Borne of Time and Place

"I've never seen a dead guy."
"Oh, sing yourself another lullabye, baby Dean! We see them all the time! Just last week Brock killed two dervishes with a pillowcase full of Cokes, right in our bedroom!"
"They were only knocked out...right?"
"The police took them away in body bags."
"Those were sleeping bags!"
-Venture Brothers

I am starting to get kind of wiggy from lack of sleep. I work such long hours now that it is eating into my sleep and workout and even meal times. And I can't sleep very well, either, from the stress. Even if I get eight hours, I wake up exhausted. It takes me much longer, lately, to regenerate from being outside the wire for a few hours, wearing all that armor. I'm just so damn tired.
My best friend, Nick, and I were road tripping down to Florida a few years ago, to get to his wedding, and we drove the whole way straight from New Jersey. I got so tired around Miami that I hallucinated an entire conversation between Nick and me about who was the worst Batman out of all the people who've played him. I actually responded to a question he never asked. I think I said, "But we can agree on one thing--Michael Keaton was definitely the best. Right?" And Nick looked at me with an expression that I could only describe as "I'm so confused by what you just said that it terrifies me a little." That is how tired I feel in the evenings sometimes. Like, wondering if I'm just dreaming this whole thing.
It is starting to eat into hygiene time as well. I am showering less frequently. I am kind of ashamed by this, but when I'm tired it's much harder for me to convince myself that it's worth it. It is exactly 121 meters to the shower--I've walked it so many times I could do it in my sleep--and that is enough to soak me with sweat by the time I'm back in my room. I pick up dust and sand from the sweat, and most of the time end up feeling just as filthy as when I started for the shower. I use a lot of baby wipes on various parts of my body. It helps.
Aside from the exhaustion, I am doing pretty well. Reading a couple good books, when I can stay awake, and learning my new job as quickly as I can. I don't feel like a colossal failure every day now. I'm only dropping the ball on things I didn't know about in the first place, at this point. So I'm learning fast. Too bad most of the learning is done "the hard way." But I guess there is really no other way in a combat zone.
I have a little over a month left on my tour. I can't believe it is almost here; and at the same time, it seems so far away. Once I get below thirty days it will start to seem real.

Pillar of Autumn

“It was a serious sport, Brendon. People died.”
“Is that why you were crying?”
“I wasn’t crying, Brendon. I was remembering. With tears.”
-Home Movies

I guess some people learn to get by with very little sleep. I do not see how I ever will. I am drinking so much coffee now that I think it may affect my body chemistry. I am always getting calls, usually late at night, to come up to my office and fix something that doesn’t need fixing. The problem is that my new boss is not really sure what my job is; so he micromanages. Or rather, he forces me to do so. I am also having problems with people on whom I rely becoming lazy and forgetful as the tour plods obstinately toward the finish line. I am having to police up after people who should be self-sufficient. I am having to resort to official channels to solve problems that, earlier in the tour, could have been solved with an offline conversation.

They shut down the DFAC. No more chow. Now it’s mermites breakfast and supper, and an MRE for dinner. Wonderful. Today I had the Pork Rib Meat Patty (Imitation), which I was too terrified to investigate by reading the writing on the package. It came with clam chowder. What quantity of narcotics would you have to consume, and over what period of time, to think that clam chowder goes with ribs? I also got a cookie with, and I swear I’m not making this up, “Pan Coated Chocolate Discs.” These turned out to be M&Ms. Only the army could figure out a way to make M&Ms sound unappetizing and institutional.

You see, it’s not that I haven’t had thousands of MREs before. It is just that small things like the combination of courses in the meals are starting to really grate on my nerves. When you are tired and under pressure to complete many diverse missions, seemingly inconsequential things can become emotional events. I watched two soldiers in the gym almost kill each other, and it was over something so stupid or obscure that those of us that broke it up never figured out what it was about.

My meetings are early in the morning and then mid-afternoon to late at night. So I’ve taken to working out at lunchtime, and then eating my MRE in my room with my radio turned down, while I read or watch part of a movie. It is my only escape, really. I cannot wait to get home. Soon, now, so soon.

One positive thing, however, is that I’ve been able to study Arabic quite a bit. There are numerous periods throughout the day of ten minutes to half an hour where I’m just waiting on a phone call or email or a soldier to get back with a report. I’m taking these opportunities to use the Rosetta Stone program. I have already learned a lot. I can even recognize certain written words. One thing that fascinated me was the discovery that, in Arabic, the words for “bird” and “plane” are almost the exact same.

I will have to pack my television and XBOX up tomorrow or the next day, so I went and cleaned the library out of any decent-looking books they had. A room full of maybe three thousand books, and I come back with five. However, one of them was Michael Marshall Smith’s “Spares,” a fantastic sci-fi story, that I did not yet own; so I’ll be taking that one home. I’ve left enough books in these libraries over the past year that I figure I’m even.

A brief update on the weather: it is hot here. Sweat evaporates so quickly that you do not feel it unless you’re wearing armor that the wind can’t get under, so you aren’t aware that you’ve lost so much water until you get heatstroke. The full-on sand storms have stopped, but in their place we’ve got dust storms. They are somehow just as bad, and the dust is so much finer than the sand that it even gets in places you think are sealed, like footlockers and duffle bags. I cannot believe that people could live through one summer in this place and not flee. I myself will be leaving as soon as I can. Three battalions in my brigade have been extended (technically we have, too, but only a week so far); I am terrified that we will be stuck here for an extra month as well.

Visibility

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
-Wainwright

I was right. This job is horrible. No time to sleep, no time to read, and very little time to work out, even if I had the motivation. People pull me in a lot of different directions, and the pace is very different. Instead of the constant low level of work of my old position, this one is highly unpredictable jerks and stops of feverish, frenzied activity and boring downtime. But never enough downtime at once to feel like you've really gotten a break. I drink a lot of coffee, and I am convinced now that command is having extra meetings just to enrage me.

I am feeling the melancholy just like everybody else. It seems like the whole unit is just pissed off and lethargic. Nobody wants to do their job, and everybody seems quick to anger. I don't know if this is common toward the end of a tour. I do know I hate it.

The one reason I'm glad I moved to this new shop is that I only have four or five people to worry about now. Which will make things much easier when we get home. If I'm lucky, I won't have anybody at all to go bail out of jail for getting drunk or beating up their wife's boyfriend; whereas with a whole platoon, you're almost guaranteed that at least a couple people will come home to infidelity or some other type of marital problems.

The heat is now, officially, on. I thought it was before, but it wasn't. The hair-dryer, scouring winds I remember from Kuwait have moved up here along with the choking heat. It's impossible to go to the bathroom around noon. Dust storms blow up almost every night or morning, and visibility is often very low. Sand gets in your eyes and makes them tear up, and the tears just catch more sand, so pretty soon you've got mud caked around your eye. Taking a shower just makes you realize how much everyone around you stinks for a couple of hours, until you've sweated through your clothes a few times.

I wish I could just drink some kind of potion where I wouldn't remember the next couple of months. I'd like to just go to sleep and wake up at home. A year is too long to be over here.