Update III

Well, it is getting cold, here in Afghanistan. Or rather, about 3 days ago it was suddenly freezing. There are seasons here, but I suppose with so few trees the country just feels that an Autumn would be a waste of time. (And really, what is falling in Fall? If not leaves, then what is there? Our spirits?) A few days ago my relief, a nice girl named Diaz, came in wearing her coat and I knew that I was probably going to freeze on the way back to the tent. Sure enough, while there has not yet been a frost, there has definitely been… I wouldn’t try to grow tomatoes, I can say that.

Living in tents in the very, very cold is not the most ideal. The pod in which we live is fine. It is heated and mostly comfortable. (Too hot even, on occasion.) But the real problems come in at shower time. The showers themselves are warm and pleasant, but walking out, through the hallways that are open to the wind, can be a little bit of a downer. When you’re toddling out, holding onto the towel around your waist and shivering, sometime you might wish you were at home instead. At least it hasn’t started raining yet. I have heard that once it gets cold, the rains come. And the rains flood, which means that not only are you in a cold tent, but everything is wet in your cold tent. That day isn’t one I look forward to.

We have reached the one month point and the men are all getting “Deployment Goggles.” This means that the single men among us now look at any woman at all as beautiful. My friends are particularly susceptible. Today my friend Heckenlaible was talking about, “That really hot girl who works in the OR…” We were all looking at him, trying to figure out who he meant. He talked and talked about how he was so attracted to her and how hot she is and how, if there were only bars here… Finally we realized who he was talking about and, while she is a nice girl, she is not an attractive girl. She is possibly best described as Minotaur-ish. She has the body of a human, but her head is more esoteric. I have remained goggle-less, thus far. I think it has something to do with having a beautiful wife at home.

A British guy just told me that the worst mistake he ever made was when he brought his second wife flowers on his anniversary with his first wife. He said he walked in the door and said, “Happy Anniversa…” And he said he knew, as soon as he started to say it, that he’d got it wrong. He said that it was soon after that that he was divorced and onto wife #3. He seems like a really cool guy. Maybe I can learn from him.

As the newshounds among you have no doubt recognized, the casualty count is lowering. This is both good, fewer of our fellow Soldier, Sailors and Marines are being hurt and bad, the people coming in for treatment now are local children who have been blown up. There is a specific toll taken on a person’s psyche when they see a 10 year old boy come in with no legs. I don’t mean to be graphic or to be disturbing, but that little boy is not doing as well as he might and there is nothing that you can really do for him. I have no idea what little Afghan boys do for fun, though I would guess soccer is a part of it, but I DO know that he won’t be doing any of it any time soon. (Unless his friends are playing a team that’s really bad at soccer and they need a stationary goalie. But even that seems like insult added to injury.) (Another parenthetical, this one totally useless: Did you ever see Boxing Helena? Frank and I watched it years ago, mostly because it has boobs in it. But the point is, it is a wildly disturbing, and sometimes I think I just dreamed it, film about a doctor who is obsessed with a patient and when she is in a car accident in front of his house [?!] he takes her in and does specific surgeries to make her is limbless love-slave. To make matters worse, Art Garfunkel is in this film. I think it’s Art Garfunkel, Julian Sands and… I forget who the actress is. The point being, when it comes to disturbing, amputee humor, I am an old hand.)

There are a few different things that are striking about having fewer US casualties. First is that, and I know that this will come across as racist and demeaning, but Afghans smell really, really strange. Different and… spicy? Something. They smell like they come from another world. (And again, a pop culture parenthetical, how many films reference smell? I can’t think of many. I mean, some do it in subtle ways, people putting handkerchiefs to their nose, but how many discuss scent? Han Solo, “And I thought they smelled bad… on the outside.” What else?) And there will be the child and his or her parents, sitting in the Intensive Treatment Unit (ITU), don’t speak English. So there is a great deal of sitting and looking… smiling? Not necessarily. There is a lot of looking at each other. And it seems like one of those awkward looks. I mean, I assume they are grateful that we’re helping the kid out. I assume they are not blaming us for the kid being hurt… but how are we not supposed to feel a little bit like we ARE responsible? I mean, not that awful things wouldn’t be happening if we weren’t here. But surely that particular child wouldn’t have his particular legs missing.

There is another war going on here, as well. I am embroiled in an on-going altercation, not to say nightly battle, with flies. There are many, many flies here. With the usual, historical British brilliance when it comes to sanitation, the hospital is built on top of the base septic tank. For most things, this isn’t a huge problem. The bathrooms smell awful, all of the time. The water pongs a bit. But mostly the problem is the flies. There is negative pressure in the hospital’s main area, so the flies are most shooed out by that. But over in my area there are battalions of the damned things. I kill between 5 and 15 a night, and there are always more. Some are particularly wily and when I get a wily one I stalk it like I am the Last of the Mohicans. In a room full of British Soldiers, you might think the LotM would have better things to do than chase flies, but I suppose the characterization isn’t perfect.

My days, which are nights, are mostly full of school work. I am working hard towards my Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration. If I can finish it in the next year and a bit, then I will be eligible for a spot in the 2012 Medical Service Corps-Inservice Procurement Program. That means that I will have the opportunity to be made an Officer and be sent to get my Master’s Degree in Healthcare Administration. That’s good because it means I will have more money, but also because it will mean that I can go do the job I really want to do. I want to go be in the Plans, Operations, Missions and Intelligence field. I want to go be what we call a POMI and work with the Marines. It’s the job I did in Okinawa, but it’s at a higher level, if you’re an officer. It is the first job I’ve ever done where I really felt at home. I am confident doing that, and the downside is that I have to take all these college classes. But I suppose that with anything good, you have to pay the price.

And a note for those of you who pray, the wild thing this week was a fellow who came in with a pain in his neck that turned out to be a brain tumor. He is on his way home, but that’s a hell of thing to find out.

To paraphrase Garrison Keillor, where all the men are lonely, all the women are (consequently) good looking, and all the children have been recently blown up by Improvised Explosive Devices.