A Lady

Most people don't know that on base there are many foreign non-military workers. These people are hired to do a number of duties around post: clean bathrooms, cook, work as food vendors, take out the trash, etc. They don't make very much money, and so the military scoops them up to work for us. For example, a cook in the DFAC (dining facility) makes approx. $150 per month. I can only imagine how much the men who drive around emptying and cleaning the porta potties around post make.
As a soldier I see hundreds of these people everyday and I have become accustomed to 'not seeing them', if you will. It is almost as if they don't exist to us. We don't speak the same language, have the same customs, or even the same body language. They are there to work, and so are we. We go about our lives living together but never meshing, except for a few instances when I remember that they are human beings and they have the same human tendencies that we all do. Tonight, I saw a lady in the bathroom. She was getting ready to clean. I'm not sure where she was from, she had a beautiful dark blue dress decorated in lighter blue print on with a matching head scarf. She had a gold stud in her nose and she was brown. I don't know if she was from Kuwait or a different country only here to work. She had a nice smile. As I was getting ready to wash my face, she walked over to the sink with what looked like a container and looked over at me with a big smile and said something to me that I didn't understand. I just looked at her, with an expression that conveyed obvious confusion. She said again, and again, until I understood....she was trying to tell me how great it was to turn on the water and have it be hot. 'Hot, hot, water, hot' and a smile. What a great moment. I am amazed how much we take for granted. Praise God for that small moment that let me appreciate every miraculous detail of my life.

Christmas in the Desert.

Most of the people reading this are sitting at home on a lovely Sunday afternoon sipping some sort of calming beverage while enjoying the day. Maybe it's even snowing. Or at least that's the happy picture I paint myself as I get ready to go to sleep out here in the desert. I miss my family so bad right now. It occurred to me today that this is the first Christmas season that I have not been at home. Like, home-home, with my family. It also occurred to me that home is the only place I want to be right now and I cannot be there. It's so frustrating to me.
So instead, I focus on the memories. Last year me and my sister went to target and bought footie pajamas and had mom-mom drive us to the mall to take pictures with Santa. We also made a generous amount of Oreo truffles that we insisted on calling Oreo balls, and then decorated the tree's outside with big colorful over sized mirror balls in addition to putting out the broken lighted up deer. Those poor deer kept falling down all Christmas! We drove around the neighborhood looking at all the decorated houses and then at some point....or many different points we always watch Elf. It's almost a tradition. My brother and I took off to the park last year and went sledding, then mom-mom went and bought us a cool snow board....that I don't think I ever got on :( Maybe next year. On the sledding trip...for some reason...we decided to take all three dogs. Bad idea!! :) We ended up taking them back. I also remember a cookie baking incident where we named a cookie and proceeded to write the name, in icing, on the cookie sheet BEFORE we put him in the oven. I'm pretty sure the name is burnt onto the cookie sheet to this day. Oops! :) Last year was also the year that John and Cindy got their first cell phones and sent out their first text messages!! How exciting!!
Basic idea for the night is: I want to go home. I sense that this is a bad feeling to have, being as I have only been here two weeks now.
More on this later. I have to be at the motor pool by 0700 to get our trucks ready. Yippee! (and it is almost 11 pm here.)
Goodnight! I miss you all, I can guarantee you that!

Just an update.

