iraqistan

So it appears in retrospect that yesterday was my last day of real work for about the next ten weeks or so. The doctors decided, after sending me to have half of my blood removed from my body, that at least I can wait for the lab results in Arizona starting my class. They don’t intend to pull me back from the class, regardless of the results, as they can make treatment arrangements somewhere within a three-state radius for the duration, so off I head on Monday.

First I have to get through the weekend, however.

My first sergeant, in his infinite wisdom, has convinced me to head east for the weekend with him and a few other higher ranking non-commissioned officers for debauchery and a marathon. I am not crazy enough - yet - to run, but I thought the first bit sounded rather entertaining. We added the new warrant to the party, and will be joined on day two by other runners, the battalion element, and who knows who else, but we don’t intend to be sober enough to remember outside of pictures. I mentioned that perhaps this was a dumb idea for me to head out for a weekend when I have yet to fully pack for a ten week course, but my first sergeant pointed out it was in the best interest of my health. He reasoned, possibly with some medical backing though I much doubt it, that the more brain cells we can kill off the less likely the growth sprouting in my head will be able to latch onto living cells and therefore slow the spread. It seemed fully logical, so tomorrow off we go.

My husband and I have had some discussion as to what the thing in my head might be, since I will be in Arizona during the time someone would normally take a biopsy. We came up with several possibilities.

1) An alien egg to sprout and take over the world
2) A malignant virus which will fester in my brain and cause me to crave the souls of the living
3) An unborn twin now acting as another personality

However someone recently pointed out that Athena sprouted from the head of Zeus, so I am going with your standard War Goddess, which are really something of a hot commodity these days and I should be able to sell it on the black market for a decent sum later on.

Further evidence of my deteriorating mind is my reenlistment. Finally finding the retention NCO, we mentioned the trip to Prague and the NCO said we could just do the ceremony in Prague. So on Sunday my battalion commander, whom is running and so I expect will be in running shorts and a tee-shirt, will sign me up for another three years. We are having trouble getting our hands on an American flag, but figure we can find enough beer coasters on Friday and Saturday to make something of a semblance of one. My battalion commander, whom I have been under the assumption either didn’t know I existed or rather wished I didn’t exist at all, apparently likes me enough to spend 13,000 dollars on me for a course, so he gets to be the one to hold a straight face while I grumble through the reenlistment.

I might not have that many brain cells to spare after all.

In the midst of having plenty to do and not enough time to do it, my new warrant and I nevertheless came up with an experiment today.

Having found some Pop Rocks candies in a basket of treats in one of the private’s vehicles, I mentioned that we should test the exploding head myth that has been around for years about eating the candy while drinking a can of soda.

And that was how it began.

We brought the find upstairs and I summoned the other NCO into the office as well as the young Soldiers. I handed a packet of candy to the NCO and said he could take the opportunity to take one for his Soldiers, and mentioned I would put him in for a Certificate of Achievement at least should his head explode. I even let him choose the flavor between the three, to which he responded that if he was going to go, he’d best go with watermelon. He then pointed out that isn’t this what privates are for, at which point two of the privates began arguing about who ranked lower, so I stopped the quarrel handing each of them a packet and reminding them it was all in the name of science. The NCO still tried to escape his doom by passing his off to a specialist, but I pointed out that an NCO should never expect his Soldiers to do that of which he was unwilling. He clammed up at that, having just graduated from his first NCO academy. And so the science began.

Three packets, in their entirety, into the three mouths.

One glass of warm soda each to wash it down.

Zero exploding heads.

Despite the initial disappointment, success was deemed about a half an hour later when I received an email from one of the privates who was in the process of completing a report I had assigned her, and upon sending the report she included a status update which detailed that she felt a bit lightheaded and thought something was moving around in her stomach. The other private reported similar, and the NCO wasn’t looking entirely well. I called them all in and mentioned that I felt fine. I asked the warrant, who happily noted that he felt just peachy, and asked the specialist who said he felt well but that we hadn’t used a placebo so could we really be an effective control group. The warrant was momentarily unhappy, saying that the results could just be psychosematic. To this, however, I noted that to assume such would be to assume that, for instance, the private who until very recently thought that pouring coffee out the third story window was an acceptable alternative to going down a flight of steps to a sink actually had a brain. Since we have come to assume that he in fact does not, we therefore concluded that psycotic symptoms could not possibly be at fault and therefore the entire experiement was deemed a success.

Score one for science in the midst of an office and with low budget experimentation. I will be waiting for my letter from the Nobel committee.

Well at least now when I am asked what exactly is my major malfunction I have somewhat of a suitable answer.

The MRI, during which the neurologist expected to find some pinched nerves and some easy to allieviate scar tissue, did not turn up pinched nerves and some easy to allieviate scar tissue. So she has no idea why when I do certain exercises with my left arm and shoulders it makes a popping sound in the back of my head and my shoulder gets painful and then my arm goes numb. Unfortunate, because that means more doctors fiddling about. Eventually, at least, as I tend to avoid digging for new explanations for problems when I already have one or two to deal with. Hence how I know gangrene smells like rotting almonds, but I digress.

Instead, the MRI turned up something about the size of a grape somewhere that there is not supposed to be a grape. That somewhere happens to be in the center of my head, puttering about neatly atop my pituitary gland. I was suspicious that something was up when I got the call from the neurologist the same day I had the MRI, because usually it takes days, even weeks to get results.

I rather wish it had taken the usual days or weeks, because now everyone is all mucking about wondering if I should head to Arizona for ten weeks with my new little brain companion. I pointed out that it isn’t exactly new, so how about we try something non-invasive like either medication or my traditional standby of ignoring it until I get back in August? The neurologist was not too keen on the latter, but has to check with the endochronologist about the former. The general opinion is that it isn’t cancerous, because it hasn’t piddled onto the brain cells it is snuggling up to, but it is in a rather inconvenient spot largely because it is putting pressure on my occular nerve which makes my vision go funny and shoving the rest of my brain into my skull, making me a bit addled and forgetful and having to deal with headaches that don’t seem to go away.

