Dave's Not Here: 'Twas the night before R&R...

At the moment I'm sitting in my room. As I type this, I know it won't be posted to my blog until at least two days from now. I'm mostly packed, and ready to go on my final R&R. My next trip home will be my last from this project, unless my employer calls me back. I have already mentioned that I'm not coming back on via direct application. Four years is a lot of life to give, especially at the rate of 84 hours worked per week.

However, my impending resignation is not the cause of this post. In fact, but for the events of the last few minutes, I would not be typing this post at all.

Watch a news report, listen to the ramblings of the anti-war crowd and you will arrive most directly at the conclusion that Iraq is an extremely dangerous place. I won't dispute that. I don't think I've ever made the statement that it was safer here than anywhere else, except perhaps the highways and interstates of the United States. After all, I've known more people working here who have died in car accidents on R&R than I have known who were killed in any other fashion here in the war-torn country of Iraq - Mesopotamia for those of you reading the New York Times.

But Iraq has its moments - moments in which I am not fearful for myself, but for the lives of those who work for and with me. Thirty minutes ago I had such a moment. I had finished packing and I was watching an episode of Scrubs on DVD when the deadly sound of incoming shrieked in my ears. A few hundred feet from the place I lay my head, a mortar round impacted. Fortunately, as is generally the case with IDF (indirect fire) attacks, the insurgent who launched the mortar hit nothing. However, for a time, while I waited for information on where the impact may have been, I worried.

I have 20 personnel working on my staff, and I view myself as personally responsible for ensuring they make it home as safely as possible while they work for me.

A few short minutes can be an eternity when you are waiting to find out about the health and safety of the personnel to and for whom you are answerable.

Everyone was okay, and tomorrow morning I board a plane homeward bound. For a couple of welcome weeks I will try and distance my mind from Iraq and the uncertainty of our lives here, with luck my flights home will be less eventful than tonight has been.

Comments

True-True-True. I will miss you Dave. You and I arrived a week apart and have some common memories that no one will ever be able to understand or share. Christmas 2003 at Camp Mayberry around the bonfire, looking for that very first rocket crater at AAFES, sheperding in our 200 Iraqis every day, going way outside the wire looking for our cement trucks, living in the Hotel California, sending Cory into the weeds to look for the escaped Iraqi when we knew why he was carrying the water bottle, etc. In fact, I think Cory may need therapy because that has to be the first time he ever saw a man wipe his butt with his hand and water before.

'Twas the night before R&R...

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