Chapter 3- "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I don't feel fine at all!"

       Bagram Air Base Afghanistan, 9 December 2012. Time...0-earlyasfuck.
Actually, it was really late because I haven't slept in over 24 hours. All I
could think about was sleep and they made us visit our work sections and
have briefings with all the management before we could even think about
closing our eyes. All they kept telling us was how busy we are and to be
extra safe.

      'Safety' is the number one word you will hear in the military.
And I am really happy they reminded me of safety because right away I was
planning on taking a forklift off some sweet jumps. But now I know better. I
know now to fasten my seatbelt first and when using wood, to reinforce the
front of the takeoff ramp. Thank you commander!

       Our Chief Master Sergeant here talked to us. Told us all the same shit that everyone else before him already said. Our Chief back at our home
base talked to us before we left too. He thanked us all for volunteering to
go to Bagram. I thought, 'Is this ninja serious??' Volunteer?? Who
volunteered? Sure as shit not me. And the Chief here asked everyone who
volunteered to come to Bagram. As expected, no one raised their hand. Then
the Chief said, 'Wrong. You all have. When you joined the Air Force you
volunteered to serve and protect and to go and do whatever is needed to
preserve freedom.' At first I was thinking, 'What the hell is Captain
America doing here?' And then it made me think. You know....he's right. I
even mentioned this earlier in my story. I didn't join the Air Force for a
free pay check. I joined to do a job. A job that isn't easy and a job that
would often take me to a far off land; most likely to a war zone. I knew
that. And then I reenlisted. And when you reenlist, you REALLY have no right
to complain anymore. That means you have been in the military at least 4
years. Usually more. You know how shit works. It sucks. So much bullshit and
long hours and deployments, and you are so perfectly ok with it that you
reenlisted and wanted more of it.

            When you first join the military, everything is new and there's a lot to complain about. There's a culture shock, especially if your first assignment is overseas. And by the time you reenlist, you have been through it all. Nothing should surprise you anymore, yet everyone still complains. I'm guilty of it as much as anyone. It's how we bond. Misery loves company. People become closer through their common hate and displeasure in things. The biggest moral boost we get in the military is when we laugh and complain about the LACK of moral.

      A lot of times your closest friends end up being the ones you shared your worst and saddest times with. It's why military friends have closer bonds than anyone. You may have great friends you've been partying with since high school, but you don't know what a real bond and friendship is until you had to watch your buddy's back while face down in a foxhole for 24 hours without sleep in Afghanistan.


       Well, I'm not in the Army or Marines so thankfully I'll never have to go through something like that, but one time on an Air Force trip, our hotel reservations got messed up and instead of sleeping in a king size bed on the top floor suites, me and 3 co-workers had to settle for a queen size bed at a 4 star hotel down the street. Ya. It's hard to think and write about it now. All the words on my computer screen started getting blurry from the tears building up in my eyes. It was a tough night. I didn't
sleep well. None of us did. But I do like to think we all came out stronger
because of it. Every year or so me and those guys like to get together and
council each other. It's a form of group therapy. We're planning a trip to
Disneyland soon. We heard they give a military discount. And we sure as hell
better be able to move up to the front of every line. We are injured war
vets! Not physically injured, but the mental trauma we had to go through
after being downgraded at a hotel is a travesty that can never be mended.

       We FINALLY got released and told to get some rest. I hate being told to get some sleep after work. Like, no shit asshole. I love working a 12 hour night
shift and then having to go to a meeting and when it's over the boss says,
'That's all I got for ya. I know you're all tired. All you night shifters go
home and get some rest.' Oh thanks! Really? You release me to get
some sleep?? Or was that just your suggestion? Because if so, you sir, are a
fucking prophet! You should be promoted to General after ideas like that!
Thank you sir, I WILL go to sleep! And if you allow me, I will even enjoy
it!

     I was finally given a key to a room. Actually, no, I forgot. I wasn't
given a key. I was just TOLD which room I would be staying in. Apparently
all the keys to my room had been lost. Awesome. I'm assuming they were all
taken away by one of the Afghani cleaners who is planning to steal all our
dirty underwear...or to just sleep in our beds while we are away. I know
they do it. I see them. And every time you catch them they just start
saying, 'Ah scuzi! Me scuzi!'

        My room and the whole living situation was the thing I worried about the most before this deployment even started. I was told a little bit on what to expect, but it wasn't until I saw my room in person that I realized that everyone who told me about the Bagram living situation lied to me. They all straight up LIED to me. Maybe they were just being nice. Maybe they didn't want me to hate my deployment before I even got there. I guess I can understand that.

