A Quiet Night.
April 4th, 2008 by 1st Lt Prifogle
I’m sitting outside. It’s 0924 AM on my computer – California time. That means it’s 1924 (7:24 PM) here. I am sitting outside trying to get a connection to the wireless Internet. The cool air blows my hair in my face. I always let my hair down at night. Try to remember what it is like to be a woman. Two Marines or Soldiers (can’t tell in the dark) ride by on bikes.
“Hey are you going to call up and see if there’s mail?” I don’t hear a response over the generators in the back of the building. That is the soundtrack of the evening. I hear occasional footsteps of people coming and going out the gate and to the shower-house, but otherwise it’s a rather quiet out.
Quiet except, I am restless. A combination of loneliness, caffeine, exhaustion, sadness, adrenaline, sleep deprivation – all of it.
Another HMWVV pulls out to go on a convoy.
I remember that tomorrow is a memorial service for Major that was KIA. I remember in the calmness I am in a combat zone. This is easy to forget. Like all things daily chores become habits – clearing a weapon on the way into the chow hall, wearing a flak and Kevlar from the barracks to the office, running with a knife on me, practicing IDF (indirect fire) drills, all of it seems normal. Waking up in Iraq seems normal anymore.
More friends I have made out here are going home. This makes me sad. I am at the halfway point. This makes me sad. I can count down the days but I can’t count anything I feel I have done that will make a positive influence on anything. This makes me sad.
Another truck drives by and another. I wonder when my friend, Achilles, is going to stop by after chow. I don’t want him to know I’ve been crying, but I want a hug. I need to feel the warmth of another human being. Need to feel my own warmth against someone else.
I think this must be the breaking point. I have no emotions, but I can’t stop crying. I try to hide it because I’m a Marine. I should be tough. I don’t need to prove I’m tough to myself anymore – so I cry when nobody is looking. I can’t think of any one thing making me sad.
I have lived abroad before. I have been far away from everything familiar. In some ways being on an American base is more like being home then living abroad.
One of my Marines walk by, “Ma’am what are you doing outside?”
“Just enjoying the air and internet.”
“Oh, seems funny seeing you out here. We’re watching a movie if you want to join us.”
“Okay, I might. I’m just relaxing right now.”
He walks away. I am left alone again.
I don’t want to be here. I want to be as far away as I can possibly get from this place. This base. This desert. This building. This everything. I want to run until there is no desert left. No war. Nothing. I can’t think of anywhere I want to be though. I don’t want to be home. Don’t want to go to California. I don’t know what I want.
A group of Marines walk by. I count seven. I hear them before I see them. They don’t see me hiding in the dark. I watch as they walk in front of a floodlight on top of the barracks. Their bodies are silhouetted in the light. I can see the outlines of their rifles hanging from the sling on their body. I think again – you are in a combat zone. The temperature drops as another HMWVV drives by. The flood of emotions from the day wreck into my body and I think, you can probably fall asleep now.
Hi Libby. Just thinking of you, seeing you sitting there in the dark, the pain of separation and all you’re going through descending upon you. The dark night of the soul… My thoughts and prayers are with you.
love, Bernadette