Simple Pleasures

There are a few things that I look at during a deployment that keep me somewhat contented with my present situation. I thought I would sit down and share a few of these little things.


We have relatively good showers here as compared to my last deployment. But even still there is something that is not very appealing about taking a shower with 10 other guys. But what few recognize is that if you break with conformity, there are some great benefits. Case in point, the first stall.

You see, the shower stalls are all very small. There is an A/C unit and ventilation system. This creates a flow of air from the back to the front of the walkway in front of the showers. Now the purpose of this is good, to prevent too much humidity from building up in the showers and cause a bad mold problem. However the byproduct of all this is creates a small physics problem. When the shower curtain is closed and the hot shower is running the cool air falls down and the hot air rises, the curtain is pushed into the stall. This means that everyone who takes a shower also ends up cuddling with the curtain. That’s OK if you like rubbing up against the same curtain with which about 100 other naked guys also cuddle. In addition to this when each person gets out of the shower, they leave the shower curtain open. This causes moisture to be trapped in the folds of the curtain. This moisture never dries out and thus little areas of mold start to grow in the folds, leaving the next guy to cuddle with the moldy curtain.

But the first stall is magical! No one ever uses the first stall because it is right by the front door. There is a perceived threat that if just at the point when you are about to step in the shower, the front door will open and you will be “hanging in the breeze”. But if you can get passed this unreasonable fear, you can find the secret of the first stall. At the very top of the wall of the first stall (and only the first stall) there is a 2 foot by 6 inch opening to the outside where the hot water pipes come into the shower building. This opening allows a gentle breeze from to inside of the stall and out to the hall that actually bellows the shower curtain outward, giving the showerer 6 more inches of valuable space. This breeze is very dry and thus dries the shower out very shortly after the shower is completed. In addition, no one uses this shower so there aren’t multiple people getting the stall wet and causing mold to grow; leaving me with practically my very own shower stall, clean and dry.

But there are more little things that make this deployment enjoyable. Time. I have more free time here than I ever have had in my entire life. It is great to be able to sit down and read a book for several hours per day. Having time at this period in my life is great for me. During medical school and residency, I was working inhumane hours. Now that I have finished that season of my life and now that my national boards are done, I can finally enrich my life with other things besides medical education. I am reading Joel Rosenberg’s Inside the Revolution and Augustine’s Confessions and Bill O’Reilly’s Pinheads and Patriots and Margaret Hogan’s My Dearest Friend – Letters of Abigail and John Adams. In addition to these, I am in a Bible Study and reading the Bible from cover to cover. This is a great time of personal, spiritual, and intellectual growth. The downside of this is it comes at a great cost to Kari and the kids. Of this deployment, my wife is far more the heroine than I a hero.

A few other simple things….the sunsets here are just as beautiful as home. The moon rise is magnificent. The stars are as clear as they are out in Proctor Colorado. We have encredible pecan pie and pralines and cream ice cream at the dining facility (DFAC). I have an actual bed. And I have a family that loves me.

Life is good. Thank you God.