    But being truthful about a situation will help others prepare for it better.
And if someone was actually truthful to me about the living situation in
Bagram, I would have started falling down stairs on purpose months ago to
get out of coming here. I'd have the biggest grin in the world as they
pushed my crippled ass to the hospital. 'Fuck you Bagram!! Hahaha! Eating
through a straw never tasted so good!'

        I opened my room door and the lights were off. Someone was sleeping and turned to me and said, 'Can I help you?' I said, 'Ya, uh...sorry...I'm
your new roommate.' He told me they weren't expecting anyone and there
wasn't any room left. Ya. I could tell. The room was disgusting. It smelled like
ass, sweat, and protein powder. It was so damn hot in there too. It was cold
outside and the heat was nice at first, but it was on the hottest setting and
couldn't be changed. Your only option was to freeze to death or sweat to
death. Pick your fucking poison.

       The room had two 2 bunk beds on each side. But the size of the room was roughly 6 and a half feet wide and 12 feet long. For all my European
friends, that's about 2 meters by 4 meters. That's a small room for ONE
person. Imagine FOUR people in that room with at least 5 bags each. Ya.
Fuck that. And there were 4 lockers in each room. That's nice I guess, but in a
room that's only about 6 and a half feet by 12 feet big with 2 bunk beds in
it, 4 lockers, and about 20 large bags...how much room do you think is left?
How much 'lounge' space do you think is left? How much room do you think is
left for a basic chair just to sit down and tie your boots on? The
answer....none. No room.

       Right away I thought about sleeping in the warehouse at work or in a sleeping bag outside. That was just my first impression of the room. Not only did I have no place to put my bags, I had no idea where I was suppose to sleep in this room. I asked the other guy in there where my bed was and he told me that the top bunk to my right was free. So I looked at the top bunk to my right...it wasn't open. It was completely covered with shit. Bags, trash, magazines, food, and empty mail boxes most likely from care packages. Ok, I can be a pretty sentimental person sometimes. I like to keep everything people send to me, but I draw the line at keeping the fucking boxes they were shipped in. Unless someone spent the time to paint Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel on the outside, that box is going to find the trash can pretty damn quick.

        And that's what I had to do. I had to clean the entire room before I could even begin to put my things away and lay down. There was one tiny trash can that could hold 5 tissues in the middle of the room, and the guy on the bottom bunk had his own overflowing trash bag hanging off the side of his bed. The bathroom down the hall was only a few feet away with large trash cans in there. This motherfucker was so lazy that he kept trash off the side of his bed and on the top bunk.

     So I threw the trash away, put things away in his locker and even folded some clothes. All of this just so I could lay down in a bed while still in my boots and uniform because I was just that tired and they only gave me 8 hours off until I started work. It didn't matter though because there was no room to
change anyway. This was going to be how I lived for the next 6 months. All
of the previous stuff I wrote about on how I was just doing my job,
reenlisting, about how I shouldn't complain, people thanking me for my service...well you know what?? You're fucking welcome because this fucking sucks!

     I have spent 4 months straight in a tent before and had to walk a quarter mile just to take a piss after waking up, and that living situation was STILL better than this shit. It's bad enough being in the Middle East for months at a time away from everything working 12 hour shifts with no days off, but the worst part is when your shift is over and you worked your ass off and you just want to take a deep breath and relax...and you can't....because you're in a tiny
room with 3 other guys with no chairs...and you sleep on a top bunk. That's
right. A fucking top bunk. God help me.

        So there I was, starring my top bunk straight in the eye. And it was easy to do that since the bed was already at eye level. The first thing
you notice about a top bunk is how high it is. When you are younger, the
higher the better. Kids actually WANT the top bunk because it makes them
feel like they're king of the castle. They rule the bedroom. All the bottom bunkers are just their little minions. But when you're an adult...an adult who's
over 30 now, you see a bunk bed as an obstacle course that you are too damn
old to compete in.

