14.3.10

...this is my deployment...


10 MAR 2010

I worry that my boonie cap is too large and floppy on top of my head.  The Post Exchange is having a hard time managing with the constant re-shelving required in the wake of the 53rd’s infestation of this desert mound.  I could choose between extra large or small, large and floppy or tight and tiny.  Now I slink about like a lost little Gilligan, not getting respect or the girl or plotting clever ways to leave this island, just offering a temporary poke of comic relief and every-so-often falling ass backwards into ruining everyone’s fun.  And I think, “This is my deployment?”

My first mission is tomorrow morning.  There’s no rush of adrenaline, no nervous tick or tapping foot, the only pressing matter of mine is this massive boonie cap, laid out on the table like a cheap dinner cloth.  Some Army Strong kitsch motif belonging to some washed out war hero, who, one day, will mix and match five different uniforms and stand on the roadside asking for change.  “This is my deployment.”

I feel no different than I did all those nights at snow-covered Hood, waiting for tomorrow’s training to begin—but of course, now I have the comforts of espresso, and the idle time to daydream of a boonie cap running off its pounds on a treadmill, hoping to please its partner and not be left for a younger and skinnier piece of head gear.  And now I realize I’ve given description of some cartoon doodle tangent pasted to the inner walls of my skull and I think, “Oh my God, this is my deployment…”

- The Exodus

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