The Straw That Broke The Dog Tag

DISCLAIMER: I’M NOT A WRITER NOR A BLOGGER BUT SOMEONE SOMEWHERE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO POST THIS.

WARNER: LANGUAGE IN THIS ENTRY MAY BE INAPPROPRIATE FOR SOME.

Jujitsu, like most marshal arts, requires endurance and precision. You must evaluate your opponent to uncover the subtleties while continuing to evaluate your next move.

So no sh*t there I was… Always the beginning of a good story right? You be the judge.

Some time ago while executing a named mission [editor’s note: apologies in advance for the vagueness] I managed to get my ass chewed [editor’s note: technical military term used when a soldier gets into an altercation with another service member of equal or higher rank] by everybody and their mother. The intent by our higher command was clear, my mission was clear, make it happen! 96hrs leading up to the 48hrs I’m describing, I knew things were going to be difficult. In my world, difficult takes a day [editor’s note: “impossible takes a week” name that tune] plus, in less than a year I’ll be looking back and laughing about this very moment. Too easy! (Back on track) and for the first time in my military career, I even allowed my ass to be chewed by a warrant officer. Only for a little bit, because unfortunately for him I brought my trump card. We’ll call him LT. P. [editor’s note: I knew lieutenants were good for something. Always keep at least one around like spade.]

All eyes on my position(s) (hopefully only for a little while), every decision and statement being sent to those with the letters GEN on their rank, [editor’s note: at least that’s what someone involved told me.] You would think I was operating on a super secret high-risk mission, right? No. I was moving things to people that desperately needed them in other places. All this while never stepping foot outside the wire (this time).

On my 32^nd hour, I was having an unpleasant discussion with another service member, explaining to him why his little slice was extremely important to my overall mission [editor’s note: my overall mission was also a little slice to someone else’s overall mission. Didn’t mean to sound so important] while listening to him bitch about this and that, as I always do, I took a deep breath and reached for my wedding band…

If I could only describe the details of what I was doing, it would depict an eventful timeline from “ok” to “no bueno” to “bad”. So far I only got to the bad, lets get back to the band.

When I start thinking everything is going to shit, I take a deep breath, stop, touch my wedding band (when I can), think about my wife and other pleasant things like the huge care package I received from my fellow co-workers back home on my 25^th hour of this ordeal [editor’s note: thank you immensely by the way to the Creative Services Crew! It made my day for about five minutes. As I write this, I’m back to being joyful about the holiday card and the CDs. The rest of the office here can’t stop talking about the Rolling Stones mags]. This time, I reached for my band and nothing! My brief feeling of panic was calmed by the feeling of extreme concern when I remembered that I put the band on my dog tags [editor’s note: due to the operational hazard of what I do from time to time, I have to remove my ring.] I reached for my tags and out come a small broken loop that once held my ring. The service member in front of me went from bitching to a concerned silence when he noticed the fear of God look on my face. Now I just got to “superbad” status on the scale. I resumed focus on the actual issue I was dealing with after bypassing my subtle ritual and went about my day/night.

After working 38-39 out of the last 42hrs, I went to my room and messaged Luana only mentioning two things:

               1-    my day didn’t go according to plan (ok, it never does)

               2-    Oh, by the way, I just lost my band.

Being the considerate wife she can be (unfortunately not this time) after expressing her discontent in less than subtle ways for my less than stellar decision-making, [editor’s note: I couldn’t really tell her how it happened] I messaged her an incoherent note stating something along the lines of “ I’m sorry. That ring is as good as gone. I love you, good night” and proceeded to pass out on my floor, fully clothed with my pistol still attached to my hip.

After a long 3hrs sleep, I woke up refreshed, glanced at my iPad and saw a note from Luana before I headed out the door that put everything into perspective:

“Well at least you are alive, I’d rather you come home alive than someone mail me your wedding band”

Wow! That hit me hard. Unlike other jobs, bad decision making on my part could lead to loss of life. But the little bullshit I was dealing with was only a speed bump on the road to synchronizing several pockets of people to accomplish a large task(s). Once again, Too Easy!

Day started fresh, cup of Dunkin’, quick brief, a few updates of potential failures but all in all good. I decided to go check on a few people and went over to a rig I was working on [editor’s note: Rig, in this case, is a net used to sling-load cargo on helicopters] and pick-up a box I left behind in the middle of a large gravel field and BAM! There it was! From the corner of my eyes I noticed a dull oval shape that for some reason caught my attention five feet away. My band was just laying there, under the dust between two rocks. After picking up the ring (and the box), I moved out to the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) for several hours to make sure things were in position, picked up a radio and headed to my room for some real sleep leaving behind instructions to wake me up as things start to happen.

I really don’t understand how I’ve had these things around my neck for months while going through extremely physical training and other harsh conditions but yet my tiny ring was the straw that broke the dog tags.

As I post this, I’m happy to report that I have had several hours of sleep and things are back to normal relatively speaking. Thank you once again for all your support and well wishes back home. The above posting is an unedited version of what I wrote shortly after the event(s) took place. I’m also happy to report that after understanding the larger picture, the people involved in this story appreciate what we were trying to accomplish.

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