I wrote this about this time last year when I was in Iraq. I am quite sure it is the best piece of literature that has ever spewed from my fingers, and I want to share it with the Hide. Enjoy
"Yeah, I'd hit that" is a quote uttered by guys all over the world, and it is one that is said by deployed military guys on more occasions than it should be. When one says it, they are letting their friends know, or just keeping for their own records, that the person that it was directed towards definitely meets all the criteria for certain deeds that want to be done. Under normal circumstances, it is a way of setting a standard for yourself and then adhering to it, but lately for us deployed guys, we have unconsciously started inflicting pain on ourselves and to those around us that may hear it.
In Iraq, there is a major lack of good American girls, or any other girls, to ogle at, both on and off the FOB, and recently it has been taking its toll on us guys who are fighting this war. It took me a long time to finally realize what was happening because at my FOB, there are fewer girls than anyone has fingers or toes. Since attending a class at Warhorse, I have been subjected to a greater amount of girls ranging from those regular Army ones to those Air Force girls we wish we had, and then all the way to the contracted civilian girls who just love attention. Today at chow, I had an epiphany on what really happens when one thinks, “Yeah, I’d hit that,” and then the slow realization of the comparison you just made. I am one who can attest to this saddening event taking place over here because I am a victim and have a similar story to the one about to be told.
I was sitting in the Louis Armstrong Cafe at the FOB Warhorse chow hall eating my wonderful lunch of spaghetti and some potatoes. Being in a decent mood, my eyes were wondering the room like they normally do while slowly chewing on food I would not feed to my dog. I then see a civilian girl walk in (these are the highest on the rating scale), and I think to myself, "ah she really just doesn't do it for me," but then I look at the table across from me, and I see a young lieutenant simply staring at this, not unattractive, but out of her prime and a little into the older part of her life, woman, and the look on his face is "yeah, I'd hit it." His two friends at the table continue the table continue their conversation and are completely oblivious to their friend who is about to come to a terrible conclusion about his current situation. He watches this lady sit down at the table that I am sitting at, but she places herself further down the table with a group of other contractors and quickly becomes enveloped in the conversation already at hand. Remembering that I had chosen not to bless her with the sacred line of "yeah, I'd hit it," I slowly glance back to our new, young lieutenant who decided to put her into the "yeah, I'd hit it" book, and now he is taking a last, lingering look at her now that he can see her "other end." Very few moments pass until he joins the club that so many before him have already enlisted ourselves in.
After our young friend enjoys a few last seconds of her image on his eyes, he glances at his two friends who still paid no attention to the woman who just, as he thought, glided by as though on a cloud carried by angels. As he wonders why his friends paid her no thought, an unimaginable thought pops into his head, and he slowly glances back up at his angel. It then dawns on him that the girl he just placed on the I'd Hit It list was one that he would normally not pencil into that section of his mind. He then looks back at his friends, still chatting, looks down at his food, and then he sighs a long and homesick sigh. He realizes then that thirteen months into a fifteen month deployment is a time where you are truly at a low point in your life. But the main point is that his outlook, thoughts, rating scale, and simply his standards are almost completely erased from this earth we walk. He has now been inducted into the brotherhood of those, who almost in the same manner, became scared and thought the same thoughts that are running through his head right now. Now I don't mean to say that just young lady was ugly, smelly, or in any way offensive. I am simply saying that she was not, well for those in my unit, rated as highly as those girls we would see back in Germany, Europe, or America. The slow realization that we are losing our sanity and missing everything about home really hits hard right before the end.
Even though this is a very rough patch for someone who has just experience this “epiphany,” there is still a glimmer of hope when all seems lost. This young lieutenant will hopefully soon remember that since this is a rough time in the deployment, thirteen months out of fifteen months, a simple mathematical equation really helps. Yes after all the brainstorming and pots of coffee to figure this equation out, hope is only two months away until we shall return to the land where beer flows through us like water in a river and the ladies never bring any money with them, not even money for the cab, because they know some fine gentleman will be suckered into buying them drinks all night. Oh yes, salvation is near. Until then we will continue as always, but in no way is this unworthy or lessened, by calling those we love and hearing their amazing and healing voices, by a quick but easy stalker session of facebook, or a short conversation with a female, regardless of where she lies in the scheme of “Yeah, I’d hit that.”
