CRC Day One

Sunday March 19th, 2006 20:00 (El Paso time).

I'm in El Paso. Just finished a moderately long day of inprocessing at Army (Tm). (From here on out, I think I'm going to call 'the Army' simply 'Army', a la Buster Bluth of Arrested Development fame. He says it like you would say "Karate" or "Yoga" - as in "I have to go to Army today." This resonates with me, for some reason.)

Before I talk about my fun times at Army (Tm) today, however, I must say that on top of everything else, there was a solid mix of good feelings upon returning back to the United States yesterday. I didn't really realize until I got back here, but I've now been away for a good chunk of time, since late August. I really like living in Europe, but I must say, it was pretty cool to come "home". I got off the plane in Chicago and just walking through the terminal I felt pretty good. I also instantly noticed two quick things.

First, I noticed all sorts of people were gathered around TV's, crowding in to watch the NCAA tournament. And damn was it reassuring to find people a) watching sports I care about, b) watching sports live and at the right time of day/night, and c) watching anything other than goddam soccer. (For the record, I have nothing too much against soccer. Its best feature is that is such a worldwide equalizer of a sport - and that is cool because the international stage of soccer as well as the worldwide cultural ramifications are unsurpassable anywhere else in sports. That said, soccer is clearly over-exposed in Europe (as its really the only sport they care about signficantly) and that fact leaves me starved for other sports, and certainly those that are more beloved by me. Also, and I know saying this will make soccer purists slam a fist on a table in rage, but I've decided that I hate the off-sides rule. It absolutely kills the game, and its so damn arbitrary based on the refs - the crowd of the team that the call goes against is always pissed like the call was wrong, and it slows the game way down. And if there's one thing soccer does not need, it is to be slowed down. Between that and the constant flopping to the point where it seems like every player on both teams is trying to out-act Manu Ginobli, I fear soccer will never enter my upper echelon of sports loves. But all THAT said, my relationship with soccer is a work in progress, and is constantly evolving. So we'll see where it settles out. That is, when I get back from the desert, of course.)

Second, Americans as a whole and as observed in large numbers in a setting such as an airport, are really, really fat. Much fatter, it would seem, than any similar gathering in Europe, and possibly anywhere else in the world. I suppose this is no surprise of an observation to anybody. But the fact that I sort of subconsciously perceived a sense of the overall largeness of the people around me, without really thinking about it - and then suddenly started looking around and verifying it to my horror - was sort of alarming. After being in Europe for six months, this fact just really jumped out at me. Odd.

Finally, it is good to be back stateside. If for no other reason than I was all fired up when my transaction at the airport Starbucks went off without a hitch. By that I mean no language barrier, no sounding like a dumbass to a local, and no fear of a cultural faux-pas. I went to Starbucks, ordered my coffee, communicated effectively with the barista, payed for the drink, and walked off. You could say I straight up schooled the entire encounter. And being able to do that again rocked.

Now, regarding Army (Tm) today. My little hotel here on-post offers a continental breakfast, so I went and checked that out this morning. I couldn't help but notice FOX News on the TV. Settling in with my coffee and cereal, and having nothing else to do at the moment, I watched a tad. Boy, was that a mistake. Now, I know Fox News has sort of become a parody of itself in recent years, and I haven't personally seen it in at least a year or so to any extent, but damn. I couldn't believe it. At one point they had a crossfire-style discussion about Iraq, with a conservative vs. a liberal. The liberal was a fluppy sort of spineless guy, clearly groomed to look like an idiot (he did), and the republican, though disturbing in his viewpoint (to me), at least had some semblance of self-respect about him. And the show's moderator was clearly on the conservative's side of the debate, as evidenced by her comments and affirmative responses to his supposed-to-be-rhetorical questions. It was completely ridiculous and one sided in a way I thought could only be possible in a parody. In another segment, they had a retired Army Colonel (who was their Uber War Analyst EXTREME!, or something) come on and go over the good and the bad at the three year point of the Iraq war. One of his summations of "the good", and this was typed up on the screen, was that "we killed a lot of bad guys." No shit - right there on the screen for all to read. His other analysis (and further points, which were lost in the fog of that particular one i must admit) was, um, equally "trenchant." And, in classic FOX news style, the "bad" points of the war were relegated to a small, vague list crammed into the absolute last minute of a 10-minute segment. All I could do was shake my head and look around to see if the other breakfast-goers were having a similar reaction to the on-screen tripe. Sadly, they weren't.

Anyway, after the riveting breakfast television, I walked over to CRC and checked in. And after that was sweet, sweet in-processing. Walking around, signing in rosters, giving copies of my orders to people, standing in lines, checking boxes, etc. A lot of the usual Army stuff. I also had to do some sweet computer-based powerpoint training on "what to do if you get captured" for about an hour, which more or less succeeded in totally freaking me out. Apparently, I'm supposed to "attempt to remain psychologically strong" and "remember my warrior ethos" should I be captured. The problem with these things, especially in the setting of imminent deployment, is that my imagination just runs wild and the next thing I know I'm sitting there blankly staring at the screen picturing Mama Stup crying while I'm beheaded by terrorists on CNN or something. Um, yeah, not good times. And trust me, any thoughts I would have after being captured would have nothing to do with any warrior ethos. In fact, they would probably center more on some dark and bleak variation of, "wow, this really, really sucks".

I got my new ACU's (Army Combat Uniform) issued to me today. I'm a medium long jacket, and a medium long pants, if anybody cares. Got a new 'patrol cap', and even a new sun hat. The new ACU's have all this digitized tan/gray/olive camoflauge which up close doesn't seem to have any practical concealment unless you're trying to elude someone in a pile of vomit. Perhaps I'm going to be tasked to infiltrate a frat party.

This evening, we were bused to an auditorium to have a little greeting from some battalion commander or another. There was a short little video which was chock full of propaganda to boot. (This seems to be a requirement at every little official Army thing I ever do.) This one wasn't as bad as most - basically just showed a lot of soldiers running around and threw the ever-lovable warrior ethos in our faces a couple more times. Then the commander came out and talked for a bit. He had a weird pseudo-Texas accent, complete with pronouncing the word coyote as "Kye-Oat", which didn't exactly put forth an air of overwhelming intelligence.

I was both excited and sad to see an old friend here at CRC. It appears that one Rob Perkins, who was a third year resident at Madigan when I was an intern, has also been tasked to go "down range". Rob is a nephrologist at Walter Reed in DC these days. I saw him and we started talking, kind of lamenting deployment together, etc. Then he told me that his wife gave birth exactly one week ago. And I was floored. What followed was the most awkward and bitter-sweet "Congratulations" I have ever offered a new father. Rob, who reminds me a fair bit of the legendary Jon Yarris, for those in the know, is another true liberal trapped in the army, and a great guy. It was good to see him, but I could tell he was clearly bummed about his present situation, which just utterly sucks. New baby, one week old, and then you have to go to Iraq. Suddenly my own situation doesn't seem so bad.

And there it is. There's a full day of fun planned for tomorrow as well. Complete with a formation at 4:30. (That's not a typo). I'm off to bed.