Being in an environment where you don’t have all the comforts of home you start to realize what you need to survive and the excesses that you lived with believing that they were necessities. In a song by Donavon Frankenreiter there is a line that goes:
“Try to sell something that just can’t be bought, say that it’s the latest and greatest but I know that it’s not, be somebody that you don’t want to be, didn’t even exist last year but now it’s what we need.”
It holds very true that there are a lot of things that society deems necessities that aren’t really needed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to go home and sell all my things and live on the basics, I enjoy my lifestyle more than anyone and with my new salary I won’t have to worry about not having things I want.
But, believe it or not, I didn’t take this job for the money. It was for the learning experience and in the 3 weeks I’ve been here I’ve learned more about me than my entire 28 years has allowed. I’ve learned that all I really need to live is good friends, good conversation and good stories, everything else is perspective.
I don’t need the finest food or living arrangements or newest technology. I’m living in a tent with 10 other guys, eating food that’s below the grade given to prisoners in Mexico and I don’t have a television. But from my perspective I’m probably the happiest I’ve been in a while. We share stories over cigars every other night. War stories, stories from home, stories about past relationships, even stories from the day have more color than any shared back home. These people are truly interesting and, more importantly, interested.
Conversations flow like rivers, going from one topic to another seamlessly. We can start on politics and move on to women (we’re all guys) and then somehow we’ll start talking about which showers are the cleanest. I don’t know how it happens, it just does. (From this I realized what I want in a relationship, someone who I can converse with.) Few of us have the same background, or interests, but we get along just like peas in a pod.
We’re free from cell phones, daily news and, for the most part, office politics. We work hard throughout the day and my reward is sharing experiences and ideas with others during the night, which is by far the best reward I could ever ask for… and I had to go to a war zone to get it. It’s been the most enriching experience I’ve had so far in my life and I hope that it will continue.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
Looking for Light
It was two nights ago that I had my first nightmare since being out here. In fact, it may have been my first nightmare in recent memory. It wasn’t a big deal, nor was it anything I’d consider foreshadowing, but it was terrifying nonetheless.
I woke up in my bed, freezing cold, confused and still in shock of what I’d just experienced. Not knowing whether it was real or not I started looking around the room for light, but it was pitch black. I thought I was dead, that a rocket hit during the night and took out our tent. I continued to scan the room until I locked on a small green light from someone’s laptop. I took that as a sign that I was still alive. (As if there aren’t green lights in the afterlife…)
I was still a little freaked out. A lot of doom and gloom thoughts raged through my head. My heart pounded like a cluster bomb fell inside my chest. I tried to clear things up with positive thoughts, to regain my composure. I started singing comforting songs to myself to quell the storm. It took about an hour before I had calmed down.
Afterwards I drifted in and out of sleep until the sun started shining through the vestibule of our tent. It was a real sign that there wasn’t anything wrong. But for a while there I thought to myself, well the afterlife really sucks, it’s cold, dark and scary… Have I really done that many wrong things in life?
AAANNNDDD Fast forward 2 days. I’m glad I didn’t post this yet because I found some irony in the third sentence of the first paragraph because last night we had a bit of a scare. It was around 1030PM and the lights were out. Suddenly there was a rumbling, whistling sound that roared from outside that shook our row of tents.
“What the fuck was that?” Someone said.
“I think I pooped my pants.” Someone else responded.
I had to go to the bathroom really bad so I got up and went outside. I found a group of others who were also awakened by the sound.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Rockets.”
Someone thought it was a good idea to set up the rocket launchers 100 yards from the living quarters. What we heard was outgoing munitions. Unfortunately for someone else it was incoming…
I woke up in my bed, freezing cold, confused and still in shock of what I’d just experienced. Not knowing whether it was real or not I started looking around the room for light, but it was pitch black. I thought I was dead, that a rocket hit during the night and took out our tent. I continued to scan the room until I locked on a small green light from someone’s laptop. I took that as a sign that I was still alive. (As if there aren’t green lights in the afterlife…)
I was still a little freaked out. A lot of doom and gloom thoughts raged through my head. My heart pounded like a cluster bomb fell inside my chest. I tried to clear things up with positive thoughts, to regain my composure. I started singing comforting songs to myself to quell the storm. It took about an hour before I had calmed down.
Afterwards I drifted in and out of sleep until the sun started shining through the vestibule of our tent. It was a real sign that there wasn’t anything wrong. But for a while there I thought to myself, well the afterlife really sucks, it’s cold, dark and scary… Have I really done that many wrong things in life?
