One of the activities that goes with the role of Military and Family Life Consultantant (M-Flac for short) is to be with soldiers who are being deployed "down range". Today, for these soldiers, it's Afghanistan. We're being with them as they sit and stand and mill around waiting to get on the buses that will take them to the airport.
I did this for the first time a couple days ago.
What we do is more or less roam among them. We're just making contact - verbal, eye, and through the shake of a hand or a fist-bump, speaking with some, some just a head nod to acknowledge, "I can't say much really, but I'm seeing you." What I find myself saying is something like, "Where are you from (soldier, Sgt., Captain, etc.?)" Or, "What number deployment is this for you?" (Imagine that, that we're asking how many times they've been sent away to war! This is beyond the Vietnam experience for sure.), or, "What's your MOS?", and so on. Casual talk, normal talk which isn't really casual or normal even for the thrid-time, old-timer warriors (the oldest person I encounter is 49).
The experienc of being in suspended-feelings mode is palpable. Men and women sitting or standing next to their back packs, weapons hanging from shoulders or perhaps leaning up against a carry-on suitcase (or in one case resting atop a Victoria Secret bag with a pillow and an Teddy Bear stuffed inside), and so on. Some, knowing the drill, sit in collapsable chairs in the slim shade that the barracks cast in the late afternoon heat and humidity. Murmered conversations on the ever present cell-phone, now bringing the people at the other end into this place and moment in a way other soldiers in other times never could have. Young men and women intermingled with much older men and women. My kids among my friends.
This is my third rotation. This is my second. I was just about to retire and they got me. I'm 45. I'm 19. I'm going to drive amunition and weapons in convoys. I'm going be a grunt in the hills. I have no idea. I've been there before. My last rotation was Iraq. We're headed to Afghanistan. Can you mail this letter to my wife?
"Can you mail this letter to my wife, sir?"
"Yes, absolutely. I'll do it today. How is she doing with this rotation?"
"It's hard....." tears, unable to continue, quietly moving away to stand with buddies with his pain.
A father and grandfather.
Third rotation.
National guard from Phoenix, AZ.
A brother from home country.
A little while later I move to where he is.
"Give me your wife's phone number, I'll give her a call and let her know you're thinking of her, sending a letter."
"Would you?! That would be good. It's hard on her."
Big smile. Moist eyes.
I want to hug him and know it will be better not to right here/now.
Later, the call leads to a conversation about lonliness, duty, moving to Flagstaff.
A partner being brave, being worried: "So, he's off...."
Quiet pain.
"Do you have someone you can talk with?"
"You know, I've been wondering about that. I've been thinking I'd like that. I don't know how to find someone."
So, I give a number, we talk about her desire to leave Phoenix, how her husband wants her to wait until he returns, so they can move together from "the Valley" to Flagstaff together.
"Give me a call if you want, if you get up to Flagstaff this Fall," I say, going beyond what our protocol really allows. She's client, not a friend.
It just seems like the friendly thing to do.
My partner, shares/admits how she always feels like she wants to "mother" these people, to comfort and protect them. Moist eyes looking out over 166 lives waiting to get onto a bus to the rest of what may become for some, very short journeys. And they will get there together on one hand (we're with a National Guard Unit from Phoenix, AZ). On the other hand, it's a journey into the self. What's it all about, this life I'm living? A solitary journey.
My own experience in another time and another war allows me to feel a connection with this experience of theirs in a way that I can tell my partner doesn't and can't. In one way this is good, an instant bridge between me and them. In another, she can be present more clearly and allow it to be just their experience she's witnessing, acknowledging. I, on the other hand, realize that I'm using them to complete something of my own history. I'm seeing here in part myself. It's good that we are both here, a woman, a man witnessing, that we can bring our separate presences to this moment.
Looking back now, it is this that I see we are there to do. To witness their experience, their presence. And in doing this it is perhaps what one can really only ever give of value: I see that you exist and I am glad you do and to be here to let you know I know.
