Boots On Ground Has Begun
Well, what can I say, it's been a while since my last post and i really have no good reason why. I have been in country for almost a month now and we are still trying to get settled into a routine.
The days are long with our shifts plus my extra admin and computer duties in the orderly room, but really, it's not like I have anything else to do or another place to be right now, so the extra work is kind of welcomed at times to make the day go by faster. If I didn't have the extra duties, I would probably adopt a friend's philosophy on being here, "if you sleep twelve hours a day, you're really only in country for six months." Sometimes I get ten hours, but never twelve. I always have to get up and walk to the latrine and by then it's too bright outside to go back to bed.
Afghanistan is interesting that's for sure. Everything here smells like dirt and the dirt is very dirty. If it isn't dry and dusty, it's rainy and muddy so it's kind of a catch-22 on any given day. I'm pretty well settled into my little room. My pictures of my husband, family and friends adorn my 1/4-inch thick walls to remind me of home and of all the good things I have to come back to in eleven or so months. The Afghan people, at least the locals on base, seem to be very friendly towards the Coalition Forces. They greet you with smiles and a well spoked, "how are you?" each time you say hello to them. The children are beautiful and sad at the same time. They seem to have nothing, yet they probably have a lot in their world. They just aren't aware of what their are missing in other worlds very far away. They wave and say hello on the perimeter and ask, just as the others, "how are you?"
Our mission is quite boring to say the least, but I guess Force Protection missions can be a little boring when no one is shooting at you. So, I guess for now I won't complain too much about the boredom on shift.
In my spare time, I have found many books to read that I had started at past times in my life. The first was Band of Brothers, which is phenomenal and is also at the top of the NCO recommended reading list for the Army. Next was The Greatest Generation. Currently, it's We Were Soldiers Once, and Young. I guess I am looking for insight into other people's war experiences. I understand this one is different from the others, there will probably be no combat for me to experience, but the stress of being away from home and the stress of living in a military environment are probably all relavent to any deployment.
I guess the books have really got me thinking about today's attitude towards war, deployment, the military, and love of country. Tom Brokaw really was right when he said the World War II generation was The Greatest Generation. I don't think American will ever see a generation such as that again. There were glimpses of the patriotism and the support for the troops after 9/11, but most of that has faded now into people's personal lives and their need to be all about themselves.
When my husband was deployed to Iraq, I skipped family support meetings because I didn't want to listen to spouses and families complain that they had no Internet access or phones to call from just days after the unit crossed into Iraq. I couldn't stand to listen to people complain that there was no email access from day one. It made me angry. I wanted to look at them all and tell them to write a letter. What did they think families and spouses did in Vietnam and Korea, and WWII and WWI, even Desert Storm. People just don't think about the sacrifices that soldiers have made in the past to do their duty and they don't think that soldiers today need to make any sacrifices to do theirs. I can't imagine our generation, my generation, having to do what The Greatest Generation did for their country. People simply wouldn't do it. We complain about one-year boots-on-ground policies when in WWII some soldiers were away from home for three or four years. Some didn't shower for sixty-nine days and we complain if our water here isn't hot enough. What are people thinking? This is not a vacation, it is a deployment. With deployments come sacrifices and with sacrifices come struggles and rewards. The hard part is making it through the struggles to reap the rewards in the end.
I am so very proud to be here at this place, at this moment, in this war. I can't tell you how good it feels to be part of something that is so big in this world. It is amazing, it truly is and honestly, I don't care about the people at home who don't think we should be here. It is too bad that those people have so much spare time on their hands that all they can do is complain about the people who fight for their freedom. They just annoy me more than anything and their ignorance just makes me laugh. If they only knew that most soldiers probably don't even hear what they say.
I will admit that some things here can be very frustrating. Integrating a National Guard unit into Active Duty isn't the easiest thing in the world. Sometimes (mind you this is all my opinion and sometimes I don't know much) the command should be tougher like the AD and the soldiers should have a little more discipline. We have young NCO's who drive me crazy and, in my honest opinion, could get people killed in combat (thank God we will probably not ever be in combat). They can't make decisions, they are lazy and selfish and are everything that a leader should not be. The bad thing is, they think they are good leaders. They aren't. It is like an entire section of LT Normans Dike's from Band of Brothers - "LT Dike wasn't a bad leader because he made bad decisions. LT Dike was a bad leader because he made no decisions." It is frustrating. I wish they all would understand leadership the way Lt. Gen. Harold Moore did, "in the American Civil War it was a matter of principle that a good officer rode his horse as little as possible...If you are riding and your soldiers are marching, how can you judge how tired they are, how thirsty, how heavy their packs weigh on their shoulders?"
I'm not an NCO or an Officer, I am a junior enlisted soldier, partly by choice, partly by failure, and I hope to God that when I become a leader, I don't ever forget that soldiers should come first, not me. I hope I will not be as disappointing as they are and if I am, I pray that someone tells me and that if they do tell me, I pray I am not so arrogant or ignorant that I don't understand.
