Unsolicited Advice to Fellow Parents

Unsolicited Advice to Fellow Parents

As some of you know, I am a parent. My children are 3 years old and 6 months old, so I am just starting out. I do, however, have more than a decade of experience dealing with special needs kids, students, disabled adults, and management, so that helps round out my expertise and makes room from growth as my own kids move through life’s stages.

In short, I am not an expert.

That being said, a friend of mine recently initiated a conversation about his own life path and it seems he is on the way to fatherhood, once he finishes his stint overseas. I think that is awesome. I love being a Dad. Of course, once that came up I did what all parents do: offer unsolicited advice. In my defense, everyone does it because it is a way to share wisdom, reassure ourselves that we are doing things right, and compare notes with people who have differing opinions.

So the topic drifted to ‘things to know before you procreate’ and it got me thinking. I have made a lot of mistakes, I think it’s part of the process. Telling people to make sure they cover the little’s boy’s cannon when changing him is mostly just funny when people learn for the first time.  Mentioning that Mom will poop in the delivery room might be a good heads up, but really, if you fail, it happens and the moment will pass and everyone moves on.

What I think about are the things with long term effects. Things that impact my attitude positively and I see impact other negatively. Things about perspectives, interpretation, and reactions to the various situations kids bring. Some things, like the fact that you children WILL destroy something valuable to you at some point can be mitigated by not loving ‘stuff’ so much. Good luck with that, Consumer America. Other ‘truths’, like the fact that a daughter will always break your heart, aren’t really helpful and kind of put a damper on things if you dwell on it. I am not sure that’s what a new Dad needs to hear.

So it got me thinking: What does a new Dad ‘need’ to hear? What advice could I offer that helps in the long run, that keeps the weight of being a Dad from eating away at your patience and will to live? What do I think will help me five, ten, twenty, or twenty-five years from now when I am dealing with the progressively stupider problems kids bring? What virtues do I hope to maintain so I can pass them on and maybe my kids will emulate?

And that is really what it boils down to, for me. Virtues. So, in talking to my friend, it occurs to me that the three things parents always need but often let slip away are Patience, Humor, and Willpower. These are things I hope Eve and Van develop, and I know I lack them in many ways, so I have to consciously develop them alongside my children.

Willpower.

So the first piece of advice I gave my friend is that he and his wife should embrace gross before they have a kid. Kids are gross. And I don’t just mean the good chance they will have a Baby Vomit Volcano or find themselves talking about poop for at least a good hour each day, often to anyone who will listen I mean kids are gross quintessentially. They will lick the grime off of gymnastics mats to make cool handprints (Hi Emily!). They will hide frogs in their pockets and then forget when they sit down. They will get infected, sick, broken, and scarred. They will try to cook you breakfast and end up exploding eggs in the microwave and smearing bacon grease all over the kitchen, themselves, every door between the stove and your bedroom door, the sheets, and any pet unlucky enough to get too close (which they will - bacon is good).

So I suggested to him to get used to gross. If there is something that particularly pops their gag reflex, overexpose to it now. Explore gross. Play with tapioca without a bowl. Eat head cheese. Huff their gym bag. Clean a high school toilet. Whatever it takes. Someday they will be thankful when the doctor tells them to bring in a sample of their delightful child’s stool because they fear there may be a worm infection. Just saying.

Patience

That got me thinking about how kids think. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking kids are either entirely faultless because they are precious and cute and really just pets with opinions that will someday magically manifest only the good parts of their parents. Others make the exact opposite mistake. They see a tiny human and assume they are like any other adult. Breaking a camera makes them quintessentially stupid. Putting together a Lego set means they are smart. Most of all, they do things because, like adults, they think things through and should be responsible for their actions (I am still looking for an adult like this - let me know if you find one).

Children are neither.  

