Where Has The Time Gone and Where Is It Going?
Twenty-eight years in the Army. Five continents, twenty-three moves, travel or work in thirty-some countries, hundreds of friends and thousands of experiences. Learned eight or more languages, earned three graduate degrees, have a bucket-load of ribbons and medals. Dozens of separations and deployments and exercises and operations. Been held at gun point three times, kept in a foreign prison (briefly) once and toured foreign prisons multiple times. Been hauled up the side of a mountain on a rope and pushed out of an airplane at altitude. I’ve trekked in the High Himalayas, walked across the highest motorable road in the world, lived through dengue fever and dysentery and worse. Ridden elephants, camels, horses, donkeys and oxen. Flown in gliders and single props and massive C-17s in combat zones. Cleaned up suspected anthrax, and worked in and around wars, tsunamis, hurricanes, insurgencies, acts of terrorism and foreign internal violence. In 110 ten more days I get to see how the rest of the world has been doing it all these years. I think I might be more nervous about the future than I have been in the past…
January 9th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
My mind still boggles at that wealth of experiences. I can’t wait to see what you do next.
January 10th, 2008 at 10:18 am
kept in a foreign prison (briefly) once
Do expand on this, if you can…
January 10th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Looooong story. Probably a weekend Blog. I will tell you it involved an Indian woman and her bleeding child, an Indian Army infantry platoon, an irate father-in-law, a Toyota Landcruiser, a Police Captain…and a picture of my son. Remind me later…
January 12th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Oh, with that sort of lead in, I will.
January 13th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
The future on the outside is not so bad. The good part is that you get to make your own decisions. No one will send you to any of those places, nor will you face any of those conditions, unless you choose to do so. The bad part is, you make your own decisions, which requires you to think about what you WANT to do. This is not something that we are generally asked, but it is important. If you don’t consider this you may find yourself doing something that you can do that pays well enough, but isn’t satisfying all of your goals or moving you in the direction you want. Wait, is this supposed to be autobiographical?
Cathy is going through somewhat the same thing now that she is through school, and I am just having a mid-life event. With a beautiful wife and great kids, I naturally have to focus on work.
Maybe when I am up there next weekend we can all get together and define what we are looking for.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:35 am
What happened to being President? I have been waiting all these years to run your campaign.
January 15th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
One thing at a time. I have to retire first. Get my life in order. Win a few personal battles. THEN I can think about doing fun stuff like running for President. Wait a minute….have you been WATCHING the election? You want ME to get involved in THAT?
January 17th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Can I be head of security and personal intervention? :->
And maybe fight as your proxy in Atlantian Crown? I soooooo want to see the Secret Service shield wall at Pennsic.
January 17th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
You mean you aren’t head of my personal security? Who is watching my back?
January 17th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
I am head of security when I am there. After all, I am the violence inherent in th system. I just wanted to make it official. And add the personal intervention bit, because it sounds cool.
January 20th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I can tell you… outside isn’t much fun… you don’t get to blow s**t up anymore… errr…. at least not as often… I am very interested in hearing the prison story though…
February 21st, 2008 at 2:18 pm
I was amusing myself, seeing what google ads feels fits blog entries. It seems that google ads thinks that one reponse to your life is to panic.
February 21st, 2008 at 4:07 pm
This can be a very entertaining game to play. Since I use gmail I particularly love to see which ads get lined up next to which emails.