The words may be trite, sound so when we speak them. Yet, it is what we do anyway. And, just the fact that we have come out to see them off, even though it's our "job", I can see gratitude in eyes and faces. It is spoken out loud too: "Thank you, sir, for coming out." And it's meant. It has meaning. It is, I realize, what I have come here to do. The pay off is bigger than any job description or pay. I feel seen too.
I have this idea that somehow it may be that human beings create extraordinary circumstances which go beyond the daily buzz of worries and problems in order to come into a space wherein one can only manage to handle this moment, this one right here right now. "Disasters" and "tragedies", storms and war have a way of "bringing us together". Remember 9/11, how good it was to be able to share our confusion, pain, anger, saddness. So, in this, there is a certain connection with life, with others, with ones self, with "meaning" that is generally lost in the buzz.
I have felt and I have heard other former soldiers express a certain "strange" desire to "go back", a longing to be in a place/time/experience that at the time was what one most wanted to escape. I don't think it is the circumstances. I don't think that it is making war or being in danger that is the desire or longing. I think it has to do with the simplicity of simply facing life at it's most fundamental level - that of doing what it takes to be/stay alive and to help others do the same. All the other complications which daily life is full of drop away and it gets really simple. Just do what's infront of me to do. Just be here now. Trust eachother and ones self. It's being present to all that really is, this moment.
So, the soldiers walk past us, feet shuffeling, audible sighs and grunts as packs are picked u, a feeling of relief in the air and on faces, and in words. "Finally." The wait part of "hurry up and wait, now for this moment, is over.
Passing by them, we hear, "Thank you, thanks for coming out, thanks." Hand shake, fist bump, eye contact, smile. You're welcome. Be safe.
You ARE welcome. Besafe. Be safe. Be all that you can be (laugh).
Busses leave. Empty space bewteen the barracks, efluvia of water bottles, wrappers, and here and there a pillow or blanket or some personal item forgotten or left behind because there just wasn't room in the pack and nowhere else to put it.
It's a moment in which I feel both sad and lonely and blessed and grateful. It is life and we have all just done the best we could with who we are. I feel human and I'm alive. That's it. That's all. It's enough.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
It's quite an interesting experience to find myself inside the military culture/life and find that mostly these are just regular people living life pretty much like, well, civilians. I think I'm a little ashamed that this should be something of a surprise. I'm relieved, actually, to realize that it doesn't matter what my opinions are about the politics or morality of war in particular or in general, that it's not particularly useful or required in order to be of some use to our clients. There are no bumper stickers on the the vehicles. That turns out to feel friendly, as though it's not necessary to yell one's opinion from the back of one's vehicle in order to be present and accounted for.
I've also noticed that everyone from the Comanding General on out wears the same camoflage uniform and that they are really pretty cool looking, practical, useful, much more comfortible (looking, anyway), and I want one (without having obey orders to get it, of course).
The commanding general of this Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch (he actually invites soldiers of all ranks to call him Rick) seems to walk his talk about wanting to provide the soldiers with as much help as they need to be healthy doing their work. He actually cancelled physical training postwide for the first day of school to allow Soldiers with school-age children the oportunity to accompany their children to school. It would have been incoceivable to me from my experience that, except for maybe the plague or Christmas, maybe, they would cancel physical or any other training. Hmmm.
The Military and Family Life Consultant program, which is what I'm working with/for, was created out of an event in 2004 when the 1st Cavelry's redeployment from Iraq to the US was cancelled and their tour extended for six months. There was a recognition that the families as well as the soldiers would obviously be greatly affected (something which my experience of the military was surprising and even hopeful) adding to the already great stress of the year they just spent apart. This program was put together then and was perceived as valuable enough after the immediate need was met to be renewed and continued since that time.
