Marine Corps Issue...

Today I went through the small mountain of Marine Corps cammies, uniforms, accessories, and weird shit I picked up while I was enlisted. This process took me several hours. I'm still not done. Washing and sorting gear I haven't even set eye on for the past five years takes quite a long time. Urgh.

It is weird how good memories and bad memories are attached to the uniforms I used to wear on a daily basis. I remember the field operations I used to be a part of. Those were usually fun. I didn't like the hours, though. I remember being deployed to Afghanistan. That deployment sucked so bad, not because I was in a real war zone, but because there was too much politics, favoritism between the ranks (which is not permitted), and mundaneness mixed with outright fear for my life. I guess rocket attacks will do that. Okinawa, Japan was beautiful. I should have gone off base more often than I did. I could have eaten more Japanese food, seen Japanese sights, and visited Japanese villages, cities, and beaches. Hell, I should have gone outside more often than I did. North Carolina had its charm, too. Camp LeJeune had the beauty of a thick forest next to the ocean. That combination is pretty rare in nature. Well...maybe not in the North Eastern parts of this country and Canada. Parris Island was the best experience of my Marine Corps career. I've said that if the Marine Corps was half of what I was taught in Boot Camp, I would have re-enlisted in a heart-beat. I didn't re-enlist, and I wonder what my life would have been like if I stayed enlisted for eight years instead of four. I guess I'll never know unless I jump stream. That is the past eight years gone -- eight years ago since I first enlisted and four years since I left -- so trying to figure out where I would be now if I made different decisions would be a waste of my time. I guess I'll always wonder "what if".

I found four mesh laundry bags, one regular laundry bag, and eight laundry bag pins. Those are huge. Why do I own eight of them? I don't know. I found a new pair of combination locks that are still in the plastic. I found the patches I bought when I visited Korea. I found my original money bag I was issued in Boot Camp. It was empty. I do remember carrying $7 in it while I was getting thrashed by my drill instructors. It is weird how that was eight years ago. I found a bunch of stuff I have no use for and i don't know how to get rid of. I don't want to carelessly throw it all out, but I don't want to hold onto it for the rest of my life -- except the stuff I'm holding onto for posterity.

So: there are two piles downstairs, one bigger than the other one. The small one is for me, the large one is for removal. I wonder what I'll do with the large one.

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