group effort

Tonight is the big lunar eclipse that the guys from Circle and I have been waiting for patiently for weeks. The dust storm finally cleared up just in time, and hopefully with the proper settings, I should come back with some nice photos. Unfortunately, it doesn't start until after eleven o'clock here and won't end until o'dark thirty in the morning. We'll be up all night.

Meanwhile, Wolf is getting ready to return to the States. His room is nearly bare. He's moping around when he thinks that no one is looking. When I asked him about it, Wolf just said that he hates leaving friends behind. He will be missed, whether or not he realizes it.

Before Wolf leaves country, Driver, Wolf and I have all discussed going to Mental Health to see my doc as a group. While Driver was on the road, Wolf saw all of the ups and downs. And when I'm feeling up, I either forget or glaze over the downs. I think part of me is afraid that I won't get the help I need because I'm not presenting a full picture of myself to the doc. I lied to her, I lied to Driver, and I tried hiding it from Wolf. I am only hurting myself.

why?

I will have bloodwork done in the morning. Will they find anything? I'm nervous, but it's just another step I have to take.

Now, if I could make myself sit down and write the sworn statement, life would be grand. I don't want to be moved to another section, to another shift, to another camp. I haven't done anything wrong. I just want it to stop, I want to stop being so flighty, so anxious.

Why do we treat each other the way we do?

getting help

Earlier this week I had my check-up with the new Mental Health doc. I don't think she was expecting to see a patient that was quite perky and full of energy. We talked about a few things, including what I came in for and a few things that had gone on earlier in the year. I told her what I planned to do, what I've been doing, and what I'm going to do. As far as medication is concerned, the only thing we're doing is changing my birth control pills.

I have a funny feeling that having a day off and away from camp helped, as well as meditation at Circle, and basically never letting myself be alone. While Driver is out doing his job, some of the guys from Circle are keeping an eye on me. Which, really, is nothing more than hanging out in Wolf's room playing around on computers. The other night I participated in my first LAN party in months -- just another one of those things that I miss from home and I didn't think I'd be able to do out here.

There are some things that I have to take care of that should help the whole situation. I don't want to write about it because I haven't actually done anything but talk about it. It's not a pleasant situation.

But, I am doing better. It's taken many visits to the Troop Medical Clinic, surrounding myself with friends, and letting myself get the help I need rather than sweeping it all under the rug.

drive on

Turn your mind away from things which are not permanent. - Buddha

Embrace the suck. Smile. Drive on.

Drive on, Soldier, drive on.

Operation Cheer Techno Up

Call CheerTechnoUp
Function CheerTechnoUp
Do while Techno="Not Happy"
*hug*
Loop
Exit
End function

I love my geeky friends.

I didn't have a good morning. When your Command Sergeant Major tells you to go to sick call, you go. And when the doctor looks at you and says that you need to go to Mental Health, you go.

"Do you feel like hurting yourself or others?"
"No."
"Are you having thoughts of hurting yourself or others?"
"I just want to curl up in my bunk and cry."

There was talk of sleeping pills and anti-depressants and group sessions. I think I'm still in shock about it all.

I am tired of crying. I am tired of being sad.

And I'm really hoping that this will help.

a good moment

"Look! Flowers!" I point to the tiny yellow flowers growing between rocks at the side of the road. Most Army bases I've been on are pretty barren as far as vegetation goes. The desert doesn't help much, either. I can't tell you the last time I saw flowers that weren't purposefully planted and watered every day.

Driver grins and laughs at me. Before parting ways he swooped down, picked a few and sheepishly handed them to me.

For every bad moment I have here, there are several good ones.

the wise forgive but do not forget

The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget. - Thomas Szasz

MeuExAmor contacted me the other day. I told him that I didn't think I wanted to continue communication with him. Even his cousin told me that it's probably not a good idea to visit.

I hold no hard feelings about what happened, and I really wish he has a good life.

I spent enough of my time on him forgetting and forgiving, and I don't want to go back to that.

combat dream

Driver sits across from me at the table, shifting nervously in his chair. He looks exhausted, even though we went to bed early last night. This morning he slept through PT which is not at all like him. Earlier I teased him -- "the night we go to bed early is the day you wake up late!" Driver didn't think it was very funny.

I ask him what time he went to bed. Ten thirty, but he didn't sleep well. Why? Doesn't want to talk about it. Why? Kept waking up. Why? What was bothering him? Doesn't want to talk about it, he's afraid that he'll make me upset. What kept him up? A dream. What kind of dream? A bad one.

