Day 69 10FEB2010: The cycle will drive you mad. The cycle for me is the emotional coaster I find myself in everyday. Content one moment, frustrated the next. Loving my job 10 minutes ago, hating it now. Amazed by the brilliant hard working Soldiers today, yesterday I couldn’t stand the site of another whiney little malingerer. Is this life everywhere, or just in my little corner of the US Army? (yes, I know it’s everywhere)
At 0230 today I opened my CHU door as there was a loud knock at it moments before. It was a SGT from my company conducting a 100% accountability check as the FOB received indirect fire some time earlier. “Oh, hey, what, yeah we are both in here SGT”. Thanks for checking.
At 1100 this morning I was informed that my attendance to the Holliday Ball will be mandatory. Yes, that noise you just heard was a record coming to a screeching halt. Apparently when you are deployed to Iraq in fucking February there is someone worried about what kind of attendance there will be at the holiday ball in fucking El Paso in FUCKING DECEMBER!
I now apologize for the above offensive language….but F#$* my life. Okay ill stop.
(Taking indirect fire means mortar rounds have hit nearby. This happens occasionally here though I have never seen or even heard an explosion. We have an alert system that warns us. Alarm “red” means we are taking fire and you should find cover. Alarm “red” really means we already took fire, it has been confirmed and verified and now we can warn you. Now, if you hear a whistle sound, well that’s the sound of a round coming at you and you better get down…like now. Again, I have never encountered this but that’s what I’m told.)
The Cycle: you see I started this post yesterday, I was fired up about the Holiday Ball. I was going to write a long scathing email about how we don’t all need to be here if there is time to worry about Ball’s 10 months from now, about how there are too many people with too little to do, about how the Army has sucked the meaning out awards (more on this another day) and stripped away unit cohesiveness with mandatory fun. I was going to compare that to how much I love to make a Soldier in pain feel better, how great it is to sit in a small aid station with medics I just met and shoot the shit and play cards, about how cool it is to ride over a foreign country in a helicopter, about the pride I feel to wear this uniform. I was going to do all that yesterday, but today I’ve been listening to some great music and you know what, Im just going to smile, nod and do my job. Life’s too short, Cheers.
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Hey babe - Glad you are looking on the bright side. I know how difficult that can be. Take care of yourself. Reading about the "red" alerts worries me but I think you know how to take care of yourself. Love you so much and can't wait until you come home.
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Awesome post Kyle, just getting ready for bed after a pretty hard day at work, find myself feeling the same way you do sometimes also, in different circumstance of course. Feeling like there was no end to the patient load, no real solutions to their problems, everyone wanting a piece of you, wanting to yell, God, quit whining and leave me alone. Then someone walks up to me and thanks me for being so patient in taking care of their difficult but very ill family member, an ER tech I work with said her best days are when I work, and my good friend gave me a piece of choclate at the end of the day. It is all worth it, really!
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