"Yeah, I'd hit that" is a quote uttered by guys all over the world, and it is one that is said by deployed military guys on more occasions than it should be. When one says it, they are letting their friends know, or just keeping for their own records, that the person that it was directed towards definitely meets all the criteria for certain deeds that want to be done. Under normal circumstances, it is a way of setting a standard for yourself and then adhering to it, but lately for us deployed guys, we have unconsciously started inflicting pain on ourselves and to those around us that may hear it.
In Iraq, there is a major lack of good American girls, or any other girls, to ogle at, both on and off the FOB, and recently it has been taking its toll on us guys who are fighting this war. It took me a long time to finally realize what was happening because at my FOB, there are fewer girls than anyone has fingers or toes. Since attending a class at Warhorse, I have been subjected to a greater amount of girls ranging from those regular Army ones to those Air Force girls we wish we had, and then all the way to the contracted civilian girls who just love attention. Today at chow, I had an epiphany on what really happens when one thinks, “Yeah, I’d hit that,” and then the slow realization of the comparison you just made. I am one who can attest to this saddening event taking place over here because I am a victim and have a similar story to the one about to be told.
I was sitting in the Louis Armstrong Cafe at the FOB Warhorse chow hall eating my wonderful lunch of spaghetti and some potatoes. Being in a decent mood, my eyes were wondering the room like they normally do while slowly chewing on food I would not feed to my dog. I then see a civilian girl walk in (these are the highest on the rating scale), and I think to myself, "ah she really just doesn't do it for me," but then I look at the table across from me, and I see a young lieutenant simply staring at this, not unattractive, but out of her prime and a little into the older part of her life, woman, and the look on his face is "yeah, I'd hit it." His two friends at the table continue the table continue their conversation and are completely oblivious to their friend who is about to come to a terrible conclusion about his current situation. He watches this lady sit down at the table that I am sitting at, but she places herself further down the table with a group of other contractors and quickly becomes enveloped in the conversation already at hand. Remembering that I had chosen not to bless her with the sacred line of "yeah, I'd hit it," I slowly glance back to our new, young lieutenant who decided to put her into the "yeah, I'd hit it" book, and now he is taking a last, lingering look at her now that he can see her "other end." Very few moments pass until he joins the club that so many before him have already enlisted ourselves in.
After our young friend enjoys a few last seconds of her image on his eyes, he glances at his two friends who still paid no attention to the woman who just, as he thought, glided by as though on a cloud carried by angels. As he wonders why his friends paid her no thought, an unimaginable thought pops into his head, and he slowly glances back up at his angel. It then dawns on him that the girl he just placed on the I'd Hit It list was one that he would normally not pencil into that section of his mind. He then looks back at his friends, still chatting, looks down at his food, and then he sighs a long and homesick sigh. He realizes then that thirteen months into a fifteen month deployment is a time where you are truly at a low point in your life. But the main point is that his outlook, thoughts, rating scale, and simply his standards are almost completely erased from this earth we walk. He has now been inducted into the brotherhood of those, who almost in the same manner, became scared and thought the same thoughts that are running through his head right now. Now I don't mean to say that just young lady was ugly, smelly, or in any way offensive. I am simply saying that she was not, well for those in my unit, rated as highly as those girls we would see back in Germany, Europe, or America. The slow realization that we are losing our sanity and missing everything about home really hits hard right before the end.
Even though this is a very rough patch for someone who has just experience this “epiphany,” there is still a glimmer of hope when all seems lost. This young lieutenant will hopefully soon remember that since this is a rough time in the deployment, thirteen months out of fifteen months, a simple mathematical equation really helps. Yes after all the brainstorming and pots of coffee to figure this equation out, hope is only two months away until we shall return to the land where beer flows through us like water in a river and the ladies never bring any money with them, not even money for the cab, because they know some fine gentleman will be suckered into buying them drinks all night. Oh yes, salvation is near. Until then we will continue as always, but in no way is this unworthy or lessened, by calling those we love and hearing their amazing and healing voices, by a quick but easy stalker session of facebook, or a short conversation with a female, regardless of where she lies in the scheme of “Yeah, I’d hit that.”
