The three hats I wear ...

The message on the screen offered a ‘thank you’ for choosing to watch a movie in their theater. As if there’s another choice. But here at Joint Base Balad, Iraq (because it would hurt the feelings of the other services if continued to just call it Balad Air Base … and don’t get me started about the new “Joint Base Andrews Naval Air Station”), I actually did get to sit in a real movie theater and eat real movie theater popcorn with real movie theater popcorn butter. Or “butter,” as it were. Now if only I could have watched a real movie instead of the predictable and trite “Surrogates,” starring Bruce Willis and playing at a theater near you. Unless you’re deployed, in which case it’s only playing at *the* movie theater …

So we’re back in the ‘raq to cover a couple of missions. Of all the things that make this assignment difficult, the traveling is the worst. Well, that’s not entirely true. The being away from home is the hardest part, obviously. But the hardest part of the actual job is the traveling. Being in a variety of countries and working with lots of different people is cool, but the actual flying part takes its toll. It routinely takes us an entire day, if not more, to get anywhere from our home base. Not because the places are so far away, but because air transportation is so unpredictable and prone to outright cancelation. And here I thought BWI was bad …

What it does give is a lot of downtime either waiting in the passenger terminal or on the long flight itself, where, because space is so cramped, you’re absolutely glad they use Dial. Because of the limited number of flights at any given time, most of them are packed with people, cargo or both. Reading is difficult because there aren’t exactly overhead lights. There’s no beverage service either, unless the loadmaster is good enough to say, “Hey, Dude, you want a water? It’s in the cooler over there,” but even that is the exception rather than the rule. We’re allowed to bring our own food and drinks, but there really isn’t much room for more than a single bottle of water for the entire five-hour-plus flight when you’re carrying your helmet, body armor, rifle, pistol, ammo for both, first aid kit, bag of clothes, bag of work stuff, partridge in a pear tree …

So with all the downtime, there’s lots of time to think, reflect, daydream, ponder, reverie, fantasize, recall, imagine, consider and muse about all sorts of things. Like, for example, all the words you can come up with that are synonyms for “think.” Also gives time to remember how much you miss your wife and kids. And because we’re traveling every other week, if not more, there’s a lot of time for that missing. My pal Tech. Sgt. Joseph Kapinos (read his blog at combatcorrespondent.blogspot.com/) recently lamented on how he’ll explain to his daughter the time he missed watching her grow up. I’ll be honest; I wonder how Jennifer and I will be able to justify all our time deployed away from our boys. “Wonder” … missed that one …

At home I see myself wearing three hats – Husband, Dad and Airman. It’s the requirements of the my Airman that has me literally wearing three hats out here -- one for each of the uniforms I wear, depending on the mission. All those hats and uniforms make it a real pain to pack. Especially when I’m trying to bring some extra snacky snacks along for the flight and can’t fit them in my bag …

But I also know that it’s because of that Airman hat that I’m able to provide for my family and wear the other two. Conversely, it’s wearing the Dad and Husband hats that make me a better Airman, I think. And though I’ve been an Airman a lot longer than I’ve been a husband and a father, I’m finding my priorities have changed dramatically in life. No more thoughts about bases or assignments I wanted to apply for that would take me all over the world and away from home. Not now that I share my home with someone other than my snake. Or rather, OUR snake. And OUR home. OUR dog. OUR television. OUR bed. HER kitchen, but I don’t mind that so much. Besides, MY PlayStation …

But I don’t have the answer as to how we explain why we have to be away so often. We haven’t told the boys yet about Jennifer’s looming deployment next year. I just hope that she’s assigned to a specific base and doesn’t have to travel as much as I do. Jennifer’s idea of packing for a trip involves at least five bags. And that’s just for overnight …

For now, however, it’s mind on the mission and not how much I’d rather be having lightsaber fights with the boys, playing Scrabble with Jennifer or doing anything together as a family. Can’t dwell on missing them while we’re out on a patrol in an Iraqi village. “Dwell” … that’s another one I missed …

"I'll have ... that ..."

To be fair, I didn't know what it was either, but the gal in front of me in the chow line was willing to brave eating ... whatever it was ... so I figured I would as well. I mean, hey, enough barbecue sauce and you can make anything taste good. And thanks to my mother-in-law, I actually have a bottle. Now if only someone could send a bottle of merlot. Three dollars for half a plastic cup of box o' wine is killin' me ...

Our team has had some much-needed downtime this week so we could say hello to the new folks, adieu to those headed home. We were even able to get off base and go downtown. I did some shopping, some haggling for coworkers over what they were buying and spent some recreational time with colleagues. Stacia Zachary and I go back a long time. We went to basic training together, technical training, conferences, more training and she's been another sister for me. Like I need any more ...

But we said our good-byes as she heads home to her family and in her stead is another friend, Joseph "Kap" Kapinos who keeps a blog at combatcorrespondent.blogspot.com/. Kap and I go back a few years too. It's a small career field and getting smaller by the day as more and more people get fed up with the constant deployments and time away from family. While that's what we three discussed mostly, it was intended to be more a trip to increase morale, not beat it into submission. So we had ice cream ...

I also scream, because our mission now is "elsewhere in Southwest Asia" at a base in a country that doesn't want us to talk about the base being in their country, which presents a great challenge for me as it's kinda my job to talk about the people and the mission at that base in that country. But I have it on good authority that the food is good. Which is great, because I didn't pack my bottle of barbecue sauce ...

On a more positive note, Jennifer and I are hashing out disagreements a little bit better now that we're on the downward slope of our time away from each other. At this points it's just hitting little milestones - holidays, birthdays, holidays that are also birthdays that fall on Thanksgiving ...

In the meantime I've started writing to Zachary's class and got a nice note back from his teacher. I remember during Desert Storm writing to deployed servicemembers in school. Now I get to be on the other end of it. An old friend from college also wrote a nice piece in the Northcoast Journal about Jennifer and me (www.northcoastjournal.com/issues/2009/09/24/yo-afghanistan/). I'm finding writing to be a really good way of staying connected to the world back home. I think E.T. had it all wrong. All he needed was a good Web cam connected to his Speak 'n' Spell ...