Same As the Old Boss
These people, with their rusty armor and hewn shields, had seen Lancelot here and there. They spoke of a harnessed ugly man, praying at a wayside cross—of a worn face asleep in moonlight on its shield. They spoke also of unbelievable things—of Lancelot unhorsed, defeated, kneeling after he had been knocked down.
--White, The Once and Future King
I finally collected all the foodstuff from my last ten or so packages and distributed it to my platoon. I filled a whole 5-gallon bucket with the stuff. I kept the Starburst, the Cheezits and the M&Ms, of course, but stuff I don’t care for or would feel guilty about eating, I gave away. Some of these guys aren’t lucky enough to have people sending them things. The bucket is already about a third empty. I think it is interesting that the snacks disappear so quickly.
My new commander is here. He remembers me vaguely from some dealings I had with him in his former job. I am hoping he doesn’t also remember a time when my company couldn’t get any eye protection issued to us, because both of our parent battalions were arguing about whose responsibility we are. So I bullied one of the lower enlisted soldiers that worked in his office into opening up the supply shed and letting me have a pair for each person in the company without signing for them. By the time I got the angry phone calls, I had already issued them all out and told the soldiers to take them home, so they ended up letting us keep them. He wasn’t happy, though.
I burned the boxes from the packages today. You have to burn things with addresses or names on them, and shred or burn sensitive documents, which we produce at the rate of hundreds of pages a day. This is so insurgents don’t sift through our trash and find out our families’ addresses. Apparently at the beginning of the war several units let their soldiers just throw their packages away, and some poor mothers and fathers and wives got harassing letters from the terrorists, claiming to have murdered and tortured their deployed relatives. So now we burn them.
I am going to sleep early tonight—only about 0030—and it makes me feel very old to realize how excited I am about this. I long for sleep sometimes in a way that I never have before. It is so hot, and we often work such long hours, that I get exhausted very early in the day. I have always been a daydreamer, and while walking here or there or waiting for a meeting to start I often let my mind wander to video games, or coming home to my wife, or memories of good times with my buddies from school. Lately I have been daydreaming of sleep. That is odd enough, but the sad thing is that I don’t sleep well at all here. Sometimes before or after missions I have nightmares, but that is not it; I think I just sleep better when I’m not alone. I miss Jennifer.
I have written the first chapter of a book and sent it to my wife and best friend to read. Jen says it is great, but I am reminded of Sean Hanks’ character in Orange County, who suspects that his girlfriend may like his writing so much only because she loves him. I am interested to hear what Nick has to say. I have set a rule for myself with this book: I will not read anything I’ve written at any time. Once the whole thing’s done, I’m going to throw it down and not even pick it up for a month or so. Only after awhile will I come back and read it all together. I tend to get bogged down in constantly rewriting if I read my old stuff, so I am avoiding it this time.
We are coming up on eight months here now, and I am surprised to find that it is more stressful, and that I miss home, much more than I did in the beginning. I think six months, like the Marines do, is the ideal deployment length. EOD deploys for only six months as well, so I am looking forward to that. Although by the time I get into EOD, who knows where we’ll be fighting.
--White, The Once and Future King
I finally collected all the foodstuff from my last ten or so packages and distributed it to my platoon. I filled a whole 5-gallon bucket with the stuff. I kept the Starburst, the Cheezits and the M&Ms, of course, but stuff I don’t care for or would feel guilty about eating, I gave away. Some of these guys aren’t lucky enough to have people sending them things. The bucket is already about a third empty. I think it is interesting that the snacks disappear so quickly.
My new commander is here. He remembers me vaguely from some dealings I had with him in his former job. I am hoping he doesn’t also remember a time when my company couldn’t get any eye protection issued to us, because both of our parent battalions were arguing about whose responsibility we are. So I bullied one of the lower enlisted soldiers that worked in his office into opening up the supply shed and letting me have a pair for each person in the company without signing for them. By the time I got the angry phone calls, I had already issued them all out and told the soldiers to take them home, so they ended up letting us keep them. He wasn’t happy, though.
I burned the boxes from the packages today. You have to burn things with addresses or names on them, and shred or burn sensitive documents, which we produce at the rate of hundreds of pages a day. This is so insurgents don’t sift through our trash and find out our families’ addresses. Apparently at the beginning of the war several units let their soldiers just throw their packages away, and some poor mothers and fathers and wives got harassing letters from the terrorists, claiming to have murdered and tortured their deployed relatives. So now we burn them.
I am going to sleep early tonight—only about 0030—and it makes me feel very old to realize how excited I am about this. I long for sleep sometimes in a way that I never have before. It is so hot, and we often work such long hours, that I get exhausted very early in the day. I have always been a daydreamer, and while walking here or there or waiting for a meeting to start I often let my mind wander to video games, or coming home to my wife, or memories of good times with my buddies from school. Lately I have been daydreaming of sleep. That is odd enough, but the sad thing is that I don’t sleep well at all here. Sometimes before or after missions I have nightmares, but that is not it; I think I just sleep better when I’m not alone. I miss Jennifer.
I have written the first chapter of a book and sent it to my wife and best friend to read. Jen says it is great, but I am reminded of Sean Hanks’ character in Orange County, who suspects that his girlfriend may like his writing so much only because she loves him. I am interested to hear what Nick has to say. I have set a rule for myself with this book: I will not read anything I’ve written at any time. Once the whole thing’s done, I’m going to throw it down and not even pick it up for a month or so. Only after awhile will I come back and read it all together. I tend to get bogged down in constantly rewriting if I read my old stuff, so I am avoiding it this time.
We are coming up on eight months here now, and I am surprised to find that it is more stressful, and that I miss home, much more than I did in the beginning. I think six months, like the Marines do, is the ideal deployment length. EOD deploys for only six months as well, so I am looking forward to that. Although by the time I get into EOD, who knows where we’ll be fighting.
posted by Battler03 at 8:47 PM
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