Afghanistan VOL2_2018. (Disclaimer: Because of of the safety and sensitivities during this deployment, I will not be divulging my exact location or my mission. Nothing spooky, but because there are fewer American's deployed into the Afghan Theater than in 2013, the threat to life and limb is greater. Please do not ask me questions in relation to those issues I require to keep to myself. What I can tell you is that I am safe behind thousands of pounds of concrete somewhere on Bagram Air Force Base.)
The military trained me. They reminded me how to fire and move and threshold brake. They showed me CQB and other battle drills and how to get off the X. They drilled into me first aid, the proper uses of tourniquets, and how to deal with the heightened anxiety of mass casualty events. They even asked me if I was ready and I said yes.
But was I?
I'm a true believer in the power of fiction. I'd downloaded a book (The Hearts of Man by Nickolas Butler) a few weeks before I left and was going to read it on the airplane over the thirty hours of my trip to help me prepare for what I was going to do and who I was going to be in Afghanistan. And I did. Starting with the first flight, I began reading and didn't finish the book until I was well over Afghanistan, giving me just enough time to digest the experience before we landed.
I've only been here 44 hours, but I've already worked 30 of them, so forgive me for using the cover copy to describe the book:
Camp Chippewa, 1962. Nelson Doughty, age thirteen, social outcast and overachiever, is
the Bugler, sounding the reveille proudly each morning. Yet this particular summer marks the beginning of an uncertain and tenuous friendship with a popular boy named Jonathan.
Over the years, Nelson, irrevocably scarred from the Vietnam War, becomes Scoutmaster of Camp Chippewa, while Jonathan marries, divorces, and turns his father’s business into a highly profitable company. And when something unthinkable happens at a camp get-together with Nelson as Scoutmaster and Jonathan’s teenage grandson and daughter-in-law as campers, the aftermath demonstrates the depths—and the limits—of Nelson’s selflessness and bravery.
The Hearts of Men is a sweeping, panoramic novel about the slippery definitions of good and evil, family and fidelity, the challenges and rewards of lifelong friendships, the bounds of morality—and redemption.
The Hearts of Men is a grand novel, well-chosen for its purpose. It's a story about a changing time, when the idea of being a Boy Scout is becoming less and less significant. It's about ethics and what to do in bad situations. It sometimes painfully puts its characters in too real places that make you want to stop reading, but just as the characters are performing for you, out of respect, you have to stay through their performance.
It's a book about the complexity of always trying to do the right thing.
I cherished this book and it indeed prepared me for Afghanistan. I feel it in my chest. I feel it in my head. I was once a Boy Scout. I made it to Life. My father was an Eagle Scout and was a scoutmaster. Both of these things prepared us in our lives. A little reminder helped rekindle those memories and reminded my that being Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent were things to which we should all attain, despite those around us who would devalue these traits.
Finally, its about being your own man and accepting yourself for who you are.
Yes, this is a book for me. It's a book for war. It's a book for Afghanistan.
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