I thought I should write a little, but it won't be as good. Just a little update for all y'all because I had such a good day. I felt motivated the past few days. I have been moved in for almost a week, I have gotten my bunk set up (for the most part) and feel somewhat settled. I don't really, but I know that I am out of transition mode for at least 10 months. Which, after moving around to a different home each month, feels pretty darn good. This place is different. I don't like it. I would honestly rather be up north in Iraq...but it is what it is. *famous military saying.
Today was an amazing day. It was my first day 'off' in a long while. Now, let me tell you about my 'day off.' Sigh....I am getting upset just thinking about it:
I'm going to shorten it up because it is 0000 here and I have a 5K run in 6 hours.
It is Sunday...well now technically monday...but roll with me here. We had a company wide weigh in (in which I was 5 lbs overweight! augh!) and then the whole company had the day off. First Sergeant said the next formation was 0800 Monday morning. Sweet!! Well, then our LT decided that he wanted all of 1st platoon trucks in numerical order....today. It couldn't wait one day until we had really nothing to do. We were all pissed.
Well, he told us this last night after formation..so me, being the little miss future LT that I am went down the line and wrote down a map of our truck line (how many trucks, and what order they were in) so as to set up an order of march for the next day to limit the amount of time we would be in the motor pool. I took said map and put each in numerical order on a new sheet as a future map. Found out which trucks were hooked up to the wrong trailers and how we should unhook them and hook them up to the right ones. Which trucks we were missing for maintenance, or other such reasons.....and came out with a pretty slick looking set up for the next day. I stayed up late doing so. We ended up starting to move the trucks at 1030 and finished by 1230 (I honestly think I shortened the chaos by 1/2 just by putting forth a little extra time and effort). In addition, I was running around telling people what to do....which felt pretty good because no one else was taking charge. I felt like I made a good impression of my leadership skills and showed that I am not afraid to work and get dirty. I was literally running:
Clare's Papa taught me while working on the farm....never walk when you can run and get something done faster. I feel like I earned respect from a lot of the guys out there today, and maybe I even impressed my Platoon Sergeant. Who knows. But we were done early, went to lunch and had the rest of the day off with the whole remainder of the company. I took a shower after chow and rested for a bit, then my friends invited me to go to zone 1 with them to hang out. We ended up spending the whole day there shopping at the little hadji vendors they have there and watching a movie at the MWR (morale, welfare, recreation) building and playing spades with this random guy at 'oldies' night. It was a pretty good day.

Oh, and I lost my sunglasses and then found them! They're like 200 something dollar pair of perscription oakley's....I was so upset, and then so happy in a period of like 10 minutes when I realized they were lost ;-) i'm so ADD sometimes!!


I am really missing Christmas this year, I realized it when I was in the PX (Post eXchange, like walmart) and they were playing Christmas music. I went ahead and bought a green garland with fake snow on it to decorate the B's (barracks or billets).
I love you all and can't wait to come home!!
Write me! :)

SPC KEEHNER, TARA A
778 Trans HET Co, 1ST Platoon
APO, AE 09366

Lay over...

I am writing this at 0805 on Tuesday November 30^th (1605 in Baghdad). We have been in the air for hours and hours, have crossed the _____ ocean, eaten bad airplane food and have gotten horrible rest. My neck is stiff and hurting, my feet are swollen and I am tired. I honestly can’t wait until we land. We had a layover in Germany which was interesting to say the least. We landed around 0445 Indiana time and 1045 Germany time. I have no idea how long we were there, I would estimate an hour or so. When we arrived it was 22 F and snow covered the ground. We got off the plane and loaded these busses that took us to our ‘holding area.’ This consisted of a bunch of chairs, an eating area, computers with overpriced internet access, and a small gift shop full of over priced items complete with a German speaking employee. I took in my carry on bag and immediately went to the restroom to brush my teeth, wash my face, and reapply deodorant. Feeling fresh, I headed out to look around. I spent way too much money on gifts to send home to a few people…but I think they will enjoy them. After walking around the small condensed area full of soldiers headed all over the world, it was time to go. We, once again, boarded the plane and continued on our voyage to our final destination. I am now sitting on the plane watching Iron Man II after eating a delicious German made airplane meal. (it really was good) We are expected to land in the next few hours (whatever that means…) and we should start inprocessing. The good news is, since we will arrive before midnight on the 30^th of November, we will get all of our taxes back for that month! J Yippee!!

Again…I will post this as soon as I get internet access that doesn’t cost a gagillion dollars.

Take off…

So, my journey has begun. Officially. I can’t tell you how I expected my last day, at our MOB station. I thought—I’m going to call everyone and say a last goodbye. I’m going to text every contact in my phone and tell everyone how much I will miss them while I’m gone (and remind them to send me packages!) I’m going to be strong, and ready. I mean….we’ve been in training for the past two months. I should be ready, right?

