Canada Day!

So, apparently our friendly neighbors to the north celebrate their national day about the same time we do. Who knew? I didn't. Apparently that's offensive or something. Anyhoo. It was a good as time as any for the Canadians to celebrate monthly "Beer call".

One day a month every Canadian soldier and civilian gets "exactly" two beers to consume as they see fit, i.e. at a designated time and place. It's a festive time to say the least. This year, they did up the common area, otherwise known as the 1 star Mexican, in full Canadian regalia. They even went so far as to forcibly apply Canadian tattoos to unsuspecting Americans. I got two. Pictures after the jump.

Confronting the past.

I officially left home when I was 17 years old. It wasn't an ideal situation. For all intents and purposes I was a high school drop out, I had no money, I had no job and worst of all, I had a pretty nappy fro. Seriously. It was pretty atrocious.

After drifting for a couple of days I met up with a guy who was more of a friend of a friend at the time. We'll call him C. C and I we were both in the preparatory program at our high school together and we both had done everything in our power to not avail ourselves of that opportunity. Even still, I wouldn't say that C and I were close at that time as we had come to know each other at a time when I was still struggling with who I was as a person, while C was always a popular, confident kid. Nevertheless we still had several mutual friends and maintained a cordial relationship at best.

Even still, C would invited me into his house where I ended up living for several months. I consider C one of my dearest friends today. His family didn't have a lot to go around. I slept on the floor under my jacket initially and under a sheet eventually. They still took me in like one of their own and I never forgot that. Today I meet people and half the time I'm convinced they want to talk to me because I have a good job or I work in an organization they want to know more about.

Back Then? LoL. Not quite. I had nothing to offer them. I could have died or ended up in prison and nobody would have batted an eyelash. It's not exactly newsworthy when a poor black kid falls through the cracks on the South side of Chicago. Yet, they still offered me a hand. That's some real shit.

Deployment Fro

It has become somewhat of a tradition for soldiers and those who work in places like Afghanistan and Iraq to grow out their beards while away from home. This phenomenon is affectionately referred to as the "Deployment Beard". It's a horrible tradition that often makes people look like mangy vikings after spending several months deployed. The bottom line is that there are only a select few people in this world who can pull off a beard effectively, and I am not one of them. 

When I try and grow out my beard I look like the combination of a 14 year old kid and someone whose face just got attacked with a weed whacker after spending several months in prison. It's pretty appalling. If only puberty hadn't left me behind. However, not wanting to miss an opportunity to make an ass out of my self for other people's amusement, I have embarked on an alternative course of action: The Deployment Fro. I may not be able to grow a beard but I can definitely grow a mean fro. I only hope that this trend becomes as pervasive as the deployment beard. I'll provide monthly updates on the progress of the deployment fro, with pictures! So, on that note: June 28th update: 

It never gets any easier.

I've been at the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team for three weeks and I just attended my third memorial service. On a day to day basis it's easy to forget that you're operating in a war zone, especially if you never leave the camp or live in a place like Kabul. You go about your day to day business and never really have a connection to the people who go outside the wire looking for trouble, so hopefully I and those back home won't have to. But it's hard to ignore it when the reminder is right there in front of you all of the time.

Every person on the camp shows up to these memorials. At the end, everybody except the Soldier's unit dispersed while the unit pays their respect to the deceased. Generally most people don't look back. Today I stayed behind for a bit to watch as the unit filed through to give their comrades one last salute. I don't know why I did. I guess it just seemed like the thing to do. Or maybe I was just a little lost in the moment; trying to comprehend what would it means to never come home. You'd think that I'd be used to this by now, but it never gets any easier.