Hard Things at the Fort

Hard Things at the Fort

I knew I would be away from my family for most of 19 weeks; that the time was mostly not mine, but belonged to the U.S. Army's.

For motivation, I told myself a few comforting things to get me through:

1. Thousands of soldiers and U.S. military were in harm's way while I would be there; the desert that I would be residing in did not have much live fire or killer ordnance, not aimed at me. As a few hundred thousand troops the U.S. had deployed the year that I was there outside a small American town, I was in a pretty peaceful and safe corner of the planet.

2. I could talk to my wife and family almost every day by phone, unlike the painful brief minutes on Sundays during basic training for those long 8-9 weeks.

3. I would be attending a school and learning skills that would benefit me and my career. Food and board were extra besides my monthly pay. Health and life insurance was good.

4. I was recovering from a debilitating illness, regarding low strength my immune system, so I had time to focus on getting better and stronger. 

5. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I had extra opportunities to share things about my faith and try to be a good example and a missionary. As a young man I had been a full time missionary for two years, and time away from home and family turned out to be sweet as a time of faith and growth.

6. I could claim to have lived in another state, another climate. That kind of experience has its own value. 

7. I was serving my country, while joining a larger group of people that had done this before, it was still a unique experience to most of the country and world. It was an honor.

Hard things:

1. Being away from wife and kids. A father should be close by them. And there was not a lot of time to to talk, and small kids don't communicate that well by phone. Or at least I did not figure that out.

2. The classes and military was time consuming. We would get accountability every Sunday night at 6 pm, then wake up every workday to be on the fields for physical exercise by 5 am. Or maybe 5:30 am. After breakfast we would form up as classes for a 8 am class, being released at 5 pm for another formation to march to dinner. Free time by around 6:30 pm. Some nights we had extra training and duties, including some weekends.

3. Co-habitating at close quarters with 30 to 60 other young guys. Sometimes their music, their conversations, their antics and shennanigans was annoying. Like staying up way to late and laughing or watching movies when a body simply wanted to sleep.

4. Fireguard duty at all hours of the night. It is intrusive and tiresome. Especially when fellow troops don't do their share or get drunk and cause problems.

5. Being promised from almost day one that I would get a weekend to fly to California two months later to be with family and baptize my daughter, and some 6 or 8 weeks later having that promise blown out of the water.

6. The last culminating exercise being sleep deprived with 3-4 hours per sleep per night, for about 8 to 9 days.

7. On occasion being called for random accountability formations, like on a Saturday morning when I was over a mile away enjoying some Internet time that I did not have much of, with no laptop or Internet.

8. On some occasions being reminded to remove headphones while walking across the base, or a check on my undergarments that were slightly visible beneath my PT shorts while running to the Saturday morning impromptu accountability formation!

9. Dealing with the soldiers in classes that should be professional, but many of them were immature and trying to the patience. Some teachers were lacking, too, but that always happens anywhere.

10. Too much cursing and rude talk.

But overall, believe it or not, it was good. Good and hard.