Pictures of Germany

The view from our balcony when we arrived here.

And a more recent picture.

Silly German Things

This topic (and various variants) is to be a recurring one as the Wife and I discover the many interesting or unique tidbits about our temporary new home. I get to begin with an observation that strikes me as humorous (and a little sad) every time I notice.

Most of our grocery shopping takes place at the commissary (which is military-speak for 'Cub Foods'). It keeps grocery costs at a minimum for military families and does an acceptable job of making sure all the food comforts of home are available, that is, if your cuisine tastes are representative of the American South. If you want walleye or wild rice, you have to buy an $800 ticket to the MSP Int'l Airport. But I digress. Routinely. Anyway, the commissary means you don't have to live on German food every day, or ever, for that matter, if you happen to be of the sort that prefers Chef Boyardee, Busch and Little Debbie to spätzle, a pils, and apfelstrudel. Not I.

To get to the original purpose of this post, we're all familiar with French bread and Italian bread, right? Well, whenever we make it down to the little German store down the street and walk through the bread section, I notice that the regular-looking loaves of sliced bread are labled as "American Bread" or "American Sandwich Bread." ("Amerikanisch," actually.) I wonder if the French and Italians notice the same thing when in American grocery stores, that their regular 'bread' is mislabled. I find it interesting that sandwich bread is the American contribution to world cuisine. Not that it's a bad one. You never heard anyone use the phrase "The best thing since pita" did you?




p.s. The Blogger spell check doesn't even recognize the word 'walleye.' Insulting.

p.p.s I did a yahoo search for 'bad beer,' and the Anheuser-Busch website was the second hit. Ha.

Happy (Birth)Day

I'm pretty sure everyone knows by now that I made it back to Germany OK. My apologies if you happened to be out of the loops. It's good to be home. It isn't possible to type things like that with enough emphasis. I suppose there's an upper limit of just how relieved and excited one can be to be returning from a deployment. I was excited after two+ months; I can't even imagine the anticipation after having been gone a year.

As it turns out, the process of trying to get back ended up being the worst two days of my deployment, and that includes the days that involved middle of the night surprise missions, getting shot at and almost getting blown up. I didn't have time to dwell on misery during missions. There was ample time to wonder what logistical genius had us slotted for 40 hours of standing around at various FOBs before our departure and why I ended up in the only tent that wasn't heated while we waited all night and half the next day for our flight. Perhaps it was the jerk opening and slamming the door every 15 seconds looking for SGT Smith or Alpha section or making sure nobody got any sleep...

The flight home was a C-17. That's another check mark on my list of military modes of transportation. I've had worse flights. I've noticed a phenomenon that takes place whenever the different military branches and disciplines cross paths. In Ranger school, all the student pilots that did our flying loved to take pictures of the Rangers getting on and off their helicopters, and the Tennessee Air National Guard that flew our jump mission just had to get a bunch of photos. This time as we boarded the C-17 (which is more or less a small warehouse with wings), there was the crew, taking pictures of the soldiers, who were taking pictures of the plane and the flight crew, taking pictures of us... At one point I noticed a crew-member with a digital video camera who was preparing as another used the intercom to inform us that we were officially out of Iraqi air space. One hundred soldiers on the plane could only muster a small, disappointing grunt of approval before trying to fall asleep again. Some soldiers near the videographer realized the aircrew's intent and started an impromptu celebration, but were too late. They also need to work on their airline demeanor, i.e. "We're now about a half-hour from our final destination, so please take this time to take care of any last minute...bathroom...uh, stuff..."

Once we got off the plane, things were pretty streamlined, which was good, because the average soldier's attention span is not much to speak of to begin with. They even kept our little welcome home ceremony to just over 8 seconds (+/- a few minutes) before releasing us to our families.

