Choices

I thought I was on the mend…but I was mistaken. I’m still fighting some sort of cold – maybe an allergic type reaction to the sand storm. I’m counting on the allergy meds to make me all better (plus a few prayers). Hopefully I’ll be better in a few days.

Time for some philosophy. I think I mentioned some of our guards swapped out. As the old unit was leaving some wanted to stay around and extend for another tour. They “liked” it here they said. We all say – Are you kidding? You like it here? (Remember they have been here for a year or more and we’re just here for a few months.) How could this be? Such an austere part of the world, few comforts, bathrooms far away…the same stuff I’ve said in previous blogs. So why would someone stay here. In my hours of lying around trying to get better by “resting” I decided upon an answer. Things are simple here. You have a specific job, it consumes most of your time, but it is not terribly taxing. Some jobs are harder than others, but most “guard” jobs consist of waiting and watching. The people who “enjoy” this see the simplicity of deployed life. They have very few decisions to make on their own (what clothes to wear, where and when to eat, where to go when you are “off”). The pay is good at least compared to what you received before thanks to the tax benefits of a war-zone. And it is relatively “safe” – as safe as it gets in a war-zone. All this helps to clear the air (pun intended) of the distractions of life back home. Friends and family and the stresses of normal life are mostly removed here. Cars, fancy cell-phones, peer pressure to wear certain clothes, drinking alcohol – all kinds of things we see as normal life are removed here. You know your place and there is not much question about what’s next. It’s a simple life in a complex world. So those are my thoughts on why people would want to stay here.

I still want to go home.

My friends in the Public Affairs office confirm that the CNN piece has not aired yet. They say they will tell me when it does. We replaced the flag outside our pod. See pic above.

I’ll try to be more entertaining and less philosophical tomorrow. (I wonder if there are stages of blogging – kind of like the stages of a relationship – storming-norming-conforming etc). Consider me in the Philosophy stage.