Diary of a Cobra Recruit

My favorite ever McSweeney's piece...posted for your enjoyment, as I have nothing else I feel like posting tonight. 90% of you have probably had this foisted upon you by me at some previous point in our respective relationships, but I think it's an important piece that's worth revisiting every several months. And with the GI Joe movie coming up, and with me busy spending all my time fighting non-fictional terrorists organizations, forget about it...can you say topical?

That's what I thought. Enjoy...you can thank me later.

Friends and Spouses: A beer blogging obsession?

Both my wife Lauren, and one of my best friends Mike, have recently expounded on their love of the sudsy stuff on their respective blogs.

Being in a beer free state for hundreds and hundreds of days now (or 135 days, depending on whether I'm allowed to hyperbolize or not) I felt compelled to comment on both posts. And while my tastes are a little different than Mike's and Lauren's, I appreciate their efforts to keep my beer dreams alive as I languish here at the (beer-free) edge of the world.

To close, I'd like to crib from the comment I left on Lauren's blog:

"The last beers I've had (not including a couple of N/A beers I've sucked down at the dining hall out of curiosity) were in the Shannon, Ireland airport. So what was that--the wee hours of the morning on December 23? I think so. I put down, rather quickly I might add, 2 pints served by a Polish bartender. All the bartenders were Poles, and I remember thinking that odd, being in Ireland and all. And then I got here to BAF, and there is a distinct international flair here among the contractors, to include many Eastern Europeans. If, when I get home, there aren't large numbers of Czechs and Croats taking care of my logistical needs I think it might throw me off for a few weeks."

Oh, and happy Cinco de Mayo everyone...just another reason why this is an appropriate post today.

Notes From the Homefront, Lauren #4: Do Kitties Dream of Electric Sheep?

I do not dream that my husband is home. I am well aware, even in my sleep, that my husband is far, far away and has been for quite a while. The unfortunate part is that in my sleep, I seem to think that my husband is on his way home.

I am constantly having dreams that he'll be home tomorrow, or in a day or two. There is always a ten to fifteen second beat when I wake up after these dreams when I lay there and think wow, Andrew will be home today/tomorrow/this weekend. Then my mind catches up and I'm reminded that he isn't on his way home, but that we're not even halfway through this deployment.

Sometimes even in my dreams my subconscious seems to know what's going on and that Andrew is still far away for a long time and it tries to tell my dream-conscious what's going on, but the dream-conscious seldom seems to listen. Its hard to wake up three or four times a week and relive the same feelings I had at gate B6 at BWI on Dec 18 when I had to put Andrew on an airplane without knowing when I would see him again.

Despite these repeated sad wake ups of mine, I am happy to report that the cat remains undeterred in reaching her sleep goals.

BTTT: Pics of me in out and about

This picture shows me in Panjshir, an even more peaceful province than Bamyan (and home of Afghan folk-hero/mujahadeen commander/martyr Ahmad Shah Massoud).

If memory serves, I was out with some engineers to inspect a hydropower facility we're funding (that's the channel/intake at the bottom of the picture) and a group of locals congregated around us and let us know what they thought about the contractor we have working the job.

Note that, yet again, I'm sans body armor. This is not the norm in the Global War on Terror. I truly am a lucky sunuvabitch to be able to engage in no-kidding reconstruction and development. It's not a bad gig at all.

Also, in my efforts to document every glorious moment of my day off, this picture of me on top of a mountain in Bamyan got pushed off the main page.

Andrew's Day Off: 1117PM

At long last--after 11 short hours if you want to be all technical about it--my day off has come to an end.

I've committed 2,160 words to blog today (including this post) an Army 2.0 record for a single day. I'm writing this final message as I wrap up my chat with Lauren, and as I reflect back on what I've learned over these last 11+ hours.

First and foremost, I need to take time off each day, or every few days at the least. At the gym today I ran into one person that works in my shop, and three officers who work for one of the subordinate units that reports to my shop. If they can take time off, I either need to give them some of my work to do, or go out and take some time off of my own.

And the thing is, I do most of my best work around the office in the evenings. Taking a couple of hours to go to the gym during the day 2 or 3 times a week isn't going to help the terrorists win, you know?

My other key lesson is this--avoid people as much as possible on your days off. Inevitably work stuff comes up, and discussing the finer points of civil military operations, while interesting in relative terms, kinda defeats the purpose of having a day off from worrying about work.

Other key lessons from today that I considered and discarded for various reasons:

1) Be excellent to each other

2) Teach [the children] well and let them lead the way

3) If it bleeds we can kill it

4) You tried your best and failed miserably. The lesson is: never try.