And here I thought the headaches were just the privates running around my office, one of whom cleverly dumped coffee out the office window yesterday. This wouldn’t have bothered me if we didn’t have a third floor office, and if a viable sink option for coffee disposal wasn’t located on his way out of the office anyway. Him doing his push-ups in exchange for his other punishment option which was that I toss him out the window to clean up the coffee was complicated by the fact that the other private, who saw him do it, opened her mouth with “Did you just dump that out the window?” which gave me the clue that something was amiss in the other room. So instead of him learning his lesson of not to dump things out the window, he at least learned the valuable lesson of if you are going to do something dumb, just don’t get caught, whch actually had been part of the safety briefing I had given them just a few minutes prior. He also pointed out that he learned that the other private was a narc, but I informed him that was all part of the bigger picture. Our new warrant officer, who watched the whole exchange unfold, was most amused. I then pointed out to him that they were all about to become his problem, as I still have every intention of running off to Arizona in a week. He stopped his giggling at that point.

So I still intend to convince the doctors and everyone else to allow me to head to Arizona for ten weeks, if only for the general safety of my Soldiers. I also believe that the grape in my head isn’t the only cause for my deteriorating sanity, given the coffee stains on the roof, and therefore it might actually be healthier for me to disappear for ten weeks instead of trying to get my melon fixed while dealing with my daily circus at the same time.

What a marvelous and fantastic day.

If by marvelous and fantastic I mean over 15 hours on base, three hurried meals, several half-interrupted tasks, and a mild dose of panic as garnish.

Wake up around 5 as usual, since I haven’t slept later in about two or three years. I can go back to sleep usually on weekends, but long since learned that is a bad idea during the week. At the gym by 6. Find my Soldiers, make them stop complaning about whatever it is this week that hurts and then go help another NCO get his Soldiers set for a bike physical training test, which he has never conducted but I have, to my dismay, taken a few times and never intend to again. Congress may be on the fence about waterboarding being torture; they really need to look at the bike physical training test in the Army first.

But as usual, I digress. The gym today was muscular strength, so I get my Soldiers doing what they are supposed to and then watch to make sure they aren’t trying to find ways around it. After the gym, at work by 0730 to finish whatever reports I did not get to finish the day before. Usually several. Chat with my local national, who has a habit of talking excessively about random topics, get the Soldiers in, find a project to occupy their time and keep them away from me so I can get something accomplished. Take one over to housing because they need to move her from her barracks room before she is sharing a bathroom with a male senior enlisted or something. Housing, as usual, takes an hour and a half to complete a ten minute task. It is possible, acutally, that my battalion hires from our local housing office, now that I think about it, as they have roughly the same level of productivity and definitely the same level of time wasted every time I am sucker enough to step foot in the general vicinity.

But I digress again. Skip lunch, because housing prevented me from getting reports finished. Write those, remember I promised my husband I would go see about buying him a gas-guzzling and horribly large pickup truck for his eventual return from points east and sandy. Go see the car sales person and build the truck. On the way there my First Sergeant calls. He asks me how flexible I am. I point out that our Equal Opportunity representative might have issues with him asking that, particularly since he prefaced it with the comment that he had just talked to the battalion commander, which makes me more nervous about anything they might ever discuss. He ignores my distress, says I can call her later, and informs me that the warrant officer, whom I had been expecting late this week, was instead about to be en route to my location so I should really call about finding him somewhere to stay. I call my Soldiers and give them instructions, try to at least get the truck saved in the system so I don’t have to start over. I can’t finish, as I have to go to an appointment to talk to someone about an inane task that normal people would have solved with a phone call. Head over there, wait around half an hour, get told that person is busy because other people were late for other appointments with her that day, come back in an hour. Head back to the office. Finish plans for the warrant officer.

Breathe. Get halfway through that and process two more reports. Grab my Soldiers and my local national, who luckily surfaced around this time as sometimes I forget where he is, have them give me presentations I asked them to prepare for the warrant officer about what they do. Give them changes, realize I am about to be late for my rescheduled appointment. Go to the appointment. Come back.

Breathe. Nope, no time for that, call my husband to double check the truck and send me some papers while finalizing two reports. Get a call from my First Sergeant asking that I please keep the cork on my crazy for a few days until the warrant at least gets over his jet lag. Agree to at least make an effort. Print everything off and realize I have to go meet the warrant officer. Dump half of my exceedingly messy desk into my safe and the other half into my car in a haphazard attempt to exude some professionalism and a semi-clean desk and drive over to the other base where Army Lodging has set up shop. Meet the warrant. Get him into his room, offer to take him to find food and pray he will decline as I still have things to do. He does. I could hug him, but that would be weird. I leave him to run over and grab some fast food, which I hardly ever eat, so I can head back to base to finish the truck piece while my food gets nice and cold in the car. Eat it on the way home as I realize I have been running around for 15 hours and for every thing I scratched off my to do list, I had added three more. With the early arrival of my warrant officer, I now effectively doubled the list because everything I was going to do to prepare for him I had planned to do tomorrow. Tomorrow, of course, just became yesterday…

Vacation comes in a week and a half when I leave for the States for a ten week course, given as a gift by my First Sergeant who, despite knowing those silly animals up at our training shop, is still surprised when things happen such as my class last March getting denied because the correct paperwork didn’t make it to the correct place in even remotely close to the correct time.

But my reenlistment paperwork is en route.

And my MRI is Friday to check and make sure I still have a brain at all, or if it hasn’t run off somewhere to escape this madness. I do wish it would leave a note as to where it might have gone, as I might like to join it when I have a moment to breathe.

The husband is gone after his brief sojourn in Germanistan, and thus the craziness can once again commence.

Somewhere amid cursing people under my breath, calling my first sergeant to curse people out loud, doing jobs that should have been done by other people months ago, getting yelled at for not doing jobs that I should be doing but have no time to complete, being given the run around when I actually try to do my job, and adding three things on my to-do list for every one I scratch off, I contacted my first sergeant and told him I would reenlist.

If someone finds a set of marbles rolling about on their own and unclaimed, please let me know. They might well be mine.