It actually feels something of a relief that discussing the politics of the two wars we are engaged in are off limits for discussion with the soldiers, families, and amongst ourselves (at least at work). It is just about what is it that we can do to help these people.
Which isn't to say that that always happens amongst ourselves. Or that the nature of the military life doesn't have it's peculiar twists and turns on life. But, mostly the presenting problems are pretty much the sort which show up in any civilian counselor's office.
There's something else that I've noticed too about the nature of the military "culture" (which has sounded like an oxymoron to me until this experience) which I find myself admiring. It is a real sense and attempt to live up to the ideal that one is expected to live with integrity in one's relationships with fellow soldiers and ones family/personal relationships as well. It feels like it helps to bring a fundamental solidness to the container of military life. I've had spouses talk about how they have gone to their soldiers superiors (i.e. Sgts., C.O.'s, etc.) and those people have held the soldiers accountable, spoken as an elder, referred or brought them in to us, etc., in a way that isn't required but seen as part of their mission as leaders. This is literally supported in the soldiers "code" and sometimes it seems that it could be a useful presence in "civilian" life more than it often is. It doesn't require that anyone be part of a particulary belief system. It just defines how one is to behave within a culture, and is in this way kind of Samauri in nature. Maybe "be all you can be" has more to it than I have believed about the Army.
I've been resistent to actually allowing myself to acknowledge admiration for any aspects of the military culture. I've spent a lot of years remembering out of my own experience, which was one mainly of fear, then disalussionment, then saddness and anger. So, to find that I've come to feel this unexpected sense of approval, that I find a more human face showing now, is amusingly disconcerting. It helps that all the NCO's and Officers who used to look so old and tough now look younger, often WAY younger, and thus less scary to me. I think, actually, it helps to have grey hair. I had a soldier come up to me the other day and ask if I wasn't General Somebody or Other. Imagine that. It felt kind of, well, powerful. I don't think they'll let me re-up.
As for my work here, I generally will see three or four clients in a day, give a couple briefings, mayb do some phone contacts. We have a quota of needing to have fove direct and/ore indirect contacts in a day. My first client was actually a kind of baptism by crossfire, as it were. It was actually a couple and was on the morning of the second my second full day (they cut the new guy a break - I hardly knew where the bathroom was and I'd only been on-site a few hours). It involved addiction to crack cocaine, a terminal illness, reintigration after Iraq, infidelity, financial distress, four teenage step-children, and bad breath (well, that last isn't true but might as well have been). Welcome back to work, G, light of my life "retired" counselor. You thought a vacation maybe?.....!
In central Texas in August?! What was I thinking?
I've also noticed that everyone from the Comanding General on out wears the same camoflage uniform and that they are really pretty cool looking, practical, useful, much more comfortible (looking, anyway), and I want one (without having obey orders to get it, of course).
The commanding general of this Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch (he actually invites soldiers of all ranks to call him Rick) seems to walk his talk about wanting to provide the soldiers with as much help as they need to be healthy doing their work. He actually cancelled physical training postwide for the first day of school to allow Soldiers with school-age children the oportunity to accompany their children to school. It would have been incoceivable to me from my experience that, except for maybe the plague or Christmas, maybe, they would cancel physical or any other training. Hmmm.
The Military and Family Life Consultant program, which is what I'm working with/for, was created out of an event in 2004 when the 1st Cavelry's redeployment from Iraq to the US was cancelled and their tour extended for six months. There was a recognition that the families as well as the soldiers would obviously be greatly affected (something which my experience of the military was surprising and even hopeful) adding to the already great stress of the year they just spent apart. This program was put together then and was perceived as valuable enough after the immediate need was met to be renewed and continued since that time.
It actually feels something of a relief that discussing the politics of the two wars we are engaged in are off limits for discussion with the soldiers, families, and amongst ourselves (at least at work). It is just about what is it that we can do to help these people.
