The Surreal Life
I have trouble sleeping.
It's too quiet. There is no endless drone of a window mounted A/C unit. No subdued crackling of a radio handset by my bedside. No Black Hawks flitting about at 75 feet and 100 knots over my billet. No IEDs on Highway 1. No OPs firing in the FOF to keep Haji honest at night. No Big Voice making announcements. Just the sound of my thoughts, my guilt at being here instead of there.
I have fresh milk every morning. One of the girls was looking at me this morning and I asked her what was up. She stated that I was staring at the milk. I guess I was. I look at it and realize that it is such a small thing that my friends up North don't get. We have fresh fruits and vegetables every day. No power outages, no fuel shortages, no kevlar, no T-Walls, no weapons everywhere.
It is surreal to me, like another dimension of existence. I had managed to make the mental differentation between R&R and Iraq without problem but this is different. I still have a mission but the biggest danger I face is from traffic here.
I heard some of my CAV buddies were at an installation today. I tried to find them but couldn't. OPSEC prevented the folks there from telling me where they were and I understood. I was dissapointed but I did understand. I really wanted to see them and be with them again. These men are bona fide killers but they are just like me in many, many ways.
All in all this is great. Everyone tells me I earned it but I still feel guilty, especially at night in the quiet, still, cool apartment I am billeted in. Maybe Josh over at Talking Salmons will send me an endless loop tape of some outgoing fire so I can get to sleep.
It's too quiet. There is no endless drone of a window mounted A/C unit. No subdued crackling of a radio handset by my bedside. No Black Hawks flitting about at 75 feet and 100 knots over my billet. No IEDs on Highway 1. No OPs firing in the FOF to keep Haji honest at night. No Big Voice making announcements. Just the sound of my thoughts, my guilt at being here instead of there.
I have fresh milk every morning. One of the girls was looking at me this morning and I asked her what was up. She stated that I was staring at the milk. I guess I was. I look at it and realize that it is such a small thing that my friends up North don't get. We have fresh fruits and vegetables every day. No power outages, no fuel shortages, no kevlar, no T-Walls, no weapons everywhere.
It is surreal to me, like another dimension of existence. I had managed to make the mental differentation between R&R and Iraq without problem but this is different. I still have a mission but the biggest danger I face is from traffic here.
I heard some of my CAV buddies were at an installation today. I tried to find them but couldn't. OPSEC prevented the folks there from telling me where they were and I understood. I was dissapointed but I did understand. I really wanted to see them and be with them again. These men are bona fide killers but they are just like me in many, many ways.
All in all this is great. Everyone tells me I earned it but I still feel guilty, especially at night in the quiet, still, cool apartment I am billeted in. Maybe Josh over at Talking Salmons will send me an endless loop tape of some outgoing fire so I can get to sleep.
posted by flythemig29 at 9:03 PM
1 Comments:
Maybe I'm wrong to say thin, but don't feel guilty, that's a completely wasted external-driven emotion that you have no control over. It's a kind of compensation for be-here-now.
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