It's been a pretty crazy week- first I had Monday off, which I spent most of asleep. I had previously pulled a 24-hour shift on the battalion staff duty desk, which we get once in a while. It's really not that exciting, you have to monitor the phone, control access to the building and generally run things in the absence of command for the night and day. All in all, pretty uneventful. Then Tuesday I went out to the range in the stifling heat. It was an M249 range, which is called a SAW for short- Squad Automatic Weapon. It's basically an M16 rifle on steroids, as it uses the same size cartridge as the M16, though it's either a drum- or belt-fed weapon, and is fully automatic, whereas the rifle is semiautomatic. What's the difference? A semiauto will reload the next round after you discharge a shot, but will not fire multiple times. A fully automatic weapon will fire repeatedly as long as you squeeze the trigger. Though it's best used in 3-to 5-round bursts, don't just hang on and go for it. At any rate, the problem with this turned out to be that the firing range is covered in grass. Not that this is unusual, most ranges are. But the fact that it was hot and dry, along with the fact that every 5th round on the belt of ammunition is a tracer round, and burns phosphorus as it travels, and you have a good recipe for fires, as we found out. Luckily there's nothing that actually grows on the range, or burns very well, so it was just a matter of someone running out there to stomp out the fire. It was pretty funny though, I have to admit.
It was very hot, too, as we discovered. There were a couple of people who fell to heatstroke, though fortunately nothing serious. Add 30 pounds of gear on you in addition to a uniform, and I can certainly see how that would happen! Almost got me, too, but luckily I managed to avoid it this time around.
Well, apart from that, I'm still looking forward to the day when I walk down the aisle with the girl of my dreams (quite literally, on occasion). I know it's been a difficult two years, but we've weathered a great many storms. Now it's up to me to stop churning the oceans! I know I hadn't been the easiest guy to live with, but now that I think of it, I try every day to be a better person. That may sound like pop psychology, but I know no one is perfect. You do the best you can, and hope it all works out in the longer run. Although a good deal of things working out depends on your own actions- luck favors the prepared, as well as the hard worker, it seems.
What will the future hold? Though I guess there are no real guarantees, I'd like to see us back here in Oklahoma, or wherever we may wind up, together. Again, lacking a better term, it feels right. We belong together, it seems. I had a suspicion that things were meant to be this way. Could it be some higher purpose behind us? Some force inexorably drawing us together, despite my repeated screwups? Well, I've become a better person for the time I've spent with Tabatha, and can honestly say I've never felt this way about anyone before. I can remember the first time we met- she gave me a hug (had to reach up to do it, too- one of the disadvantages to being tall). I remember she had lots of blonde hair, and a somewhat old Ford Explorer. This Explorer was later to meet a timely death of old age, and was retired to the scrapyards, or wherever it wound up.
I also remember the day I left for basic training. My recruiter had been a little delayed, as a woman was in the office talking to him. This was a story for the ages, and it had the both of us laughing all the way up to Westover Air Force base, where I was to leave from to catch a plane to Georgia. Seems this woman had met someone online who was way out in the sticks in Iraq, and the two of them, though having never met face to face, had become engaged. However, though certainly not beyond the scope of probability, it was at this point that things get weird. Weirder, at any rate. This particular soldier was ready to return home to the States, and marry our erstwhile heroine. However, the problem was that he needed someone to replace him at his post in Iraq. So the problem was, though the soldier had found someone to take his place, transportation proved to be a problem. So if the woman could send down air fare, the soldier would be able to fly back to the States and marry her. Incidentally, this never happens. You can be sent back from overseas for medical reasons, possibly a death in the family, or for injury, which is pretty much the same as medical reasons.
Predictably, the money the woman sent vanished into thin air, along with her fiance. The recruiter was now faced with a woman who was having bad psychic vibes about this mysterious person, whom she now feared was coming after her with things other than marriage on his mind. However, the phantom soldier did manage to get the name of a commanding general right in his emails, so this being the case, the Army is required to investigate. The moral of the story being, send care packages, not money, guys.
Now that I've gone hugely off topic, I recall Tabatha there in the Explorer, saying goodbye. I never wanted to leave less than I did that day. I realized then how much I really did love her, and how hard it was going to be without her. But I went off to training, and made it through with sanity and mortal frame intact. I have a huge binder full of all the letters she wrote me during that time, and will keep them always. I found a daily source of inspiration in them, and still do, and keep writing to her, until the day we're under the same roof once more- the house of Chipman will rise again!
No comments:
Post a Comment