Which isn't to say that that always happens amongst ourselves. Or that the nature of the military life doesn't have it's peculiar twists and turns on life. But, mostly the presenting problems are pretty much the sort which show up in any civilian counselor's office.
There's something else that I've noticed too about the nature of the military "culture" (which has sounded like an oxymoron to me until this experience) which I find myself admiring. It is a real sense and attempt to live up to the ideal that one is expected to live with integrity in one's relationships with fellow soldiers and ones family/personal relationships as well. It feels like it helps to bring a fundamental solidness to the container of military life. I've had spouses talk about how they have gone to their soldiers superiors (i.e. Sgts., C.O.'s, etc.) and those people have held the soldiers accountable, spoken as an elder, referred or brought them in to us, etc., in a way that isn't required but seen as part of their mission as leaders. This is literally supported in the soldiers "code" and sometimes it seems that it could be a useful presence in "civilian" life more than it often is. It doesn't require that anyone be part of a particulary belief system. It just defines how one is to behave within a culture, and is in this way kind of Samauri in nature. Maybe "be all you can be" has more to it than I have believed about the Army.
I've been resistent to actually allowing myself to acknowledge admiration for any aspects of the military culture. I've spent a lot of years remembering out of my own experience, which was one mainly of fear, then disalussionment, then saddness and anger. So, to find that I've come to feel this unexpected sense of approval, that I find a more human face showing now, is amusingly disconcerting. It helps that all the NCO's and Officers who used to look so old and tough now look younger, often WAY younger, and thus less scary to me. I think, actually, it helps to have grey hair. I had a soldier come up to me the other day and ask if I wasn't General Somebody or Other. Imagine that. It felt kind of, well, powerful. I don't think they'll let me re-up.
As for my work here, I generally will see three or four clients in a day, give a couple briefings, mayb do some phone contacts. We have a quota of needing to have fove direct and/ore indirect contacts in a day. My first client was actually a kind of baptism by crossfire, as it were. It was actually a couple and was on the morning of the second my second full day (they cut the new guy a break - I hardly knew where the bathroom was and I'd only been on-site a few hours). It involved addiction to crack cocaine, a terminal illness, reintigration after Iraq, infidelity, financial distress, four teenage step-children, and bad breath (well, that last isn't true but might as well have been). Welcome back to work, G, light of my life "retired" counselor. You thought a vacation maybe?.....!
In central Texas in August?! What was I thinking?
Sunday, August 16, 2009
OK. So I forgot that you, the reader, may have no idea what I'm up to with this Ft. Hood gig. This post's for you. Maybe you should get a Bud first.
Ft. Hood is located about an hour or so west of Austin and the town just outside the post is Killeen. I don't know which came first, the post of town, but at this point, who cares, right? Anyway, I haven't really had time or inclination to explore much as I've been pretty focused on just climbing the learning curve. It has been pretty hot and humid but not as bad as I thought it might be after being in the arid SW of Arizona and New Mexico. There are some rolling hills about but I'm used to seeing mountains out the window and so looking out the second floor window of my room there isn't much to see for a long ways other than more tree tops and hazy sky. It h&h doesn't really invite one to do much outside anyway at mid-day but perhaps I'll need to brave it anyway or my legs may atrophy.
I'm working for Mental Health Network who has a contract with the Department of Defense to provide short-term, solution-focused counseling to military personnel and their families. We basically do short-term problem solving and referral counseling (though we can see a client up to 12 sessions, which goes beyond what is usually considered short term) for all kinds of issues, e.g. pre-deployment/reintegration stress, marital issues, child behavioral issues, communication, problem solving, screening and referral for longer term issues such as PTSD, etc., which also includes briefings to command at all levels, seminars and workshops, etc.). Our "mission" isn't to do psychotherapy. There are military services already available and functioning in that capacity. It would be closer to accurate to describe us as a military EAP (employee assistance program) with all the caveats that come with that, e.g. the program is free, we don't report anyones participation to anyone outside, we don't even keep records of have a paper trail and of course the exception is danger to self/others, domestic abuse, etc.