The deal, really isn’t all that bad, particularly when you are as crazy as I am finding myself to be. 17,000 dollars (before taxes, so in reality about 25 bucks and a pat on the back), a class I was going to attend anyway, three years in the general vicinity of Germany which I really don’t like all that much, and the promise of a deployment for real this time. The class will get me a secondary job skill that I have wanted for the past five years or so, the deployment I have wanted for some time and will give me needed experience in the new job, and really I will not be in Germany that much over the course of the three years with schools and the deployment, so I found it was possible to justify the whole deal to myself and to my poor, unsuspecting husband and sometime next week will once again raise my right hand and smack myself on the back of the head. Anyone else who wants to do the same, just watch the left side, please, as it is already damaged. Beatings on the right, however, are welcome and apparently needed. Don’t worry about knocking marbles loose, as it appears they are long since lost anyway.

I suppose it is a bit of a relief to have finally made a decision about what I am going to do, which is a tiny piece of stress off of my shoulders and probably good for my overall slowly failing mental health. Now all I have to do is start the clock, tidy up the various messes which seem to have been left on timers in various places around the country so they detonate periodically and I again introduce my frontal lobe with full force to a desktop somewhere, pack my things, and start my wanderings.

Perhaps along the way I will be able to find an extra set of marbles somewhere.

I just received an email from General Casey, Secretery Geren, et al. The contents were to thank the Soldiers and their families for their continued service and to state that combat tours will reduce to a somewhat normal 12 months starting 1 August 2008. It also casually comments that those already there will continue to serve their scheduled tours, namely 15 months.

I have a husband who is about to get leave after more than 10 months, a time when on a normal tour you would be gearing up to leave the dusty sandpit you have learned to call home. By the time he gets here we will be just about two weeks shy of a year since his last visit to me out in the cold, dark reaches of Germanistan. I get six whole days with him this time around, leave having been screwed up because I, as usual, am not where I am supposed to be because of an undereducated chimpanzee that nevertheless outranks me wreaking havok in battalion offices halfway across the country.

The letter, a feel-good and I’m sure heartfelt by the secretary - whom I can assure was not The Honorable Pete Geren - who wrote it composition, called up pleasant images in the back of my mind of punching people in the mouth. I am sure that this is either a result of the brain damage for which I still have not obtained an MRI or because I regularly work more than 12 hours a day. Surely not because it remains a punch in the face for all those currently waiting out sandstorms and telling small Iraqi children that when they get a job they can buy a watch and therefore do not need to incessantly ask for mine.

My favorite part of the letter was the part about dwell time, the time a Soldier has between deployments. It said that the tour length reduction would not affect the dwell time policy. This tickled me a bit, as I distinctly recall getting off of a plane from Afghanistan to a welcome brief informing us that we could well leave again in three months or so. Turned out to be four and a half or so. So this “dwell time” policy has always been a little sketchy with me, though admittedly these days I appear to be the sole person who cannot get to the sand no matter what efforts are made.

I thank the Generals and Secretaries and Politicos for their thanks and their emails. Nothing says love and snuggles like a mass email to the entire military population. Really, the gesture of the notification was appreciated because there are a few in the military, such as a Soldier or two of mine who think Chavez is from Russia but know that J Lo may have just secretly married some rapper, who may not have gotten the message. It is nice to know that if I go back it won’t be for the length of time it would take for me to get another graduate certificate in something or another. But for now, while I thank you Gentlemen for your kind words, I have a house to clean for my annual allotted six days of getting to pretend I am married.

I am starting to believe that my First Sergeant is out to get me.

This might be because he occasionally tells me that he is, in fact, out to get me.

He informed me today that really he could care less what anyone else gets out of it, he just wants a picture of me reenlisting to frame and hang on his wall. He said this after offering me the class I want, a few thousand bucks after taxes, and a deployment if I reenlist for three years. I pointed out that wouldn’t that still screw over those that were expecting me to go out there and be a platoon sergeant in the summer, and he responded that he really didn’t care. I noted that he plans to retire in the next year, so really he actually doesn’t care what the unit gets out of whatever it is he can convince me to do, but he apparently really wants that picture. And he is out to get me. He just mentions that periodically offhand, however, so I choose to ignore it most of the time.

Yesterday, on a somewhat unrelated note, it snowed all day. It melted by midday today, but the point was I kept looking out onto my balcony yesterday and stifling the desire to walk out there and shake my fist at the sky, mostly because I knew it would be quite cold. Instead I donned flipflops and kept my robe on all day and resolved not to go out until it got warmer. I did have to get up at an abomination of an hour this morning and get a uniform on to take two Soldiers to Warrior Leader Course, where I ended up standing around in the cold with several other extremely cranky noncommissioned officers for several hours wondering why it is we do what we do at all. Then I wandered over to my company just to say hello and my First Sergeant comes up with his latest brilliant plan to get his photograph.

I should have stuck with my plan. At least then my First Sergeant would have tried to convince me of all of this while I was wearing flipflops, pajamas, and a robe.

My first sergeant set a fine example today of the wonderful and oft-used expression “It rolls downhill.” He is a little more explicit about what, in particular, is doing the rolling, as well as just how it affects me.

There is an exercise approaching that he knows I would like to attend. It is a short, two week exercise held in different locations every year. I went two years ago when it was in Eastern Europe in a cold and rainy fall. This year it will be oceanfront. In June. Not a bad gig, I think. So I told him about it and told him if it comes down, I want to go. At that point, which was several months ago, he said if it came down HE wanted to go. We fought over it, we played rock paper rank, he won as usual, but nothing had come down anyway.

So recently I got a phone call. One of my Soldiers was being tasked. To what, I asked, and got the response “To go to the exercise.” I mentioned now wait a minute, how come he gets to go? He answered quite plainly that I couldn’t go because I was going to a different country, one to which I have been and of which I am remarkably less fond. I said that was hardly an excuse, as I don’t even like that country. He then explained the actual scenario:

The tasking for the exercise called for an enlisted person. My commander, who we know would have gone in a heartbeat, therefore could not go. Since he could not go, he told the first sergeant that if he, the commander, could not go then neither could the first sergeant. Since the first sergeant could not go and was therefore not happy, he decided to share the misery and tell me I could not go either, and therefore my Soldier would go instead. It rolled downhill.

I asked about the other tasking, which is work and not an exercise. He answered that he hates that country. The commander, however, told him that he must go on this particular tasking. Since he has to go, I have to go too. And since this logic, when coupled with the previous, made perfect sense, I said, “Oh. Okay. What are the dates again?” and went about my merry way until I realized that once again I think I was had.

