Aug. 6th, 2007

aadler: (surf)
 
When I was In Iraq — because I had arrived with the invasion force, and we were just getting things set up — telephone contact with my family was next to impossible. I phoned home once, when I had brief access to a satellite phone; most of my contact was by letter and (less frequently) e-mail.

Afghanistan worked out a lot better. By the time I got there, we’d been in the country more than three years already, so the military infrastructure was a lot better settled in. You might have to wait in line for your turn at a phone, but the phones were there and they were free. The limiting factor then was the nine-hour time difference between my location and that of the place I was calling. I had to choose my time window carefully. Nonetheless, I made regular calls, and that reinforced the contact between me and my ex-wife that would eventually lead to reconciliation.

Here at Guantanamo, I have a phone in my room. The rec facilities have machines that sell calling cards, and mainland calls run 9¢ a minute. Furthermore, when my daughter finished her Far East tour and returned home for a month, Susan gave her a cell phone so we’d have regular contact with her during the final year of her commitment to the ministry group (to be spent, we’ve now learned, on the East Coast, mainly New York). So, I call every week: Susan on Saturday, because it’s her only full day off, and Roni on Sunday, for the same reason. I go through two $20 calling cards per month, and it’s well worth it.

This week, for some reason, I wasn’t able to reach my daughter. I don’t know why, she just didn’t answer her phone. Maybe she had it packed, maybe she lost her battery charger again. All that matters to me is that I missed my time with my girl.

At this point, it appears that I’ll be ending my duty tour here sometime between mid-September and mid-October. I hope the latter date; I’m working on some things, and that would give me more time to complete them. Either way, I need to begin winding up my business here.

No idea when my unit will deploy again. That bothers me a little. If we’ll be going out sometime next year, well and good. If not, the freeze on individual deployments will mean I have to wait around until the larger Army decides it’s ready to use us. I don’t want to wait two years between tours; six or eight months is plenty of time, at least for my own purposes and preferences.

Maybe I’ll transfer out of the Reserve, go straight into active-duty Army. Probably not. But it’s a thought.