Update 8

And now, an open letter to everyone who works in the daytime, here at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan.

Dear Everyone Else,

I know that this is asking an awful lot, but I was wondering if you could manage to spend an entire day not yelling or making exploding noises, or having helicopters come in directly over my tent. While we are talking, there are a couple of other things I'd really appreciate, too: Could you stop teaching yourself to play guitar in the bathroom that is a slim bit of canvas away from my formerly sleeping head? Why are you trying to learn guitar in the bathroom, anyway? That can't be the best place to learn guitar.

Can you not smoke cigarettes directly outside the tent with the tent door open? Sometimes when you do this I wake up thinking that the whole tent is on fire and the terror and burst of adrenaline make it very difficult to fall back asleep.

Can you not masturbate noisily in the little cube of tent across from me? (This part doesn't need to be open, I know who you are, but we would both be embarrassed if I brought it up specifically.) While I can appreciate the difficulty and loneliness that comes with being in the desert, you are not helping anything or anyone and the silence that envelops the tent while you do that is not a magical interlude, it is everyone else trying not to retch.

Can you stop throwing, or perhaps kicking, whatever that gross, squashy sounding thing is that you throw, or perhaps kick, in the hallways? It does not sound healthy, nor fun. It sounds like you are playing a game that includes tackling while using a haggis for a ball.

In spite of the fact that the internet goes out frequently and the 20MB of daily internet dose are frequently used up all too quickly, can you not shout curses about it? I know that it is frustrating, but shouting those curses daily makes you horse and makes me awake, which is what I do not want to be.

Finally, can you stop exploding things? I know that they sounds and shakings that accompany these explosions are usually training related and are probably teaching someone how to better aim mortars, at least, that is my guess. I don't actually think we're using that many mortars, but I am at a loss to guess why you are exploding things for other reasons. I know I am not hearing combat sounds, so if the explosions are anything, they much be training. But if you could stop doing them while I sleep, I would really appreciate it. For one thing, in my sleep I don't know that they are for training and I frequently think that we are all about to die. I worry that Milo Minderbender has hired a squadron to bomb and strafe our Camp. (I worry about this because I have read Catch-22 about a million times and it creeps into my dreams occasionally. Mostly when there are explosions.) I worry that we are all going to die when I am jolted out of sleep by the sounds and physical shaking of an explosion and if you thought that it was hard to get back to sleep after the cigarette smoke, you have not seen anything yet.

If, Entire Staff of Camps Bastion and Leatherneck, we could come to some sort of agreement on these points, I would feel a lot better and sharper and less exhausted most of the time. I thank you for your time.

HM2 Owen Pitrone