Imagine a scale, where at one end you have these faultless primates and the other you have The Good Son. Children absolutely start at the former end. They might get close to the latter end when they are forty, but I wouldn’t bet on it. As children grow, the amount of agency (ability to make decisions and act on them) increases slowly. Most children don’t think very far ahead. They want to eat all their Halloween candy now, and don’t even consider that they will be heaving jujubes in an hour or that doing so may create a permanent candy aversion that will ruin every Halloween forever. An adult who puts a grilled cheese sandwich into your Xbox is a jerk. There is a reasonable expectation that they knew the consequences, did so for social reasons, and probably could have figured out what would happen with actually going through with it. Your five year old, however, doesn’t have the experiences or mental acuity to work through all the complexities of what they are doing. They are, for all intents and purposes, about 10% agency and 90% impulse/curiosity/confusion at that point.

People run into the problem a lot with teenagers. At fifteen, a person should know a bit more about what they are doing and take some damn responsibility for themselves, right? Well, yes. Definitely push for that. But understand that to a child, each year is like a whole new life time. It is a major segment of their existence and they see things through new eyes, process things with a new brain, and move things with a new body that changes daily. Add on top of that hormones, newfound social pressures, and about six years of constantly being uncomfortable physically, and you tell me how well you can think straight.

Now, don’t get me wrong. This isn’t about rolling over, or being a paragon of forgiveness, or not putting out structure, discipline, or consequences. You HAVE to do those things. I am talking about what is going inside your head as a parent. Cut the kids some slack, and when you have to get tough, remember that you were once there too. Provide boundaries, help them balance risk and reward, and be the bad guy a lot. But in your heart, where you store all of these emotions, remember to be compassionate to them and you. 

Humor.

This brings us to the third piece of advice I gave (which by the way weren’t nearly this long winded). Have a sense of humor with your kids. I don’t mean make jokes, or play, or have fun. You should do those too. What I mean is that it helps to realize that parenthood is a game. We provide structure, discipline and guidance; our kids try to work around them. That’s their job. It isn’t about being in control, or being the most powerful one, or being obeyed. You look at it that way, and you will end up with kids who either integrate those values and become jerks as adults or they will succumb to your behavior and become obedient little drones (or somewhere on that scale).

A successful adult is compassionate, clever, flexible, and disciplined. They can solve problems, work around obstacles without hurting themselves or others. And guess what, you, the parent, are an obstacle. They can be respectful. That is important. But when you tell your kid that they can’t have candy before dinner so they wake up early and eat it all before breakfast, maybe you should have been a bit clearer with your instructions.

It’s a game. A game where you have more power, but using that power is dangerous. If you make it a power struggle, you will lose. They will grow up, they will take that frustration of being powerless out on someone else, and most of all they will not learn how to make the right choices until after they have screwed up tremendously.

So I recommended to my buddy to keep a sense of humor about it. When your kid outsmarts you, have there be consequences but in your heart remember that a smart kid who learned to respect their adversaries will go far. Be an adversary worth respecting (and not fearing).

We often feel like we have less power in our lives than we would like;don’t take that out on your kids, or they will feel exactly the same way. Over the course of the thirty years it takes a kid to be independent-ish (on average), you will play the “rules/weasel” game a lot. If you are a sore loser, you will have a long road ahead

So, that was the thought process that came up during my conversation with my friend. I reiterate: I am no expert. I am wrong more than I am right, and I am not very good at practicing what I preach. These are ideals to be striven towards, not pass/fail absolutes. In case you were wondering, or having trouble following my meandering thought process, here is what I told him:

TL;DR:

                Get used to gross. Fall in love with gross. Inure yourself to gross. Gross can be funny or it can be upsetting. You choose.

                Encourage responsibility but remember kids are not adults. They are not responsible for everything they do in the same way adults are. Give them boundaries and consequences, but in your mind remember that you were once there too.

                Structure and Power is a game between you and your child. Like above, provide discipline, but in the end you want a kid who can think around problems, and you, as a parent, are their first consistent problem.

                It all boils down to having a good attitude, letting go of the authority a little in your own mind, and remembering that kids will love you unless trained to do otherwise. It’s all about the long game, and how you process and store your experiences as a parent will count more than any individual problem. You may not ever explain how you feel to you children, but they will see how you react emotionally to the inevitable issues that will arise between them and you and will do the same when they grow up.

                There are a lot of virtues out there, but today I was thinking about Patience, Humor, and Willpower. Wish me luck.

Antici...pation

So it struck me today: In a little more than a week I get to meet my son for the first time. When I left, way back in February, he was a paperweight that leaked. He was warm and soft, light and sweet. And for a baby his level of fuss was well-below what I deal with at work.

