'Leepy

Staring at the bottom of the rack above me, I pondered the numerous other beds I’ve taken over the years. From many of them, I’ve stared into the space above, working on thinking about nothing, which usually immediately precedes the eye closing and the sleeping – except when I’m nine and a half time zones away from home and I can’t sleep, then I spend some time thinking about other beds, or at least I did last night.


There was the 200 person RSOI tent at Kandahar this last spring, where the creaking of a hundred shaky cots caused by the unstable repose of my roommates and the roar of the adjacent runway made sleep neigh unto impossible. Fortunately, it was just for one night. A little smaller was the One Hundred Man Hallway at Saddam’s palace in the Green Zone. There, 95 of the residents could have qualified for a Triple A snoring squad, and the marble floors, walls, and ceiling did nothing to diminish the sound. I suppose I spent nearly two months in those conditions.

After the noisy hallway, we moved to the Six Man Closet, which reverted to a closet again once we got kicked out of it and kicked into our four man hooches. I think the heavy old canvas tents we used at Norway Lake all those summers ago were also four man, or four Scout, not particularly large or comfortable, but providing some shelter from the Upper Peninsular weather.

For a three person space, my first dorm in Friley Hall, where Bryan and I processed new roommates with ever decreasing duration. Our place on Kellogg worked for three as well. For two, there was the second dorm room in Friley, the one we spent a semester getting kicked out of, and Miss Liberty, the trailer I shared on Lincoln Swing.

Of course, the houses and apartments in Iowa, Jamaica, and Minnesota were (and are) all very pleasantly two person, and much more generously sized. Rooms sized for one include more hotel and motel rooms than I could shake a stick made out of rewards points at, from four stars and above to one star and below. I’ll always prefer a tent in the woods somewhere to a hotel in some faceless city.

For now, home is a B-Hut sized for twelve, although only six live there now, using the top bunks for gear. Imagine living in a garden shed located between the highway and the airport, and you’ll have some idea what it’s like. Uninsulated two by fours and plywood construction, one big room with a single door towards the street. There might have been a window at some point, but I think it’s been boarded over.

Besides, time spent there is best spent sleeping, so the less light, the better. We’re going to be moving through a number of bases over the next few weeks and my guess is that our B-Hut will seem luxurious compared to some of the future accommodations.

There were more, I’m sure. Other shared hotel rooms, the cabin at various times of the year, family and friends houses, crammed onto an aircraft, sleeping on the dirt. Fifteen thousand nights had to be spent somewhere. The next twenty get spent in Afghanistan.