It is all relative!

If I were to wake from a dream this morning and look around me I would have wondered what had happened.  How did I sink this low?  Was I an alcoholic in recovery?  Maybe I was a drug addict on General Relief or worse…

I would go to the bathroom and see rust patches in the shower floor, the tile underfoot would be cheap and discolored grouted in gray cement with a relatively uneven floor in spots.  The heater seems to work, but the windows outside are filthy with mud streaks and there are bars over the windows.  The windows themselves have metal latches and metal frames with a 1950’s feel.  The wall s were painted a pale yellow (probably desert sand yellow) a while back, but there have been some major patch jobs which have been sanded smooth but left unprimed and unpainted.

The bed is a metal frame type with cheap wood metal headboard and on old saggy mattress.  The frame is broken in the middle and the piece meant to hold it up is not permanently attached.  Every time you turn over the bed shakes a little like it is going to break or is unsteady due to having too much to drink, but it is just a bed.

The room is dark and very quiet.  Then you realize where you are; Camp Taji, Iraq in what is affectionately called the Taj Mahal.  The center courtyard is about 18 x 35' and covered in various weeds and grass still green because of the recent rains.  The sidewalks around the interior are made of the same tile as in your room and they are all covered in dirty dust almost thick enough to leave tracks, but each time you walk through it the dust stirs up and spreads around.  The tile color is a multi-colored tile made from probably cement and rocks and then cut to form tile.  Or is it unpolished granite of some sort?  Naaaaaah.  Just tile that you couldn’t buy in California or Orange County because nobody would buy it because of the color: “permanently faded, discolored scratched looking with a permanent coat of dirt.” Men only think in 16 colors but any average woman knows the color I speak of (except in Iraq and you just say “that tile floor color” and then they nod knowingly and acknowledge “Yep; that is ugly!”

But instead I wake up and I am in Taji, Iraq.  I am staying at the “Taj Mahal” which is called that for a reason.  Reasons like I have my own bathroom.  I don’t have to walk seven steps or 50 meters to the shower or bathroom outside.  I can just shuffle to the toilet and shuffle back.  I am not outside; I don’t have to wear the army PT uniform as a minimum to go there.  I am not tempted to use a Gatorade bottle to urinate in at night (because when you get to 50 you sometimes need to go a little more often than before bed and after you wake up…)

Aside:  The people in charge of post are very upset that people (male Soldiers, I bet!) who are using Gatorade bottles or other bottles as a place to urinate and then place them empty or full in the trash can in the men’s latrine.  Maybe it is a hazard, maybe it stinks and maybe it is just disquieting.  But there is no maybe that they are NOT talking about me!

I have my own bed by myself.  I am not sharing my room at all.  The mattress is like the one at the Ritz.  The room is as quiet as the Marriott.  The room is private with relative protection from the wind and the sun.  My air conditioner is a split unit model so I can make it as cold as I want. 

If I was in a CHU I can’t put it below 19 degrees C or it will freeze the lines.  I am 100 yards from the chow hall, 50 meters from my office and 40 yards to the BDE TOC entrance and I am essentially in the middle.  If nature calls in the middle of the work day I can stroll home, take care of business and stroll back.  No porta-potties required and even our own toilet in the building (as nice as it is) can never compare to the one that only you can use day after day, use after use.

SGT Batter, the Colonel’s driver came to see me about getting some paint.  I couldn’t help him there exactly (he has to go through supply and THEY can ask us…procedures you know!) but I asked him how his room was. 

“Sir, I am stoked!  I am really stoked!  I never thought I would ever get to have my own room at my rank in Iraq.  And you know here I am at the Colonel’s hooch (actually the building next door, separated from everybody) and I am going to have my own room!  When I was here last time we stayed in these warehouses and had outdoor latrines and showers.  I am so stoked!” 

“Do you have your own bathroom?”

“Oh, no sir, we have to share but it is indoors and I only have to share it with Ramirez (instead of all the other males in the Aviation Brigade HQ who aren’t living at the Taj Mahal).  Sir, I am so stoked!”

“I am so stoked!” could very well qualify as the migratory phrase of the day today (a word phrase that is way overused for a day and then disappears.)   

As I write this I am just recovering from a horrific housing experience that I suffered yesterday.  But that is for tomorrow.  The key to remember is everything is relative.  I would rather be homeless (almost) than use a room like the one I am staying in back at the United States or good old Orange County.  

But here I realize I am a blessed man.  Life is sweet, God is good and I appreciate it all so much.  There is nothing but appreciation in my thoughts and joy in my heart.

What a blessing for me.  May God grant his blessings on you!

Blessings

John 1:16