I have been in Afghanistan a little over 3 months now. Which means that I have officially been here longer than over half the people on this base. Well, not including the Army or Marines who are here for a year. God that's depressing. A full year in Afghanistan. I don't know how Army and Marine recruiters actually get people to sign up. 'Hey kid, join the Army! You'll get to learn a job that will be no way useful in the outside world, be divorced within two years, spend half your career in a dirty country filled with people who are trying to kill you, but at least you'll be one of the only Americans left who will be able to fire an automatic weapon with a magazine that holds more than 5 rounds! Sign up today!'
Ya...not for me. But to be honest, Bagram isn't so bad...for Afghanistan. Of course it's not as nice as all those other 'deployed locations' like Qatar, Kuwait, and the UAE....which are for pussies. They got beer there, pools, they can wear gym clothes just to walk around in after work, they get to go off base, and best of all, they don't have to wear a 50 pound vest or take a gun with them everywhere they go. Even at the laundry tent here there is a sign that tells you that you must have your weapon with you just to pick up your clothes. It's so unsafe here that I have to keep one hand on my gun just to pick up my underwear. I guess we just have to be prepared for the day those Afghans flip out on us for making them wash our 4-days-used-in-a-row underwear. Maybe if they could wash clothes in less than 5 days I wouldn't have to keep giving them that! They brought this on themselves!!
But we could be at much worse places. Like Hell, any point in time before the internet was invented, the basement in Buffalo Bill's house. 'It puts the lotion on it's skin!' 'Damn it Bill, enough with the lotion already! I'm slipping around like a greased up penguin down here!' I was forward deployed to another base in Afghanistan for a week. I was so excited. I couldn't wait to go. I knew it had to be a lot better and easier than Bagram. It was suppose to be for 3 weeks...then it turned into 4 months, but it ended up being just a week for me. I got in some trouble at this other base and my punishment was simply having to go back and work at Bagram. For a lot of people, they would rather do 6 months at San Quentin than do hard labor back in Bagram, but as I left that other location and my plane was about to land back at Bagram, it soon became the happiest moment of my deployment. And ya....that's really fucking sad.
The other base I was at was a REAL deployment. It was a lot like my first deployment 11 years ago...before I even knew what a good or bad deployment was. Most deployed locations have a lot of tents, but this one was about 90 percent tents. Most noticeably, the bathrooms and showers were tents, and of course they weren't connected to the tents you slept in. Oh no. You had to walk to them. And this alone is the deciding factor on the, 'Good or Shitty Deployment' debate. It was while I was at this other deployed location that the words, 'I miss Bagram' actually came out of my mouth. And to this day, I am the only person in the history of the world to ever utter those 3 words together.
One of the greatest luxuries on the planet that most people have that they take for granted, a luxury that even all those, 'thank you for your service' people don't even realize, is the luxury of waking up and walking to a bathroom just a few steps away that is the same temperature as where you were just laying down at. It sounds so simple and common right? A lot of people reading this probably have a bathroom at home right in their master bedroom. If not, there's probably a bathroom right outside their door about 3 steps away. You wake up, yawn, stretch, scratch your balls, and feel a little bit more chilly after taking the blanket off because you haven't invested in a Snuggie yet even though your friend Dan keeps telling you to, and then you rush to the bathroom hoping that you can hold it for at least 5 more seconds because you REALLY have to go. But that's normal. That's a daily routine for almost everyone. So simple and mundane...but when you're deployed to Afghanistan and NOT at Bagram, you PRAY your morning was just that simple.