What I don’t understand is why the good things don’t roll downhill as well. Why is it that when people are in lovely moods somewhere in the annals of the Army that those feelings of happiness and goodwill don’t come barrelling down the chain into my lap, and instead I end up in countries to which I never had any intention of returning instead of the warm beaches of a country to which I have not yet been? But no, the good just stays up wherever it might be, floating about on some sort of cloud which eventually comes over and piddles a misty, cold sleet on the peons mucking about in the deepening piles of that which has already rolled our way. And I am assured that it isn’t intentional, that that is just the general size and shape of the bad versus the good, and gravity therefore works its magic.

I informed my first sergeant today, somewhere amid this conversation, that I was putting in for a change of station. When he asked why and where to, I answered The Moon. He asked for clarification, so I calmly pointed out that if things continue to roll downhill, I really need to relocate to a place with lower gravity. It might not stop the eventual progression, but at least it might slow it enough that I can get out of the way.

Dear Germany,

We really need to talk. It’s about time we sat down and had a heart to heart, because some of this is starting to get really silly. My case, summed up in a point:

Snow showers predicted for next week.

I mean, honestly, you pulled this last week with two inches on the ground over the Easter holidays, when for some reason people run around in fields looking for rabbit eggs filled with chocolate and marshmellow chickens. I will not get into that at the moment, but will point out that it is much more difficult to run around in fields and look for rabbit eggs when they are buried in the snow and the chocolate in the egg has hardened to the point of chipping teeth. You had your fun, you laughed at the people with the chipped teeth and maybe even got a cut from the dentist bills, I don’t know and don’t want to assume. But do you really need to do it again, getting towards mid-April?

I will grant that predicting the weather in Europe is something like spinning the wheel of doom, and quite likely it will be 80 degrees and sunny next week because some air pocket over some channel or something shifted two degrees left. But I, and my frostbitten feet that have to out physically train Soldiers, would really appreciate it if you stopped with these mindless jokes, stop playing mind games with the weatherman and with all of us, and just try having a little decency. I won’t ask for much. Maybe in the mid-60’s or so, even the high 50’s would be passable. But really, stop the madness.

Sincerely,

Everyone

In all honesty, the statement “It will really look good on your NCOER” never really held much water for me, and each day less and less.

Brief pause: For those unaware, an NCOER is the Non-Commissioned Officer Evaluation Report, a bullet-formated report given annually to NCOs and can in theory make or break careers. It is just like any evaluation in the civilian world only it has to be approved by everyone and the Brigade Commander’s Brother’s Cousin’s Stepson, involving much hemming and hawing up and down the chain and seldom reflects anything remotely close to anything anyone actually accomplished during the year. End pause.

Since the rather unexpected demise of my supervisor about five weeks ago, I have been tasked to fill at last count three official roles, two unofficial roles, and multiple roles that no one seems to know how it came to fall in my lap or why I am out there completing the tasks, usually in the snow.

Brief pause 2: The Germans seem to have missed the memo that informed everyone of the oncoming spring. Starting the day prior to spring and lasting until roughly yesterday it has snowed daily. My landlord’s daughter built a lovely snowman out on the lawn on Easter Sunday. I resisted the urge to kick it down in protest. Barely. End pause 2.

I realized today after my third straight day of being in my office for ten or more hours in a row that perhaps I am letting myself get a little overworked. Particularly since my pay has not increased one bit though most of the jobs I fill are above my pay grade, to include my regular babysitting duties for the various lower ranking Soldiers running amok in my office. These duties have resumed since I picked them up from the field last week. I now am the agent in charge, the non-commisioned officer in charge, the head babysitter for my Soldiers, casualty assistance for the bereaved widow, in charge of a German-American pistol range effort that can’t seem to go right, and a million other things. And I routinely point out that I should have flown out for some relaxation on Wednesday. Never mind that said relaxation was at what is supposed to be one of the more demanding courses for my job. I have no doubt that no matter what the course demands I would probably get more sleep that way.

Brief pause 3. Today I took it upon myself to contact the course and obtain the correct packet for admission. This is after repeated assurances from my training shop at Battalion that everything was in order for me to attend the May course. Upon receipt of the actual packet directly from the school, I was mildly amused that it required three items which I had never completed and did not request the two items the training shop had me send previously. I completed my part of the packet and sent it to my First Sergeant, who still assures me that I can reenlist for courses with confidence that they will get me there. I have trouble seeing how, given my experience with the barrel of monkeys populating the training shop these days, but regardless of that fact I still will sign if they get the paperwork to me by the end of April. The doctors are right: my sanity is long out the window. End pause 3.

So every day my work day starts at the gym by 0600 because I have noticed a significant slacking in the physical fitness of the Soldiers who are now back in my charge. An hour at the gym, shower, change, in the office usually by 0730. Complete what I can without significant distraction until the motley crew shows up at 0900. Work all day, send the Soldiers home roughly on time at 1700, stay there until at least 1800 or so and then grumble that the post office and commissary are now closed. Go home, putter about, go to bed wondering why I am so tired at 2100. Next day do it over again. I have gotten smart about it now, however, and have cereal and a bowl at work and keep milk in the work fridge, so at least I won’t starve. And my parents, thankfully, send Girl Scout cookies from time to time to sustain me.

My first sergeant called just yesterday to inform me that there will be a warrant officer en route mid-April or so, which came as something of a relief as it will allow me to hand off one or two of the job titles and tasks. I did inquire if he wanted to trade for that, as in I would swap two or three Soldiers for one warrant, but he turned it down. He maintains that he gives me privates because they provide an excellent training opportunity in leadership challenges. I maintain that he gives me privates because he enjoys watching other people suffer. I think both of us might be right. Regardless, I now have an additional implied task of preparing the office to hand over to a new agent in charge, as well as the personnel and equipment shuffle that inevitably accompanies such tasks.

In the meantime, however, I am due for a nap.

I would like to conduct a test. It will be a simple test with relatively few supplies. I need two rooms, some pencils, several copies of a generalized IQ test, a diaper, and maybe some water.

