The Time Machine takes its toll. It is said that recovery from jet lag takes one day for every time zone crossed. This is surely multiplied when arriving at a severely higher elevation in a combat zone. Days before, we had been tossing back beers in the company of blond haired beauties to the chagrin of one of the NCO's, that even the REMFs didn't want around.
It isn't politically correct to call them REMF's. Now, they have that cute little Lord of the Ringish nickname: Fobbits. Well, political correctness was never my strong suit. I have nothing against a clerk or cook, as long as they're doing their job to the same level of quality, urgency, and intensity with which I must do mine. In fact, I have a lot of respect for those that do, but they chose their job and I chose mine, even if I chose it based on the salemanship of a Recruiter, in relative ignorance of what it would really be.
When frontline troops err, it puts lives in jeopardy. When a clerk errs, it costs those on the front lines money, time, or recognition. Every Soldier should be well-trained and ready for combat, but those on the front deserve special recognition for the risks they take and those in the rear traded pogie bait at the PX for potential for glory. They owe those at risk timely pay, timely mail, and chow as good as they can deliver. They owe them the same quality of work as those they are supporting must do theirs.
And the toll of the time machine was exacting some curious results. Our bodies revolted against the
new schedule of light and dark. We would wake up a few hours after laying down, in the middle of the night but wide awake. We'd creep out so as not to wake up the others, only to find them in the mess hall getting a snack.
It wasn't long before I found myself in "The Boneyard," aptly named not only because anything stored there was automatically covered in dust, but because it was a regular occurance for bones of the top of the food chain to be found in the six inches of talcum powder type dust there. With each step, this fine dust would kick straight up into the air creating the appearance that one was just returning from weeklong patrols "in the field."
To prevent this in the main camp, someone had ordered crushed rock to be spread six inches thick. Like so many things in the military, it was a great plan poorly executed. The rocks were too large making it difficult to walk and if you stepped just wrong, you could twist your ankle. Stepping just wrong was easier than not and life as a REMF was perhaps more stressful than life surrounded by Warriors.
Our REMFs were different from the REMFs outside our walls. Someone with rank had some flawed priorities and stepping outside the walls into the main base could result in taking verbal fire from some misguided NCO more concerned with perfect uniforms than combat loads. I anxiously awaited the arrival of my teammates and shipment to a Firebase. I had been here only a few days, was just getting over the toll of the Time Machine, but war weary of the misplaced priorities of the rear.
But we were living in 1423 and technology was struggling to reach us.
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