20 Things You Only Understand If You’ve Deployed

Yep, been there done all that. Thank you..

Made me chuckle early this morning TSgt Joe C. I must have been pre-Rippets. We have sweet tea and called it liquid Crack. Wired all day on it.

Thanks for sharing TSgt Joe C. for some reason this reminded me that Dorothy of the Wizard of Oz may have been a fictional character who deployed.
Here are the 20 things unique to deployment:
1.Millions of books nobody reads are everywhere, organized neatly on dusty shelves. [ I have always enjoyed reading - except for TMs]
2.Every meal is twice as large as it needs to be, and only tastes good with Rip Its.
3.You can find palletized boxes of bottled water between every building and tent, and the top ones are usually torn open and falling apart.
4.Receiving mail makes you feel like a rock star, especially at Christmas.
5.Three letters: A-F-N. [used to be Armed Forces Network]
6.Care packages usually consist of socks, dental floss, lotion, and enough sugar to kill a full grown man. And don’t forget DVDs and music, like “19th Century Zither Tunes of the Ozarks.”
7.Every holiday has so many decorations that you can’t see the building, desk, or hooch they’re displayed on.
8.Shipping containers are used for things you never knew possible. [the new lego]
9.Pogs instead of pennies.
10.There are more employees from Sri Lanka, India, and the Philippines than from the host nation.
11.More crap hauled to the area of responsibility than you need, Like, ten times as much. Who knew a guy needed six padlocks and four giant packs of Q-tips. [bringing stuff in versus hauling it out]
12.There’s a fine layer of dust in places you never knew existed.
13.If it isn’t made of canvas, it’s concrete, or it’s a glorified double-wide with a Mike Brady-paneled interior and a noisy, ice-cold air conditioner. [I never saw an air conditioner out in the filed]
14.Gravel covers everything that isn’t tied down. [same with sand and dust]
15.Everyone agrees that Green Beans coffee is better than Starbucks.
16.There’s not a pair of shower shoes on the planet that can protect you from down-range bathroom funk.
17.The smell of diesel exhaust permeates everything.
18.“The shelf.” If you’ve seen cadillac latrines, you know.
19.Homemade artwork on every retaining wall.
20.The nonstop white noise of generators and air conditioners (a.k.a. ECUs).