I'll never let you go....

Literally, twenty minutes after writing all that crap about my awesome phone....I lost it. I have signs posted up everywhere, but since you don't sign up for a cell phone "plan" here, it's pretty easy to see how someone could swap a sim card and be on their way. Oh well.

So now I need a new phone. The funny part about it was that my boss had to buy my the phone. We went to the PX in Kandahar, and we both went to the counter, and I said "I like that one" and he said "now, owning a phone is a big responsibility. It's a priviledge, not a right." Yeah, yeah, I said, thinking about how cool I was going to look with my phone.....

Well, not two weeks later, I had wrecked it, and Dad was not happy. "If you think I'm getting you another one, you're way wrong". I just hung my head in shame. I'm sorry, I muttered. I didn't think......"THAT'S RIGHT! You didn't think! Way to go shit-for-brains!" as he poked me hard in the chest and then stomped around for a while, uttering inaudible phrases with the word "damn" laced here and there.

Well, maybe that's not exactly how it happened, but that's how it felt....Anyway, I did lose the phone, and now I need another one. Only, I live somwhere where phones exist, but only because they were bought 327km away and brought here. You can imagine the dilemma.

Actually, I was in a blind fit of rage when I lost the phone. I'm surprised my weapon didn't go missing in the process. Thank goodness for that. Far less forgivable to lose a loaded M4. Anger has been a mainstay of my existance here. The boss and I have decided that every person here has some sort of mental instability. It's that or level of stupidity so consistant across the board that we are in a constant state of bewilderment at the situations that we encounter.

I'd say that in the Army, the dumb a-holes have a tendency to inflate their importance while the mildly intelligent simply keep to themselves. This increases the appearance that you are on a ship of fools, while making you feel all the crazier when you try to argue with someone who is not making sense at all. Wes Rainey would know what I am talking about: you feel like you are in some sort of parallel universe where everyone is taking some pill that you are avoiding. I did stop taking the Malaria pill....maybe that's it. I havn't seen a mesquito since I got here, so I'm ok with that decision. Really, since I'm now taking neproxin, some kind of anti-inflamatory, for my shoulder, I didn't want to mix medicines. Another Dr. Ruth (Saunders) lesson: don't take a bunch of stuff at once. So I don't. Hard to know who to trust anymore, but I do trust her.

Last night, I had to kick a guy out of my office. I literally told him to leave. I was so close to saying: "get the F- out", but knew that would not bode well, so I spared him that one word. Boss was so angry about the guy's position and request and responses that he woke up at 3AM to work out, then ran 4 miles. Then this morning, he had a meeting with the guy and his LT to explain that they were flaming idiots and needed to get head out of ass. The LT went to West Point, so boss gave her the what-for: "you're acting like an idiot. Hard right, easy wrong. Guess which you're doing now? Siding with an idiot to avoid his outbursts. Grow up. Be in charge. Do your job. Earn what you are paid for. Stop wasting space. Represent what you were taught."

Pretty good, I thought. Too much emotion in all this. There should be no emotion in this job. It's cold, calculated, factual, quantitative. Get it done. This makes me pine for the combat arms.....but here, things get fluffy, somehow people's feelings come in to play, and now we have to ask politely instead of saying: "do it". I'm sick of hearing why it can't get done. That is far from an American attitude.

Out past our gate somewhere, guys are laying in trenches getting shot at in 9 hour firefights, and I have to listen to some cupcake complain about an 5 hour work-day. Seriously?

I recently took a road trip. Took us 11 hours to get from A to B. I rode in the back of this hulking steel beast that vibrated my skull when it idled. We spent 2 hours waiting for the Italians to unclog the one road in Afghanistan- they tried to move about 300 trucks at once and this did not go well. While we were stopped, a herd of goats disembarked the bus next to us, then were hurried back on when the bus started moving again. Goats and bus and driver were all shouting and reving at each other and it was utter kaos for moments before the goats were all herded back on the bus, the guy carrying his chicken made it back from visiting another bus headed the opposite direction, and a mad scramble of passengers left us fearing that they knew something we didnt. Alas, traffic was only moving, and sure enough it moved for about 20 feet before it stopped, with no sign of moving again, and so off came the goats and people and chickens and guys holding them.

Every single- EVERY SINGLE- bus we passed had about 500 bags of rice on top, and on top of the rice were 3 automobiles. Once when a guy tried to pass us in the desert, his car flipped three times. He got out and somehow.....somehow he righted it and drove away. They really do live a simple life here, and it has its merits. Of course, illness would not be something I would welcome along with the lack of worldly possessions, since that would include not possessing a shower, or a toilet you could sit on- yes! I am back in the land of the hole in the floor! I'm not going to try it, I don't see how the throne is not the obvious improvement over the hole. I would just imagine that to a certain extent, you would see an improved something and say: "well hell. That's a lot better than what I have been doing..."

"And take a look at this, my left hand is clean now...."

But I will say I applaud their ingenuity. 9 times out of 10, the American viewpoint is, "we can't do it.....we don't have a ____" and then these 5 afghanis show up and convince you to let go of the thing, and they put a stick, some wire, an old piece to a tire, some dirt....and they've fixed whatever it is. Evidence that if the mind gets soft from having too many tools, you lose the ability to imagine the possibilities with less. Thus, we keep up with the Joness and we think that what we have is not what it should be. Of course, that attitude doesn't exisits in trailer parks...so we know the life without is alive an well in our own country- but those people are still surrounded by what they can't have and want as a result. Sure there is a balance somewhere, but human nature can't be avoided. Thus: credit. Worst thing to happen to us. It eats at what should be our core values, and puts every one of us in a position of owing something to someone. Debt. Debts of time, money, stuff, emotion, friendliness, honor, character.

Eisenhower, where are you? Bring back the boring; too much excitement for one young adult lifetime.