Now I get to meet the actual Donovan. I get to hold him, and watch him react. I get to see him play with things, try to crawl, and play with his sister. I get to watch him smile, and cry, and be grumpy and happy and sad.

                I am beside myself with excitement. Until that thought crossed my mind I was antsy to get home. To get back to my daughter and beautiful wife and house where I could walk around without pants and where I could buy a burger or a beer on a whim.

                Genevieve is the spark in my heart that carries me through the coldest, most annoying, and loneliest days I have while I am away. Her smiles, and pouts, and moments on Skype are the shadows of her that remind me of the two wonderful years we spent together. They are like grains of rice to a starving man and I will probably annoy her to no end when it comes time to hold her again.

                But Van. Smiley little, Baby Huey-looking, wobbly kneed boy who adores his sister and everyone can’t stop gushing about: I get to meet him for real. I get to hold him, annoy him, feed him and clean his poop. How awesome is that?

                Now every day moves a little slower for me. The lead-up to my leave is crushing me as I wait to hold them all in my arms. It was like my singular thought was a straw that broke this camel’s back. What’s the old joke? Time is relative, that’s why spending time with them seems to drag on forever? Well I am already spending time in my mind. I don’t know what to expect. I am about to go from “strange glowy box man” to “guy who is glomming on mommy and stealing precious sister-time from me.”

                Not to get all Freudian here, but there is another man in the family and I am about to turn his little apple-cart on its head (at least for a month). How awesome is that? I feel for the guy, really I do. So here I sit, thinking about him and Eve and Char constantly, and I can’t believe how long I have been away and how long I have to go before I see them. Eight days and Six months seem the same in my mind.

                It’s going to be great.

"No More Fuck"

“No More Fuck”

I heard this phrase almost a year ago. My wife and I were struggling through a pregnancy that was rife with tense moments, near-but-thankfully-not-severe complications, all of which was compounded by the fact that our first pregnancy had gone so smoothly that even the normal rose-colored glasses found themselves out of work half the time. Meanwhile I was struggling with my own professional and academic life, unsure where it was going and if it was even worth it to try. At the same time that I was having doubts about what I was doing, my wife struggled with the idea that maybe another child was a bad idea.

Needless to say, I didn’t really handle that stress well. As my wife became more and more frustrated with her own job and the pregnancy arguments became more common. Molehills became mountains, mountains became landslides, and landslides seemed to wash over our house every day. If you have ever had one of those moments where you thought back to an argument and thought, “that might be the stupidest thing I have ever argued over”, that was how I felt every time.

There was more than just the verbal stress. My sleep had vanished, my wife was in pain beyond the normal pregnancy discomfort, and things just seemed to pile up. My creativity plummeted, my physical fitness all but vanished, and my sleep patterns took a turn from their normal bad to worse. My wife was having trouble eating and sleeping, and even the things we knew we could handle, like bills, became topics for contention.

But that’s just life. When things start to compound, we often fail to realize that our stress behaviors only make it worse. Like all married couples, we have ups and downs and after being together for almost 14 years, we have had our share. Looking back, especially from where I stand now on the other side of the planet from my family, those problems seem so miniscule and mundane to almost be unworthy of mention.

Almost.

I try as best I can to regulate my language when I argue. I try to keep from cursing, throwing insults, or raising my voice. My track record is not perfect. I knew, objectively, how these behaviors tend to make fights worse and can lead to words that sting even years after they were uttered in a fit of rage or frustration. I also know they set a bad example for conflict resolution for my children, and will harm their ability to have healthy, compassionate relationships when they grow up.

Perhaps that’s why “No more fuck” hurts so much.

I don’t remember what started the fight. It probably had to do with me not being supportive enough or my wife not taking responsibility for something. Whatever it was, it was stupid. She was 7 months pregnant so the only functional rule is “listen, love, learn” when it comes to arguments with women under that much duress. I wasn’t on my game that day, I forgot the rule.

