Nice Digs!

Nice digs.  Maybe I should say it sure beats where I was on night one.  North Fort Hood is a former Nazi Prisoner of War camp that stayed a part of Ft. Hood after the war (World War Two, for readers younger than 22).  There is little that remains of the original residents, but fortunately they rebuilt the fence (although they probably never needed one).  It is after all the middle of Texas.  3 miles from Gatesville to the west, Ft. Hood 30 miles to the South and Nowheresville is actually an abandoned town on the camp itself.  So there is nowhere to go even if we could escape.  Welcome to my current world!

My first night was actually in a regular barracks that is made of cinder block and has about 40 bunk beds on a side with showers and shitters in the middle.  Not as bad as basic training or even the lovely garden spot of Camp Roberts California, just north of Paso Robles.  Camp Roberts is also fenced, but that is where they trained U.S. Soldiers for WWII and Korea and is still in use for California Guardsman.  Those billets are much worse but they have quaintness about them.  You know that Soldiers from 60 years ago showered in these exact same concrete floored and corrugated tin wall open showers.  North Fort Hood is newer.  They even painted them recently.  But that was my FIRST night.  My SECOND night was terrific.

Like I said:  Nice Digs!  Newly painted walls, my own room, a new heat pump (air conditioner and heater in one).  Sure my bed is a rusted gray metal bunk but the top bunk is missing.  The mattress is not too bad.  It isn’t Serta, a waterbed, sleep number or even a Dux.  But it sure beats a cot.

For a 50 year old Lieutenant Colonel with grown kids and a man used to some of the comforts of life I am overjoyed at just having some peace and quiet at night.  I brought my own linen and pillows because they seem to still issue the stuff from 50 years ago, but I can’t independently confirm that.  You have to gather the little comforts when you can.