Acquaintances

Being deployed provides another perk to military life – meeting new people. I know that the civilian sector isn’t much different in this realm but there are a few unique differences to making friends in the military. To start with, meeting several people and then spending six months or more living, eating, working, etc, is not as common outside the military. Another distinctive aspect in a deployed scenario is that there are no familiar family members or friends to balance our new acquaintances against, which means that like it or lump it, they are all we’ve got.

This deployment hasn’t been without its share of new faces. From going to two separate pre-deployment training courses, where I made several new friends, to travelling companions, and now the people I work with and meet at my current location, I am always pleasantly surprised by those I get to know. I’m not sure if it’s the lack of closeness in a new environment or the needs of being a social creature, whatever the drive, I seem to be much more open to new friendships when deployed.

Over the past few days, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Specialist Lamar. Lamar is a medic who was called back to duty from his Inactive Ready Reserve status to deploy to Afghanistan. IRR is the time owed, after your active service commitment, to your respective branch of service; when you enlist for four years you are also committing to four years of IRR where you can be called back up from your civilian life to serve again. Lamar was a nurse during his time away from the Army and is now leaving Afghanistan to go back to that life.

Because of another IRR soldier working in my office, Lamar hung out with us while waiting for transportation out of the country. Lamar is a big guy, both in the physical sense and in his personality. Not your typical soldier, he immediately stood out because of his commanding stature and presence. Sure, Army guys can be loud and intimidating, but Lamar wasn’t the average Army type. Loud, yes, but not in the drop and give me 20 push-ups kind-of way. Big, yes, but not in the watch me bench-press a tank kind-of way. Lamar was a jovial, fun-loving civilian who happened to be in the Army.

During his last night here, Lamar sat and talked to a group of us gathered in our “only slightly warmer than outside” office. Yes, our heater does not do its job…which could be its own blog post all together. Anyway, Lamar had spent each evening entertaining us with photos, videos, stories, and even an audio recording of an hour-long firefight that his unit was involved in. On this last evening, it was a free-for-all of stories from his life that left us sore from laughter.

Lamar’s gift-for-gab was delivered in a monologue-like fashion equal to that of a comedian. Each story flowed into the next, laced with witty humor and side-splitting endings. Regardless of the topic, too include Afghan police being attacked by starfish and meeting a girl who materialized out of thin air, all of us were laughing out of our seats. No topic was safe and even the occasional story by someone else was quickly attacked and beaten with quick-witted jests. It was one of those “laugh so hard you cry” moments.

For a moment as we all sat there, we weren’t deployed; we weren’t dealing with the struggles of our daily events; we weren’t worrying about anything…we were friends.

Thanks Lamar!

Keep coming back to see what else might occur in just another day in my life.