Have you ever had enough quiet, alone time that you started to wonder if you were loosing it? Life at home (in garrison) provides for very little free time for self analyzing. When you enter the military however you are placed in a multi tier lifestyle. At home your life develops a definite schedule. Alarm at 0545, kids up at 0600, shower, shave, feed, entertain the dogs, clean, and kids to school at 0710. Work, then lunch, and then more work. Kids home at 1600, get the kids started on homework, get the kids back to homework, walk the dogs, dinner at 1830, long walk with your spouse, get ready for bed, and maybe, if you both are in alignment with each other, some time for love sharing, then sleep.
A soldier has a much different life. The U.S. military has been claimed to be so successful because war is chaos and the military trains in chaos every day. For OPSEC reasons I wont get into exact schedules but suffice to say it is something like this: rise at O dark thirty, cram a quick shower in, sometimes in an open bay shower with other less then comfortable men, PT (if your are not in the field or deployed), chow then work. Work, this is where it gets dicey. In the military you work hard. You put limb and life on the line. However when the allotted work is complete or if for some reason chaos creeps in and spoils the plans, then you are simply put S.O.L.
Good news is on occasion you are released for the rest of the day. The reality is the military is a 24/7 job and you can be and will be called to work at every hour of the day. So you get released because you have earned it. I earned a few days of being released by working every day for 14 months in Iraq. So when I, like every other soldier, hear the word dismissed, I can not help but feel my spirits lifted. If like most senior soldiers your spouse is working and your kids need new shoes, again! More often then not it is the forth step from formation you take, after hearing the golden word dismissed, that you realize Your love is committed to her work and you are way to mature to cash out the family account and drink the loneliness away. So here comes the multi tier lifestyle, the silent, alone, introspective life. The life most soldiers learn to drink to excess to get away from. Problem is once you have matured, married, and started a family, you stop spending every cent to avoid hearing your thoughts.
So…….You think……it is quiet and you think more. I have been over my life hundreds of times now. So many times in fact that at times I wonder if I am in that Ground Hog Day life. Nothing ever changes and nothing in the past is ever rectified or improved upon. Nothing! No mater how many times you go over your choices, rerun events or try to rethink what you would have done, the past stays, it is consistent, and in the quiet it is persistent.
So the question is….Am I loosing it? Why else would I use so much time to look back and analyze, re-analyze, and try to understand the outcomes of the past only to conclude that nothing changes that has already been. Of course I wish to be the best I can be and in the past lay's the great choices and not so great ones that will forge my future.
I guess the good news is that for the vast majority of our life we make the right choices. We do good things, we love, and we live. I bet 99% of the time we are correct in our choices, respectable, kind and thoughtful. Why is it then that when I am in the field, when it is quiet, when I am away from my love, and too mature to drink myself to a stupor that I spend so much time thinking about the 1%? Am I Loosing IT??
A soldier has a much different life. The U.S. military has been claimed to be so successful because war is chaos and the military trains in chaos every day. For OPSEC reasons I wont get into exact schedules but suffice to say it is something like this: rise at O dark thirty, cram a quick shower in, sometimes in an open bay shower with other less then comfortable men, PT (if your are not in the field or deployed), chow then work. Work, this is where it gets dicey. In the military you work hard. You put limb and life on the line. However when the allotted work is complete or if for some reason chaos creeps in and spoils the plans, then you are simply put S.O.L.
Good news is on occasion you are released for the rest of the day. The reality is the military is a 24/7 job and you can be and will be called to work at every hour of the day. So you get released because you have earned it. I earned a few days of being released by working every day for 14 months in Iraq. So when I, like every other soldier, hear the word dismissed, I can not help but feel my spirits lifted. If like most senior soldiers your spouse is working and your kids need new shoes, again! More often then not it is the forth step from formation you take, after hearing the golden word dismissed, that you realize Your love is committed to her work and you are way to mature to cash out the family account and drink the loneliness away. So here comes the multi tier lifestyle, the silent, alone, introspective life. The life most soldiers learn to drink to excess to get away from. Problem is once you have matured, married, and started a family, you stop spending every cent to avoid hearing your thoughts.
So…….You think……it is quiet and you think more. I have been over my life hundreds of times now. So many times in fact that at times I wonder if I am in that Ground Hog Day life. Nothing ever changes and nothing in the past is ever rectified or improved upon. Nothing! No mater how many times you go over your choices, rerun events or try to rethink what you would have done, the past stays, it is consistent, and in the quiet it is persistent.
So the question is….Am I loosing it? Why else would I use so much time to look back and analyze, re-analyze, and try to understand the outcomes of the past only to conclude that nothing changes that has already been. Of course I wish to be the best I can be and in the past lay's the great choices and not so great ones that will forge my future.
I guess the good news is that for the vast majority of our life we make the right choices. We do good things, we love, and we live. I bet 99% of the time we are correct in our choices, respectable, kind and thoughtful. Why is it then that when I am in the field, when it is quiet, when I am away from my love, and too mature to drink myself to a stupor that I spend so much time thinking about the 1%? Am I Loosing IT??
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