The saga, part III
Mar. 26th, 2003 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecunium0900 26 Mar 03
Today I am living on Mars. Wind, and dust are everywhere, and the
clouds add a filter, so the light was red on the way to chow. There was
no horizon, and as the day goes on the camp seems empty. No one is
outside unless they have someplace to go, head down against the driving
grit and the chill wind.
Yesterday was different. The morning started with dust, and changed to
rain. Glorious rain.
Desert rain. Nothing like it. This was better, because it grabbed
the dust and beat it to the ground. For the first time since I got here
I could see. Things in the distance had sharp edges. The air was not
tangible on my teeth.
All day the rain came and went, pattering on the tent (running under
the sides, and dribbling down the windows). When it started our boots ground through it, to reveal white sand beneath the brown. By afternoon
it was wet all the way to the underlayer of damp sand.
Which made moving to another part of the camp (again) easier.
We also had thunder, at first without any lightening. It no longer
makes me think of distant artillery. The sounds are still similar, but
the feeling is different. Since Sergeant First Class (SFC) McBride asked if it
was important, I know I am not the only person who notices the,
superficial similarity.
And in the evening we could see the lightening, ripples in the clouds.
Stark rivers of light running from place to place, reflecting down to the
ground and making the world yellowish for a moment. The rain came, in
drops the size of chickpeas, a pelting drumbeat which seemed to trap me
in the latrine. If I were home I might not have minded getting wet, but
here... I was in a new uniform not yet dusty. I didn't want to get the
grit from my gear running down onto clean clothes, so I waited in the
porta-john for five minutes, until the rhythm slowed, and strolled back.
Alas the lightshow never returned, and so I took no photos.
We are about a kilometer from where we were, and now have room,; two
tents for the company, which means three feet on either side of a cot and
walkways down the center. The showers are here are closer, the latrines
further. The mess hall but 200m away and the MWR tent (with the
silliness of news from stateside) next to it. If one wishes to essay the
PX, it is a ten minute walk, not a twenty minute hike.
So, we have a new place to wait (and new graffiti in the
latrines). The extra space is nice. It makes things seem a bit more
relaxed, but there is also less sense of intimacy, of shared
purpose. The territorial nature of people (which is perhaps more
pronounced in soldiers) makes the other tent seem less friendly than it
was, even though we are all still the same people, and all still on the
same team.
1400
The sun has burnt through the morning haze. If pressed I would say
it was a pleasant day. Cool, bright and not too windy. On the other
hand the tent sounds like a tubercular ward, so the dust is still
here. It burns the eyes (I fear I complain too much about such things,
they are not a misery, more of an unending annoyance, and so they take up
more of the mind than they should. I feel it in my nose, my eyes my
throat, all day, every day. It is much like the whine in a neighbors air
conditioner, you can't help but notice it, even though it is beyond your
control. I'll try to cut back on that).
The regular sorts of training continue, day to day soldier drills,
maybe not the same tasks we would have trained when we were doing drill,
but the same sort of routine. Life is routine. It was routine when I
was studying Russian, when I was at Basic, when I was learning my
specialty. It was routine before I got deployed. So the only difference
is in the details.
That and the twitchiness. A week ago I did not know what it sounded
like when a Patriot battery fired, now I hear them and only stop for a
moment, waiting in the pregnant pause for the, "Giant Voice," to let us
know that incoming is on the way. We used to noticeably stop, now it is
a momentary pause. But the other day, just after I'd taken a shower, a fan started, and I froze, another guy stuck his head out and we laughed, roughly, at
how much it had sounded like the siren, as though from a distance.
At the risk of melodrama, even at so far a remove as I have been so far
from the fighting, I have seen, as a British Lt. Col. said, "Thing [I]
could not pay men to show [me]." So far they are not things I am sorry to
have seen. Touch wood that it remains so.
My CO told us today he is proud of how well we have integrated the units
in the command, and of how hard we're working, esp. in so austere a
setting. And I am grateful it's noticed. But CPT Hopper has the
touch. He is not CPT Kozak, (my assigned CO) but they are of a type. On
the other hand, I know that while this is crappy living compared to being
home (Heck, even compared to being at Ft. Bragg) it is the lap of luxury
compared to where we expect to be and that is still better than being a
troopie in the line.
It is a fantasy life. I am in a tent, in the wilds of Arabia. The wind
and the dust and the sweep of sky and sand are things every imaginative
mind I know of has dreamt of. Aladdin and the Arabian Nights are
here. I may get to see a train of camels being led by Bedouin, the stars are not what they were at home. I am being paid to be here. What's
to bitch about?
Were it not for the war, and not having a timeline for my return home
it would be an easy life. I guess that is what I have to bitch about,
which is (I guess) what I've been bitching about.
1730
On the other hand I just saw a kite, some sort of desert falcon; white
bird with dark head and a black tip on the narrow, rounded tail. The
wings were lean angles tapered to a fine, dark point. The sky is all
white, and hollow, the sun vanished into the dust ten minutes ago, as in
days past a translucent white object, lacking heat or fire. Something to
take home.
