Delay of game

I'd hoped to be writing you from Lash(kar Gah) by now but after six hours at the rotor wing terminal last night our flight was cancelled due to weather and we schlepped our schtuff back to the can for another night aboard Camp Cupcake.  No word on when we'll actually be pulling chocks.

Cupcakier than ever

Backtracking, we got here on Tuesday, after a few chilly days in Manas.

Aussie or Talib - who can say?

It's interesting how all of us seem to go through the same emotional stages. On arriving at Manas we were perfectly content to stay a week or two, doing nothing but eating, sleeping and Skyping. But within 24 hours we all started feeling cooped up and unproductive, and suddenly we were ready to get moving and get to work. I've learned that I'm the type to quickly get antsy and moody when I don't have something productive to do; turns out most Marines are the same way.

(Yes, now that I write it out it seems as profound an insight as the wetness of water, but it was interesting at the time. Also I should note that I still enjoy doing absolutely nothing, the Kelvin zero of anything, from time to time (to time to time)).

Anyway, the trend continues. Yesterday I was sitting in the USO tent with a friend who like me was returning to Camp Leatherneck after too brief an absence, and he started talking about how, though he hated the very idea of it, he felt almost comfortable here, almost at home, almost like he was back where he belonged. Following about 24 hours of sheer depression, despair even, at finding myself back here in this place I'd so fervently yearned to leave, I had also begun to feel like I was back in a place that somehow, regrettably, fit. We talked about how unacceptable a feeling this really was and how we refused to think of this place as even resembling or connected to the idea of home or belonging.  But...there it was, and is, at least for now.

As I write about it, I realize that in part this feeling can be explained by the circumstances of our return. With us were a number of Marines who were here for the first time. We (this other Marine and I) spent our first few days here not only wandering through familiar areas but basically giving those Marines a tour. It set us apart a little, I think, to be so familiar with what they were just discovering, and that probably emphasized the sense of meaning in our return.

I should be a shrink.

Anyway, to friends and family, rest assured that this is not home, that we (all of us, not just the returnees) have less than zero desire to be here or stay here, except to do our jobs, and that home for us is simply and completely: where you are.

Gotta run...but first,another thought-provoking thing: being an armed Jewish Marine sitting at a computer next to armed Jordanian soldiers (they're members of the coalition here).  Not going to try for a picture right now - maybe if I get to know one of them.  Makes me wonder how Jewish troops felt participating in the liberation of Iraq, a country that had up to that point attacked Israel directly four times.

Hmmm.