Absent

I haven’t been writing much lately. Why, I’m sure I could come up with hundreds of reasons. Let’s just say I’ve come down with two awesome ear infections, a sore throat tantamount to strep, and with the recent addition of two missing team members, I’ve had my time well spoken for.

We’re rolling out of here, out of Balad. Further south. The logic is there somewhere, but it’s far lost by the time is slips down to the lower level man. Trickle down theory at its worst, an ideology designed for pragmatic use in goods and tangible acquisition, never in theory or message dissemination. Fucking Generality two all over again.

Rumor is, we’re not stopping at our next locale, Kalsu. There is no Iraqi city in that region, simple an American establishment located near Al Eskandariat or something like that. I’m in the midst of packing, a bag worth one month of goods. Most of what I’m taking I can do without; you learn to adjust to one outfit lasting a week when you no longer have social norms to tangle with. Among the “monthly” allocation of space is some clothes, both clean and dirty, a rugby ball, more sets of protective eyewear than I can count, and 15 decks of cards. The cards thing is kind of an obsession now; we’ve unofficially made carrying a deck of cards a requirement for every member of our team. Spades, it happens a lot.

Blindside is playing on my computer now. Great band. Memories float heavy in my mind when I hear their songs, as the lyrics suggest, it’s like a joy of déjà-vu. Déjà-vu, what a perfect term for the Army. Everything I do here, everything, is déjà-vu.

Anyway. We leave soon, and the estimate of our tenure at Kalsu ranges from a season to a month. Nothing like temporary duty in a year long deployment. But as Malthus said, why worry about the long run, in the long run everyone is dead. I’ll be sitting high in my turret for our 4 hour convoy south. I’m excited. Excited to go to step M of this alphabet soup of a plan. Excited to see something not encased in chain link and concrete. Excited to do my job.

Excited to go, that nomadic blood coursing through me demands it. Grab your things and go. Drive, run, walk, escape. How doesn’t matter and it never has, it’s the way I was raised and the way I’ll live. But until the choices are my own, I’ll follow the orders I’m given. And for now, they say move south. South, away from what little of the war I was guessing was left. South, away from the cold.