Groundhogs Day...

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The phrase “Groundhogs Day” has turned into military slang for any day during a tour of duty in a far away combat zone. The common reference is that all days are usually filled with unpleasant situations that continually repeat themselves day after day after day. As soldiers we tend to measure our time while deployed by many forms of milestones. First day of deployment, days until we get to go home, birthdays, hours until your R&R leave takes effect, and if things get real monotonous some even count time by how many meals we have left until the end of the week.

So as I walk around Camp Bondsteel I hear soldier after soldier respond to my simple question, “How ya doing today?” with answers like… “Just another day in paradise” or “You know, same stuff just a different day”, but most commonly they refer to the day as “Groundhogs Day”. Honestly, I have been trying to stay as positive as possible throughout all these blogs and also in my everyday interaction with soldiers and the many civilians over here. But I suppose that secretly even I can sometimes fall into the “Groundhogs Day” feel sorry for myself mode.

After all, I awake every morning to the blaring of reveille over the loud speakers that can be heard from miles away. Then I throw on my robe and stumble out my door only to find a snow covered deck which I must navigate in my flip flops to the jointly shared bathroom. If you can imagine snow between your toes and wind whistling around and through your robe, it’s just not always such a fun start to the day. But to be on the downhill slide of my forties and having to share a bathroom with everybody else is getting to be a real pain, that can just push a person over the edge.

I put on the same uniform every day. In fact, I am limited to exactly two types of clothing changes. My army duds and then my PT (physical training) uniform. To make things worse, I’m sure some civilian who has never run a mile in his life designed the PT uniform, because the shorts have never fit correctly and they sneak up when you run and then you spend most of your time pulling the legs of the shorts back down to where they belong, and then while you are focused on your shorts the long sleeve t-shirt cuts off the circulation around your wrists because it is so tight. With this PT uniform we have to wear a reflective belt on the outside, hung from the left shoulder across your chest down under your right arm. The reflective belt is supposed to keep us from getting run over by some rogue vehicle driver that somehow manages to sneak through all the protective concrete barriers, exceeding the 5 mph speed limit and then somehow can’t see everything else reflective glowing on you. Amazingly the military spent millions of dollars ensuring that all the wording and designs on the outside of the PT jacket are reflective, but apparently a $2.00 safety belt will do a better job than a $60.00 reflective jacket.

Many of us work out in the training room daily, many for something to do to pass the time and for people like me, a desperate attempt to dismiss some of the added waistline accessories that the endless amount of food and snacking has added to my daily load bearing maximums. And yes, somebody should put a weight limit on spandex. I can always tell how much extra I need to drop based on how long the rings from the elastic stay behind after one takes off the spandex shorts.

Then I head off to eat my first meal of the day. The classic cartoon jokes of camping trips eating beans all the time, could easily apply to us as well here at Camp Bondsteel. Although the cooks really try hard to bring variety to the meals, inevitably it seems that after a while you are being served the same food over and over again. I know that I have been here for some time now when the menu starts to become like clockwork. “Oh look its Monday, let me guess, they have lemon peppered cod or pork chops, with rice or scalloped potatoes, and carrots or broccoli.”, “Yea? How did you know?”, “Come on! For the last two months every Monday has had a lunch menu like that. The only difference has been whether the pork chops were the first or second meat choice.”

Don’t let me forget about the ice cream. Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and my Kosovo favorite…Cookies and Cream! Youza! I’m all about the dang ice cream, which of course leads me right back to the part about a weight limit to the spandex!

I suppose that if I looked at everything as the same day after day I would be missing out on so much more. Believe it or not, after I get the snow out from between my toes in the morning, I walk over to the edge of my deck and look at the beautiful mountain that adorns the landscape of Camp Bondsteel. It’s different every day. Some days the clouds hang around the bottom, there are times it is silhouetted by the shimmer of the sunrise and some days I can’t even see the peak at all.

I can change the flavor of my ice cream by simply adding chocolate syrup, and the meals can be varied slightly with just a touch of ketchup or by making a sandwich out of that pork chop. It’s not always the food that brings me to the dining facility… it is the company of soldiers. The conversations that happen, the people I meet and the acknowledgment of just seeing other people can be a comfort in knowing that I am not alone on this journey.

I find this place far from being “Groundhogs day”. Just yesterday I saw ice-cycles that were growing sideways instead of pointing down towards the ground. Now that’s different! I hope for every day to be like those ice-cycles. Different, yet familiar. We only get one shot at this deployment, and as much as I wish the days away so that the time passes quickly and I can return to my family and my familiar way of life, I want to remember and experience everything. The faces, the many conversations and the stories that each and every soldier here has shared with me. I want them to be different and I owe them the recognition that they are not just a face, not just a number, and not just any ordinary soldier that I meet every day.

A new smile, a happy hello, and a quick wave is all it takes to make my days not so groundhoggish. Thanks to all those extraordinary soldiers who make my days special and different on this Kosovo journey!

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