation. This is a noble crusade of good against evil, of light against dark. We are laboring to bring hope and freedom to these ass-backwards people. We are working to make their country safer, and the region and the world safer by extrapolation. This is not a job. It is a calling. It is a quest. It is a gift bestowed upon us by our country: a life absent of mediocrity.

It is bad enough when civilians misunderstand or demean us. It makes me furious when fellow brothers in arms don’t take the calling seriously. We’re professionals. We should act like it.

The USC-t.u. game is on tomorrow morning at 0400. I think I’ll sleep through that one. Need all the rest I can get: next season is fast approaching.