I've been surprised and impressed at how much help is actually available to military personnel these days. When a soldier is already working in one that we'd be duplicating then we can't accept them as clients.
Basically this program started in response to an event in 2004 when a battalion which was scheduled to return from Iraq had that cancelled at the last moment and was extended another six months. The military realized that both the men and their expectant families would need some special focus for their response and concerns. It was so successful that it has been continued and expanded to include all services and at posts throughout the world.
What I am is a professional mental health sub-contractor that is hired to provide services through MHN on one of three different length rotations - 30 days, 45 days, 90 days. I'm on a 45 day rotation. There are other counselors who are hired to work primarily with children in youth programs, some who come specifically to work with newly returning troops (coming back to the US from Iraq or Afghanistan), and some who provide on-going available counseling in local areas.
So, I'm here at Ft. Hood until the end of September.
A day in the life looks something like this:
Get to the office on-post (fifteen minutes from the hotel I'm staying in in Killeen, the town just outside the post).
Several counselors will be present to take phone calls, take walk-ins and/or make appointments to see clients, see clients already scheduled, or go to networking, do briefings for various of the military units, etc.
The office (and many of the daily activities on post) shut down at 1700hrs (see, I'm learning) sharp (I mean - you got to leave the building now)! That's a good thing. If you're out when revellie is being played you stop your car and get out and face the music (if you can't see a flag) literraly.
There are some briefings and activities we might be called upon to do into the evening but we aren't an emergency service after hours or on the weekend.
This is a huge base and some parts of the post are 40 or more minutes from the main office. So far I haven't been to the other offices but it's only a matter of time.
Our office is on a block of the post that has been designated as the Resiliency Campus, and includes us - Military and Family Life Consultants (I'm a MFLC), a Financial Counseling office which helps with loans of both long term and emergency nature, a fitness center which helps with nutritional counseling, and also includes massage, relaxation machines (really, there's one shaped like a big egg that you can sit in quiet in or listen to music!), aerobics and other such things. All quite unlike the military that I remember or have known about.
Basically, it seems that the DOD and the military are taking seriously the emotional and practical impact of military life (especially for those impacted from serving in a war zone) and the need to address the consequences of "running its business", so to speak, perhaps in a way that the private sector corporation might or should take as seriously.
I'm glad when I'm able to be working with the clients or giving a briefing. When it comes to the details about doing the paperwork to get paid, to track our contact activities, and learning the resources for referrals, locations of places, etc, important of course, but makes me want to whine. No whining zone ahead.
I'm feeling lots of feelings and thinking lots of the same 0ld same old. I'm trying to remember that I'm not them or my thoughts or my expectations. In the moment I remember, I feel happy to be doing this work in general and typing this blog in particular. Otherwise, I get lonely and can't decide if I'm just a malcontent who doesn't know when to stay put. So, here I am and here I am.
Ft. Hood is located about an hour or so west of Austin and the town just outside the post is Killeen. I don't know which came first, the post of town, but at this point, who cares, right? Anyway, I haven't really had time or inclination to explore much as I've been pretty focused on just climbing the learning curve. It has been pretty hot and humid but not as bad as I thought it might be after being in the arid SW of Arizona and New Mexico. There are some rolling hills about but I'm used to seeing mountains out the window and so looking out the second floor window of my room there isn't much to see for a long ways other than more tree tops and hazy sky. It h&h doesn't really invite one to do much outside anyway at mid-day but perhaps I'll need to brave it anyway or my legs may atrophy.
