F
Field Ethos
Guest
By Will Dabbs, MD
Soldiering is a pretty weird job if you think about it. Shoot guns at people back here in the World, and they’ll rightfully put you in jail forever. Do that same thing in some Middle Eastern rathole while wearing a uniform, and you’re some sort of hero. It’s philosophically dichotomous, to say the least. However, soldiers often have surprisingly soft hearts.
It was the era before cell phones, and we were in the field. There was a huge fake war going on, and things were pretty nuts. I was the ops guy in the TOC (Tactical Operations Center) alongside a dozen or so other professional soldiers. We were nominally running everything.
The radios were routed through speakers so that everybody in the TOC could keep track of everything that was going on. Helicopters were launching, artillery was going off in the distance, and there were rumors of enemy sappers in the wire. It was all marginally-controlled chaos.
Back then if you had a family emergency, your spouse could call the post switchboard and they would patch you through to the field via the tactical radio net. However, as you might imagine, you didn’t do that to remind your husband to pick up a gallon of milk on the way home. If somebody’s wife was up on the tactical push, that meant somebody back home had legit died. Little else would justify the interruption.
A combat unit is a profane, dysfunctional family. We willingly put our lives in one another’s hands most every day at work. As a result, the relationships that developed were pretty powerful. When one of us hurt, we all hurt.
My buddy Dave was married to Lisa. For whatever reason, Dave and Lisa couldn’t have kids. They had been with the unit less than a year, but they had fully assimilated. When the net control guy came up saying he had a priority message from Dave’s wife, our collective blood ran cold. Such stuff was invariably bad.
To make things worse, there simply was no privacy. Everything came through these big honking speakers. For better or for worse, when Dave got this news it was going to be public.
We collectively held our breath as the net control guy patched Lisa through. She had obviously been crying. I put my hand on Dave’s shoulder. He needed to know he wasn’t going to go through this alone. Between sobs, she said, “Dave, we got a baby…”
When my wife and I hit our tenth anniversary, we were on our tenth address. The Army moves you all the blasted time. This intrinsic lack of stability was one of the reasons the Big Green Machine and I amicably parted company.
Dave and Lisa had come from a stateside duty station in CONUS. They had been trying to adopt for some while but never remained in one place long enough to complete the process. In this case, the adoption agency from their previous state had caught up with Lisa and given her the good news. We all got to hear it just as Dave did. He was rendered quite very speechless.
For a moment, you could have heard a pin drop. Then the entire TOC came unglued. All thought of the fake war swirling outside was forgotten. Everybody slapped Dave on the back while offering exuberant congratulations. In fact, there weren’t many dry eyes among those accumulated killers, mine included.
When we got back home, Dave and Lisa went from zero to 60 instantaneously. They had to jump on a plane immediately and head back to the World to pick up their new kid. They didn’t have anything they needed to be parents. They had not had opportunity to accumulate it. However, I mentioned that a combat unit is a big, weird family.
When they got back home, their house was miraculously equipped with a bassinette, a diaper genie, a Pack-n-Play, and all of the sundry crap that modern infants need to thrive. They had a buttload of diapers and formula enough to support a fire team’s worth of babies. They also had a core of about 40 experienced professional moms from the spouse support group ready to pitch in, offer advice, and make stuff happen.
Military service is about killing people and breaking things. That’s honestly what draws most of us to it. However, it’s also about hugging your buddy with tears running down your face when he finds out he is unexpectedly going to be a Dad. Best job I ever had…
The post Answering the Call appeared first on Field Ethos.
Continue reading...
Soldiering is a pretty weird job if you think about it. Shoot guns at people back here in the World, and they’ll rightfully put you in jail forever. Do that same thing in some Middle Eastern rathole while wearing a uniform, and you’re some sort of hero. It’s philosophically dichotomous, to say the least. However, soldiers often have surprisingly soft hearts.
The Setting
It was the era before cell phones, and we were in the field. There was a huge fake war going on, and things were pretty nuts. I was the ops guy in the TOC (Tactical Operations Center) alongside a dozen or so other professional soldiers. We were nominally running everything.
The radios were routed through speakers so that everybody in the TOC could keep track of everything that was going on. Helicopters were launching, artillery was going off in the distance, and there were rumors of enemy sappers in the wire. It was all marginally-controlled chaos.
Back then if you had a family emergency, your spouse could call the post switchboard and they would patch you through to the field via the tactical radio net. However, as you might imagine, you didn’t do that to remind your husband to pick up a gallon of milk on the way home. If somebody’s wife was up on the tactical push, that meant somebody back home had legit died. Little else would justify the interruption.
The Players
A combat unit is a profane, dysfunctional family. We willingly put our lives in one another’s hands most every day at work. As a result, the relationships that developed were pretty powerful. When one of us hurt, we all hurt.
My buddy Dave was married to Lisa. For whatever reason, Dave and Lisa couldn’t have kids. They had been with the unit less than a year, but they had fully assimilated. When the net control guy came up saying he had a priority message from Dave’s wife, our collective blood ran cold. Such stuff was invariably bad.
To make things worse, there simply was no privacy. Everything came through these big honking speakers. For better or for worse, when Dave got this news it was going to be public.
The Announcement
We collectively held our breath as the net control guy patched Lisa through. She had obviously been crying. I put my hand on Dave’s shoulder. He needed to know he wasn’t going to go through this alone. Between sobs, she said, “Dave, we got a baby…”
When my wife and I hit our tenth anniversary, we were on our tenth address. The Army moves you all the blasted time. This intrinsic lack of stability was one of the reasons the Big Green Machine and I amicably parted company.
Dave and Lisa had come from a stateside duty station in CONUS. They had been trying to adopt for some while but never remained in one place long enough to complete the process. In this case, the adoption agency from their previous state had caught up with Lisa and given her the good news. We all got to hear it just as Dave did. He was rendered quite very speechless.
For a moment, you could have heard a pin drop. Then the entire TOC came unglued. All thought of the fake war swirling outside was forgotten. Everybody slapped Dave on the back while offering exuberant congratulations. In fact, there weren’t many dry eyes among those accumulated killers, mine included.
Maximum Overdrive
When we got back home, Dave and Lisa went from zero to 60 instantaneously. They had to jump on a plane immediately and head back to the World to pick up their new kid. They didn’t have anything they needed to be parents. They had not had opportunity to accumulate it. However, I mentioned that a combat unit is a big, weird family.
When they got back home, their house was miraculously equipped with a bassinette, a diaper genie, a Pack-n-Play, and all of the sundry crap that modern infants need to thrive. They had a buttload of diapers and formula enough to support a fire team’s worth of babies. They also had a core of about 40 experienced professional moms from the spouse support group ready to pitch in, offer advice, and make stuff happen.
Military service is about killing people and breaking things. That’s honestly what draws most of us to it. However, it’s also about hugging your buddy with tears running down your face when he finds out he is unexpectedly going to be a Dad. Best job I ever had…
The post Answering the Call appeared first on Field Ethos.
Continue reading...