memory lane

Please note the dark leg of Spc. Diablo-Cono on the right.

The interesting thing about memory is that time tends to round the edges of the sharper more painful experiences in life. When I think back to particularly hard times, I remember that they weren’t pleasant, but it’s hard to conjure the exact feelings of pain, misery, and suffering that I was experiencing at the time.

It is this fact that keeps me from going completely bat-shit crazy while deployed: years from now I will remember the laughs and friends, not so much the overpowering ignorance and stupidity that have guided my unit through the past twelve months.

While we sit and wait (we are ‘Kuwait-ing’ as Spc. Diablo-Cono put it so eloquently), select handfuls of people are chosen to depart before the rest of our unit. These decisions might seem random if looked at from above, but are highly preferential when viewed from another standpoint. It is the people who have supported the bullshit and hailed our spineless leaders as visionaries and modern-day Paul Reveres (“The douches are coming!”). It was this circle of sycophantic behavior that will most likely require lengthy and complicated surgical procedures to remove heads from some of our mid-level leadership’s asses. With any luck no one will survive the operations, strengthening both the army and the gene pool simultaneously.

As the chosen few trickle out like farts before a shit, the rest of us sit here, comatose. The only good thing I have found about this place is how utterly enjoyable the nighttime is. The temperature drops to a lovely 75-85 degrees and the winds die down. I venture happily out of my tent without my sunglasses and bask in the glory of painfully slow Internet. Since there is nothing more enjoyable to do here, we will endure sub-dialup speeds for hours at a time.

Rumors scurry around here like the child-sized rats that live among us in the tents. Everyone has a friend who heard that it might take an extra two weeks to get home. It might take three days. The sun is supposed to collapse within the next few hours. There is even a rumor that Tupac is not dead, he has just been stuck in Kuwait for the past decade. Who knows what to believe any more. The only thing I know for certain is that my blog is full of truth and honesty. Take my word for it: you can’t take anyone’s word for anything.

Recap: Kuwaiting to exhale, relating people to farts is comedy gold, should be home by December if all goes well!