Opaque Lucidity

The Road Less Taken

I mentioned some time ago that a friend of ours was soon to deploy overseas as a civilian working closely with Army and Marine Corps combat units in the field. Now, that time is upon us---she will leave in the next 10 days. Although she is a civilian, the work she will be doing is dangerous because it requires her to be near the places where our military interacts with local populations, the very areas that terrorists use to ply their trade. I have little doubt of her safe return, but her trip will certainly not be a vacation.

Once again, the old feeling creeps in. It has been with me for almost six years now. It's the weird feeling that comes with the knowledge that a war is being fought and I am sitting here in an air-conditioned office in flyover country that might as well be on another planet. Had the attacks in 2001 taken place on 9/11/1991, I would've been in the middle of the conflagration; as it is, the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is little more than background noise, like two people talking in cubicle a little too far away.

Of course, I am possibly the world's least-ready person with regard to the physical demands of military service. But if my employer were to suddenly ask me to go to one of these places, would I be eager to go? Not at all. Would I go? You bet.