Turn to the Left

Again, down to a mere handful of days before redeployment. Probably a good time to stop and reflect, but I’m still working twelves and free time isn’t so plentiful. There’s snippets here and there, including the few minutes after an email session between when I’m done with my business and my coworkers are ready to head to chow, just like this one.

For this twice daily task, we’ve ensconced ourselves this evening in the Dutch Café, mostly because it’s freaking one freaking hund-freak-red and freaking four degre-freaking-es outside, and we just walked forty minutes from our office/conference room. Secondarily, because they serve very cold fake beer here and, like much of Kandahar, it reminds me of something much better at some other time in a much better place.



This is my Happy Place exercise. For instance, the other night, the Superior roast beast was a little on the dry and uninteresting side, yet it reminded me of some very tasty pot roasts of my youth. One more? The Chilled Tea we get some nights is overly lemoned and rapidly sweetened, but it reminds me of rides through the South and one particular little barbeque shack in the shade. Again?

Well, it’s really just a food thing. The dust and rocks and smell of the sewage mistreatment pond don’t remind me of better rocks and dust and shit. The rows and rows of military hardware don’t remind me of softer and happier wars. And the thousands of armed men and women trooping about don’t remind me of the happy Midwesterners I left behind,… or do they?

In Iraq, it was pretty easy to know what side folks were on. Soldiers in uniforms carried weapons, civilians did not (at least, not openly). Here, U.S. servicemen and servicewomen are always in uniform (even the Physical Training, or PT, togs are uniform), and they always carry their weapons. However, the KAF is a NATO base, which means that there’s Canadian and Britons and Bulgarians and Romanians and Germans and a few more and the damned Dutch, and they are all pretty lax when it comes to uniformity.

On duty, NATO forces don their uniforms and weapons. Off duty, though, there seem to be no such requirements, so it’s not uncommon to see a group of dudes in board shorts and logo T’s sporting assault rifles and packing 9’s in thigh holsters. It’s like going to the gun range on amateur night, and a little disconcerting.

When in street clothes, there oftentimes appears the need to let one’s true identity come out. There’s some rebellion against the uniform in place. Hence the surfing gear, or brightly colored blouses, or Hawaiian shirts. They should just find holsters to match their madras.