Relevance

Overall I have learned a lot of basic military skills which, even if I don’t actually have to exercise them, my level of knowledge will hopefully keep me from looking like an idiot when I enter “Army world” in Afghanistan.
The major themes of the course have become very clear: immediate first aid response, identifying and/or avoiding IEDs, and weapons familiarization. I am assuming this is a reflection of the reality of the wars these days.
On that note, one of the instructors in the combat lifesaver course told the class today that someone from the class in April had just been involved in an IED blast and lost a leg right after getting in country.
Being tucked away here, living and breathing the military life as I prepare to deploy, I have realized a few things (apart from the fact that I don’t like it). I have had an awareness that I generally haven’t talked about/thought about how soldiers, sailors, and airmen are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan every day. Even if a day goes by without a death, someone was having a close call, getting a limb blown off or getting their brain sloshed in their skull. Not that we forget, but it doesn’t seem like it is a prominent thing, because it doesn’t have that much relevance to our everyday lives. That’s not a profound insight but this sure is becoming relevant in my little world…