Personal

Tonight I’d like to share with you a piece of my diary I wrote shortly after I got married, then was abruptly bussed away to the desert for training, leaving my brand-new wife alone in a new city, state, and culture.  It was a blast.  I was doing my daily bitching and moaning about the Army, as soldiers in the field do (I did it on paper), and got to talking about how I wanted to be a pilot, and was encouraged by many of my superiors to pursue that goal:

The hardest thing for me to do is to keep the same positive thoughts when I go back to garrison.  When I go to the field, I see these helicopters floating with absolute freedom, briskly across the sky, and I want to be in that cockpit, in complete control.  I want to be the one people look up to, because I’m a pilot, and everyone thinks pilots are very intelligent.  Nearly all pilots, especially the ones in the military, are respected more because of the responsibility they have, and their attitude toward perfection.  I think – I know – I have these qualities.  I can fly.
But when I get back to the “same ol’, same ol’” at Fort Carson, my mind wanders and I am distracted and corrupted by “the daily routine.”  I no longer respect the army, and want nothing to do with it, and I develop a list of reasons not to stay in the army, or fly for it.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about my time in the military and what I enjoyed overall.  I met some lifetime friends, went places I actually want to visit again but can’t afford to (the Mojave Desert can be fun, I’m sure, in a pair of shorts), and gained some direction in my life from those who cared to listen and give me advice.

I think that mainly right now I miss my friends.  They’re all scattered about the United States, and I only communicate with them over the Internet.  That’s cool, but it’s hard to share a beer and a smile via TCP/IP.

Never mind.  I’m just tired and clouded.