And the Days Go By...

Just three days ago I found myself living in a tent. No floor. No running water. My main job was to maintain my machine gun so I was ready for a mission at any time. I was on duty 24/7. I frequently found myself running missions in the middle of the night. I also occupied myself with manual labor around the camp whenever we had a dry spell. Strangely, I woke up yesterday in a real bed, in a real building. I got up, went to lunch and reported into my job, which consisted of no manual labor at all. After 8 hours I took off and went back to my room. As a result I find myself asking a question once posed by David Byrn of the Talking Heads; 'How did I get here?' No, I wasn't dreaming. Two days ago I was appointed Corporal of the Guard at the headquarters building here on base, which is a one month post (I'll go back to being a gunner on Quick Reaction Force sometime in early June). I find this very interesting since I posted on the so-called fobbits very recently, and this would traditionally be a fobbit job had it not been temporary, and had I not been taken out of a combat oriented job. Even though I can never become one I do find myself living a very fobbit-like existence. I am quite excited to study them in their own environment. But in all seriousness, this is considered to not only be an honor, but also a very good assignment. It has a good deal of responsibility, but not much by the way of hard labor or long hours. Since I can not run missions while I am assigned to this post I was temporarily moved from the tent at our Quick Reaction Force lot, and into a dorm-style room. Because I am staying strictly on base there is something seriously wrong if anyone is shooting at me. As a result, the closest I will come to combat over the next month will be playing Assassin's Creed II on my room-mate's X-Box. For a temporary assignment I think this is great, but in a month I think I'll be ready to get back in the turret.