The Final Stage of Grief

Being a generally positive person and when faced with the inevitable (i.e. direct orders), I’m trying to make the best of a less-than-ideal situation. There was a brief rumor that staying in the tents would be an option, but that’s been squashed by leadership. On Christmas Eve, I’ll be moving to the transient open-bay dorms. I’m still concerned about storage space and a place to secure my valuables (I’ve recently learned that the locks on the half-wall lockers don’t work), but at least they’re regrouping everyone by rank and unit/organization. That will make it easier to coordinate and compromise with the living conditions. If fellow major “Joe” from my home unit is being annoying, I’m more comfortable telling him outright that he needs to straighten up. If I had to do that with an international senior enlisted, it would probably cause an incident and lingering tension. Also, and best of all, the transient dorms are supposed to have wireless Internet by time we move in (for real this time). That would be a big perk, to be able to sit in bed and surf the web...without being blocked from my own blog, Facebook, Flickr, etc. I’m already trying to figure out the best arrangement of the bunk beds to make the most of the wall and floor spaces. A fellow work mate and future open-bay mate has already helped be “acquire” a large metal shelf from the now abandoned dining facility. That will really help us stack all of our extra bags and free up some room and/or hall space. AND, it’s probably also the wisest, safest thing to do. Leadership has said that moving everyone into the dorms is a Force Protection issue, because the dorms are supposed to have some extra layers of roofing to protect from rocket attacks, certainly more than the tents. I wasn’t too worried about that, but today we received our second rocket attack since I’ve been here. The first was in early November, but it was a dud so I didn’t think too much of it. But today’s rocket actually exploded. Both were on the outer edges of the base, but it’s gotten my attention. So now I’ve accepted the move. I’ll enjoy the space in the tent for now, but look forward to having Internet available off-duty.

They placed these rocket shelters between the tents after the first rocket attack. Fortunately, I haven’t had to hang out in them any.