We said a lot of things, I am sure. I honestly don’t remember. I remember that my wife had stormed off to the bedroom to cool off and I had gone back to the living room to give her space, or finish the argument in my head, or whatever I do when I get frustrated like that. I remember walking into the room and my two year daughter stood up, came over to me and looked up. I knelt down to be at her level and, with the TV blaring in the background, she looked me in the eyes and said softly, “No more fuck.”

It hurts to even write the words. I think about them every day. In her mind, that word had come from her mouth not as a curse, but as the single most powerful referent for all the pain she had witnessed in the preceding months. She didn’t understand stress, or arguments, or even that I was in the wrong and not doing my job as a husband. She didn’t care about that.

All she knew was that when we fought, the F-Bomb was dropped like our house was Dresden and that when that word floated around her parents were failing at their most important task: being good role-models. She could feel our pain, frustration, and anger and had no way to frame it. She didn’t know enough about herself and her own sense of being to know that it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t even know the word to use to describe it all. All she knew was that the centers of her universe were in conflict and that it all had something to do with “fuck.”

I remember her taking my hands as I knelt there and the pain from those words destroyed everything that had been so critical to me moments before. They reminded me that she is what was important. That she looked up to us. That she didn’t understand what was going on and that made what we had done so much worse. She wasn’t old enough to blow us off, or to ignore our petty bickering.

Perhaps what scares me the most is that someday she might be. If we continue, she will one day roll her eyes and ignore us when we act like children. She will say, “My parents fight, they are kinda messed up.” At the same time, she will deeply ingrain the messages we send into her own understanding on how to treat people and how she feels she should be treated. Every significant other, every friend, even her relationship with her brother, they will all be tainted by that moment. A moment it may take us the rest of her childhood to correct for, if we are lucky.

Eventually she will know what “fuck” means, but it horrifies me to know she already does. She knows it means hate, insults, anger, threats and frustration. That definition will blend with her understanding of this very powerful word and when it is eventually associated with failure, sex, excitement, and all the other things for which we use that word in our society, she will have an emotional memory of her parents throwing the word around and not working out their problems with compassion and patience.

It pains me to know that we don’t get any Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free cards with our children. We have incurred a debt to her, and that debt needs to be recovered before we send her out to negotiate her own relationships with people. I don’t want to have the same debt to our infant son, because I think our responsibilities to them are already going to be near to overwhelming.

I am not upset about the past. I am worried about the future. I am worried that I will ever have to look in my daughter’s or son’s eyes and hear a phrase like that again. The burden is too great.

I know we will get upset. I know sometimes we will fail to be understanding and rational and compassionate. Stress and conflict will happen. I am okay with that. What I am not okay with is ever hearing those words again. What I really want out of life, all the money and career and sex and writing and music and gaming and travel aside, is that we somehow figure out a way to get to the point where we can look back and say, “It was hard, but there was no more Fuck.”

P.S. Now that our son has arrived, my wife and I have found new paths together, and our daughter is recovering from the hospital stay she had around that same time, I am glad we stuck it out. Our son is amazing and with his first breath he washed away any doubt either of us had about his place in our family. My wife and I have found a hobby to share, writing, and our daughter is handling our current temporary distance with amazing patience, kindness and aplomb. Now it’s just a matter of looking forward…

Istanbul in summary

Istanbul in summary

Taxis
No space
Walk downhill
Cats
Alleyways
Cross bridge
Cats
Tea
Aggressive salesmen
Cats
Shopping
Food
Towers
Cats
Food
Crowds
Turkish delight
Cats
Dog (not on a leash)
Food
Loudspeaker Prayer
Tea
Shopping
Walk uphill
Cats
Tea
Crowds
All this with the love of my life
Shopping
Baklava
Shopping
Cats
Walk downhill
Taxi
Cross bridge
Cats
Food
Tea
Crowds
Sore feet
Embassies
Cats
Ice cream
Walk uphill
No air, no window
::censored::
Loud music
Sleep

Special Points:
Day 1: sprawl, mosques, temples, and 26 miles on foot, rug, gas pains
Day 2: new friend, new place, seafood
Day 3: Ancient re-purposed church now a mosque, dervishes, museums, grand bazaar, Suburban adventure (mass transit)
Day 4: Topkapi palace, Hagia Sophia, potatoes
Day 5: wife a little ill, yellow curry, 20 pounds of Turkish delight