Whew, I mean with the way my life has gone you would think that I know ALL about how differently things that are planned out in your head are from reality.

Reality left me in a place deep, deep inside trying to figure out what I wanted out of this deployment. I keep telling myself that I am going to grow on this deployment. Physically, mentally, emotionally, educationally, etc. I want to become a better person. I don’t want to focus, really, on anyone but myself. But the reality of things is that I am constantly surrounded by people. I have spent the past 2 months stateside finding a balance between realizing my goals and reality. I can’t tell you that I have found that balance, but I am working on it. My four day pass at home gave me some guidance and wisdom from my ‘family’ members. It left me with confidence that I am indeed a smart woman who has achieved much. (see last post) With all the things I have accomplished, I can conquer the world if I choose to. My worst downfall is my attitude :-/ oops.

It is hard for me to watch stupidity and go on about my day. I am getting better at realizing what is important and not. Whether something will directly effect me or not. And if it indeed does not affect me, then I have no business trying to rectify the situation.

Back to today. (29NOV and who knows when this will get posted as I have no idea when I will be able to get back online, so I am writing this on Word to transfer later) We had an early-ish formation, went about cleaning the barracks, and packing our last duffel bag to load onto the plane. My two most trusted friends and I went to Subway to have one last breakfast together in Indiana, then back to the barracks to sit around and wait. Pointless formations and standing around left us with plenty of time to carry out my plans of talking to my loved ones and texting to my little heart’s content. Instead, I just wasn’t in the mood to talk. I was enjoying the company of my friends’ from the other platoons. (yes, the people who I will be around for the next year…I don’t get it either, but it’s the past so…it happened) I did talk to my mom and texted my best friend all day in short increments. It just wasn’t what I expected. I didn’t feel like talking for some reason. Then at around 1600 when the busses pulled around the corner and the volunteers from the USO started to line the street we were going to leave on…I started a little anxiety attack. I mean, we really are leaving. This isn’t fake anymore. We aren’t just training. We are going overseas. Wow. Deep breath. Okay. I can do this.

It became a whole new animal. The realization should have hit me way before, but for some reason it didn’t. The little old ladies walked around handing us crosses, and little wooden nickels that we can trade in for beer when we get back, while giving us hugs telling us “ We’ll see you when you get home” This was such a nice gesture and all I could think about was ‘psch…this is NOT my home. I don’t know who lied to you’

So, away we went. We boarded the busses and waved to the 8-10 volunteers lined up on the street waving American flags thoughts racing in our minds. And you know what I thought about? Spain. For some reason all I could think about was my unsure trip to Spain that I want to take during my 2 week R&R. As we arrived at the international airport, I made sure to charge my phone and text/call as much as possible, but at this point there was not much time left. Next think I knew we were in line to board the plane about an hour earlier than scheduled and I was on the phone with my mom trying to get out a proper goodbye. What is that? How does one execute a proper goodbye?? Is there a class I should have taken to learn this skill?? I will never know. As I did say goodbye, I informed her that I have no idea when I will be able to talk to her again. I know that it will happen, but I suspect that it will be about a week until I will have the means to contact her.

Thankfully I am sitting by my two battle buddies & we are having a ‘good time’ ;-) ….or as good of a time as you can have on a 20+ hour flight to a foreign country we are at war with. We are stopping in Germany, and are only on our first leg of the trip. Right now it is 2345 and I am finding it almost impossible to sleep for some reason. But, I’ll make it! The flight attendants are playing movie after movie, Inception, Sherlock Holmes while serving below par chicken and beef warmed up in a microwave….they’re trying. Between movies they show our time, the time it is where we will land, our flight speed and temperature outside. It’s about 5:45am in Germany, we are going about 1045 mph and it is about -65 F outside the plane right now.

I’m going to make it. I can do this. Just pray for me. Send me letters. Send me packages. Get on Skykpe and talk to me sometime. Pray that I keep my goals in my heart and that I don’t forget them for any stupid reason, like losing patience. Pray that I keep my patience.