World War Z

I'm currently stuck in a transient hell with people coming and going, waiting on flights to go somewhere, anywhere.  I observe people's expressions while they wait for transport out of this camp.  I know that look well as I've seen it too many times before.  I’ve often I've worn that look myself.  It's the weary and zoned out look of travelers who don't have the energy to interact.  In same cases it signifies someone who has no one to interact with.  In some of the worst cases, it's worn by those who’re hungry for interaction but still lack that capacity for interaction for one reason or another.

You'd think that in a combat zone full of tens of thousands of Service Members and contractors, one would never feel alone.  Quite the opposite.  We’ve been at war for ten years now and rarely does a unit deploy with all of its personnel organic to them.  Unit members are often cherry picked from other units and the IRR (Inactive Ready Reserve) in order to fill slots to make units full strength for deployment.  As National Guardsmen and Reservist, and Active Duty to some extent, we are ripped apart from our social support system outside of the Military and thrust into an impersonal world of mission accomplishment.  To make things worse, we immerse ourselves in our electronics, communication devices, or other social surrogate seeking to fill the void that this place, this experience, gives us all.

We do have the MWR (Morale, Welfare, and Recreation) and the USO (United Services Organization) to provide us entertainment whether through physical or mental stimulation.  Aside from the standard gym complete with cardio and weights, there are usually movies playing in a make shift theater of sorts.  We have access to Playstations, Xbox, and Wii stations to play together or alone.  We can check out DVDs to watch on individual TV viewing stations.  There are also Internet cafes and banks of phones to reach out and touch someone.  Although that usually does little to ease the pains of separation.

I’ve seen many a Soldier, Marine, etc cry while on the phone over here due to some out of control issue back home.  I‘ve been one of them myself in years past.  Occasionally the loneliness gets so bad or their problems seem so insurmountable that Service Members take their own life.  This should never happen, but all too often we don't catch the warning signs in time.

When not working, exercising, or eating, most go and immerse themselves in a brief fantasy world of escapism offered by the MWR if they don’t have a similar distraction back in their own living arrangements.  While I sat in the MWR today waiting on a 30 minute time slot for a computer in the Internet café, a group of four Soldiers came in and sat down to play a game of cards.  This struck me as funny because you really don't see that much anymore.  I realized later that they were probably career National Guardsmen or Reservists and were all probably in their 40s or later.  Even the coffee shop over here is full of people socializing through their laptop chat clients or Skype, if not just catching up on email or current events.  Not all that dissimilar from a Starbucks back home.

My point: loneliness in a crowd.  So here we wait, sometimes in groups and sometimes alone for our transportation out to destinations afar.  Everyone with that longing for the social interaction that we all need but have no way to really fulfill over here.  So maybe in the next world war we won't fight zombies as is popular culture today; it may be fought WITH zombies.  To quote Pogo from Walt Kelly’s comic, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

More to follow.