Today is not healthy eating night, but how can you say no to lasagna and mozzarella sticks? My stomach may give me a good reason to say no tomorrow, but carpe diem, right? Finally got to talk on the phone tonight. The comms here have been unpredictable as of late, and I haven't been able to call home the last two nights. But even 1 night out of 3 is better phone time that my last deployment. Except for the high chance of getting killed, the Army has it alot easier on deployments than the Navy does. They always have comms, fresh fruit, and sunlight. Those are three things that many people take for granted unless they don't have them. And while 15 months away, 12 at home sounds bad, that is about the same optempo as a Navy ship has. I imagine that when they are at home, they spend comparable amounts of time in the field as your typical sailor spends on duty. They just lump all 15 months together which makes it worse. The Marines do 7 months deployed, 6 at home. There are advantages to all 3 ways of splitting up a 50+% optempo, but there are more advantages to having a low optempo. When this war is over, the Army and Marines will. The peacetime Navy will still have the same optempo as the wartime Army. I wonder if the Army will send any IA's to help the Navy stand their watches once the Army goes back to no-deploy mode? No, I actually don't wonder.
Clarification: I got a couple of emails saying I sounded down in my post last night. I guess I didn't communicate really well. I was pretty torqued before church, but I left feeling very encouraged with that God doesn't abandon even if the Navy lets you down. It was supposed to be a moderately cheery post.
