Double Deuce

I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars.”
-T.E. Lawrence, from the dedication to his wife in Seven Pillars of Wisdom

I have said the hell with it, and am going to purchase the Rosetta Stone Arabic language program. I contacted Rosetta Stone directly, and asked if I qualify for their government discount, but they said no, since I was buying it directly as a private individual. This whole issue has left a bad taste in my mouth.

Having finished the Powers book of short stories my parents-in-law sent me, I am left without reading material. I think I have one more book left, but after that they will be all gone. Nobody around here seems to have any good books, and we don’t have the library here like we did down south. Somebody sent our company a huge box full of old issues of Reader’s Digest. Seriously, some of them are fifteen years old. I don’t really need to read articles about the hot new show, Seinfeld, or the newfangled fad for computer nerds called the “World Wide Web,” invented by Al Gore. I have turned recently toward doing more prewriting for my books.

I am having a hard time coming to grips with certain policies, lately. Particularly those laid down by General Order #1. I can agree that allowing soldiers to drink alcohol whenever they want may end up hurting our mission here; but I cannot see the harm in giving soldiers a couple days of R&R every month where they can go to an LSA and have a couple beers. I also agree that blocking certain websites on government-owned computers is not only a good idea but necessary to maintain discipline and bandwidth. I think it is dangerously close to a violation of rights, however, to block websites if a soldier takes his personal laptop to the internet café and is surfing on his own time. As an old-fashioned, Christian guy, and as a combat leader, I don’t want my soldiers to be tainted spiritually or distracted from the mission; but as a realist, I realize that not everyone relaxes in the same way, and sometimes being distracted from the mission is precisely what is needed to raise or maintain morale. Also, it would be great to be able to have a damn drink every once in awhile. It would certainly help me sleep some nights.

I am trying to organize a poker game, but not many people want to play. You would think that there would be more people up for a good game of cards here, but I guess times have changed. You say Texas Hold ‘Em, and nobody shows up; but if you’re playing Halo with multiple XBOXs and TVs, it’s a full house. It’s too bad.