In the first room I would like to place some headquarters shop elements, particularly those in the training, schools, and logistics persuasion. I would like to give them each an IQ test, a pencil, and perhaps a cup of water in case they got thirsty. I really am a nice person and like to look out for them.

In the second room I would like to procure, at least for a short period of time, a small monkey from the local zoo. It doesn’t have to be a chimp or an ape or a rhesus, any monkey will do. If it appears to have mild brain malfunctions, that is acceptable as well. I would ensure the diaper went on the monkey to assist in general clean-up later. I would give the monkey a pencil and the IQ test, and even a bit of water if it was thirsty. Because I am a nice person.

After a certain amount of time, I would like to collect the IQ tests and the pencils. I would tally the scores, add those of the training shop personnel, and would find out if my suspicions all along are correct.

I would have tested the hypothesis as to whether or not the collective IQ of my training shop is actually lower than that of the average, or possibly mildly brain damaged, monkey wearing a diaper.

They screwed up my school dates. Again. The schools person was elsewhere doing another job, so the non-schools person looked at the email sent from my company with the information with a blank look for somewhere around three weeks until the schools person came back and jostled him, at which point he may have gone off to find something to eat while the schools person happily looked at the packet, tried to enter me in the school and found it didn’t work because there was another part of the packet he had to procure to give to me and pleasantly went about his day thinking that I would magically appear on the roster anyway. At least, this is what I can assume. It might have been much simpler than that. It might have been that my information went up and directly into the shredder. I really can’t tell.

My first sergeant, ever the optimist, has said I will go to the school in May instead and has promised that this time it will work. It’s really adorable that he is so convinced.

Though I can’t blame him, as I admit that I am like a dog constantly beaten by its master that continually, despite being hit over and over again, comes back begging for schools wagging the tail and excited about the possible treat.

The more I think about it and the more I realize that combined efforts only seem to lower the overall IQ and about my impending reenlistment, it occurs to me that I might need more diapers.

Now no offense to psychologists, psychiatrists, the whole lot, but I am beginning to believe that in order to find the crazy you must be a little crazy. It might be why I am so good at spotting a nutty Soldier, but it is a little creepy when dealing with doctors trying to assess your crazy and put it in terms of their crazy.

I had to go and see a psych the other day. Something about I’m not supposed to see things out of the corner of my eye and some people actually can sleep through the night. Piddly nonsense such as that. Things I have well gotten used to by now, actually, and was doing quite fine before all of this assessment nonsense came about.

I talked to him for an hour and a half.

I came to the conclusion that he is officially bonkers.

He said I have anxiety. No kidding. He mumbled something in Italian. I looked for the exit. He quoted Bob Dylan and told me he knew people. I wondered why I was there and how much longer this might take.

He said he wouldn’t classify me with PTSD, that something like that was too harsh and might adversely affect my future though I do have some of the symptoms but can squash them, so he punched “Anxiety Disorder” into my medical records and hustled me out the door.

I wandered back to my car feeling better than I think I have felt in two years. I think that was because I realized that I’m actually going to be fine, even if I am a little off, largely because it appears the whole world has gone crazy sometime recently and I’ve only just now begun to notice.

So for a list of reasons, I appear to have officially lost my mind.

First point: I have submitted for a two-year extenstion of overseas tour, which would also, coincidentally, add about a year and a half to my existing contract. This is in exchange for two schools that will about guarantee I will never leave the field I am in, as well as move me to a position where I will be surrounded by moronic privates every day and spend most of my time either with my head in my hands or yelling about something.

Second point: I find both of those consequences to the reenlistment rather appealing.

Third point: I continued in my quest to complete these health reassessments that my first sergeant informed me are two years overdue. Each appointment I have wandered to so far has lead to at least one more appointment. This last one, it turned out, led to somewhere along the lines of seven things to do. I forgot a few of them already, but I am sure someone will remind me at some point. They all have something to do with a legitimate bout of the crazy, as I have termed it.

It actually seems, along the lines of point three, that I knocked myself about the head one too many times over the course of my time in Iraq. Really, it only got significantly jarred twice, once in the accident that made my foot all wobbly and once a few weeks later when those crafty and wily insurgents put explosives in the road and our convoy found them the hard way. With my head still sore from the accident, where apparently I got whiplash or something, the concussion from the blast reseated my brain and bruised the melon. All the things I thought were unrelated to Iraq and were possibly just indicators of the Army making me dumber actually have something of a cause. Clever thing is I don’t even have anything to show for it, since my battalion commander was kind enough to deny my combat action badge based on a misconstrued tale he heard from an officer who doesn’t like me much. But pretty soon I will have pictures of my dented cranium, so at least I can frame those for the wall.

What is nice to know is that there is now something of an explanation for the vertigo, the vision problems, the balance problems, the occasional numbness in the arms, the lack of memory and diminished attention span, and a host of other things. It is also nice to know that according to the neurologist most of the issues are fixable.

She has yet to be able to trace the reenlistment considerations to any mis-wiring in the dome, however, so that part I will have to continue to officially deem as crazy.

A general officer turned up today on our installation. Though I say turned up, anyone with any affiliation to the military knows that these people never just “turn up.” Their schedules are tracked and planned days, weeks, months in advance and everyone has preparations completed for the preparations for the rehearsals for the practice briefings. Usually this is dependent upon the number of stars worn on the general’s uniform, but even a one-star tends to get people hopping about.

I was required to attend the main briefing, though pleaded ignorance of the upcoming visit just long enough to avoid having to prepare any slides or present anything. The acting Agent-In-Charge at Criminal Investigations finally ratted me out to the installation commander and promised my presence at the briefing, mostly out of bitterness that he had to be there and wanted me to keep him company. Since I am now the Agent-In-Charge at my office and I couldn’t dig up anyone else to go in my place, I wandered over to the briefing area bright and early, 45 minutes before the officer was scheduled to arrive.

During that 45 minutes, the aforementioned criminal agent and I sat around with one of the representatives from the legal office and wondered a few things. First, why we were there 45 minutes early. The general had flown into the area so we knew his schedule and that it was unlikely he would pop up early, and according to the Army ten minutes early was the usual request. I figured it was not only because of the large number of civilians, but that the typical “ten minutes early to the ten minutes early” may have occurred and hence everyone was there milling around schmoozing for an inordinate amount of time when I really should have been catching up in the office on the myriad of things that I have recently discovered have not been done since I left around the beginning of November.

