People “back in the world” often ask what it is that soldiers think about the most, what is it that bears most on the mind. The answers could easily be: the soft embrace of one you love, a cold beer, or perhaps just a juicy steak right off the grill.
But the answer is almost always the same, what we think most about is time. Time rules our lives. Every soldier I know has a “doughnut” which tells exactly how much time he has left before he gets to go home. Many have multiple doughnuts (countdown calculators) which tell him how long until he gets to take leave, or even take a short pass to Qutar. The end time is always the same though: “How long until I am not here anymore.” It is not the things you miss the most, but how long until you can get back to them. My doughnut says I have 207 days until I go home and that I have been here 203 days.
You see the problem is we all work horrendously long hours. My work day is scheduled at 13 ½ hours, but usually ends up being more like 15. There is no union in the army.
And long hours are bearable if you are engaged, but that is not really how a deployed soldier spends his time. While we may well be on the job, the job is often a job of waiting and watching. The soldier on guard duty is not doing something; he is waiting for the enemy to do something. And the enemy is waiting for the soldier to get distracted from waiting for him to do something so he can be successful in his attack. The problem this presents is it does not allow the soldier to read, or watch TV, or play a game of cards, or even engage in much conversation. He simply waits, day after day, finally waiting to the point that he hopes the enemy will come, so he at least has something to do.
Time works well for the enemy too. The more bored we become the easier it is for him to sneak up on us or for us to become careless. Time is even more on his side when it comes to the total time we have been in this war. We grow weary of war as a nation as time passes, and want to move on to other wars. Time works against us.
There is a popular clip on YouTube of some soldiers at a checkpoint out in the middle of nowhere, when a carload of Arabic guys drive up to be inspected. Before the soldiers sent the suspected terrorists on their way, they encourage the suspected terrorists to go to the next village, pick up their guns, to turn around, come back and attack. “Please come back down this road in one hour firing your weapons and we will fight.” Now of course they didn’t really want to be in a fire fight. The purpose of the video is to demonstrate how they just wanted something to do, even if it meant being shot at. To anyone who has "pulled guard duty" this makes perfectly good sense, to anyone else, it just seems bizarre. The simple hope is if they can get the fight over with, they can go home. Instead they wait.
How do you spend all that time doing nothing? You think about time. How long until lunch? That is an easily achievable time goal to reach. Now you have something to look forward to. When that comes you start to think, “How long until dinner?” How long until my shift is over so I can go to sleep and make time really fly. Then in the morning I get up and wait for time to go by once again.
The navy commander I room with is what we call “short”, which means he doesn’t have much time left. (It has nothing to do with how tall he is).He was a cheerful soul, scheduled to go home July 2nd. Everyone gets really friendly and optimistic when they become a “double digit midget” which means they have less than 100 days left on their deployment. When he became a “single digit midget”, meaning he had less than 10 days to go, he was given the bad news. He was going to have to serve additional “time”. It seems that the rapid drawdown from the surge had left us shorthanded, so he was “involuntarily extended" 120 days. Now there is nothing quite so depressing as seeing a “single digit midget” go all the way back above 100 days. It destroys the spirit. It destroys the will. He is not a cheerful soul anymore. I just asked him, “Aren’t you down to just 25 days again?” His response was, “No, 28”. He is afraid to get excited about being “short” again because he cannot stand the letdown.
My alarm just went off. That is a milestone. It is time to report for duty. Lunch is only 5 hours away.
But the answer is almost always the same, what we think most about is time. Time rules our lives. Every soldier I know has a “doughnut” which tells exactly how much time he has left before he gets to go home. Many have multiple doughnuts (countdown calculators) which tell him how long until he gets to take leave, or even take a short pass to Qutar. The end time is always the same though: “How long until I am not here anymore.” It is not the things you miss the most, but how long until you can get back to them. My doughnut says I have 207 days until I go home and that I have been here 203 days.
You see the problem is we all work horrendously long hours. My work day is scheduled at 13 ½ hours, but usually ends up being more like 15. There is no union in the army.
And long hours are bearable if you are engaged, but that is not really how a deployed soldier spends his time. While we may well be on the job, the job is often a job of waiting and watching. The soldier on guard duty is not doing something; he is waiting for the enemy to do something. And the enemy is waiting for the soldier to get distracted from waiting for him to do something so he can be successful in his attack. The problem this presents is it does not allow the soldier to read, or watch TV, or play a game of cards, or even engage in much conversation. He simply waits, day after day, finally waiting to the point that he hopes the enemy will come, so he at least has something to do.
Time works well for the enemy too. The more bored we become the easier it is for him to sneak up on us or for us to become careless. Time is even more on his side when it comes to the total time we have been in this war. We grow weary of war as a nation as time passes, and want to move on to other wars. Time works against us.
There is a popular clip on YouTube of some soldiers at a checkpoint out in the middle of nowhere, when a carload of Arabic guys drive up to be inspected. Before the soldiers sent the suspected terrorists on their way, they encourage the suspected terrorists to go to the next village, pick up their guns, to turn around, come back and attack. “Please come back down this road in one hour firing your weapons and we will fight.” Now of course they didn’t really want to be in a fire fight. The purpose of the video is to demonstrate how they just wanted something to do, even if it meant being shot at. To anyone who has "pulled guard duty" this makes perfectly good sense, to anyone else, it just seems bizarre. The simple hope is if they can get the fight over with, they can go home. Instead they wait.
How do you spend all that time doing nothing? You think about time. How long until lunch? That is an easily achievable time goal to reach. Now you have something to look forward to. When that comes you start to think, “How long until dinner?” How long until my shift is over so I can go to sleep and make time really fly. Then in the morning I get up and wait for time to go by once again.
The navy commander I room with is what we call “short”, which means he doesn’t have much time left. (It has nothing to do with how tall he is).He was a cheerful soul, scheduled to go home July 2nd. Everyone gets really friendly and optimistic when they become a “double digit midget” which means they have less than 100 days left on their deployment. When he became a “single digit midget”, meaning he had less than 10 days to go, he was given the bad news. He was going to have to serve additional “time”. It seems that the rapid drawdown from the surge had left us shorthanded, so he was “involuntarily extended" 120 days. Now there is nothing quite so depressing as seeing a “single digit midget” go all the way back above 100 days. It destroys the spirit. It destroys the will. He is not a cheerful soul anymore. I just asked him, “Aren’t you down to just 25 days again?” His response was, “No, 28”. He is afraid to get excited about being “short” again because he cannot stand the letdown.
My alarm just went off. That is a milestone. It is time to report for duty. Lunch is only 5 hours away.
1 comment:
Ok, John, now you're making it sound less like a vaction and more like a war. Tempus non fugit.
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