Until July of this year I’ve never been to the Midwest longer than a fly over or a refuel (that’s civilian or military, respectively). If you know me from the Crypto Space, then you know I generally don’t bring up this side of my life. There are several reasons for this. And yes, I know it’s in my LinkedIn bio. But it isn’t something I brag about or look to mention unless the situation calls for it.
Getting to the point, Wyoming. A place that I never thought I’d be, but thanks to Uncle Sam’s sister (the National Guard), it’s crossed off my unofficial bucket list, lol. I honestly didn’t know there was any camp smaller and more desolate than Camp Roberts in southern California. You can walk point to point in under 20 mins in Camp Guernsey. Yeah that small. But the actual training grounds are a whole nother story. You can’t dead head anywhere because of all the hills, valleys and gorges (dead head means walking in a straight line from point to point).
But that’s not what I’m here to talk about (small tangent, apologies). In short, I’m in an infantry unit, mobilized line company (hats off to my light unit battles and no I’m not a 11 Bang Bang, I’m a 25U). The point of the spiel is when it comes to Annual Training (AT), which this was. We do it all out in the field, that means train and sleep. Because of my role in the Company I don’t have to do the same training for this AT. But I do have to be out in the field manning the Tactical Operation Command (TOC). Now you know this was going to be the hard life of a Comms SGT in the field (25U inside joke, we are ghost), lol.
This brings me to the title of the article. Before coming out I started mentally planning what I would do. Not saying it was going to go exactly to plan but I’ve learned something is better than nothing. So, the laptop was coming for sure. I would work on some Power Point presentations and write possibly four articles. When planning, I only had the topic and title of one piece. I had some other thoughts to work out which I figured would happen at some point.
Here is some background. We arrive at Camp Guernsey and guess what. It’s better than Camp Roberts. The barracks have WIFI. I was so not expecting that, and the buildings weren’t from the 50’s. Yes, you heard right. I’ve slept in buildings that old. However, none of this matters, remember this is an infantry unit. The actual training area was about a 40 min drive away. And that’s where yours truly would be until it was time to pack and leave (for the record. I slept in the barracks 4 none consecutive nights. The rest of the day and nights were out in the field under the stars. I had a tent though.)
Now jump to day 6. The generator stopped working again. It only worked 2 whole days of the total 9 days in the field. That was during the first 2 days when we had thunderstorms. As they say, if it ain’t, raining it ain’t training (infantry humor). It wasn’t that bad though. But now my laptop is dead, and I only started 1 article and 1 Power Point Pointesentation. What was a content provider to do? Now what I did next is going to sound foreign to you heavy tech savvy folks, especially those under 25. I found a pen and paper (the green book) and wrote everything out. Yeah, crazy idea but people did it like this all the time back in the day, DWFL!!!
So, in case you’re not tracking, its thunder stormed more than once, the generator only worked about 2 days, my laptop is dead, my phone service is spotty, and I sleep out in the field most days. Oh, and there is still 4 more days (at time of writing this) of field living to go. I’m living the dream, lol.
I’m a true believer in the saying “everything happens for a reason…” and “when life gives you lemons, you make lemon aid”. That mindset has come to mean more to me over the years. My life has been far from simple and believe it or not this mindset has helped. I say that to say this, for everything that has happened up until now, I really can’t complain. Why you ask? Because I know it can always be worst. In fact, being in situations like this are what makes you appreciate when life is good, and things work out in your favor.
So why has being “stuck” out in the hills been good for me? Well, 1- sometimes you need to take a break from the city life. I was able to wake up on a hill top and watch the sun rise. I even heard coyotes playing in the distance a couple of mornings. Now that may not be the ultimate wake up scene for most. But I can appreciate it for what it is. 2- I got to walk around bare footed (sometimes it’s the simple things that work for me). Outside of the beach, I haven’t done that since I was a kid. Not saying I did it all day, heavens noooo… There were too many ant hills and cow patties. I enjoyed feeling the grass and dirt beneath the soul of my feet. It was like going back to the basics of grounding myself. Something I think everyone should take the time to do. Not saying going around bear footed works for all. But do at least take the time to collect yourself and reflect. 3- it gave me a break from social media. Which agree or not is a good thing and isn’t as hard as some would think. For other reasons before coming out here I deleted my facebook phone app (I know some would die before ever doing that, lol). The point being I was less distracted. That gave me time to think about what I’m doing in the Space and where I’m going in it. I have ideas and once everything moves accordingly. This time next year I’ll be in a whole different situation, for the better. 4- I can’t forget getting work done, meaning the articles and presentations. I wrote 3 by hand and did 3 presentation outlines. I’ve really been trying to manage my time better and work smarter not harder. It only made sense to get stuff “down on paper” instead of waiting till I returned home. I figured that was the best use of all the white space (free time) I would have.
For those who know anything about how 25Us work, it wasn’t all down time. I did give a radio class, help my Battalion set up a PRC 117 with a 150 Antenna, and fill in for what ever my Commanding Officer or 1SGT needed. So yeah, I did some work, lol.
Let’s bring my rant to a close. I wrote this piece for the others out there in the Space who feel they don’t have the time or ideas to write. That’s so not true. I honestly had no idea on what to expect when going to Wyoming. At first, I didn’t see this a being a very productive trip. Not much went to plan. But I reacted accordingly and made do with what I had. I know this story doesn’t and won’t relate to most folks. But for those who read this and lol or said, “what this guy thinking, I’d never?” I say thanks. Some how this connected enough for you to read this far and I appreciate you for doing it. I hope someone gets inspired or get annoyed and write a long comment on how much I suck. Again, I say thanks for the motivation to do better.