But there were snacks provided, so I was actually rather content to mill.

We then began to marvel at the fear in the room, a fear so thick you could taste it, at least when you weren’t snacking on the chocolate muffins or cheese crackers. I mentioned off-hand that I have never felt that fear of generals, probably because when working in Baghdad I reguarly dined with them because of the lack of sufficient seating in the dining facility at the old Embassy. I have always seen them as people, and in fact wondered if they were ever lonely because the only response they ever get from anyone all day is “Yes, Sir,” and probably seldom hear a good joke. The criminal agent, being a warrant officer, agreed with me, but the lawyer, a commissioned officer, gave us a look as though we had just nominated the Iranian President for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The briefing, as it turned out, lasted a good three to four hours as opposed to the scheduled hour and a half. I got bored and cut out early, having cleverly planned ahead and scheduled a meeting in the late morning. I took two pieces of fruit, a bottle of water, a pack of snack crackers, and a muffin for my trouble, so really I made out rather well. The agent and the lawyer, between them, only snagged a bottle of water, a pack of crackers, and three mugs of coffee, and had to sit there for the entire time giving some sort of impression they were paying attention because the notetaker for the general was sitting within the line of sight. I took part of my afternoon to pour some salt on that wound in retribution for my forced attendance.

Overall, however, the general seemed to be quite a pleasant person. He poked entertaining holes in the briefers’ presentations, didn’t make anyone stand up for him, stayed awake even during the department of public works slides, and overall acted like a human being.

A human being with the power to destroy whole brigades with the sweep of a pen, but still a human being.

Between organizing and conducting a memorial service, taking on duties well above my pay grade, training Soldiers for the field, pinning Sergeant onto one of my former Soldiers, and spending my Saturday in the field, my week was full of fun and excitement.

So much fun and excitement, it seems, that when my First Sergeant called on Thursday morning and offered me a deal for a two-year reenlistment, I didn’t tell him where to shove it. I blame it on the fact that on Tuesday I have to go have my head examined anyway, so I may as well give them justification. He offered me some classes, that elusive and wily formal training concept, a platoon sergeant position which would allow me to take out my frustrations on a larger number of Soldiers, and only 16 extra months on my existing contract.

On Friday, I agreed.

On Saturday, the Army realized it had been a little too simple and threw everyone for a loop. I had been anticipating such a move. My command, it seems, had not.

My First Sergeant received a phone call late Friday saying that gee, they would sure love it if I would reenlist, but could he convince me to reenlist for three years and not two? He did me the favor of telling them where they could go and how they could get there. Something about a handbasket or some such. I didn’t quite catch all of it. He then informed them that if they offered me three years or nothing, it would be nothing, so they really ought work something out regarding this two year bit. He told me about the mishap on Saturday as we wandered around in the cold and the rain in hurricane force winds and after I got b*tch-slapped by a falling tree branch while trying to move a government vehicle from the path of an unsteady pine tree he yelled something over the howling gusts about how great it would be when I could move out there and enjoy all of this full time. Luckily, the wind picked up enough that I don’t think he caught my response or I might have been demoted back to sergeant.

Upon checking the regulations, it appears that the Army is, oddly, right. Because I am overseas and essentially reenlisting for stabilization at my current unit, the regs say I must reenlist for three years. In order to do a two year, I have to reenlist for needs of the Army, always a dangerous option unless you really like places like Fort Hood, Texas, or Fort Polk, Louisiana, or something like that. Dank no-man’s lands where good NCO’s go to become cranky and bitter. Since I already fit that description, I would rather not go there.

So now my battalion has had to don their thinking caps, possibly for the first time in awhile since I am pretty sure some of those caps must have a thick layer of dust atop them by now. They are working a few different angles, making their phone calls, and trying to see what they can come up with. How times have changed from the days when my unit couldn’t wait to watch the door hit me on the way out, now they are struggling to get me to stick around. Given that in the coming week I have to go to the field to support range operations twice, conduct multiple meetings, entertain a general, develop a plan for a functioning office, assist a grieving widow, and maybe throw in a briefing or two for good measure, it is a good thing my head is getting examined once this week and once the week after. I have a feeling I will need it, particularly if I sign any paperwork to continue this nonsense.

Just as you would think deploying a Soldier who actually wants to go to Iraq would be easy, you would think that keeping a Soldier in the Army who wants to stay in for a little longer would be easy as well.

But see, that’s where you would be wrong. It all started with that word “Think.” Don’t do that. You are only asking for trouble ’round these here parts.

I think I must have a cloud over my head this winter.

My boss and mentor died this week, making it something like the fifth or sixth death in recent weeks. The psychologists are going to have a field day in two weeks when I mention to them that I barely feel anything anymore. They have yet to realize that I won’t take their medications anyway. Ah, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sometimes it’s an underestimated convenience, as it allows me to get work done despite the situation.

My boss was a fantastic man. Kind words, good heart, concern for everyone before himself, always did the proper thing. But what got me was the vast amount of knowledge in his head. He spoke something around five languages that I knew about, had a doctorate in psychology, held more than three duty titles in the Army which he was in for almost 45 years, designed many of the programs for my field, worked with some of the great names and on some of the great cases for Army intelligence, and was a legend in the flesh. He was an honor to work for and to work with, despite our occasional heated arguments over the fate of our job field and whether or not a scuff in the carpeting was as important as he seemed to believe.

The funeral was yesterday, and I was asked to present the flag to his wife, whom I have been helping along through the bereavement process. Apparently before his death my boss mentioned to his wife that should something happen to him that I would help her take care of everything with the American side, seeing as she is German. This is not as much of a task as it is an honor, just as handing her the folded flag in honor of her husband’s service will remain in my memory as something I am proud to have done.

Steve, my friend, you will be missed. There aren’t words for it, really, and only pleasant memories. My only regret is that I never got all that knowledge out of your head before you left, and now the rest of us are left to figure it out on our own.

A cherry pastry and beer in your honor.

So it appears that I owe my dear husband a hearty “Thank You.”