From there he launches into the explanation of his dream while I listen intently. In the dream, he was out on a mission. His convoy was hit, complex attack. Chaos everywhere. He jumped out of his vehicle, runs for his friend and pulls her along with him. They run and run and run, only to have an insurgent pull a handgun on them. The dream ends when a RPG blows up his head.

As long as there aren't more like that, I'm not worried. But so much for not having nightmares.

Blondie

Calm day at the office. No requests flooding my inbox and my phone isn't ringing off the hook.

In fact, the only call I've received today was from Blondie. Our grandfather hadn't heard from her in awhile and was worried about her. Last night I called the only number I had for her and explained the situation to the Soldier who answered the phone. She called Grandpa, and then she called me: "I had told you that number was for emergencies, and they told me that you called and I thought something bad had happened!" Hey, it was better than having the Red Cross call.

Her unit is being extended, which basically means that we'll be home at about the same time. It's sad, because she really does want to get home to be with family, but it's good for her too. She needs the money. She needs the experience. And they're telling her that she'll be able to get a pass -- finally. Want to guess what that means? Blondie and Techno causing all sorts of craziness in the desert. It's been much too long.

When I spoke last with Grandpa to let him know that Blondie was going to call soon, I made the comment that it was good that she and I were in the same place. His reply? "You're too far apart."

My cousin is on the other side of a border that I will never see. We're both thousands of miles away from home, probably less than a few hundred miles away from each other. I haven't seen her in over a year. And I don't know when I'll see her again.

life as I know it

I'm tired. I don't feel like writing, but I know that I should. Driver and I are staying up late late late -- it always starts with "we should go to bed early" and always ends with "I don't want to go to bed yet!" We'll sit down, snuggle up, start talking and within a half hour we're both passed out cold. No one ever wakes us. Hours later one of us will shake the other awake and mumble something about getting back to our own bunks. Kiss goodnight, slip inside the barracks, and crash. I groan when my alarm goes off in the morning.

Driver has been back from his mission for more than a week. It feels strange, to have him here for so long. We have no idea of when he's leaving again. Rather than enjoying it, part of me wonders when he'll plop down at lunch and tell me that he has to pack up and go. Really, I get much more sleep when he's gone.

Life here is still dragging on. Routines are made, routines are broken, and it's all okay. This is life, and I am not thinking about life back home. I don't want to think about life back home. How in the world am I going to be able to go back to "normal" just like that? And how do those that have seen the gruesome part of this world go back to living the American Dream?

call me crazy, but...

I think one of the biggest lessons I've learned is that I'd rather live in the here and now, rather than what could be in some distant future.

You only live once.

"I can't live like this!"

"So what happened the other night?" Shorty asks me in the car on our way home from work. "All I heard was Twig saying 'I'm 34 years old and I can't live like this, I shouldn't have to live like this!' and 'I like her, I think she's intelligent, we talk, but I can't live like this!' Were you in there when she said all of that?"

Oh yeah, I was in there. Not only was I in there, but our Barracks NCO was as well. She had woken Twig up to talk about why a bunch of my stuff was dumped on my bunk. And Twig? Well, she woke up, but not exactly happy.

Twig can't deal with clutter and I'm not the neatest person on the face of the planet. I'm also not so good with deadlines, either. So not only did I leave clutter in the room for Twig to cringe over, I didn't clean it up in a specified amount of time. Okay, fine, I can accept that. But in no way shape or form am I responsible for her -- or anyone else's -- emotions. Including waking up and yelling at people.

Long story short, they're trying to move me to another quad. Which is sad because I really do like my roommates. But I can't, and I shouldn't, have to deal with someone that complains about dust bunnies under my bunk and then promptly gets upset about them.

"You don't really want to go home."

When I was in high school, I participated in a competing marching band circuit over my summers. I remember one year -- my last year? -- how I had a very bad day and complained to Rocky, my boyfriend at the time, about how much I wanted to go home.

You want to know what he told me? "You don't really want to go home. You want that because you think it's too difficult here." He was right. It was difficult, it was challenging. And I kept on going back for more.

Day Zero of basic training, I cried. No, scratch that, I bawled my eyes out. My hair had fallen out of my bun and touched my collar. I had three drill sergeants in my face, screaming. I was quite literally paralyzed in fear. All through basic training, Rocky's words became my mantra even though letters from him were rare. I stuck it out, I hung in there, I didn't give up. In nine weeks, I ripped the skin off of my fingertips, I had shin splints so bad that I was on crutches, I cut off all of my hair, I fell during a group run, and I injured my elbow. But I didn't give up.

