Filling Sandbags

Filling sandbags isn't really an art. Yes, there are better ways and worse ways to go about it, and people will extol the virtues of one method or the other, but really, it's just an exercise in time and man power. Except that for some reason you should always turn them inside out, because they are stronger that way, and that you should make sure whoever is tying them up isn't an idiot. Usually in the army there is a table, or a grid, or a matrix, or a rule of thumb that would tell you how long it would take to fill x number of sandbags. But there isn't. There is a matrix about work/rest schedules for those filling sandbags, dependent on the weather, and there is a table outlining how many sandbags are needed for various tasks, or to protect against specific threats, but nothing on time.

This is probably because sandbags are a pretty loosely defined concept. You think it would be simple; take a bag, fill it with sand. Nope. Most commonly, you end up with a dirt bag, or a rock bag, or an ice bag, or a bag filled with ammo you'd rather hide then deal with, or casings you'd also rather hide than drag back up to an admit point, or old ration packages, or bits of beef jerky wrappers, or whatever you have in your pockets that you'd no longer like to carry. Only once did anyone ever hand me a sandbag and point me over to a mound of sand. And frankly, it was a dream.

The other problem with sandbags is that the efficiency of their preparation is highly dependent on the motivation and attitude of the troops. Their morale, to put it simply. And this is usually directly proportional to how tired of being fucked around they are, and how meaninglessly stupid they believe the task to be. If the enemy is advancing in your direction, and you're looking at facing them sticking out of a shitty little hole in the ground you only half managed to dig out, then yes, you're going to dig. Then again, if it's for some shitty exercise that isn't half believable and a complete waste of time and resources and even one of your cocky asshole corporals could have planned better, then frankly, it's going to take some time to get those sandbags filled. Let alone dragged over to the truck, then loaded, then dragged off, then positioned. Then repositioned. Again, and, again, and again. There is a set of sandbags out there that I not only filled, but loaded onto trucks, moved, and repositioned 6 separate times. And this was before we learned those two critical rules, the ones about turning them inside out, and not letting an idiot do the tying.

And whenever you find yourself digging sandbags, it's always in the same kit, the same tools, the same one guy holding the bag and another shoveling, rotating every say 5, or 10, or 15 bags - depending on how many need to get filled, and what you're filling them with. But you're always somewhere new. Not to put too fine a point on it, but usually it's only the shitty things in life that follow you around. The rest is just backdrop, like cities and towns along the highway passing through in your car windows. Or is it the other way around? Do misery and happiness come from the places you find yourself, not the activities that occupy your life?

I guess where I'm trying to go with this is that I've been up to this shit way too long. This morning I woke up rolled into the corner of the spare bedroom at a place I'm house sitting, tucked into my sleeping bag, sleep crusted in my eyes, with no idea where I was; vaguely thirsty, extremely dislocated, increasingly anger, and badly in need of a toliet, not to mention, completely missing my underwear.

It's been around 20 months of this now. of living nowhere, of having no place. I'm the guy who spends more on hotels a year than anything other than student loans, who begs you to house sit while you're gone, who snaps up that offer to stash his spare things in your basement, and who secretly wants to ask you how much to rent that spare bedroom at your place. Because what I have, is a tiny bunk in a small room with 3 other bunks, and 2 tiny closets and a little desk that I'm not allowed to put anything on but 1 civvie book and 1 military book and nothing inside because the Sergeant Major loves to randomly inspect the quarters. I have to make phone calls from inside my car, which is also my closet, and if I was out looking for women, believe me, it would be your place.

I hate to sound like I'm whining, but grown men, grown men with university degrees, grown men who are constantly told they are leaders and role models and all sorts of completely untrue cliched platitudes, should not be bunkmates. Nor should they be marching around like recruits on basic training, from their own graduation parades as platoon commanders, no less. The system is set up like some unbalanced, abusive mother - it places the training of future leaders in the hands of their own future subordinates, who do not stop beating them in punishment for this arrangement untiil the last second before the roles are officially reversed. And I'm sure all of a sudden it will be snapping to attention and neat salutes and yes sir, but the damage is already done. The men who are supposed to be my future sources of experience and advice, in exchange for steady leadership and support, are in fact my tormentors and enemies. I will be expected to attentively care to their personal administration and professional development, despite the years they spent mocking the personal complications and dislocations of myself and my peers. These are men who changed a graduation parade with 2 days notice, and sneered at all the candidates whose families had now wasted hundreds if not thousands of dollars on travel and plans to come and see what should have been one of the proudest days of their careers. Men who laugh at the prospect of candidates spending 3 years total living like dogs in a kennel, making up new locker inspection templates that assure there is no room for anything personal, who can barely contain their giggling when asking knowing questions, like demanding to know why we brought so much personal kit to a course, when they know full well its been years and years since any of us really lived anywhere.

I'm a 24 year old university graduate who owns one pair of pants, who has slept in a sleeping bag for 8 months, and who has earned the right to command troops in battle, but not to walk like a human being from point a to point b.

And the thing with sandbags is that you have to be careful about how much you put into them. Because at the time, they seem tough, and you can just dump and dump into them absentmindedly, because you aren't even really paying attention. But there's a limit, and if if well tied, they will burst apart. And as heavy as sand is, stupidity, pointless meanspirited treatment, and utter disregrard for others way a hell of a lot more.

And the stupidest, stupidest thing of all, is myself.

Because I wanted this, I didn't just volunteer for it - I chased it down. I changed my life to fit with the path that was needed, and I hunted it down until I made it, and I became decent at what I do, and I took all the ideology and ethics and ethos and doctrine and inanity to heart and truly believed in it all, and now I just wish I was somewhere else.

And I could still do it. I could still get out. But all of a sudden I don't just not want to wake up in the shacks, or some hotel, or some borrowed space - all of a sudden there is a place I would like to wake up. And the only way that makes any sense is to stay in the army, and to follow it off to the least likely place I ever expected to go.

And when I asked the guys, the clever guys, who already quit, what they said when they put them before the man and demanded to ask why. And they said they called them cowards. And of course I said bullshit, they just hated to see a youngster that much smarter than any of them.