Last weekend I went through my monthly conundrum of whether or not I should reenlist to get something or another from the Army. After some mild debate, I settled once again on a negative answer, mostly because of some wise words from my Army spousal counterpart. He pointed out that I have become one of those people I always made fun of: those that are scared to get out.

I got over my fear on Tuesday morning, bright and early off a four-day weekend. I wandered in and asked how the physical fitness assessment went that morning. I learned that one of the Soldiers failed. Again. And only lost about 20 seconds on her run, making her slightly slower than dirt. I then conducted a dress uniform inspection which had been on the schedule for, oh, let’s give it about six weeks. Two of them, to include the one who failed that morning, show up with blank uniforms. Not a single ribbon to be found upon them. The one who had failed that morning also had not brought all of the pieces with her, so when I instructed them to put their uniforms together in as polite of a fashion as I could muster through my gritted teeth and clenching my hands so as not to put them around the Privates’ little throats, she said “Whatever, I’ll go get ‘em during lunch or something.”

This is right around where I just about lost it for the first time that morning. I don’t know what they are doing at Basic Training or Advanced Training these days, but there is no way I would have ever done such things when I was still new to the Army. I went into my bemused boss’s office to cool off, then went back and wrote up some counseling statements for them. I handed the statements to their supervisor and took the third private to go get a missing item or two for his uniform. When I returned, the supervisor had sent them to lunch and told me how the counselings went.

One was upset because she said she didn’t know she was supposed to have her uniform put together for an inspection and that I would help her. I wondered whether she expected, if told there would be a weapons inspection, if I was supposed to clean her weapon for her as well, or if during a barracks inspection I would be rolling in with a broom and some trash bags. I spent that afternoon explaining just what an “Implied Task” is, such as if someone is going to look at your uniform, it is implied that you at least made some sort of effort to put it together.

The other was angry and wanted to talk to the First Sergeant. The supervisor couldn’t get her to tell him why, which amused me because what did she think, that the First Sergeant would just say, “Gee, Private So-And-So has an issue but no one knows what it is. Sure, I’ll talk to her! Send her in!” Chain of Command comes to mind, but whatever. I must be in a different Army. So I pulled her out and asked her what her deal was. She said, after about ten minutes of trying to dodge it and finally giving in to my prodding when I pointed out that there was no way the First Sergeant would acknowledge the request without her telling us what it was about, she said that it was her opinion that I had given the First Sergeant the wrong impression of her.

I did try not to laugh. I really did try.

This was the same Soldier who, in one morning, failed a physical fitness test, came to an inspection with nothing on her uniform, and then gave me an attitude about it all. She has also failed to meet body fat standards in recent weeks. She said that at a course she attended she did really well, so clearly she was actually an exceptional Soldier that I had misjudged. She then made the mistake of telling me she didn’t have enough to do and that was why she seemed so unmotivated in the office. She drastically underestimated my ability to find things for Soldiers to do.

I passed the message to the First Sergeant, who had some entertainment from the whole thing. He ended up meeting with her and I don’t believe she got quite the response she was looking for. He also responded to my question of whether or not I could choke Soldiers if I promised not to kill them with the comment that I appeared to be desiring combatives training for my office and he would see if he could accomodate my request.

Luckily for her, I was called back to my other office on the other side of Nuremberg that afternoon following the death of my boss and co-worker, which capped off an already wonderful day.

So I finished it out with a lovely thank you message to my husband for convincing me just the day prior that I shouldn’t reenlist. Now I think certain Soldiers’ safety might depend on it, so perhaps I should get them to send him notes as well.

Another week gone. A short week, no less, because USAREUR decided to give us a four-day for the President’s Day weekend. Nonetheless it still felt like the longest week of my life. Again.

Though I do recall Dunbar from Catch-22, who repeatedly stated that time passes more slowly when miserable, so he consistently remained miserable in an attempt to live forever.

I might well live to a ripe old age at this rate.

The week started out well, at least were I on Dunbar’s plan. I received notice that I did not get accepted to a job for which I had interviewed a month back. I didn’t much want the job to begin with, but was moderately annoyed because the employer had made several mentions to this element referred to as “formal training.”

Some of you might be in the military as well, and therefore as confounded as I was with this term. Apparently, it doesn’t matter that you received initial training for and completed a job in a combat zone to much acclaim. It doesn’t matter that in essence you qualify for this position because of the training you received and the extensive experience that was all a part of your job description and assigned duties, not just on-the-job training but what you are in the Army to do.

No, it matters only if you have this new “formal training.” It’s the same training you already have for the most part, but puts a qualifier or two at the end of your job description and gives you a pretty certificate to shove into a file someplace and pull out only when Personnel is trying to update your records and has once again discovered that they have lost everything that you have ever given them. Did the whole thing in combat? Who cares. Trained and trained others in advanced methods and techniques in both combat and strategic units? Meh. Where’s that certificate at?

Well, my friends and potential employers, we have this little problem called “consecutive deployments.” It turns out when you spend more of your time deployed than at your home station, your home station finds it difficult to send you off for weeks at a time for “formal training.” They prefer you to learn what you need to know while on hand for tasks like lawn mowing and post police calll. Then you move to another unit, but that unit is broke because some high ranking officer decided to take more personnel than necessary to combat with him and as such blew all of the unit funds on training those personnel who mostly sat around and played cards for a year because there was no need for them downrange. So that certificate? Make that out to someone else.

But I didn’t care much, because the job itself was less than appealing as it were, so I moved on. Next step was to help my Soldier. This was a task easier said than done, apparently.

Every Soldier who has poor eyesight is supposed to travel to any duty station or assignment with at least two pairs of glasses. When you depart a station, you are asked if you posess both pairs. Your answer is “Yes,” and you move on. Apparently, my Soldier said “Yes” when really she meant “What? Two? Army glasses? Huh?” because I now have a blind Soldier who fell asleep in her glasses, rolled over, they fell off, she rolled again, and the glasses snapped in half. They were civilian glasses, hence the shoddy workmanship, and she left the ugly but still useable glasses the Army had given her at home somewhere because they just weren’t classy enough to think of packing. So now she periodically bumps into walls and all of her reports are typed in 72 point font while I try to get her an expidited pair.