The days are long with our shifts plus my extra admin and computer duties in the orderly room, but really, it's not like I have anything else to do or another place to be right now, so the extra work is kind of welcomed at times to make the day go by faster. If I didn't have the extra duties, I would probably adopt a friend's philosophy on being here, "if you sleep twelve hours a day, you're really only in country for six months." Sometimes I get ten hours, but never twelve. I always have to get up and walk to the latrine and by then it's too bright outside to go back to bed.
Afghanistan is interesting that's for sure. Everything here smells like dirt and the dirt is very dirty. If it isn't dry and dusty, it's rainy and muddy so it's kind of a catch-22 on any given day. I'm pretty well settled into my little room. My pictures of my husband, family and friends adorn my 1/4-inch thick walls to remind me of home and of all the good things I have to come back to in eleven or so months. The Afghan people, at least the locals on base, seem to be very friendly towards the Coalition Forces. They greet you with smiles and a well spoked, "how are you?" each time you say hello to them. The children are beautiful and sad at the same time. They seem to have nothing, yet they probably have a lot in their world. They just aren't aware of what their are missing in other worlds very far away. They wave and say hello on the perimeter and ask, just as the others, "how are you?"
Our mission is quite boring to say the least, but I guess Force Protection missions can be a little boring when no one is shooting at you. So, I guess for now I won't complain too much about the boredom on shift.
In my spare time, I have found many books to read that I had started at past times in my life. The first was Band of Brothers, which is phenomenal and is also at the top of the NCO recommended reading list for the Army. Next was The Greatest Generation. Currently, it's We Were Soldiers Once, and Young. I guess I am looking for insight into other people's war experiences. I understand this one is different from the others, there will probably be no combat for me to experience, but the stress of being away from home and the stress of living in a military environment are probably all relavent to any deployment.
I guess the books have really got me thinking about today's attitude towards war, deployment, the military, and love of country. Tom Brokaw really was right when he said the World War II generation was The Greatest Generation. I don't think American will ever see a generation such as that again. There were glimpses of the patriotism and the support for the troops after 9/11, but most of that has faded now into people's personal lives and their need to be all about themselves.
When my husband was deployed to Iraq, I skipped family support meetings because I didn't want to listen to spouses and families complain that they had no Internet access or phones to call from just days after the unit crossed into Iraq. I couldn't stand to listen to people complain that there was no email access from day one. It made me angry. I wanted to look at them all and tell them to write a letter. What did they think families and spouses did in Vietnam and Korea, and WWII and WWI, even Desert Storm. People just don't think about the sacrifices that soldiers have made in the past to do their duty and they don't think that soldiers today need to make any sacrifices to do theirs. I can't imagine our generation, my generation, having to do what The Greatest Generation did for their country. People simply wouldn't do it. We complain about one-year boots-on-ground policies when in WWII some soldiers were away from home for three or four years. Some didn't shower for sixty-nine days and we complain if our water here isn't hot enough. What are people thinking? This is not a vacation, it is a deployment. With deployments come sacrifices and with sacrifices come struggles and rewards. The hard part is making it through the struggles to reap the rewards in the end.
I am so very proud to be here at this place, at this moment, in this war. I can't tell you how good it feels to be part of something that is so big in this world. It is amazing, it truly is and honestly, I don't care about the people at home who don't think we should be here. It is too bad that those people have so much spare time on their hands that all they can do is complain about the people who fight for their freedom. They just annoy me more than anything and their ignorance just makes me laugh. If they only knew that most soldiers probably don't even hear what they say.
I will admit that some things here can be very frustrating. Integrating a National Guard unit into Active Duty isn't the easiest thing in the world. Sometimes (mind you this is all my opinion and sometimes I don't know much) the command should be tougher like the AD and the soldiers should have a little more discipline. We have young NCO's who drive me crazy and, in my honest opinion, could get people killed in combat (thank God we will probably not ever be in combat). They can't make decisions, they are lazy and selfish and are everything that a leader should not be. The bad thing is, they think they are good leaders. They aren't. It is like an entire section of LT Normans Dike's from Band of Brothers - "LT Dike wasn't a bad leader because he made bad decisions. LT Dike was a bad leader because he made no decisions." It is frustrating. I wish they all would understand leadership the way Lt. Gen. Harold Moore did, "in the American Civil War it was a matter of principle that a good officer rode his horse as little as possible...If you are riding and your soldiers are marching, how can you judge how tired they are, how thirsty, how heavy their packs weigh on their shoulders?"
I'm not an NCO or an Officer, I am a junior enlisted soldier, partly by choice, partly by failure, and I hope to God that when I become a leader, I don't ever forget that soldiers should come first, not me. I hope I will not be as disappointing as they are and if I am, I pray that someone tells me and that if they do tell me, I pray I am not so arrogant or ignorant that I don't understand.