I think that's it, folks. It's been great sharing today with you. Love to all, and I'll see you tomorrow with your regularly schedule every-few-days content.

Andrew's Day Off: 1000PM

Well, I've made it back from church and post-church dinner, and sadly, my day has almost come to an end. Church was nice, and I'm now chatting with my wife on gtalk while I write this post and contemplate sleep.

Usually at this time I'm on the phone talking with Lauren, but I also usually call from the office. I think that if I went to the office tonight, even if I resisted the temptation to check my email, I'd at the very least be tempted to check my email--and that's added stress. So, here I sit, in my hooch, enjoying the last remnants of my day off.

I'll hop back online for one last post before the night is through to lay some final day-off musings on everyone.

Andrew's Day Off: 624PM

Well, it's time to head to the chapel for rehearsal and then mass. I haven't written much here at the 2.0 about my choir-ly duties, but I should say that I end up spending a lot of time in the chapel singing about God these days.

Because of work I miss some rehearsals and some masses, but if I attend every event in a given week we're talking 2 rehearsals and 2 masses at 1.5-2.5 hours a clip. When you are in a situation that offers as little free time as mine does, 6-10 hours a week is a lifetime (and quite the time suck when you look at my infrequent work outs).

Still, I do it because I really enjoy it. I've always loved singing Catholic music--it's a very particular style, nothing really like what most of you probably think of as church or gospel music--and it's fun to be in a choir for the first time in my life. I've started to sing tenor of late (who knew I had it in me?) and I'm generally speaking not a bad singer. Again, who knew?

I've gotta run, but I'll be back at least once or twice more before the day is done. Until then, I remain as always, Andrew.

Andrew's Day Off: 532PM

I'm back from the gym, a little sweatier for the wear, but refreshed after a nice work out.

A couple of months back (it's fun to be able to say that) I lamented that illness and overwork were keeping me from living as healthy a lifestyle as I'd hoped to live here at the Forward Edge.

Some few weeks ago I began a concerted effort to correct the habits I'd fallen into. I began to get back to regular work outs, and to date I've had decent (but not great) results. For example, I mentioned my mediocre APFT performance earlier in the week--which I don't see as entirely representative as I was purposefully holding back (suck it, Army!)--but I'm still not in as good of shape as I was in mid to late January after 30 workouts in 30 days.

For the last several weeks I've been good about working out at least twice each week. I know that doesn't sound like much, especially when there is a free, well stocked gym that is literally on the way from my hooch to my office (which is only a 4 minute walk to begin with). So really, there is no excuse to miss work outs...but some how or other I let life get the best of me, and running twice a week is understandable, at least, if not excusable.

Still, I got my workout in today, and it felt pretty good. If I can boost my workouts from 2-3 times a week to 3-4 times a week I think that I'll be in pretty decent shape--literally and figuratively.

That's it for now--I'll probably see you one more time before I head to church in an hour or so.

Andrew's Day Off: 407PM

Oh, how the time flies.

It seems like only 5 minutes ago that I rolled out of bed and into my day off, and it's now after 4PM and I'm staring at less than 3 hours before I have to be at church for Saturday evening pre-mass choir practice. It's not that I dislike going to church or singing in the choir (I happen to enjoy both immensely) it's just that on a day like today, any sort of deadline or commitment of time adds stress to a day that is supposed to be stressless.

After all, I'm not getting another day like this, not (in all likelihood) for another 75-90 days. Just typing that sentence makes me cringe a little. But the point is, I'm supposed to be as stress free as possible today, so I'm refreshed and ready to get back to the grind tomorrow. We'll see how all that works out.

Light reading has been fun. I've dozed a bit and read through the first hundred or so pages of "The Blind Side". Just before writing this post I cheated a bit, and looked up the main character online...I'm really enjoying the story, and I wanted to make sure that the young man about whom the book is written doesn't end up in some sort of Smash Williams/Jason Street style faux-Shakespearean tragedy--I don't think that my psyche could handle that, not on a day like today.

The internets seem to be telling me that I have nothing to worry about, so I'm going to dive back in. I also might head over to the gym for a light workout (I'm all about doing things light today) after which it will nearly be dinner time.

See everyone in a bit.

Andrew's Day Off: 209PM

Food was good, and I'm back in my hooch to do some sitting and perhaps a little light reading. I just got a package in the mail from my parents, so I am now the proud owner of two (count 'em, two!) toiletries kits. For the past 2+ months (since the morning where I left my old kit in the shower trailer) I've been getting by with large ziploc bags. And don't get me wrong, those bags worked really well. TK's tend to get gross with repeated use, but when one of the ziplocs got a bit too scuzzy I could just replace it with another one. All the same, though, it's nice to have real, actual kits.

