October 13th 2010 - Adaption

Things have been quite busy lately and putting together a blog post has been nearly impossible.  I’ve started a few entries only to delete them.  I get done with the work day, get to my bed and know that I only have a few minutes of juice left before I crash.  I’ll type out a quick e-mail to my wife, then lie down, and fall asleep before my first song finishes on my iPod.  

It’s strange how you adapt to things in a combat zone.  Things that would be absolutely alien in the ‘real world’.  Some of these things are just small changes but it never ceases to amaze me how the human psyche is able to adapt to new and strange situations.

In the ‘real’ world, it’s pretty easy to get something you want, from toothpaste to music to anything else under the sun.  If you want something you simply get in your car and drive to a Wal-Mart, a CVS, or order it online.  If you order something online, it shows up like magic a few days later on your doorstop.  Here everything is more difficult to get.  If you want a certain brand of deodorant you have one place to go and if you are lucky they may have your brand but they probably don’t have the particular scent that you want. 

Losing the wide gauntlet or retail options has had a positive influence on me though, in that I’m not buying (and spending) as much as I was back home.  When you’ve lost the options to spend money on something, you really lose the need (or necessity) to spend money on something.

 

I’ve also adapted to the dark nights here.   It feels normal now to walk around in the pitch black with a little red flashlight leading the way.  When I get back home, my subdivision will feel and look like Las Vegas to me.  I really don’t think that I’ll be able to go to Las Vegas for a while after I’m home.  The sheer brightness and intensity of the lights at night might make my eyes explode.

The internet here is painfully slow.  It makes AOL dial-up from 1998 seem like the fastest connection in the world.  Coming from the land of fast broadband it seemed like the connection here was terrible, but slowly it starts to feel normal.  I no longer sit frustrated at my computer waiting for pages to load up.  

The list continues to grow and I’m sure that it will continue to grow as time goes by here:

Carrying a weapon everywhere

Walking everywhere

100 meter walks to use the bathroom

Eating at the same place every day

Shredded cheddar cheese that is still frozen

Stale bread

No alcohol

No cable TV

Dust everywhere and on everything

No civilian clothes

Artillery firing during the night

Helicopters taking off and landing all the time

But some things will never feel normal like being away from loved ones or seeing green grass.