REMF@FOB

Time for some more acronyms. These are old acronyms to me, having known of them for years, but this was the first time I had associated them together and applied them to myself. “REMF” is translated as Rear Echelon Malingering Fellow” (actually, the MF stands for something beyond gutter-franca, but the words I’ve used will adequately, if not considerably more politely, convey the meaning), and FOB (not a trinket, a chain, or a watch-pocket on a vest) is a Forward Operating Base. The base I am at used to be a FOB, but is fast losing that distinction due to the considerable rise in security and stability in the immediate vicinity. The base I visited earlier this week has yet to loose the distinction. To the personnel at the FOB, guys like me who show up for a day or two are REMFs, and they would just as soon have us malinger in our rear echelon area than have us cluster around THEIR area and make their jobs more difficult. Which, I will admit, REMFs typically do (we typically DO malinger in our rear echelon areas, and we also typically—whenever we actually do go to a FOB—make their jobs more difficult). However, I was assured by the folks that I contacted while at the FOB that the things we accomplished while there were extremely helpful and encouraging to them, and I learned quite a bit as well that will help give me focus in some of the tasks I am doing here.

I think the things I need the most out here are things that no one can give me: more hours in a day (either to get more work done or to get more sleep, and of course, sleep would win), a bit more joy in every experience (I feel blessed to appreciate all the blessings I experience—and I DO experience a TON of blessing, but I’m still working on discovering what joy really is), and a diminishing of the sense that I am being daily distanced from the essential core of Sheryl and Joshua’s lives and existence. I thank you for all you ARE giving me, and doing for me through your care, your prayers, and your thoughts, and more.

Semper Fi, Jon G.