CHANGE |

CHANGE
Name: Doug Templeton
Posting date: 4/26/07
Stationed in: Afghanistan
Hometown: Kansas City, MO
Email: dtempleton14@yahoo.com

Today is Thursday and that means bad pizza night. Rumor has it the current vender is going out and a Pizza Hut is going in. This would have been a nice change, however, as luck would have it, it's happening after I leave. We do have a Subway here, but it is literally in the back of a van that is parked outside the Post Exchange. Of course, all the food other than the chow hall has to be paid for, and since we get a whopping $3.50 a day it takes a day or more’s allowance to eat out.

I am looking forward to going to the Big Bazaar tomorrow for the last time. I doubt I will be buying anything, but it is another last that I can check off my list of things to do before heading home. We have been checking off a lot of lasts lately, and with every one come a joy and sadness. Our lives here are about to change and everything we have grown used to is ending.

When we go home to our families there will also be change. They have spent the year moving forward without us, and it will most definitely be different. Many of us will be moving to new bases and will be starting new jobs. I often wonder how I will keep up with all of it. Our children have gotten bigger and have had to endure being single-parented. They have learned that mommy or daddy can be sent away for a long period of time and if they are older, like my daughter, they understand the danger they faced.

I guess the one thing in life that remains constant is change. You either learn to accept it, or lock yourself in a box and refuse to come out. I for one have learned to accept it, because my whole life and military career has been about moving and changing. Now I have spent a year helping others to make change, and in the end I’m pretty proud of what we’ve done.

Comments

[Carrie Lynn Novakovich]

I hope that your transition back to the US goes smoothly. May God bless you and your family and thank you for all the sacrifices that you have made on mine and everyone else's behalf.

Carrie Lynn Novakovich

[Pixelkiller]

A long time ago, another time, another war, a man I knew said, "I had to leave my loved ones and go back to my wife and family".
Thanks for your efforts on my behalf and be careful over there until your actually gone - gone, wheels up, smoking lamp on.

[Passerby]

As a virtual audience member, I have enjoyed your uniformly excellent posts to the Sandbox military blog. I hope you will continue to post when you return. Perhaps if you chronicle your transition to Stateside life, it will help us to understand the temporary and permanent changes wrought by this year in the Afghanistan theatre of war. Be safe through these final days abroad.

[April Jimenez]

Well I am not a big fan of the war but still I appreciate what you guys are doing for us back here at home. I know that you cannot wait to come home and spend time with your family. Wow I cannot imagine being over there in Afghanistan and only getting paid $3.50 a day. I bet there are a lot of temptations to go eat out especially how you describe Thursdays as being bad pizza night. I feel you because I know it is tempting to go eat out but when you don’t have money it completely sucks. So how is the food over there? I bet not that tasteful and extraordinary. I wonder what the Big Bazaar is all about. I bet that you are really anxious to come back to the good old USA, but don’t be that excited there is not much going on over here. Change is a major thing, many of the times it is good and many of the times it is drastic. You really don’t know what is going to happen to you in the future when change is involved in your life. But hopefully everything goes batter than what you had to experience over there in Afghanistan. What are your plans for when you get back? Most likely you are grateful that you will spend time with your family but especially you will have a blast eating the delicious and finger licking food.
Thank you for doing what you do and I bet you have a lot of love for this country to be doing what you are doing right now. I would not have the guts or the patience to be far away from my family and in a totally different atmosphere and country. But you have plenty of courage to be serving for your country and I wish you the best for when you come back home. Hopefully I didn’t say anything to disrespect anyone, but this is my first time going on this website and actually leaving a comment. Well I am giving an early WELCOME HOME SOLDIER!!!!!!!