Stagnation
Were I a pool of water, mosquitos would be breeding upon me.
I moved from one base to another early this week, but have yet to find myself on a plane bound for adventure, danger, and fecal-matter-filled dust. Current estimates range anywhere from another week to another month stateside before everyone can finally get together and figure out exactly what is going on.
This is not to say, however, that there has been a total lack of activity upon my most recent arrival. As I wandered from counter to counter in the airport trying to find a rental car smaller than a freight vessel, I noticed that there were remarkably few bags circulating on the belt at the pick-up area. I wandered a little closer and discovered that the reason for such was because in the interest of bad weather the airline had only put a few bags on the plane, and since military bags tend to be heavy they had omitted anything that looked at all military-like. All four of my bags had failed to make the cut, and presumably were still sitting somewhere in Atlanta, or perhaps taking a nice Carribean vacation while they had some extra time. While I didn’t care much about the fact that all I had was the uniform I was wearing and a blanket crammed into a backpack, I was a bit concerned that the airline didn’t look at the rifle case in my luggage and think to themselves, “Gee. That sure does look like a firearm. Maybe we should try to squeeze that one on because the military really doesn’t appreciate it when their weapons go missing.” Apparently, that was beyond them, which made for a much more entertaning time of calling around to figure out where the rifle was, when it would arrive, and how I would be able to get it from the airline once it finally did show up. Made more interesting by the fact that upon arrival I had neither a hotel nor a telephone number.
Eventually, it all sorted out and I acquired all of my missing luggage, to include the weapon which I then had to lock up in an arms room in the middle of the night. A fantastic first impression on my gaining unit, to be sure.
The drama has since continued to follow me, as an officer I vaguely knew from my old unit where no love was lost upon my departure decided to tell tales from my days as a specialist, several of which I have little to no recollection of and one which I am pretty convinced may not have ever occurred, complicating things as he runs the exact unit to which I was supposed to be attached. It is a peer system in this unit, and so he has been very sulky about it and said that he doesn’t want me around. Myself having no real desire to work with him, I can’t say as I disagree, so now they are trying to figure out to which country they want to send me or if they simply want to reroute me back to my original assignment for the deployment. I am a little perplexed, as I never worked directly for this officer, but acknowledge that many officers tend to parrot what they hear from other officers and his boss and I really did not get along by the time I departed my previous unit, so the bridge I thought was crossed in fact was burned and now I am in another holding pattern while the drama works itself out. I mostly sit around doing soduku puzzles and waiting for someone to decide my fate.
It could be a few more days, it could be another month before I know to where I am bound and to what task I might be assigned, and certainly before I can get on a plane with my bucket and shovel for another fun tour of building castles atop the dunes. I am almost out of puzzles, but there is a bookstore next to my hotel. And of course, it is always fun watching mosquito larvae grow…