As Long As Love Endures

I'm writing this post from Afghanistan, of all places. Yes, we made it over here, now are pretty much settled in and counting down till we go back to the homeland once again. Well, our homeland, at any rate. How to describe my experiences over the past couple of months? This may turn out to be a long post indeed! First, we left Fort Sill. This was not a bad thing, getting out of the rut I'd been in. There was the last-minute scrambling to get everything disposed of, stored or otherwise taken care of before leaving for what we initially thought was a dangerous and year-long run in this fascinating country. As it turns out, alas, it was not to be. Our mission got dropped, despite the fact that the unit we left desperately needed more personnel (not because of any high mortality rate, I'm glad to note, they were just short-staffed). So our deployment got cut to six months, and here we are! I'm currently pulling duty guarding access to this little corner of Bagram Air Field, which while not exactly thrilling and glamorous, keeps me more or less safe and out of harm's way. This too comes with mixed feelings, but the most important thing is to get home safely to my wife and family. Why, you may be wondering, is this deployment six months? That I don't have an answer for, only that higher-ranking if not necessarily sharper minds than my own have made that call. Ours is not to wonder why, ours is just to smile and say yassuh, massah.
The country itself is pretty amazing- we're tucked away in the foothills of a massive range of mountains, which we can see on three sides of our camp. We're currently staying in tents, which are a bit more permanent in structure than the term might imply- not much, but utilitarian enough. There are occasional dust storms, and rain, but apart from that, the weather is surprisingly moderate, though tending towards cold. We were originally slated for a different mission, but wound up here at Bagram. I for one would take my own home country and home coast any day of the week! Transportation is the main business going on here, as Bagram is a jumping-off point for bases throughout Afghanistan, so there are usually flights of one type or another coming in or out. One of the more memorable points of being here was the Chinook ride from here to Salerno base, where we were originally assigned. Chinooks tend to fly comparatively low, and the flight crews will only raise the large rear hatch when taking off or landing- the rest of the time, it can be brought down flat to provide a convenient place to sit and watch the countryside go by from the comfort of a machine gun mount. The view is pretty amazing, and to my Western eyes, surprising how little of the country is developed. Farms, roads and buildings exist, so I suppose development is a highly relative term in this case. At any rate, this is Afghanistan. Once in a while something illicit goes down, but it seems that by and large, the people are moving towards autonomy, and the Taliban is losing its hold. The goal of my own unit, and by extension much of the work being done here, is to allow the country self-governance. In a more cynical frame of mind, I might make some note on US imperialism, but I'd like to think that the country would do best on its own. China is kind of peeking around the corner, so to speak, and would love to get their political and economic hands on Afghanistan. Why, you may wonder, is the world so concerned about this backwater country, with mountains, jihadists, sheep and mountains in more or less equal proportions? There are several answers of this- trade routes is a part, as is apparently a good deal of minerals in them thar hills, and whoever controls the mining rights controls a substantial chunk of change. So then, if perhaps this country can establish a central, autonomous government, they can invest in mining technology (the extent of which now is a few donkeys, a shovel and a cart) and develop an economy. Or hopefully, favorable trade relations with the West. To editorialize a bit more, perhaps Washington should fix a few domestic problems before turning our 'helping' influences to the rest of the globe, but hey, don't ask me, I'm just a grunt like the rest of us.
At any rate, I'm doing okay here, getting by, though I think the first thing I'm going to do when I get to the States is eat a decent cheeseburger. But at any rate, I'm still planning on going home to Connecticut in April, which will be a couple months or so after I'm due back at Fort Sill. What we'll be doing for the rest of the time there, I don't know. The word is that the artillery batteries are getting re-structured, which doesn't really have much to do with me anyway. I'm not an artilleryman, I'm a truck driver, so will likely get kicked back over to my old unit, where I will continue to drive trucks and haul various and sundry supplies to the four points of the base. It's a living. My dear wife doesn't want to move to Oklahoma, and given the fact that I don't plan on staying in Oklahoma much longer than the term of my enlistment anyway, I agree with her. It'll probably be easier for her to stay where she is, especially in light of the fact that she has the dogs with her. I'm looking forwards to getting settled up there, possibly in a larger apartment, or even a house. Beyond the next year, I don't know, I'm trying to come up with some brilliant plan for the rest of my life, and am not quite sure how to proceed. I've come to believe that to a large extent you make your own life- there are unknowns, true- such is the nature of our lives, but the decisions you make today and actions you take today mean repercussions, for better or worse, tomorrow. But I know whatever comes, we'll endure. When I married my dear wife, our vows were 'as long as love endures'. There was a time I didn't know this gal existed; now I can't picture my life without her in it. That either says a good deal about me, or the fact that what we have is something special. I'm fairly certain it's the latter. Whatever comes next, wherever the next chapter of this long story takes us, I know we'll make it, somehow. Life is not always easy, sometimes painful, but these painful experiences can provide insight- avoid making the mistakes we've made in the past.
That about covers all the news from here- things are not as exciting as you may think on a deployment, no coming home to a chest full of medals (actually just a couple), but there are more important things in life- I for one will continue to look towards the future, and hope.