Where the heck did this come from?
Today was a hazy morning, which was a good thing. We went out on mission earlier in the morning and the haze kept the temperature down to the mid 90’s. When we got back from running around it was 96o and it was still a bit away from noon. It makes me think of the news and how the weather people get alarmed about Phoenix, AZ nailing 115 degrees on the mercury. It’s the dessert and you would think that if people were going to live there they would plan accordingly for the heat. I nearly busted out laughing when last week they made a big deal out of Denver hitting 100. It is true Denver is not the dessert, but I remember growing up in the central valley of California and knowing that it would hit the century mark sometime in the summer. We drank more fluids, played in pools or stayed inside during the heat of the day. Maybe it is a lack of caring on my part but the heat is something you just learn to have to plan for. We have to plan for heat that is coming up in the next month. It is a mater of not if, but when it will hit 130 over here.
The news is always centering on the injuries and the deaths of this place. There are soldiers out here doing remarkable jobs under extreme hardships. Hardships that are more than just being away from home. Physically exhausting work doing just the simplest of duties brought on by the heat and the gear we have to wear to stay safe. Mental stressors that can affect anyone in the chain of command. It seems to me that there are three main stressors that breaks the soldier down the most, and leaves me counseling soldiers.
The first is stress from loved ones. Most of the soldiers I have had to sit down with and had to go into lengthy discussions with have been about things that they really can’t do much about. It’s caused by events that are happening back home. It worsened because we cannot take the weekend off to take care of business. The normal yellow and red lights in a relationship that require time to sort out just can’t be dealt with from discussions over a phone or instant messenger the same way that they could in person. I think that it requires an exceptional spouse to understand that and to approach problems in a different way than could be if they could be addressed in person. I truly believe that a lot of the problems that the young soldiers are having are do to their inexperience in communication. (I’m not dismissing all the problems, as some have been quite real.)
The second seems to be what I call the professional stress factors. They are in my experience leadership, the chain-of-command and the general rules of thumb about army life. Because of my time in the army and my openness to share with soldiers, I am often their “sounding board” for all things professional. Whether it is because a soldier feels wronged or there is a new rumor flowing down the street, I try to give the soldier as straight of an answer as I can, without closing all the doors that there are different ways to get the same job done. It is a hard fence to walk because on one hand is the loyalty you have to the unit and the fellow non-commissioned officers you serve. On the other hand you must protect the bond you have with the soldier, letting him know that you have been in his shoes. And if the soldier has honestly been wronged you must make the decision to confront the other NCO’s (or O’s) that have wronged your soldier.
The last main stress factor actually comes from the enemy. The IED’s have played with peoples heads and have changed some of them. This is no small feat to go out on these roads knowing that there is always a road side bomb out there. The hardest thing that I have had to do so far was do the next combat patrol after an IED went off on the hummer I was in. It’s not like riding a bicycle and for some people they can’t just get back onto the horse. There are a few soldiers that had changed their approach from anything goes, to a mentality of: if I don’t have to go outside the wire, why should I. They volunteer for jobs to get them out of being assigned for missions that go out as often as others do.
(Where the heck did this come from?)
I started to write this just before I was on my last guard cycle almost 4 weeks ago. I don’t know what I was trying to relay. I guess I was “venting” for myself to understand why I was having to counsel so many soldiers at that time. The rumor mill was churning, the length of time here was becoming a burden and some young soldiers were starting to make lifetime decisions. The length of time from my last post until now is a reflection of stressors in my own life here, too. I was at a crossroads with my bloging and feelings about this deployment that I hopefully have negotiated and should really have no bearing on my blog.