I'm working for Mental Health Network who has a contract with the Department of Defense to provide short-term, solution-focused counseling to military personnel and their families. We basically do short-term problem solving and referral counseling (though we can see a client up to 12 sessions, which goes beyond what is usually considered short term) for all kinds of issues, e.g. pre-deployment/reintegration stress, marital issues, child behavioral issues, communication, problem solving, screening and referral for longer term issues such as PTSD, etc., which also includes briefings to command at all levels, seminars and workshops, etc.). Our "mission" isn't to do psychotherapy. There are military services already available and functioning in that capacity. It would be closer to accurate to describe us as a military EAP (employee assistance program) with all the caveats that come with that, e.g. the program is free, we don't report anyones participation to anyone outside, we don't even keep records of have a paper trail and of course the exception is danger to self/others, domestic abuse, etc.
I've been surprised and impressed at how much help is actually available to military personnel these days. When a soldier is already working in one that we'd be duplicating then we can't accept them as clients.
Basically this program started in response to an event in 2004 when a battalion which was scheduled to return from Iraq had that cancelled at the last moment and was extended another six months. The military realized that both the men and their expectant families would need some special focus for their response and concerns. It was so successful that it has been continued and expanded to include all services and at posts throughout the world.
What I am is a professional mental health sub-contractor that is hired to provide services through MHN on one of three different length rotations - 30 days, 45 days, 90 days. I'm on a 45 day rotation. There are other counselors who are hired to work primarily with children in youth programs, some who come specifically to work with newly returning troops (coming back to the US from Iraq or Afghanistan), and some who provide on-going available counseling in local areas.
So, I'm here at Ft. Hood until the end of September.
A day in the life looks something like this:
Get to the office on-post (fifteen minutes from the hotel I'm staying in in Killeen, the town just outside the post).
Several counselors will be present to take phone calls, take walk-ins and/or make appointments to see clients, see clients already scheduled, or go to networking, do briefings for various of the military units, etc.
The office (and many of the daily activities on post) shut down at 1700hrs (see, I'm learning) sharp (I mean - you got to leave the building now)! That's a good thing. If you're out when revellie is being played you stop your car and get out and face the music (if you can't see a flag) literraly.
There are some briefings and activities we might be called upon to do into the evening but we aren't an emergency service after hours or on the weekend.
This is a huge base and some parts of the post are 40 or more minutes from the main office. So far I haven't been to the other offices but it's only a matter of time.
Our office is on a block of the post that has been designated as the Resiliency Campus, and includes us - Military and Family Life Consultants (I'm a MFLC), a Financial Counseling office which helps with loans of both long term and emergency nature, a fitness center which helps with nutritional counseling, and also includes massage, relaxation machines (really, there's one shaped like a big egg that you can sit in quiet in or listen to music!), aerobics and other such things. All quite unlike the military that I remember or have known about.
Basically, it seems that the DOD and the military are taking seriously the emotional and practical impact of military life (especially for those impacted from serving in a war zone) and the need to address the consequences of "running its business", so to speak, perhaps in a way that the private sector corporation might or should take as seriously.
I'm glad when I'm able to be working with the clients or giving a briefing. When it comes to the details about doing the paperwork to get paid, to track our contact activities, and learning the resources for referrals, locations of places, etc, important of course, but makes me want to whine. No whining zone ahead.
I'm feeling lots of feelings and thinking lots of the same 0ld same old. I'm trying to remember that I'm not them or my thoughts or my expectations. In the moment I remember, I feel happy to be doing this work in general and typing this blog in particular. Otherwise, I get lonely and can't decide if I'm just a malcontent who doesn't know when to stay put. So, here I am and here I am.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Welcome, I think.
I'm glad to welcome you to this experiment into the unknown world of blogspace with me.
I'll attempt to be forthcoming (or fifthcoming, if it's been a hard day) with just what's up with me.
Here.
At Ft. Hood, TX
Imagine that!
Last time I was on an Army base I had slightly less hair ( they gave me my choice of haircuts, i.e. white-wall sides with 1/8th inch on top or white-wall sides with a white-wall top), and it was darker. Looing at my bald spot it's hard to imagine less hair, hunh? Now I admit to being kinda smug about having sides that are touching my ears even thoug the white-wall top is getting to be a natural phenomina these days. Oh, and the gray color is a giveaway that I'm not a new recruit if they hadn't noticed the loose skin haning under my chin.
