This is mostly a narrative of how I wound up in a war zone and the results thereof. There is only minimal sex in this story. I hope you enjoy it.
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Ordinance has been going off for about half an hour now. Most of it has been too far away to worry much about it personally. But every now and then, one will explode nearby, probably around fifty feet or so away. It happens just about every day at this time of the evening. Like I said, just about every evening, sometimes it would not happen for two maybe three days. I have been in this area for only a few months now and I still am not used to it. Someone once told me that I would get used to the sudden noise. Another person told me he has been here five years and he still is not used to it. Personally, I am at a loss as to what to do except finish my tour and go home.
I am not a soldier, a sailor, a Marine nor do I belong to any branch of the military. I am a civilian contractor just trying to do my job. It is a job that not many can do. We, the company which I work for, possesses a certain skill that only a few can even fathom. We are an elite group of people that warrant high pay. Even higher pay while in this area.
It was almost a month later when another blast went off. Only this time it was much, much closer. It was somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty feet. I was not injured by the shrapnel per say, but I was by the concussion of the blast. I remember someone told me this merited a trip home to recover. Of course, he had to write it down because surely, I could not hear it. Good. I wanted that, to go home, but not this way.
The explosion did affect my memory though. At least now I had an excuse for not remembering things. Simple things like birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and such took on a new meaning for me. Now not only did I not remember them but I could care less about them.
As a matter of fact, I was not supposed to be here. I was filling in for a good friend while he and his wife had their first baby. Billy and Winnie had been married only eighteen months. Now she was giving birth their first baby. It's a birth that I wish I had been there to help celebrate with. But it was not to be. Instead I was going to be at a field hospital, temporarily deaf, at least I hoped that was all it was going to be.
It started when I introduced Billy and Winnie at a night club I liked to go to three years ago stateside. Billy is just a few inches taller than Winnie. Both built about the same, blonde hair, blue eyes, slender with just a bit of heaviness on his side. Honestly, they looked good together. I was glad for the both of them. Then about five months prior to any departure, Billy and I were discussing the situation. I had told him that I would take his shift while he and Winnie had the baby. Since we both worked for the same company, did basically the same job and we know the way each other thought, we went to upper management and requested the switch. I was single, he was not. I had no particular responsibilities, he did. Since I do not have any living relatives and he did, it only made sense with the argument we used with our superior. It worked, all too well, it worked.
I had arrived in what I affectionately call "Camel Land" six weeks later. I went through some important training about water rescue in a helicopter in a large swimming pool and some other goofy training stuff. This way we would know what to expect if something happened to our transportation. Then there was basic first aid, basic this and basic that. This took us just about a week and then they turned the group of us loose on camel land.
Billy wound up going over there anyway to finish my tour. But at least he was able to see Jennie, his baby girl be born. So now the baby is a month old and very cute. Billy had to finish out my tour while I went home to get better.
I finally met Jennie with Winnie after I got home. I still could not hear very well but it was coming back to me. That, in my opinion, was praise worthy. Jennie is as pretty as her mommy. It came to my mind that Billy, Winnie and Jennie had made a really cute family.
It took me almost a year to get a clearance from the company doctor to return to full duty. I had been seeing the doctor the whole time. After only two months of going there he cleared me to go to work on a limited schedule. Our facility was noisy so I had to wear some special ear plugs and ear muffs that were guaranteed to stop loud noises. When I was in the office, it was quiet so I would be able to work without the ear protection. It had dawned on me as to how important my hearing was.
