My New Room

We've gotten a couple of fresh faces to our platoon this week, and lost one in a trade to another platoon. Thus creating a void in the SAW room that was and still is Watkins' and Kellogg's, and now mine. The room is about the size of an entry hall to your house. The tiles on the walls are old, chipped, and falling down. One side of the wall is patched up with cinder blocks and cement. Maybe where a window was, or perhaps where a mortar hit. The ceiling is high, and the false one that used to be exists no longer.

Thanks to a patch job of trash bags, and duct tape, the exposed air conditioner duct and vents are a little less exposed. The three man room that we share allows us all to have one corner, where we try our best to stay out of each others ways, and not breath in the asbestos that lurks in the walls of this once Saddam torture holding cell. Our door is made of wood, and only closes because of the water bottle that hangs from a string that is intricately ran through a series of holes and around a couple of nails. It does not block off much sound from the room next door.
We've attempted to make the room a little more comfortable by hanging up calendars, posters, and college football banners of overrated schools that shall not be mentioned, but initials are, University of Florida Gators, in Jacksonville, Florida. When we first arrived here, the room appeared to have been a set from the movie SAW. We've done our best to make it better, but I've woken up thinking a clown on a tricycle just rode by, asking me if I wanted to play a game.

From Left to Right: Kellogg, Watkins, Me

The normal business of the room tends to be of an old couple marriage. Watkins, who lays across the room from me, a whopping 3 feet, loves to take naps. Kellogg who sleeps above me is a myspace junkie, and the biggest clean freak I've met to this point in my life. I just realized that I'm glad I didn't say he slept on top of me, as that was the original way I was going to word that sentence.

I don't think I could live with myself, if I didn't mirror this image so you can't read that flag properly

We all three are the "senior" junior enlisted guys in the platoon. We all ride in the same truck together. We all go to the gym together. To chow together. And even shower...at the same time. About the only thing we don't do together is hold hands and walk down the beach, though probably because there are no beaches around. We were all good friends when we left Bragg, and so far have continued to be good friends. The three of us have one major thing in common, and that's that we like to just hang out. Working and living with someone is one of the hardest things I've done in my life. I've done it before, and now I'm working and living at the same time 24/7 and couldn't be more pleased and honored being tortured then with these two.

"we few, we happy few, we band of brothers..."