chaos and continuity...
I have found that my life has been changing, quickly, due in large part to being in the Army. However, because I am a West Pointer, I am constantly surrounded by other people who are constantly changing in very similar patterns. It makes for a very strange dynamic wherein even things which, in normal society, and amongst people not in our situation, we would, I think, more often stop and think...wtf?
An example may be a better way to help explain...
One year ago, I was going to a bar every night with friends, drinking a pitcher of beer, eating onion rings and cheeseburgers and always went to sleep at 1130 at night. I wore wool pants and plastic shoes everyday. My friends were always right around the corner and talk was of papers and studying...
one month later, I was living in Oklahoma firing weapons and driving around in trucks....
another month put me in the middle of Arizona where I was living in a hotel and learning about Russians...
and now, I'm here, at Fort Hood where conversation is about "deployment schedules" and soldiers and leadership and the pains and pleasures of being a decision maker. We have friends who go to Iraq and friends who come back and I rarely stop to question the fact that I've just spent two months exclusively with a group of people that, literally, overnight, I will not see again for years.
But...we're all going through it at the same time, so it doesn't seem strange or odd to me because, for my peer group, it's not. So, by virtue of where I went to school and the job I perform, I now have a life that is anything but normal, and yet...feels incredibly stable and natural. Strange really, but nice.
An example may be a better way to help explain...
One year ago, I was going to a bar every night with friends, drinking a pitcher of beer, eating onion rings and cheeseburgers and always went to sleep at 1130 at night. I wore wool pants and plastic shoes everyday. My friends were always right around the corner and talk was of papers and studying...
one month later, I was living in Oklahoma firing weapons and driving around in trucks....
another month put me in the middle of Arizona where I was living in a hotel and learning about Russians...
and now, I'm here, at Fort Hood where conversation is about "deployment schedules" and soldiers and leadership and the pains and pleasures of being a decision maker. We have friends who go to Iraq and friends who come back and I rarely stop to question the fact that I've just spent two months exclusively with a group of people that, literally, overnight, I will not see again for years.
But...we're all going through it at the same time, so it doesn't seem strange or odd to me because, for my peer group, it's not. So, by virtue of where I went to school and the job I perform, I now have a life that is anything but normal, and yet...feels incredibly stable and natural. Strange really, but nice.
posted by Adam at 6:06 PM
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