At graduation, one of the drill sergeants told my mom how proud he was of me. They didn't think I was going to make it.

Since then, whenever things get rough I think about Rocky's words, how I got up and kept running after I fell, and what the drill sergeant said to Mom.

Sometimes it's comforting, sometimes it doesn't feel like it's enough.

Lately I've been having those "gosh, I really just want to go home" days. My roommates are going crazy about dust bunnies under my bed, my supervisors get themselves and everyone else all worked up about things that really aren't all that important, and I'm probably going to make another grown man cry.

It's not easy. It's not comfortable. It's definitely not how most would choose to live their lives. And yet, it's mine. All I can do is do the best I can. How good is good enough?

a whole other world

"Tu me manques" he whispers in French. Even when speaking another language his voice is laced with a southern drawl. Not like I'm going to complain. I won't have the chance to hear his voice for a few weeks.

When he returns he'll tell me all about it. It's all very real to him. For me, on the other hand, it's a whole other world. He'll point out every dent, every hole and I'll reach up and caress it. I can only imagine the roadside bombs that leave the damage, the same ones that he describes vividly.

He's one of the fortunate ones. Some that I've talked to have scars or nightmares. Or both. He doesn't. I hope it stays that way.

comrades, friends, family

Waiting for my class to start, I whip out my camera and start snapping pictures of Driver. A handful of excellent shots later from my more than willing model, he confides that he never lets anyone take pictures of him.

He's writing, too. Offline, private, for his eyes only. I'm not even going to bother to ask to read, although I occasionally wonder what he writes about.

Driver is not a fobbit. Driver does not ride the same bus to work day after day. Driver goes out of the wire and on the road. On his last mission he earned a Combat Action Badge -- there are dents and holes in vehicle to prove it. There is some crazy stuff that goes on out there, and sometimes I don't think I have the stomach to hear about all of it.

He amazes me with his ability to laugh and smile just minutes after hearing explosions in the distance. On the rare occasions that they do happen, they are minor compared to what he's used to.

This war isn't some distant thing that's happening on the other side of an ocean, in countries whose geography is unknown to me. The soldiers that are here are not anonymous numbers, figures or statistics. They are comrades. They are friends. And some of them are family.

I can only imagine what they've seen and what they've been through. In the end, it truly is a different experience for each of us.

where does a week go?

It's funny how easy it is to settle into a routine here -- good, bad or otherwise.

Day-to-day life is very repetitive. (And boring.) Three days a week, I wake up early and exercise. Then I'll pick up something for breakfast and go back to the barracks so I can get ready for work. Stay at work all day, sometimes meeting friends for lunch and sometimes heating up ramen noodles instead. (Really, it all depends on who's around.) After work, it's off to dinner with Grunt and Shocker. We let our food digest a bit and then hit the gym. I am usually one of the few -- if the only -- females in the free weight area. And then? Bed. Only to wake up the next day and do it all over again.

The realization of it is that while it's mind-numbingly boring, it helps pass the time. I am getting out and socializing. I am not counting the days down, but I know that weeks are flying by.

Before I know it, I'll be hanging out in Hong Kong with Dragonette.

baby!

Lucky's a daddy!

Well, kind of.

His godson was born the other day and he was finally able to chat with me about it. The baby was overdue and all week I've been asking him "is the baby here yet?"

Last night he stayed up with the baby, just holding him.

He's so excited. It's all so very cool.

how do you measure life?

Lucky: "I'm glad you didn't go back to him."
Techno: "Me too."

You-know-who (and if you don't, you can guess) volunteered to be deployed, again. And it's not like it hasn't been discussed, and I totally understand why, but it is a little sad.

Is life supposed to be measured in years at home and years overseas?

busy bee

I've been putting out fires and starting small riots simulationiously at work.

"We want to match the report!" / "Does this match our downtrace?" / "Why do you spend all of your time working on this?"

Nuts, I tell you. Definitely a never ending story. And if there's a day where I'm not bent over a report, there's something wrong. Or somebody's late. Take your pick.

colorful new year

The New Year was brought in with fireworks. Lights from campsites in the desert dotted the horizon. Color, color everywhere.

Techno: "What time is it?"
Driver: "We missed it by five minutes."

I never thought that I would ring in the new year in the desert.