Day # something or another...

two posts in one week? surely not...

Basic existence isn’t too hard to figure out. What you need to live is food, water and shelter. Everything above that is cream. It’s when you have enough of those three that things start going wrong.

Take Cain. He had a home, enough food and water. He had a loving mother and father. He had a good brother. All he had to do is do some sacrificing and everything would have been peachy.

But he wanted more.

It all comes down to needs vs. wants.

Take me, for example. I have a place to sleep. I have enough food and water. Usually people are not trying to kill me. (well,…not me personally, that is…) I have friends to share my time with. What else could I need?

OK…the obvious…I do need my wife and family. I get to e-mail them about everyday and about once a week I get to call home for 15 minutes.

Better than prison…I think…

What do I want, then as opposed to need?

Hmmm…I wanted a good laptop. I got one in the mail from my wife a couple of weeks ago. It is SWEET. A Dell 9300 with most of the bells and whistles. I have a couple of games from the guys here and when I have time I can get my ass kicked in FPS games. AND I can e-mail my family ever so much faster.

(alright…maybe there is something strange about doing a 24 hour combat patrol and then playing a computer game about a combat patrol…let the shrinks figure that one out)

I have so much stuff…but not nearly all the crap I have at home. God, I have some worthless stuff I’ve collected over the years. So much of that is going to find a new home when I get home. I don’t need it. I wanted it once…but now- it just seems like…junk.

I don’t want to say ‘life is pure here’…but I don’t know what to call it. We have enough to get by. We don’t have time for the ‘extra’ shit that seemed so important seven months ago.

I get mail from my friends and family asking me what do I want them to send me. I think they all get angry because I say ‘I don’t need anything. Send something…special, like cool-aid, or trail-mix. Something I can’t find over here.’

It’s funny, but I’d really like a toilet with a seat on it. None of the porta-johns have seats! What the hell do they do with the seats on all of them?

While I am one body functions, I’d not like to smell burning shit every morning. Yes- we burn it ala Vietnam. I’d like the food not to give me gas, either- but that may be age, and not the food, I suppose.

I would kill for a bath. We have a shower, sort of. It gets you clean and the water is warm. But to soak in a bath for a day…ah…

It’s the weird things that you miss.

I miss waking up and looking over at my wife still sleeping…or if I roll the other way, my dog looking at me…

Yesterday I was supposed to go out with the Colonel and look at some place. I didn’t go because of another mission, but the Colonel took my truck and went out anyway. They were hit with an VBIED (Vehicle Borne Improved Explosive Device- suicide car bomb). All were evac’ed to the hospital with injuries.

All of them will be ok, they are burned and shrapneled up, but alive.

I guess what I really need is my luck to keep holding.

Dutch- out