0500, late January, 15 degrees outside (like, negative 0something celsius for all my Euro friends) at a small base in northeastern Afghanistan. Your alarm goes off. You have one hour to get to work, but the worst part of your day is already starting. You went to the gym last night, and like an idiot, you drank a full bottle of water before going to bed. You have to pee. The heated blanket you have over you is the only thing keeping you alive, but you can't stay under there forever, and you can't piss yourself with that blanket over you because you might get electrocuted and then start a fire and kill everyone in the tent. There's no bathroom in the tent. You have to tuck in your shirt, because that's Air Force regulation, put your shoes on, open the tent door just to be smacked in the face with the brightest sun known to man after being in complete darkness for the last 8 hours and left wondering why the fuck the sun in Afghanistan reaches full brightness at 5 in the morning. You then take your first step into slushy snow as you start to shiver and now have to piss more than ever. You have to walk about 100 yards to the bathroom, passing by everyone swiftly like a Kenyan in the New York City Marathon. You walk into the first toilet tent but every toilet is occupied so you contemplate pissing in the sink for a second. Hmm. Maybe. You run outside holding your dick mumbling, 'Fuck, fuck, fuck...' and go to the next toilet tent and rush into a stall as the person leaving it barely has one foot out the door, and you start to piss.... you made it. You just survived another day without pissing yourself.
Now you have to walk back through the snow again freezing in your tee shirt and shorts just to pick up your towel and other toiletries and head to the shower tent. You finish up there, walk another 100 yards back to your tent, and realize you are now dirtier than when you started. This is how every day starts at a real deployment in Afghanistan. Walking a quarter mile in the cold just to do your morning business. It sucks and there's nothing you can do about it. Especially since the people who work at the main store at deployed locations keep denying my request to start stocking adult diapers.
It's March now. It's not as cold as it use to be and I can finally stop plugging in my blanket before going to bed. Now I'm just a guy who sleeps with a blanket with a electrical cord connected to it. Whatever. I will still cherish this blanket the rest of my life. But now that it's warmer, people are hanging out outside more. People are eating outside too. They will get to-go plates from the dining hall and have a little picnic with friends. They sit down on benches and have a nice long lunch out in the sun before heading back inside to do whatever useless job they do.
You know who DOESN'T have picnics outside? People in the military who actually WORK for a living. I have spent almost all of my deployment doing hard labor outside in the cold at night. When I do get to eat, it's very briefly and on a park bench inside a warehouse....with no back to the seats to rest on...while eating food that I didn't get to choose...out of a big green container. If I wake up 2 hours earlier than normal, I can have the chance to eat at the dining hall and actually choose what I want to eat and get to sit at a real table that's actually been cleaned. But best of all, I would get to sit in a real chair with a back to it. So when I get done eating my 5 pounds of slop, I can sit back and relax and not have to get up until I'm good and ready...or...until I have to fart. Whatever comes first.
When I see people eating at a park bench on base smiling and having a good time, I get insulted. It's like how a homeless person must feel when they see people camping. 'Hey, sleeping out in the cold and eating food from a can is pretty fun huh?? Try doing it for the next 10 years straight you fucking fucks!!' These people eating outside obviously have a nice easy job behind a desk. And then they have to mock all the REAL workers in the military by eating out of a to-go tray on a park bench right in front of us. And I love it when they get done and stretch because now their back hurts a little bit from being in that horrible position for 20 minutes once a week. But it's ok, they'll walk it off. They get an hour and a half lunch break and will spend the last 30 minutes on Skype telling their spouse all about the fun little picnic they just had with Doug from Finance. You know what?? FUCK Doug from Finance and fuck your whole conversation!! Uuurgh!!....God I miss my easy desk job back in America.
One more thing before I go...why do people wear headphones while on Skype in a public location? I can still hear YOU. Blocking out the sound of who you're talking to just makes you seem like a crazy person talking to a computer. It's even worse when dad's are talking to their young kids or babies in their little kid voice on Skype. I will walk into the computer room here and then all of a sudden, a big high ranking person who I use to have respect for will say in a high pitched voiced, 'You've gotten so biiiiiiig! Look at yoooouu! What are you doing bud? Oh that's very neat, now you look like a monkey! Look at you, my big monkeyyyy! I need to take you to the zoo! You want a banana you big monkey?? Awwww, monkey boooyy!! Yeeeaahh!! Ok son, I have to go. But don't forget to eat all your bananas so that you can become big and strong and king of the jungle! Can you put mommy back on, I need to finish talking to her. Bye byyyee! Hey, ok, you there Sheila? Alright, ya, so....I got the divorce papers, but I still don't see why this can't wait until I get back and we could just sit down and talk about this....'
The End
(I can't end EVERY chapter on a happy note. Sometimes I just gotta keep it real)
(Donkey boner!!!)
