Happy Groundhogs Day

There is a sameness to every day here, a routine that defies the days of the week. The concept of weekends and holidays is lost in the next mission date, or whatever work detail you have been assigned. Every fifteen days there is payday, but other than that, days, weeks and months begin to blur. This tour I actually knew that Thanksgiving was coming the day before. Last time I showed up at the chow hall for breakfast, and was pissed it wasn’t open, even after someone explained to me that it was Thanksgiving.
This year brings back memories of that year, 2004. I went to work, and missed lunch. My boss then LT Bean Counter (who is now a captain, and then as now one of the best combat leaders and levelheaded men I know) insisted our combat patrol coming off duty brought something for his RTO. It was luke warm, and bore only a passing resemblance to the extravaganza my mother puts on for such days.
This year was much the same. Despite the order put out by Sergeant Major Big Poppa, we had a full day. First was a ‘patch ceremony’ Where we were awarded our combat patches. Last time I checked you didn’t need one when you were in a combat zone. I put mine on when I went home last time. That resulted in missing breakfast, as we are all on a vampire schedule. Then we all went to the motor pool from 1030 to 1600, to verify the serial numbers we had already verified twice. No sane NCO signs for a piece of equipment without checking the serial numbers, well not more than once.
We had to move all the trucks from one line to a second line, verify the serial numbers, then move them back. Only the insertion of ludicrous levels of command interference made a 30 minute job, last six hours. The army is like that.
SSG Lifeguard took a hit and let Mighty Mouse and I slip off for a 20 minute meal. On holidays like this it is tradition that the big meal is served by the command staff. It is somewhat satisfying to have a full bird colonel had you your ham. Some other troops snuck in, I think, but it was a chew now taste late meal. The commander was sitting down and eating when I showed up and still there when I left. ‘nuff said.
So rather than ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ we greeted each other today with ‘Happy Groundhogs day!”. We managed to make dinner, leftovers from lunch, and Lifeguard, Nord, PFC Chulpa, CPL ESPN, and SPC Great and I all toasted with sparkling grape juice.
A soldier could feel self pity. But I remember a letter I got on December 23rd 2004. An old soldier remembering laying in a puddle on an ambush patrol in Viet-Nam. A string tied between him and the other troops so they could signal without making any noise. The rain rolling off their helmets and soaking their clothes, as they watched an empty trail, waiting for an enemy to walk into their kill zone. No one died that day which made it a good Christmas and every one since has given him cause to be grateful, knowing that there are soldiers spending their holidays in much worse conditions.
As I walked out of the massive DFAC, I sent a silent thanks to all the guys who didn’t or won’t have a second rate dinner. The war goes on regardless of weekends or holidays, and this only makes the next one that much better.
Groundhogs day is the same as the last, it hasn’t gotten any better, but also it hasn’t got worse, and that in and of itself is something to give thanks for.

BTW: I understand I have a fan who is not a old friend or blood relation. Thank your great and terrible daughter for me.

Privacy

The most valued thing in this war is privacy. The first casualty of a war zone is privacy. It could be worse we could be cramming 8 men into 6 man tents. Sgt Grandpa, and SGT Bulldog have the misfortune to be crammed into a space smaller than my old bedroom with me. The lower enlisted sleep four to a room in even less space. The drive for privacy quickly pushes soldiers to hang ponchos or poncho liners from bunks, and build rough wooden shelters from plywood and 2x4s.
We seek some measure of personal space, even if it is the area of a single mattress only notionally shielded from prying eyes. Laptop computers and headphones are a common courtesy so everyone doesn’t have to listen to your movie, or music. We live, work, eat and sleep together. The same faces day in and day out. There is bound to be friction. A little privacy is the lube that makes the machine work.
As I write this Bulldog is talking to his girl on VOIP while SGT G3 watches a rebroadcast of a football game. G3 is in the next room, separated from our room by 7’ high office walls, as the bunk beds are 5 feet high Bulldog and G3 effectively sleep next to each other separated by a half inch board. They both ignore the interference. Tolerance is another lube to keep the machine moving.
There is only one light switch for two rooms and five sergeants, when someone wants light or darkness they sing out and if there are no objections I hit the switch over my bed. Accommodation makes things work.
Shortly after we got here a error in the housing arrangements over in the lower enlisted quarters caused CPL ESPN to be kicked up to NCO quarters. Our room was selected. Instead we took a dead end hallway with just enough room for a bunk bed and room to get in and out of it and walled it off. ESPN is the only person under the rank of Sergeant First Class to have his own room and privacy. Innovation is the hallmark of the American soldier.
As I take wander talk to PFC Mighty Mouse I see ESPN hanging out with his old roommates and playing Xbox. He doesn’t spend much time in his private room.
Gandpa, Bulldog, G3 and Doc (the last man in our area) talk, share snacks and get a chance to bitch to our peers about ours seniors and subordinates. If I take a wander out to the back porch SFC Big Daddy is hanging out there shooting the shit with his platoon members. Up on the roof there are always guys hanging out, smoking and joking, and it is rare that anyone goes to chow or the PX alone. We are social animals made all the more so by our isolation form the country an environment that we grew up in.
Isolation is the grit that makes the machine break, more surely than enemy fire.

SSG Lifeguard just poked his head in to see if I want to go to midnight chow. See what I mean?