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?
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2 comments:
there is a fine line between Privacy and isolation. They run the same tight rope as lonely and lonesome. no matter if it self imposed or forced on us by the situation or company we keep,it all comes down to the primal foundations of human nature. desire to gather together in a community for saftey in numbers for the basic needs of survival. In return we must manage the developed brain and thumb issues that long ago separated us from them . to be an individual person and maintain the right to sleep in side the protective ring of the fire. To be successfully individual in a crowd is respect . To respect yourself and the others around you is a skill that when honed and cultivated will keep you sane with the crazy people and healthy with the sick. Let yourself be lonesome without being lonely.
Sounds like you have a method to your madness. As I travel through the blogospere, I am always learning something new about the lives that soldiers lead. Are these cramped quarters SOP? Seems like inmates in jail cells get more privacy and square footage and I know for sure college dorms are way more swanky and spacious!! Good to hear that you have figured out a way to get along with all of your "roomies." Enjoy the camaraderie and the midnight chow.
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