Today I am living on Mars. Wind, and dust are everywhere, and the
clouds add a filter, so the light was red on the way to chow. There was
no horizon, and as the day goes on the camp seems empty. No one is
outside unless they have someplace to go, head down against the driving
grit and the chill wind.
Yesterday was different. The morning started with dust, and changed to
rain. Glorious rain.
Desert rain. Nothing like it. This was better, because it grabbed
the dust and beat it to the ground. For the first time since I got here
I could see. Things in the distance had sharp edges. The air was not
tangible on my teeth.
All day the rain came and went, pattering on the tent (running under
the sides, and dribbling down the windows). When it started our boots ground through it, to reveal white sand beneath the brown. By afternoon
it was wet all the way to the underlayer of damp sand.
Which made moving to another part of the camp (again) easier.
We also had thunder, at first without any lightening. It no longer
makes me think of distant artillery. The sounds are still similar, but
the feeling is different. Since Sergeant First Class (SFC) McBride asked if it
was important, I know I am not the only person who notices the,
superficial similarity.
And in the evening we could see the lightening, ripples in the clouds.
Stark rivers of light running from place to place, reflecting down to the
ground and making the world yellowish for a moment. The rain came, in
drops the size of chickpeas, a pelting drumbeat which seemed to trap me
in the latrine. If I were home I might not have minded getting wet, but
here... I was in a new uniform not yet dusty. I didn't want to get the
grit from my gear running down onto clean clothes, so I waited in the
porta-john for five minutes, until the rhythm slowed, and strolled back.
Alas the lightshow never returned, and so I took no photos.
We are about a kilometer from where we were, and now have room,; two
tents for the company, which means three feet on either side of a cot and
walkways down the center. The showers are here are closer, the latrines
further. The mess hall but 200m away and the MWR tent (with the
silliness of news from stateside) next to it. If one wishes to essay the
PX, it is a ten minute walk, not a twenty minute hike.
So, we have a new place to wait (and new graffiti in the
latrines). The extra space is nice. It makes things seem a bit more
relaxed, but there is also less sense of intimacy, of shared
purpose. The territorial nature of people (which is perhaps more
pronounced in soldiers) makes the other tent seem less friendly than it
was, even though we are all still the same people, and all still on the
same team.
1400
The sun has burnt through the morning haze. If pressed I would say
it was a pleasant day. Cool, bright and not too windy. On the other
hand the tent sounds like a tubercular ward, so the dust is still
here. It burns the eyes (I fear I complain too much about such things,
they are not a misery, more of an unending annoyance, and so they take up
more of the mind than they should. I feel it in my nose, my eyes my
throat, all day, every day. It is much like the whine in a neighbors air
conditioner, you can't help but notice it, even though it is beyond your
control. I'll try to cut back on that).
The regular sorts of training continue, day to day soldier drills,
maybe not the same tasks we would have trained when we were doing drill,
but the same sort of routine. Life is routine. It was routine when I
was studying Russian, when I was at Basic, when I was learning my
specialty. It was routine before I got deployed. So the only difference
is in the details.
That and the twitchiness. A week ago I did not know what it sounded
like when a Patriot battery fired, now I hear them and only stop for a
moment, waiting in the pregnant pause for the, "Giant Voice," to let us
know that incoming is on the way. We used to noticeably stop, now it is
a momentary pause. But the other day, just after I'd taken a shower, a fan started, and I froze, another guy stuck his head out and we laughed, roughly, at
how much it had sounded like the siren, as though from a distance.
At the risk of melodrama, even at so far a remove as I have been so far
from the fighting, I have seen, as a British Lt. Col. said, "Thing [I]
could not pay men to show [me]." So far they are not things I am sorry to
have seen. Touch wood that it remains so.
My CO told us today he is proud of how well we have integrated the units
in the command, and of how hard we're working, esp. in so austere a
setting. And I am grateful it's noticed. But CPT Hopper has the
touch. He is not CPT Kozak, (my assigned CO) but they are of a type. On
the other hand, I know that while this is crappy living compared to being
home (Heck, even compared to being at Ft. Bragg) it is the lap of luxury
compared to where we expect to be and that is still better than being a
troopie in the line.
It is a fantasy life. I am in a tent, in the wilds of Arabia. The wind
and the dust and the sweep of sky and sand are things every imaginative
mind I know of has dreamt of. Aladdin and the Arabian Nights are
here. I may get to see a train of camels being led by Bedouin, the stars are not what they were at home. I am being paid to be here. What's
to bitch about?
Were it not for the war, and not having a timeline for my return home
it would be an easy life. I guess that is what I have to bitch about,
which is (I guess) what I've been bitching about.
1730
On the other hand I just saw a kite, some sort of desert falcon; white
bird with dark head and a black tip on the narrow, rounded tail. The
wings were lean angles tapered to a fine, dark point. The sky is all
white, and hollow, the sun vanished into the dust ten minutes ago, as in
days past a translucent white object, lacking heat or fire. Something to
take home.