     I'm not an expert on bunk beds, but I'm pretty sure the
ladder to get to the top should be located at the end or in front of the
bed...not the side like it is here. Why would they design it that way?! It
doesn't make sense! Not only do you take room away from the bottom bunk
person, but when you go up or down the ladder, it just creates a bigger
nuisance for everyone when you are coming up and down from the middle. But the main problem, there WASN'T a ladder. There's two little ledges to step
on, not 3. To me, a 'ladder' should consist of at least 3 steps.
Anything less is just a tease and worthless. The first 'step' on this
so-called ladder was at waist height for me. I figured I just got a bad bunk
and it was missing a step, so I checked the other bunk across the room,
and it was the same way! The first step is so fucking high! I'm tall and in decent shape for my age, and if getting to this first step is difficult for me, I
can't imagine the rest of the fat old Chair Force trying to get up on it. Unless
they keep a small trampoline underneath the bottom bunk, I have no idea how I'm going to flop myself up there. I immediately regretted leaving my
bathroom door locking rope in Kyrgyzstan. I could really use it now to climb
the Mt.Everest of beds in my room.

         As my new quest of mounting my bed was starting, my roommate on the
bottom bunk showed up. He was not happy to see me. He hasn't had a guy on
his top bunk in months so I could understand. I went to the bathroom so I
could give him time to adjust to a new man sleeping on top of him.
Yup...that's what I said. Anyway, when I came back he was already in his bed
and it was my turn to get into mine. I wasn't sure where to start. I started
grabbing the top mattress, the top step, lifting different legs, jumping,
holding on to a locker for support....everything I could possibly do. I was
just trying to think of the quickest and most painless way up there. But nothing was working. There's no easy way. I had to step on the bottom bed,
use one arm to grab my top bed, use the other arm to hold onto the locker for
support, lift my other leg up to the first ledge, then let out a big grunt
as I flopped onto my bed like a sea lion coming to surface.

       I made it. Thank God. I'm in my bed. I woke up all my roommates and
probably everyone else sleeping next door, but I made it. But
wait...shit...I forgot my flashlight! It's in my locker. I need to go back
down. Fuuuuck!!

      When you sleep in a tiny room with 3 other guys and everyone
is on a different shift, someone is always sleeping. Which means, the lights
are always off. Which means, you will always need a flashlight with you.
It's so annoying getting ready for work and then coming home from work and
getting ready for bed while always in the dark. And it's even more annoying when you're the person trying to sleep. For some reason, no one in Bagram knows how to work a flashlight. No one knows how and where to shine a light, and when you're trying to sleep, you'd think a fucking rave is going on in your
room, so it's common to sleep underneath all your covers here.

     Though it's darker under there, your hearing suddenly becomes a lot stronger. Even if no one is in your room, you will hear someone slowly walking down the hall in boots all the time. Each step louder than the last. I hide underneath my covers annoyed and also in fear as if Jason Voorhees was out there looking for me. I pray it's not one of my roommates who's about to come in because there seems to be high def speakers connected to the door handle since each small turn sounds like an F-16 taking off.

        So now I had to get down, and get down quietly. I like to consider myself one of the greatest roommates ever. I clean and I do everything
quietly. I don't want to wake anyone up. If I used the stairs and locker
again to get down, I would make way too much noise. So the easy choice is to just jump down.

     SOUNDS quick and simple, but the drop is a lot farther than you may think.
Especially since the lights are off and your depth perception isn't as good. This is also a very old dormitory built back when Afghanistan was ruled by Russia. Not only may my drop to the ground cause a big boom, but I very well may actually fall through to the bottom floor. Even so, I decided that this would be the best way for me to get down. I was going to go for it. Parachute or not.

      So there I was, sitting off to the side of my bed with my feet dangling down below. I started to ponder how high I actually was. It didn't
seem too high when I was standing on the ground, but my nose had been
bleeding ever since I got up there, so I wasn't sure. It was a lot colder up there too and I think I saw a bird's nest at the other corner of the room. I don't even know how birds got in there, but all the chirping coming from those baby chickies was really fucking annoying. I kept looking down to the ground
trying to pick a safe spot to land.

      It looked clear, but I wasn't sure if my dirty roommate left a Lego out or something. I slowly started to move my way down my bed. Sticking my toes out farther and farther trying to reach the ground even though I knew I was still a few feet away. I was just barely holding on with my triceps hoping that my sheet wouldn't give way and make me fall early. I could drop at any second.

     Instead of giving into gravity and risk getting injured, I decided I was just going to jump off and hope for the best. So...I did. I hit the ground hard and then my body kept going forward and I slammed into the wall. All 3 people in my room woke up and groaned. And all 3 people probably now started plotting when to put bars of soap in a pillow case and beat the shit out of me with them. I felt bad. Not just because I woke them all up, but I knew right then and there that my dream of ever becoming a full time ninja was now completely over.