Posted on Jan 6, 2014
CPT Mike M.
CPT CPT Mike M.
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We're all human.  Under the right (or wrong) circumstances we can all "hit the wall" with productivity and need to have a chance to go into a mental reset.  What do you do to help get yourself back into a productive mindset while on a long period of leave?  Do you have destressing hobbies?  Just like to do nothing and "veg out"?
Posted in these groups: Legal 6 Leave
Edited 12 y ago
Posted 12 y ago
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Responses: 12
SSG Robert Burns
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SSG
Posted 12 y ago
SLEEP!!!!!!
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CPT Mike M.
CPT Mike M.
12 y
Never get enough of that!
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Sgt John Henry
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Sgt
Posted 12 y ago
When I was on leave I would always spend quiet time with family.  And old friends.
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MAJ Gregory Youngblood
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Edited 12 y ago
Posted 12 y ago
There's nothing better in this world than finding a nice piece of open land, and blowing away the beer bottles and gallon jugs you've collected through the week with some hot lead. Each trigger pull is essentially blowing away a trouble or frustration during the week. Lately I've even gotten the wife to enjoy it! Albeit with her wimpy .22LR Sigg Mosquito, it still counts.
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MAJ Joseph Parker
MAJ Joseph Parker
12 y

2LT Youngblood: Excellent! Of course, When I was a young 2LT Airborne Ranger Infantry Officer at Ft Lewis, it wasn't relaxation to go shooting in a field on the weekend because we did that all week. So I would grab an M203 from the arms room, load it up, and go hunting for grizzly bears up in the Cascade Mountains. As soon as I saw a grizzly, I would attack it bare-handed, wrestle it to the ground, and then choke and subdue it in a fair fight. The M203? That was for the grizzly bear to use! Like I said, I wanted it to be a fair fight and I'm an Airborne Ranger!


In the next installment I'll tell you how Airborne Rangers catch Killer Whales (Orcas) in the Puget Sound.
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MAJ Gregory Youngblood
MAJ Gregory Youngblood
12 y
Sounds like a life of Fun and Danger Sir! Unforunately, being in the red-headed step-child of Combat Arms (Air Defense) I have to get nearly all my range time in recreationally. As for bear fighting, it sounds like we'll have to import some desert bears down to El Paso. In the mean time I'll keep practicing my Combatives with the larger, more hairy members of the Battery.
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MAJ Joseph Parker
MAJ Joseph Parker
12 y
Good man! Sounds like you have an exceptionally combat ready Battery!                                 
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What do you do to "recharge your batteries" during periods of block leave like the holidays?
SFC Josh Watson
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SFC
Posted 12 y ago
I like to "get away" . Not check my email and only answer the phone or text machine when I know it's important (verified through a voice mail).  Just concentrate on the important things like my family and my future.
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CPT Mike M.
CPT Mike M.
12 y
For those with numerous deployments, we can never get back that time lost with families.  I'm definitely with you on getting some solid quality time with them during leave and doing things as a family whenever possible.  Not to mention, those of us with growing families, yeah, we're parents, but can't forget that we're also husbands and wives.  Over the holidays I made sure to get family to watch my daughter and had a long overdue date night with my wife.
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CPT Assistant Professor Of Military Science
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CPT
Posted 12 y ago
Spend time with family, work out, hike/climb, sleep.<br>
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MSG Bobby Usina (Retired)
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MSG
Posted 12 y ago
Since I have been stationed in Germany for the last 3 years I find that traveling Europe has been the best thing I do to "recharge the batteries". Since it is just me and the wife we can travel easily and cheaply and it gets my mind off of anything to do with work. 
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CPT Mike M.
CPT Mike M.
12 y
I've been wanting to get stationed in Europe since I joined for that very reason.
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SSG Christopher Freeman
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SSG
Posted 12 y ago
Well I just took 20 days of much needed leave to El Paso and it was just what I needed. the food is great and there is always something to. I even went skiing. For me, recharging the batteries is doing something outside the box, such as skiing.
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CPT Mike M.
CPT Mike M.
12 y
Definitely.  Lots of stuff that there's just no time to do, even on weekends, during regular weeks where you're working 5 of the days.
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MAJ Joseph Parker
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Posted 12 y ago

CPT Miller: Military personnel receive 30 days paid vacation a year for a good reason! Seldom do folks in the "world" get a vacation benefit like that until they've been with a company for 15-20 years or more.


Doing "whatever" with family has always been the best way for me to refit and rearm. I get to pour love into them 24/7; and they pour it back several times over because there are more of them than me. It's a great "deal to heal". If it's an actual activity, fishing works for me. It's not so much the actual catching of the fish.  It's the quiet! No phones, no panicky subordinates (or superiors) running around in circles with their hair on fire yelling "What do we do? What do we do?". Just quiet waves and maybe the excitement of a child or grandchild catching something.


ONE HINT from a guy who travels a lot. When at a destination I always buy a metric boatload of picture postcards and colorful stamps. Then every night I take 10-15 minutes to write 5 postcards and mail them to family. Helps me from feeling sorry for myself and keeps family and extended family very happy. The cards are still arriving when I get home and it gives us something to talk about. Fellow vets: my children, nieces, nephews, brothers and sisters STILL have postcards I sent to them even 20 years ago from war-torn Rwanda, Angola, Mozambique, Zaire, you name it. To them those cards are treasures. To me they were 15 minutes of daily sanity during an insane assignment. Anyway, it worked for me.
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SFC Michael Hasbun
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SFC
Posted 12 y ago
I'm a big fan of Archery, but on lazy days there's nothing better than a good book! And by book I mean paper, not them newfangled screens ;)
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MAJ Joseph Parker
MAJ Joseph Parker
12 y
SSG Hasbun: Your profile says you're a munitions guy. Generally we don't think of arrows as munitions. Yes, archery has the same physics fundamentals...except for the speed and the boom at the end. Plus, I can't shake this image of some 11C opening an ammo box to find 50 wooden arrows instead of a couple of mortar rounds. Actually, something similar to that happened once in a combat area and I was dispatched to prevent an international incident; but that is another story.
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SFC Michael Hasbun
SFC Michael Hasbun
12 y
LOL... wood sir? We've gone high tech, mine are all Carbon.. And expensive, which is more of an incentive to maintain fundamentals and not miss!
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MAJ Joseph Parker
MAJ Joseph Parker
12 y
Hey! Don't EVEN mess with my imagery, SSG!  You have to admit it would be tragically funny! Who cares what the arrows are made of? Besides, being a Ranger; anything less than 155mm bounces off. :-)
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SFC Michael Hasbun
SFC Michael Hasbun
12 y
We'll paint them a woodsy brown sir...
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WO1 Senior Drill Sergeant
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WO1
Posted 12 y ago
My wife and three beautiful children. Stress doesn't exist when they're around; HA(!)well, it's minimal.
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CPT Mike M.
CPT Mike M.
12 y
I'm with ya.  Different kind of stress.  We'll just leave it at that!
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