1000 Word Challenge

This is an exercise in response to the terribleminds.com blog challenge. These are the rules:

Flash Fiction Challenge: Ten Words Will Give You Five

Last week’s challenge: “They Fight Crime“
I’m going to a random word generator.
*does that*
There. It has chosen ten random words.
Those ten words are:

1. Library
2. Ethereal
3. Dolphin
4. Replay
5. Undertaker
6. Storm
7. Envelope
8. Cube
9. Chisel
10. Satellite

You will choose five of those words.
You will include those five aspects — not just as words but as actual components of the story — in your 1000-word flash fiction this week. As always: post at your blog or online space, then link back here so we can all read it. You’ve got a week. Due by Friday the 29th, noon EST.
Pick words. Write story. Go.

I chose:
Library, Ethereal, Replay, Storm, Envelope, and Satellite.

Here is what I got:

----------------
It doesn’t seem to smell bad. At least, not how I imagined it would
smell. They warned me that the city would smell like feces and burning
tires, but to be fair, it has only been like that for one afternoon. I
guess we will see when summer comes.

I put the book back on the shelf. It is interesting to see what people
will read when their choices are theoretically limited. Hard copy
books are still a *thing*, I guess. I have 3500 books on a tablet, but
I still love the feel of paper, the awareness of how far I have to go,
the thickness, the smell, and most of all: the disposability.

I look at the shelves of books and wonder how each of them got here. At
home you have two kinds of libraries: public ones where books are
ordered based on a use algorithm, or more likely, a best-seller or
reference list; and private ones, shaped by the interests and
coincidences of a person or family’s life. Books that speak to them or
mean something tend to stay, books given to you by your crazy Aunt
Martha about crocheting cat legwarmers or whatever find their way into
donation bins or sold to a used bookstore for a few pennies.

But here, there is something else, some unspoken and immaterial force
that brings these books to their shelves. Nothing is thrown away,
because someone might be interested or desperate enough to read it.

Books find their way here, to be re-read and occasionally abandoned
because someone thought they should be here. Some family member sent
it to their loved one deployed overseas, thinking they would enjoy it.
Some soldier ordered it from home, found in the trash, or traded from
a friend.

A library at a deployed site overseas is like no other library. It is
like a patchwork of care, desperation, chaos and desire. It is not
built from professional or personal love like other libraries, but by
familial love and chance.

I pull a random tome down and look at it. It has obviously been read a
dozen or more times. Stuffed in packs, crammed between the seats of an
MRAP, held under a lunch tray on the way to the table, and of course,
entertained many an hour sitting on the water-conservation crapper.

This one is an interesting find; it is one of those technology books
like Time-Life used to put out. The cover has various tech, and I see
the section on telecommunications has been earmarked several times.
Satellites are of particular interest to the folks out here in no
man’s land. The modern army is utterly dependent on eyes-in-the-sky
and it is more than just the information they provide. It provides
them with a sense of security, a modern-day JHWH, looking down at
them. Soldiers know that if they are lost, these mechanical guardians
can find them by heat, by tracker, and by radiation. That sense of
security is similar to the ethereal force that binds this library. Both provide
chaotic mixtures of unknown eyes and unknown intent, all
coming together to make the soldier feel warm, and safe.

I take my find out of the MWR and smile, no check-out, no
Dewey-Decimal system, no sentinel to make sure the book makes it back
to its assigned place. These libraries are not bound by order, they
are bound by the chaos deployed life brings. This book may not make it
back, but another one will. It doesn’t matter that no one knows
exactly what is here, because that will change on a daily basis. The
bonding agent of this library, like the one between satellites and
soldiers, like the one between men who have fought and bled with each
other, it all just plays over and over for the people here.

As I walk outside, the smell has changed. It is sharp, cool, and
overhead the sky is darkening. Heavy drops of rain begin to fall as I
make my way back to my hooch. I have my treasure, and it will see me
through the pounding torrents outside. I find myself hesitating. If I
were back in the states, I would taken this book and use it to cover my
head from the water. But here, this book means something more. In a
way, protecting this book is protecting the sanity of myself and
everyone who comes after. In the states, being rained on was an
annoyance, here, it is almost to be expected. Shielding myself from
minor natural phenomena seems, I don’t know, ironic. Here I am, in a
war zone, and I am worried about a few drops of rain. Less than a mile
from where I stand guys are sitting in muddy holes and eating cold
pre-packaged meals. The least I could do is just suck it up.