That was Ft. Campbell, KY., where the accents of most of those in charge seemed to be related to what I'm hearing around here quite a bit. Maybe it's so that the soldiers have a sense of being in a foreign land. Pretty foreign to me, anyway, yall.
I just finished my first week on the job. It was pretty much, "Oh, hey. You're the new guy. Ready for a client? And, by the way, we've scheduled you for a Briefing tomorrow at 1400hrs, there's a mandatory staffing with Jim the supervisor at 1200hrs, don't forget to bring your completed invoice to be signed by the POC, and, what?, you haven't filled out the New Provider paperwork yet.
And so forth.
Really.
It's Saturday. I'm grateful for the break. I did manage to begin to feel that there was bits of solid ground avaiable here and there and even to expand that into finding the same salad bar for lunch two days in a row.
I'm put up in a quite nice Marriott suite and spent a few hours shopping for food to cook in room where the facilities include full refrigeration, stove, microwave, and of course, the all-important tv/vcr with 4,723 satalite stations providing all the angry "town hall" screaming, informertials, and (thank god), Comedy Central, that I can stand.
Anwyay, it's six o'clock (that would be 2700hrs or something), I'm hungry, don't know how this day slipped this far away. So, it's time to go cook something I bought today, drink a glass of some central neverous system depressant, and look at the TV, preferably after I've turned it on.
I'm doing better than I was and I always seem to have to go through this kind of emotional "sound barrier" before I realize again that "wherever I go, there I am" and in this moment, I'm good.
Questions?
Over....
g
I'll attempt to be forthcoming (or fifthcoming, if it's been a hard day) with just what's up with me.
Here.
At Ft. Hood, TX
Imagine that!
Last time I was on an Army base I had slightly less hair ( they gave me my choice of haircuts, i.e. white-wall sides with 1/8th inch on top or white-wall sides with a white-wall top), and it was darker. Looing at my bald spot it's hard to imagine less hair, hunh? Now I admit to being kinda smug about having sides that are touching my ears even thoug the white-wall top is getting to be a natural phenomina these days. Oh, and the gray color is a giveaway that I'm not a new recruit if they hadn't noticed the loose skin haning under my chin.
That was Ft. Campbell, KY., where the accents of most of those in charge seemed to be related to what I'm hearing around here quite a bit. Maybe it's so that the soldiers have a sense of being in a foreign land. Pretty foreign to me, anyway, yall.
I just finished my first week on the job. It was pretty much, "Oh, hey. You're the new guy. Ready for a client? And, by the way, we've scheduled you for a Briefing tomorrow at 1400hrs, there's a mandatory staffing with Jim the supervisor at 1200hrs, don't forget to bring your completed invoice to be signed by the POC, and, what?, you haven't filled out the New Provider paperwork yet.
And so forth.
Really.
It's Saturday. I'm grateful for the break. I did manage to begin to feel that there was bits of solid ground avaiable here and there and even to expand that into finding the same salad bar for lunch two days in a row.
I'm put up in a quite nice Marriott suite and spent a few hours shopping for food to cook in room where the facilities include full refrigeration, stove, microwave, and of course, the all-important tv/vcr with 4,723 satalite stations providing all the angry "town hall" screaming, informertials, and (thank god), Comedy Central, that I can stand.
Anwyay, it's six o'clock (that would be 2700hrs or something), I'm hungry, don't know how this day slipped this far away. So, it's time to go cook something I bought today, drink a glass of some central neverous system depressant, and look at the TV, preferably after I've turned it on.
I'm doing better than I was and I always seem to have to go through this kind of emotional "sound barrier" before I realize again that "wherever I go, there I am" and in this moment, I'm good.
Questions?
Over....
g
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