AAANNNDDD Fast forward 2 days. I’m glad I didn’t post this yet because I found some irony in the third sentence of the first paragraph because last night we had a bit of a scare. It was around 1030PM and the lights were out. Suddenly there was a rumbling, whistling sound that roared from outside that shook our row of tents.
“What the fuck was that?” Someone said.
“I think I pooped my pants.” Someone else responded.
I had to go to the bathroom really bad so I got up and went outside. I found a group of others who were also awakened by the sound.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Rockets.”
Someone thought it was a good idea to set up the rocket launchers 100 yards from the living quarters. What we heard was outgoing munitions. Unfortunately for someone else it was incoming…
HOOKED!
Is the best thing you can hear coming across the headset from your ground crew when you’re doing a retrieval and the only visibility you have is what you see on the computer screen inside a little metal box. I’ve done about 6 retrievals, or landings, so far and about 50% of them have had me on the edge of my seat. Praying that this retrieval isn’t going to be the one where the bird bounces off the rope and hits the dirt. So far my prayers have been answered and I haven’t had one quit on me. The adrenaline isn’t just reserved for retrievals though, launches are just as hair-raising for me as one of the “new guys.”
A number of things can really screw you on a launch. One of the other new guys had a launch go bad and a bird hit the dirt. We’re not sure exactly what happened during the launch but by the time it came back to the site it wasn’t in one piece anymore. I’m trying to avoid the situation because I’d be pretty hard on myself if that happened, even though nearly everyone has had at least one crash. Mistakes are easy to make if you’re not diligent during your preflight, especially when you’re getting hammered over the radio by 3 guys trying to push you to get the bird off the ground. I’m usually pretty good about keeping my cool and doing all the initial prep work and knowing what to skip and where to skip to save time.
Missions are pretty easy. I’ve been fortunate enough not to have had any emergencies during flight yet. So it really is just like playing a video game. You just have to make sure that it doesn’t screw itself in one way or another, like flying into a mountain or something…. You’re aircraft does what you tell it to do from your little metal control box in the middle of the desert.
I have to say that this is probably the best job I’ve ever had, as promised by everyone I spoke to before taking it. We function independently from the corporate world, in our own little microcosm, sharing stories from past deployments, experiences in the military and experiences back home. We talk about what we miss, everything ranging from food and beer to women (all the operators here are male.) I could really go for a pizza and a pale ale right about now. Although having some girls around couldn’t hurt either…
I’m about a quarter of the way through the time before my R&R. The first thing I want to do when I get back is to go get some Black Thorn pizza, a pitcher of Schlafly Pale Ale and talk about normal life for a while. Although I’m sure I’ll be unhappy until I get to come back out here. Life out here is great, despite knowing that at any given time you’re time could be over, but that’s an awesome feeling in itself.
A number of things can really screw you on a launch. One of the other new guys had a launch go bad and a bird hit the dirt. We’re not sure exactly what happened during the launch but by the time it came back to the site it wasn’t in one piece anymore. I’m trying to avoid the situation because I’d be pretty hard on myself if that happened, even though nearly everyone has had at least one crash. Mistakes are easy to make if you’re not diligent during your preflight, especially when you’re getting hammered over the radio by 3 guys trying to push you to get the bird off the ground. I’m usually pretty good about keeping my cool and doing all the initial prep work and knowing what to skip and where to skip to save time.
Missions are pretty easy. I’ve been fortunate enough not to have had any emergencies during flight yet. So it really is just like playing a video game. You just have to make sure that it doesn’t screw itself in one way or another, like flying into a mountain or something…. You’re aircraft does what you tell it to do from your little metal control box in the middle of the desert.
I have to say that this is probably the best job I’ve ever had, as promised by everyone I spoke to before taking it. We function independently from the corporate world, in our own little microcosm, sharing stories from past deployments, experiences in the military and experiences back home. We talk about what we miss, everything ranging from food and beer to women (all the operators here are male.) I could really go for a pizza and a pale ale right about now. Although having some girls around couldn’t hurt either…
I’m about a quarter of the way through the time before my R&R. The first thing I want to do when I get back is to go get some Black Thorn pizza, a pitcher of Schlafly Pale Ale and talk about normal life for a while. Although I’m sure I’ll be unhappy until I get to come back out here. Life out here is great, despite knowing that at any given time you’re time could be over, but that’s an awesome feeling in itself.
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