Long Lost Friends

It’s really weird when I meet someone on this side of the world when I haven’t seen them in years. Today my team leader came knocking on my door telling me that the 1^st Sergeant wanted to see me. I didn’t know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. I couldn’t think of why he’d want to see me in his office. Just the sound of something like that doesn’t sound good. It could never be a good thing. The cool thing is the 1^st SGT is a pretty cool guy. I asked my team leader if he knew what it was about and he didn’t know.

So I went to the TOC and sitting there in his office was one of my buddies I haven’t seen in a long time. That’s what it was all about. He had come by the unit to see whom he could find. I heard he was on our camp when another one of the Joes in the unit spotted him. It’s been a long time no see. I’ve been meaning to e-mail the guy and ask how he’s doing too.

Well, we spoke for a while and I got to know what he’s doing over here. He got here in July and is based out of Kuwait. He drives all the way up to Tikrit from time to time. He stops on one of the camps nearby too. We were trying to figure out where other guys we knew were. Most of the guys he knows from Arizona are here with me. That’s because he was in this unit. He didn’t see some of the guys he knew because of the fact that some of us are in Ramadi.

I took him out to dinner at Burger King and gave him a ride back to his camp where he’s staying, about a 25-minute drive from here. I had the opportunity to see another guy I haven’t seen in a long time. He’s doing fine too. All I could say is that we really lucked out with our mission here. We could be living like them, transients. He goes from camp to camp and really doesn’t have a home to go to. There home is a transient tent, like the one I sleep in at Ramadi. It was just a big tent filled with cots where a group of up to 14 guys share living space. That’s his life and that’s how he lives.