Readjustment?

One of the best things about the military is the sense of community. Especially in this kind of environment. Everyone here is experiencing some (no matter how minute) element of danger, everyone is working together (not without a few problems here and there of course) toward a common goal, and most everyone wears the same clothes to 'the office' every day.

Yesterday I went over to the PX because I was feeling like I needed a new movie, and a case of soda. I know the chow hall has free sodas there, but the PX has good old shipped in from America stuff, whereas the stuff at the chow hall is local stuff that's brought up from Kuwait and Dubai. We call it 'hajji soda' and it just doesn't taste right.

While wandering up the DVD aisle I bumped into a tall, young, black soldier. We both right away piped up "Hey, sorry man." Which was immediately followed by "No problem." And we smiled at eachother. Outside the Army this guy and I probably have nothing in common. I'm sure if he looked on my iPod he'd not find much he liked to listen to, my books and movies would probably seem weird. But we're both Soldiers and that cements a pretty deep bond.

Back home if someone bumped into me in the DVD aisle they'd probably walk away without saying a thing, or breaking their conversation on their cell phone. And I'd probably get pissed off about it.

Readjusting to life back home whenever we're done here should be interesting.

I'm back on the ECP now, been working there for about four days. It's dull, but the days kind of start to flow together, and time's going by pretty quickly. Still no word on when we might be home, but I mailed the Ducati dealership and asked them to have the bike ready for me by July 1st. Just in case we're back a bit early.

Hope everyone's doing well. Sounds like Nebraska got alot of snow dumped on them in the last few days. The high today is 72 degrees and sunny. Tomorrow it's supposed to get up into the 80's. Pretty soon the base pool will open up, and I may even find time to get over there this season.

Keep in touch, and we'll be home as soon as we can.

MTFBWY