My mom also sent me a copy of Gilead, which I look forward to reading. It's relatively short and ever-so-slightly snobby (it's another recent Pulitzer winner) which is exactly what I go for in books while I'm out here. I've been chugging through Gravity's Rainbow lately (a book that's neither short nor "slightly" snobby--it's a full on, 800 page effort of will) so it's nice to have something that will be a bit more easily consumable.

At lunch just now, not wanting to try to concentrate on the talking dogs and oversized slug monsters found in Gravity's Rainbow while eating my chicken nuggets, I read the first 40 pages of "The Blind Side" by Michael Lewis. It's really quite good so far (thanks Utgoffs/Spicer!)

The book starts off with a 30+ page retelling of Joe Theisman's famous injury, and while that's a moment I don't really want to relive too often, that's a pretty impressive way to start off a book in my opinion...

OK, on to my light reading--I'll see everyone in a bit.

Andrew's Day Off: 109PM

I know, I really need to go eat...

But check out this blog post at WaPo about West Point allowing its football players to immediately pursue an NFL career, rather than doing the regular do for a newly commissioned 2LT in the Army. I'm sure this is a story most of you have heard mention of, and it's one that has particular interest to me as an IRR guy, plucked from regular life (albeit to a great, important job) after serving 4 years on active duty.

I'll refrain from sharing my opinion on the West Point matter, but as with the last WaPo blog I linked to, make sure to read through the comments...among the various posters I think most sides of the argument are pretty well represented.

Fascinating stuff. Any of the West Point readership have something to chime in on this one? Sultan, you out there??

Andrew's Day Off: 1255PM

Before heading to eat, I read Lauren's recap of this week's reality TV. It was entirely enjoyable--it's always fun to be reminded of what a good, funny writer my wife is (two qualities that matter a lot to me).

It's also sweet of Lauren to be so spoiler focussed as to mostly blog on shows that I don't really watch, rather than the shows that we watch and love together (Lost, 30 Rock, etc.). Lauren downloads those shows and sends them to me to watch out here on thumb drives. It's pretty awesome.

Andrew's Day Off: 1242PM

All.

Today I have the day off. I didn't approve this with any of my bosses or anything, I just conspired with my people to cover for me and let me not come in to work. The bosses will probably figure it out, but I really don't think they'll mind (or else I wouldn't have done this).

Saturday is basically the only day during a week where I can legitimately pull that off, and as folks in my shop start going on leave in a few days, it was now or never--take today off, or wait until my no-kidding leave in July/August time frame.

This is the first day off I've had since December 17th, 2007. That was the last full day I spent at home in Virginia with my wife Lauren. For those of you wondering, I worked for 137 consecutive days before today. That feels like a lot to me, but I don't have much basis for comparison. It's certainly unprecedented in my life, but I'm sure a lot of you have gone through similar stretches.
I guess you can say that today hasn't technically been a "day off"--I stayed at the office until about 1:30 in the morning getting everything taken care of so I could play hookie today--but it's as close as I'm going to get.

I celebrated the day off by sleeping in until about 1215PM. As many of you know, I can be quite the sleeper when I set my mind to it, and with a bed time of ~2AM it was pretty well inevitable that I would sleep into the afternoon. I feel a little lazy for doing so, like I'm not going to be able to make the most of my day off now that I slept through half of it, but what're you gonna do?

Either way, I'll be checking in here throughout the day to let you know how things are progressing. It's lunch time now, and after food I think I might read a bit.

See everyone in a bit!

Plumlee Picks Duke

For those of you who haven't been following the Plumlee saga...Miles asked out of Stanford (where Dawkins just took over) and signed with Duke (where Mason Plumlee, Miles's younger brother, signed a couple months back) within a matter of days. Craziness.

I have to say, while the cynic in me has little doubt that this late signing will have little to no impact on Duke next year, it's still kind of fun to have a good news men's basketball story to fixate on for a week or two during the off season.

It's also fun (for any number of reasons) to stick it to Stanford.

Welcome to the team, Miles.

Parts of Afghanistan Are Quite Peaceful...

I am standing on top of a what the Kiwis call "PT Hill"...you can see the city down below in the valley if you look really closely. You can also see the Buddhas that the Taliban famously destroyed if you at the background slightly up and to the right of my head.

I am lucky and blessed to work in a part of Afghanistan that is, for the most part, free of the violence that exists in so much of the country. The fact that I can hike around any part of Afghanistan without armor or a heavily armed patrol is, to me at least, a shining example of the potential that exists throughout the rest of the country.