Sick Again

When I first arrived at Camp Atterbury the first week of February I moved in to an open bay barracks with nine other people.  Within just a few days the crud had spread throughout the barracks so that as we made our way over to Afghanistan for our site survey I was down hard.  Nothing like living in a tent in Central Asia with snow coming down and a good, solid cold making you nice and weak.  I eventually got over it so that by the time I arrived in Kunar, I was healthy again.  On the trip back, however, I spent about eighteen hours in the air with breathing in that stale air surrounded, once again, by sick people.  So by the time I arrived back in the states I was down hard again.  The guy across the aisle from me on the plane actually ended up in the hospital where he ended up contracting pneumonia (he is fine now).  After about a week I was once again healthy and ready for the next challenge.  What I failed to realize was that the next challenge was going to be getting sick again.  For as soon as I arrived back at Camp Atterbury I was back in the open bay barracks.  Within just a few days I could feel it start to come on with a tickle in by throat.  Soon the tickle became a jagged knife.  Then the cough started.  The guy living across the aisle from me in the barracks ended up in the isolation barracks for three days with a bad flu (do you see a trend here)?

So now I am battling through while not letting it affect the rest of the team, both from a health perspective and a morale perspective.  It would be very easy to take everything out on the team but, I am keeping my spirits up and driving forward.  We are receiving ten more members of the team today, four tomorrow and the rest will arrive on Tuesday.  One of the guys that arrived today is a very young third class petty officer with a wife and child.  He has just come back from Bahrain and is on his way to Afghanistan and he is not old enough to walk into a store and buy a six-pack of beer.  This young man and I were both born in Mercy Hospital, Nampa, Idaho (not at the same time).  Although I left Nampa a few months after being born, he stayed and married his high school sweetheart (also a product of Mercy).  The funny thing is they went to Boise for the birth of their daughter...better hospitals there he said.

The leadership challenges abound as most of us are Navy and Air Force learning the Army way.  Already there have been a few where the choice has to be made whether to fight a particular battle (figurative), or live to fight another day.  One of the interesting aspects of building this team is that they do not get the training members of a normal command would be provided.  Someone going to a surface ship as a department head attends six months of department head school followed by specialty training depending on what type of ship they are going to.  Executive Officer attend PXO school and Command Leadership School.  My guys have none of that.  But the great attitudes and the desire to learn and to do well have trumped any schools they were denied.  They will excel I have no doubt.

Meanwhile I am sitting here with my hot chai made by our two linguists that live and train with us.  One more night in a Nyquil stupor and hopefully I will be back on my game.