Easier said than done, again. I send her to the optometrist to order another pair. She has to wait until the optometrist shows up. Which is only about three days a week, not counting coffee breaks, it seems. She finds him and he tells her to talk to his NCO, who appears to reside about an hour away. She finds him and orders the glasses. She is told they take about a week or two because they can’t get them here, they have to process it through another base and they will mail them, but they only deliver on Tuesdays. Tuesday comes and goes, they say maybe next week. The next week the glasses are still not there, she remains blind, and they tell her to check her post mailbox. She finds that the glasses are sitting in the mailroom, but they are addressed to someone with a misspelling of her last name so the post office refuses delivery. She begs the post office. I call and beg the post office. I call the clinic and the optometry NCO (just in from coffee break) calls and begs the post office. But to no avail. The post office insists that the person to whom the glasses are addressed must come and get them, and if not they will return them to the mysterious base an hour or so away. Since there is no one in the army by the name to which the glasses were addressed, I can only assume they will send them back to the base. I called the NCO there and made arrangements to just go and pick them up next week with the Soldier in tow, because I am about to take this Soldier to a live fire range and would really rather not get shot because my Soldier thought I was a pop-up target because she can’t see more than five feet with any sort of clarity. I already have a list of Soldiers to be wary of for other reasons; a blind one is the last thing I need.

And on and on the week went. Each day only seeming longer than the last. Dunbar must have been onto something.

On that vein, I have again been considering reenlistment. While I say it is to get some of this “formal training” I have been hearing so much about, I really think it is just part of my unconscious effort to live forever.

I spent this week out in the field alternately dressed up like a detainee and dressed like a Staff Sergeant who repeatedly bangs her head on the wall in frustration.

Unfortunately, when I went home, I left the detainee suit and all I had left was some rank and a good wall upon which my head could make contact. Minor bruising has ensued since.

The field was the field. Because of my frostbite and the fact that I was doing the platoon a favor with my presence because it was not my platoon or my exercise they allowed me to stay in a spare barracks room instead of out in the bays they had set up for the platoon Soldiers and other role players. This turned out significantly in my favor, since the very first day someone noticed that the heaters in the buildings out at the field site weren’t turned on. They made a call to the Department of Public Works, who patiently informed the caller that their meters showed those buildings at a cozy 80 degrees, so to please leave them alone. On Thursday, someone at the Department of Public Works also noticed that their meters outside the buildings were reading 80 degrees, and upon resetting them realized both the internal and external meters had been doubling the temperature. They turned on the heaters, but turned them back off at night to save energy. I am sure the Soldiers were most appreciative of the environmental gesture. You just couldn’t tell because they were all too deeply hunkered down in their sleeping bags.

Regardless of shivering in a detainee suit, I spent my week trying to remind the platoon just what it was they had learned for five months or so out in their initial entry training, since most had not been through an organized exercise since. It was an interesting process, mostly ending with me swearing I would never in my life agree to work out at the initial entry training “schoolhouse” and only having me threaten the well-being of a few, usually because the Chief Warrant Officer out there kept sending them away from me before I could build up steam.

In the midst of all of this, my First Sergeant approached me and offered me a deployment. For a year. Starting in May. When I get out in November, with leave starting in September.

As we all know, I didn’t say no, at least not right away.

I thought about it, I tracked down my husband and had him think about it, I posed the question to the few present whom I could trust to give educated advice, I thought about it some more.

Then I called down to the unit to which I would be assigned and discovered that they might be the only unit downrange that actually gets out of work at 1700. I know this because I called them at 1703 their time and no one was there to answer my questions. My planning shop wanted an answer, but luckily they seem to leave work at about 1530 every day, so I held them off for another day. When I finally found the people I was looking for downrange the following morning, the one person who could answer my questions was at breakfast. My First Sergeant observed that of all the units to work for, this one seemed to be pick of the litter.

Finally, after hemming and hawing, I opted not to take the deployment. As much as I wanted it, as much as I felt the pull to head back to the place I feel I should be, I grudgingly acknowledged that it was a little stupid to extend my contract again for yet another deployment. Especially when I could get a higher paying job on the outside that would still send me to play in the sand.

Thinking this was well and done, I went about the rest of the exercise trying not to use my turban as a means of executing the supply guy who I continually caught napping.

Then today, on a weekend no less, I received an email from the unit downrange telling me I was on their gains roster, who I would replace, and a lovely welcome packet. This for the assignment I thought I had turned down a few days ago, and from a unit I figured would spend their Saturdays at the pool.

So another mess for the First Sergeant to straighten out. At this point, I don’t really care if I go or I don’t go; I can make things happen either way. My unit seems to love games like this, so I shall let them play. Whenever they make up their minds, they can go ahead and just let me know and I will pack my things. And then unpack them. And then repack them.

My main concern is that I have yet to figure out how I am going to fit the wall I have spent the past few days denting into my luggage.

Well it seems no one got the message to the Taliban. A shame, really, because you would think they would talk to their friends more often and figure out what works and what doesn’t.

I found out late last week that another friend of mine, in the same task force as my friend killed earlier this month in Afghanistan, is now missing a limb or two. He survived, and is now back at Walter Reed getting whatever care it is they offer now that they have been through the government microscope.

It appears that no one is passing messages along from place to place, because the Taliban is going the opposite way of the Iraq insurgency. They seem to be moving from frontal assaults to the cowardly improvised explosive devices, thinking that the more of them they put in the road, the more scared we will be to come and find them. No one seems to have pointed out that this is backwards, as demonstrated by the mobilization of the Marines and the increasing interest in Trashcanistan. Meanwhile, in Iraq, the locals are rising up against the insurgency and as such there are whispers of bringing some of the troops back because of increased security. I say whispers because I trust most of those politicians about as much as I trust my cats to make foreign policy decisions. There are days when I think my cats might actually be a bit better informed.

It seems like a no-brainer: stop trying to kill people, no one will come to your country, set up shop, and bother you. Kill people, and more foreigners show up trying to get you to quit messing around. I could make them a very nice PowerPoint presentation with graphs and charts and all if I thought it would help, but I would keep getting blown up just trying to get to the presentation site, so what’s the use.

My quest to get down there to talk some sense into these people continues unabated. They aren’t the only ones that are thick-headed, apparently, since I appear convinced that someone can get through to them.

I’ll be working on that presentation, just in case.