Amanda had the big welcome home banner hanging outside our door. Thank you to all of those who participated in that very nice surprise. This seems an appropriate place to acknowledge the fantastic support I've received. I got care packages, Christmas cards and plenty of email while in Iraq. If you sent things, I really was/am most grateful. Particularly touching was an envelope full of the greetings of family members written on pieces of wrapping paper. I scattered them all over my room to get the full family Christmas party effect. They are very special people who think of things like that. The same goes for those of you both thoughtful enough and sufficiently well-organized to send real letters and family updates and the like such as I have received from a few people. Shamefully, I am not one of those people, which is why I haven't managed as many thank-yous as I owe. Your little notes go a long way when they're for a soldier. I am both humbled and thoroughly appreciative.

Speaking of thoughtfulness, additional thanks to those who sent birthday greetings today. They were all far nicer than the present my retarded cat left for me in the shower. NOT A SMART KITTY. (Not the ADHD cat, the other, dumber, one.)

Being home again, it was pretty much inevitable that I'd end up at some point just soaking in giddiness with a stupid smile on my face. Since joining the Army, I've known that feeling a number of times; it's a combination of comfort and freedom. If you don't relish driving in the sun, windows down, music playing, or if being in your home around the people you love, in your favorite comfortable clothes, having pizza and beer, playing on your computer, in your home doesn't make you giddy, you need to join the Army. You can't help but enjoy the little things.

For now, we're going through a process of reintegration, making sure everyone's pay and legal and medical, dental, etc. are all up to date. They spent a day on relationship reintegration. Not such a big deal after being gone only two months, but imagine the impact on a family after a year, especially when kids are involved. Not an easy life, ladies and gentlemen. Family life for the military is a constant battle, especially for soldiers that deploy and train as much as the infantry does.

I haven't seen many guys having too much difficulty readjusting. Our reintegration starts in the afternoon, so that's plenty of recovery time for those trying to make up for lost time. No problems for me that I've noticed. The only night sweats are due to poor temperature regulation in our building. It's a tropical 77 degrees all the time. I did have some habits that I'll have to readjust a little. We were driving the other day around dusk and I felt the impulse to prep my night vision equipment. I keep giving Amanda a 'clear' when she's driving and we get to intersections. She gives me funny looks.

I have to keep resisting the urge to use war as a justification for things. Like: "Can I wear white socks with brown shoes? Well, I did go to Iraq..." What the hell does that have to do with anything? I guess the combination of being in a combat zone and living in a third world environment does put things into perspective a little.

If you made it this far in the post, I apologize for your aching eyes. It has been another good day. No explosions or gunfire. I got to take a nap. I get to chase the wife and the cats around our apartment. Life is good.

Be happy.

Just...Stuff

This might be my last post from Iraq, depending on how much time I have and how motivated I find myself in the next few days...

I'm reasonably certain this may be the dirtiest, dustiest place on earth. I live upstairs, indoors, and there's enough dust alone that I can sweep up a significant little pile daily. I live in a 5' by 9' cubicle (or rectangleicle), mind you. That's not me tracking dirt in, that's just the dust from the areas on the floor I can reach. When I go a few days between sweepings, my little pile grows significantly. Any longer and I start thinking about holding tractor pulls...


More things I won't miss:

Wondering if there will be running water for washing, shaving, flushing...

Not making my half hour on the treadmill without the power going out.
(Although hearing the wailing and gnashing of teeth at night when games of HALO are wiped out is a little amusing...)

Putting on armor to use the latrine. Having to go down the worlds largest single story of stairs to go to the bathroom at night. Bottles of urine. Hoping that peeing out in the city won't cause an international incident... "US soldier exposes himself to city bus full of Iraqi women. More at 10."

AFN commercials. Well, I'll have them in Germany, too, but they still suck.

"Was that explosion outgoing or incoming?"

"Meester, give me! Give me!" "CHOCOLAT-UH!" "Baby, baby..." (I could never understand how having a baby entitled a kid (or adult) to an extra of whatever it is I happened to have, whether it be candy, cash, footballs, or my own equipment. Pretty sure your baby doesn't need my flashlight, kid.)

There's more, I'm just tired.