Especially when the alternative is for one of our few precious books
could be damaged.

I tuck it under my jacket and walk quickly to my room. Carefully, I
pull it out and look at it. A few drops of water have hit it and
warped the cover. In the states, it would be ruined and tossed away.

Here, it is still whole, still readable, and still valuable. I lay
down on my bunk and flip it open. There are sections on all sorts of
information technology: cameras, radios, mics, and I get to the
section on satellites. On the last page of the story a small envelope
falls into my lap.

It is sealed, stamped, and addressed to a woman in the states.
Geraldine Thomas, 675 Primrose Lane, Albequerque NM. I flip the small
package over and over in my hands, and then I remember: Sgt Thomas was
one of the supply guys who didn’t come back from a movement ten days
ago. I thank God that I didn’t let the book suffer in the downpour. It
was guarding something precious. But then, all of these books do.

(Not Quite) The Odyssey: 21FEB2013

And so my adventure begins. I arrived in Indiana during what New Yorkers would call “flurries”, Coloradoans would call “dusting” and what New Mexicans would call “The Apocalypse.” In other words, snow on the ground and snow falling out of the sky, no sight of the sun, etc. It was cold, bitter, and windy, but I had two good jackets that worked together, so I didn’t mind. In fact, I spent a lot of time walking around in the snowy wind (mostly to get things done), and it didn’t bother me. Thank you Colorado… otherwise this Phoenix/Hawaii boy might have had a tougher time coping. After a few days the snow abated and turned to muck. Not mud, that would be okay. Muck…. Slushy, dirty, sandy, messy goo that seeps into your pores and turns your feet into squishy messes. Luckily I had good boots and socks, but man, I preferred the snow.

                As for processing out, it was relatively painless. On the first day (Sunday) they gave us all a list of things we absolutely had to have done by Wednesday including online trainings (I had done those early), medical requirements (more on that later), dental (I had done that the week before I left - Thank You Painted Skies Dental!), Vision (more on that), and hearing (I had done an advanced screening just two days prior to leaving).  We also had to collect 57 pounds of gear to take with us (armor, environmental gear, and what I can only assume is a small invisible anvil – based on the weight of the bag).

               

                So it was an exercise in paperwork that started with the distinct impression that you were screwed and through careful bureaucracy eventually gets you to the point where you are pretty confident that you will make it outside of the country.  They have the system there down pretty well, all things considered. I say this as someone who had very few issues to resolve before deploying. Asking around with some of the other people, they had less than stellar experiences. It really boiled down to three possibilities: You had everything you needed (no one fell into this category), you had a problem they knew how to fix (95% of people fell into this category), or you had a problem that required special considerations or actions on the part of the people at the camp (and if that was you, you were screwed).  I was in the middle group.

               

                Prior to leaving, I had taken a list of labs I needed to my doctor, a form for them to fill out, and left them with about half a liter of my blood for testing. They didn’t fill out the form, they did only half the labs, and their documentation was a mess. It didn’t help that they were moving offices and I was in a hurry, but when I got to Atterbury, it was a mess. Not to mention I seem to have lost my shot records. So over the course of the week I gave the “Deployment Medicine” clinic (more on that later) another quart of my blood and they happily replaced it with every disease known to man. Luckily, I had no serious side effects - the only shot I had a reaction to was the anthrax shot, which swelled up and itched but had no serious problems.

               

                Eventually I had it all done, including a new physical, and was able to get on with my other needs. I will admit I don’t know what vision requirements there are for deployment. I can see just fine, but I was ‘tested’ this week and it seems to have no bearing on my actual ability. I am not even sure if the lady wrote down my results. Oh well, I guess I am okay. I had a brief scare with my hearing tests in NM, as the machine they used during my (useless) physical said that I was deaf. I had to make an appointment with an audiologist, who did every test known to man and afterward said “For someone who has worked with the military and done band promotion, your hearing is excellent!” That’s good to know.

