| 24 July 2001
1556
Call it post-mortem symptoms, or ill timed inspiration, but no sooner did I "kill" My Earthly Shell, than I had things to write about. I've been looking at this live journaler community a little bit and wondered if being involved would add the spice, the thrill, the pure desire to journal again...seems it got lost a long time back with my old journal... Last night was my first airborne op in Okinawa. Sitting there, waiting to load the plane, I realized that this was something that I would truly, truly miss about the military. This cut through all the paperwork crap, the regulations garbage and tape that I deal with on a daily basis...all the power structure garbage inherent in my old units... The simply joy and beauty of the experience, the knowledge that my presence here is something I will always remember and have to take with me...experiences few can claim. Knowing that I am right now, part of something special, something meaningful...and the camaraderie of everyone, the laughing and joking, smiles all around these men dressed in green fatigues... 22 months from now when I'm gone...how hard will it be to just leave like that? How hard will it be to cope being a civilian again after 4 and a half years? Will I "make" it on the outside? I see all these openings for paralegals in big firms paying big money all over the place...SF included... But slowly drifting to the ground over Ie Shima island, the entire island just about encompassed by the drop zone, i looked out at the horizon...it was the most beautiful jump I had ever been on, blue ocean for miles around in every direction, the sun beginning to set behind the light fluffy white cloud cover... Yet at the same time there is too much for me on the outside world. There is too much to gain from being a civilian again--more freedom, opportunities...i will be around my family again...and so important to me...back to California and San Francisco...the red wood forests, the Pacific Ocean, the Sierra Nevadas...and the music scene...dear lrod how I miss Slim's and the Warfield, the Maritime Hall, Fillmore, Bottom of the Hill, Palace of Fine Arts...it just stretches on and on... Yet Life is a beautiful thing. That's the problem I was running into with MES...I was too content to write.
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