It's hot in Kuwait, too

That's where I am right now.  No, I'm not being redeployed as one of the 50,000 "non-combat troops" (an oxymoron so exquisite it almost sings) to Iraq - I'm just here en route to Israel for R&R, via a 12 hour layover in Istanbul starting early (very early) tomorrow morning.  I'll try to take some pictures.

I thought R&R would never arrive.  And it very, very nearly didn't.  After all, no passport, no R&R.  I looked everywhere, starting of course with the plastic bag where I keep my valuables safe from dust and moisture (haha) - you know, things like my wallet, my safe deposit box key, my PASSPORT, etc.  It should have been there, but it wasn't.  I admit, I almost panicked.  I saw the whole trip falling apart - no family, no best friend, no holidays in the Holy Land and no 5-star hotel on the beach in Eilat.  I needed - need - this R&R.

So I looked everywhere - tore my room and office apart, and nothing.  Finally, I pulled out a foot locker I had recently reorganized and rummaged through that, more to be thorough than because I had any hope of finding it there.  Found another ziplock with other kinds of valuables I keep safe from the elements - my Tanach (Bible), Passover Hagadah (prayer book), etc.  Held that ziplock up to the light and turned it over - nothing.  Closed my eyes, reached my hand into it and said a desperate prayer - and pulled out my passport.  Say what you will, I'm just telling you what happened.  That and this: I know the meaning of relief.

Now that R&R is here, the last five months don't seem like they took that long to pass - but they did.  I remember June in particular went by so slowly, and then one day Gunny was wishing me happy July, and the very next it was happy September.  On deployment you find all kinds of ways to measure the passage of time.  One of mine is a little mound of dirt I walk over every day on my way to work.  Probably several hundred people a day walk over this totally un-noticeable little bump in the road, but it's packed hard and stubborn.  When this bump has been worn down to nothing, I think to myself almost every day, I'll know the end of the deployment is getting near.  After five months, it is definitely getting harder to tell exactly where that little hill is.  My tracker back in the office told me yesterday that I was 46.0% done.

Lots of people are in the homestretch mindset these days, of course, since September marks their last full month here (some will even be home by 1 Oct).  For me, after this vacation ends I'll do the whole thing all over - which really doesn't seem all that bad.  It could have been otherwise; in fact I dodged a bullet (so to speak).  A few weeks ago I got a call from my XO in the rear, telling me the CO wanted me to come back with the first rotation.  But since I'm now doing four hours a day in the DASC in addition to my "day job" of AT/FP, I managed to persuade them to let me stay the year.  I know it sounds crazy but I'd rather be out here (well, over there in Afghanistan, not here in Kuwait) than back in the rear.  Anything done out here seems more worthwhile and rewarding than anything done in the states - at least while I'm a Marine.

Well I have to run, I only get 30 minutes online out here, which is why this post is probably much more disjointed and stream-of-consciousness than most.  I'll try to get on again from Istanbul with another update.