Friday, February 6, 2009

Can't Sleep

I am in the middle of a long mission and am starting to feel it's affects.  I have had a hard time sleeping at night after each days trip.  I am not sure why.  It started the first day that I went out.  I don't seem to be able to sleep more than four or five hours each night.  I just wake up and stare at the ceiling until I realize I am not going to go back to sleep and then I get up.  I have been able to get things done with my extra time, but it makes it so that I am tired during the mission and even can't help from dozing off to sleep while waiting for the trucks we are escorting to unload their cargo and load up for the return trip.  It is a little frustrating!  The longer I am here the more the stress has built up.  It is easy at the beginning to tell yourself that you can be tough for a little while and then it will be over, but a year is a long time and it takes a lot of energy to keep yourself motivated.  I am starting to have a tougher time doing it.  The ironic thing is that the relative safety of the situation over here is contributing to the unpleasantness of it all.  When there was actually a war over here the army treated its soldiers like they were at war.  Common sense usually prevailed over bureaucracy out of necessity and the mission was given priority over policy.  Well, with nothing much happening outside things have started to revert back to a peacetime army.  I read something interesting in a porta-potty last night that summed it up brilliantly (oh the profound insights to be had by reading porta-potty graffiti); "I came to war but garrison broke out".  The problem is that it is still dangerous out there and soldiers are still dying on a weekly basis.  We still have the stress of combat, now mixed with the stress of a training environment (for those who don't know, stress is the foundation of army training.  The idea is that if you can handle the stress of training you can handle the stress of combat).  Most of us prefer being out on the road because it is often LESS stressful than being back on post with all the stupid rules and stupid meetings and red tape and bureaucratic mess.  For example, during the elections here we were not allowed to conduct our normal operations.  We had three days of down time and instead of letting us have our down time and relax and unwind a bit, they planned two days of training.  They made us wake up in the middle of the day (when we are normally asleep) and "pretend" to go on a convoy through the streets of the base and had us run training scenarios.  It seemed to us that we had to wake up because the leaders who were running the training are awake during the day and didn't want to loose their sleep.  We were graded by people who rarely leave the safety of the base on things we do for real every day.  You can see how resentment and unhappiness could build up.  I read that suicides were up 300% in January over last January.  We even had a girl in my platoon intentionally hurt herself two days ago and is now in a hospital in Germany.  If you ask my opinion, this is why.  It is maddening at times.  I don't know if that is why I can't sleep, but I'm sure it doesn't help.  I don't mean to always sound so negative, but this has not been an easy experience for me and it helps to be able to write it down.  When the mission is over I will write about what an adventure it has been.  Possibly another reason why I can't sleep.  Maybe I'm just getting old.  I hear that old people don't sleep as much as young people.  I know I will have grey hair after this.  I can already start to see it.

2 comments:

Michael said...

I've heard that older folks don't need as much sleep for years, but I'm not buying it. Four hours of sleep a night isn't enough for anyone, but like you, I'm generally popping awake after that time too. I think it's more a factor of the hours we work. Of my 29 year working career, I've only worked "normal" day time hours for about 12 years. I spent 16 years on evening shift and now about a year on nights. From those that I've spoken with that have done this a long time, it really doesn't get much better. But we have jobs to do, so we put our uniforms on, grab our guns, and go to work.

John + Bethany said...

Sorry that things are so stressful, and don't apologize for being negative. Isn't blogging a great place to vent?! Just know that you have family (and I'm sure lots of friends too) that are thinking about you and worrying about you and hoping you are doing well and awaiting your safe return.