               

                One of the interesting things about the process was the aforementioned ”Deployment Medicine” specialists that live in town outside the Camp. They overcharge, but are very efficient and clearly have a “fly by night” atmosphere. I have to admit that when I found out my medical records were screwed, I could have called my doctor and tried to get it resolved, but I decided to just use the local services and throw money at the problem until it went away. Seven hundred dollars later I was cleared, so I have nothing to complain about, really.

                Schedule-wise, I tend to wake up early anyway, so being late for things was nigh impossible. I had finished a lot of what I needed by Tuesday (including retaking an online training), so I had some spare time.  In fact, because I don’t sleep much, it has served me well. I have caught announcements I would have missed, been at places early for special privileges, and generally been very thankful that oversleeping is not one of my issues. I am sure the topic of my sleep habits will come up again (and again).

                The last thing for me to get used to was food. The food was okay, falling between a cafeteria and Denny’s in terms of quality. That wasn’t the weird part. Back home, I could spend money to get food whenever I wanted it. Here in the military areas, they give away the food (if you have the proper letter authorizing it), but only during very restricted hours. It’s an interesting trade off.  There have been opportunities for buying fast food, but I in general don’t want to buy food when food is free (too many years on college campuses). The side effect of this structured schedule is that I tend to eat more, and I tend to eat when I don’t really want to, because the next opportunity may be awhile (and it is free). I will have to work hard to regulate my intake.

                We did a few other “preparations”, including a neat “virtual gun range” which was closer to the real thing than an arcade game, but still nothing like firing a weapon. I did okay (19 out of 25 in the bullseye, only one missed the target and I think that was my first shot), but what was most compelling was watching other people shoot. The former military folks didn’t like the simulator, so did about as good as I did. It was the civilians who had the strangest reactions. One civilian was offended that she was “being trained to kill” and I was dumbfounded that; a- she thought a simulator was training her to kill; and b- she had a problem with killing but was going to work for the DoD. My issue, I suppose, is that she seemed to have a moral objection to guns, the central technology of the people with whom she would be working. That is like agreeing to work in a kitchen and hating fire. I assured her that after she missed the *range* (not the target, the entire screen) with all but one of her shots that she need not worry about killing anyone (at least on purpose).

                I have spent a long time thinking about my philosophy on guns. Personally, I do not find them interesting or ‘fun’ for more than a moment or two. I have concerns about the aggression and masculinity tied up in the act. I worry that being able to kill at a distance with so little effort has severe psychological effects on a person. That being said, firearms are the central technology of the military and it is my responsibility to stay comfortable, familiar, and competent at their use and care for as long as I work in this field. I understand their appeal, and the training that goes into using them and I have a deep respect for that. My choice not carry one is a privilege, earned by those who carry them for me. With that in mind, I am making an effort to stay qualified, use weapons whenever possible, and maintain a cognitive distance between “how would I use a gun back home?” and “what role do guns play where I am?” I get in my share of gun control debates, but none of them apply to the context of war, within which I am currently embroiled.

               

                One of my gripes working with contractors (and a very few military folks) is that when something has to be done, everyone stands around hoping other people will volunteer first. I was a little late to formally volunteer for baggage detail (a must if you ever plan to do this), but at various points things had to be done by cooperation (such as loading and unloading baggage, passing along gear, etc) and thanks to a certain unmentioned paternal figure, when something needs to be done I tend to wait about ten seconds before I just say “F-it!” and volunteer. A lot of these contractors said things like “I am not being paid to help.” And “I am too old to be lugging other people’s gear.” And I could do nothing but just shake my head. I am an overweight middle aged guy who spent three years in a cubicle and thinks for a living. If I can pitch bags, so can you Mr. Former-military-in-his-late-forties-with-obvious-masculinity-issues. Seriously, you are on the clock anyway. If you can make things go a little smoother by fudging the boundaries of your job description, maybe you should buck up and lend a hand.

                My last day in Indiana was spent sitting around the airport waiting for our chartered international flight. I had bought a nice rib eye steak the night before (they have a nice racket going on the Camp, where they offer it every Thursday for departing people) and spent the day doing what the Army does best: Hurry up and wait!

Up Next: Flights, Kuwait, and Afghanistan