24 hours back

Backbrief.
Go to the Canadian Museum of Civillization, I think around the 3rd floor, the walking tour through Canadian history. Stand in one of the outdoor areas, maybe the French Canadian village, or by the creepy tent filled with pioneers giving birth. Listen to the looped, pre-recorded ambience of birds and wildlife. You can also hear it at the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum in Niagara Falls, the disappearing man exhibit. Or check your nearest local outdoorsy museum. Not the Biodome in Montreal though, because that's probably real birds. Or parakeets, or parots. I can't tell a sparrow from Tucan Sam, frankly, but you get the idea. It's definently not the penguins though.

Sentry Shift.
This morning I sat and listened to the forest wake up, the birds and the bugs, the sun creeping up to the horizon, climbing the ridgelines and forests. I breathed in the moist morning air while cleaning my weapon, generously oiling it to keep the rust back, a never ending battle in anything but an August drought. Around me 38 of my friends slept, some out in the open, tucked into old sleeping bags wrapped in top of the line bivy bags, clenched up tight against mosquitoes, just bug bitten lips and noses sticking out into the night. Others slept under low lean-tos and hooches strung between trees, shared for warm or curled tight around their bodies, just enough to keep rain out of their boots and mouths. My friend Jake sat next to me, shaving with a canteen cup and a pocket stove.

Patrolling.
The rest of the day, and all the day before, we lay in the rain, pressed low to the ground, looking over rifles, machine guns, recoiless rifles, grenade launchers, legs crossed over each other's in a tight circle, lying in hiding from an imaginary enemy, fighting nothing but hypothermia, boredom, and sloppy drills. Cold can be dealt with, and wet is tolerable, but when you're cold and wet it takes a little bit more to keep your head in the game, to do your job, to write your orders, to effectively lead troops. So you learn when and where you can turn off your brain and just push on with your body.

Regrets.
By now I've slept with every girl I've ever had a crush on a thousand times over in my mind. I've written my combat estimates remembering the little quirks of those that I really did sleep with. I get distracted from my mission analysis day-dreaming of kissing the eyelids of sleeping beauties from the past, a long history of beautiful women and poor decision making on my part. I try to wargame my courses of action while trying to account for all the false starts and misteps that led me to this point, lying in the mud, trying to keep my map sheets dry, trying to my commander's intent and my operational tasking into a succinct mission statement, single and undersexed despite literally dozens of amazing opportunities all carelessly wasted.

Planning.
At the end of the week, Saturday to be exact, we're back in. I've watched animals pick apart rucksacks. I've watched squirrels pry apart pull taps and crows open zippers. I've seen an entire platoon's food stolen from their packs and tossed in a half eaten mess over an entire patrol base. I've been bitten at least 46 times by mosquitoes. I've snuck back through the woods to avoid an errant bear and her cubs. I've eaten a sausage and hashbrowns raton pack every meal for days on end. And then we're back and everything is in the past and everything is amazing. I just want to see humanity, to talk to people, to anyone, to buy things, food and random movies, standard items of society. And I don't want to sleep, ever, because 24 hours later, I'm boarding a truck right back, with a new load of food, water, and ammo, and the mud scrubbed off my frag vest. And I'm planning ahead, with old pictures and journal entries and anything I can find, stocking up the nostalgia and regret to keep me going for another week in the woods, lying in the rain, reminding myself all the time why backwards is never an option, but why backwards must always inform forwards.