First off, I need to apologize to all of those who have regularly kept up with my blog over the past year. I haven’t posted much since August and I regret that. I just need to be inspired to write and I haven’t found much inspiration since then. The next few months will be full of so many transitions and interesting occurrences that I should be able to provide some interesting fodder for everyone.
So, 2008 has started off as kind of a mixed bag. On the glass half full side, I was able to spend the first week and a half at home and have some much needed relaxation time from Afghanistan. I discovered a new favorite drink (whiskey, preferably Jameson’s, and coke). I actually shouldn’t say that I discovered it. I knew what it was before. You could say I embraced it more than anything. That and I finally figured out that a night of drinking mass quantities of beer not only got me stumbling drunk (no, literally, stumbling) but left me with a wicked nasty hangover in the morning. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy the brews, but if I am out and having a good time, a double shot o’ whiskey and coke is my drink of choice. I’m much more alert, so to speak, and I don’t slur my words as much.
All of my relatives are probably shaking their heads at that last paragraph, but at this point, you pretty much know that I enjoy drinking so just embrace and celebrate that fact. I already learned my lesson a few years ago about the consequences of drinking and driving so we don’t need to worry about that. Back to the good things about the new year. There are so many to list that I could write for another few pages, but the highlights were definitely getting a chance to reconnect with my family and go out and have a really good time with some friends I hadn’t seen in awhile. All of that on top of enjoying some truly excellent food (this is the official shout out to the Sunday Night Dinner Crew at the Links' house).
With the good, however, comes the bad. And in these past three weeks, I have already had my share of frustrating and depressing moments. First off, my aunt is getting treated for breast cancer. I knew about that before I came on leave, but sitting there and talking about it with her just made it hit home all that much. Get better, Kim. To go with that, I found out my grandpa Harry discovered a cancerous lump in his jaw and is getting it treated now. Get better, Grandpa. I know that death is an inevitability in all things, but it still is a kick to the gut to have two very close family members deal with this.
It only gets better. Right before I left, I found out that a guy that was two years behind me in college and who lived in my town house during my senior year committed suicide. Knowing this guy, he is the last person that I would have expected to do something like this, but I imagine that most people say that about the deceased who chose that path. It's incredibly sad because he was one of those people that everybody knew and liked and I can’t imagine how hard it is for the Central College community right now.
The last instance has hit home the most. A buddy of mine, Sgt. David Drakulich, was killed by an IED in Southern Afghanistan on January 9. Drak had been in my section back at Bragg and had been at Salerno until the end of March, when he moved to our Special Troops Battalion and later to the 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment in Kandahar. Drak was one of the first guys I met when I came to the 82nd and from the stories and my interactions with him, it was hard not to like the guy. It is hard to describe the guy, but his ambition (when we talked about it once or twice) after the Army was to go to school and eventually teach philosophy or anthropology or to come back to Afghanistan and work with some sort of Afghan outreach program. He actually would be one of the last people in the world you would expect to join the Army, but he went the whole way and was in Ranger Regiment before he came to the 82nd. His stories about his experiences were stuff of legend. Partly because he was such a good story teller (he didn’t over exaggerate but just gave a very vivid picture of the situation and told it from a perspective that you could really understand) but because of the sheer ridiculousness of the instances he told us about. A typical weekend for Drak, much to the chagrin of my NCOs, would be to try and hitchhike a ride to some remote spot in North Carolina and camp for the weekend, living off what he found in the woods and then make his way back. What made Drak great was that he always attempted to put humor into a situation (most of the time it was unintentionally; he would just make a random comment that would make everybody laugh).
I’ve dealt with death quite a bit before, but for some reason I’m still trying to get my head wrapped around all of this. Maybe it is because this is somebody who I could always count on to have an interesting conversation with or maybe because there is a story and personality behind the picture that hangs up on our wall of fallen paratroopers. Perhaps another reason is because it has forced me to come face to face with my own mortality. When you are 23 and in the Army and jump out of airplanes for a living, you always think about it but you don’t dwell on it. Dwelling on it makes it worse and can cause you to get sloppy and then you will get hurt. What the real twist on all this is that I am going to down to Kandahar to 1/508 to essentially fill the position that he left. Talk about a weird situation.
Sorry to put a macabre tone on the last few paragraphs. Just had to get it out there and put in it writing. On the bright side, I only have about two months left in country and then it is back to lovely Ft. Bragg, NC for who knows how long. I’m still working on trying to get reassigned to the Ranger Regiment, but that is kind of on hold right now with the impending move. Oh, my new years resolutions, get in really, really, super good, Ironman tri-athlete shape for the Rangers and post more of my musings.
All the Way.
