Life in the FOBs in Afghanistan was a time capsule of red-blooded ‘Merica, like hanging out between scenes of a 90s action movie. The gym was 24 hours, everybody was huge, and the music was hardcore 80/90s. Sort of like my high school football team. There were guns in every social situation, which was shocking at first until you realized that it meant that this was the first place on earth where you had nothing to fear from strangers. Everybody knew everything about the people around them. If you had something you were insecure about, you’d get tortured about it until you weren’t. I never fit in, but these people were willing to die for me, and I found ways to earn respect. It was basically the neighborhood I grew up in, or maybe a sports team, or maybe a prison. It didn’t really matter. Food was simple, served every 6 hours on a tray line, and you got everything you needed without thinking about it. On the bigger FOBs, the jet engines ran constantly in idle, and the fighter pilots pretty much did WTF they wanted. There were no cell phones nor internet in most places, which was tremendously liberating. I made the most of every moment there. There was always something important to do, and not much in the way. Most of the time I didn’t worry about my job. We worked 12 hour days, 7 days a week, everybody together in one place. You’re never alone on a deliverable; it’s everybody’s responsibility, everybody’s credit, and everybody’s lives on the line.

It felt like focus. I came back to chaos. Jobs where you have no idea what to do or why, but huge pressure to make your boss happy, just some random person that you don’t really know anything about, but they have the power to ruin your career, and you’re all on your own. Shopping. Cooking. Cleaning. Family. Facebook. Cell phones. Internet dating. Interviews. Leases. License. Registration. Insurance. Doctors. Lawyers. Bills. Taxes. Spam. Scams. Outrage politics. These things are not optional. It’s your entire life consumed by other people’s rackets. It all existed before, but every year away, it seems like it’s been put on overdrive when I get back. People have a tendency to infantilize vets by claiming we’re the victims of PTSD or something, but no, seriously, there are some things that really are getting worse in normal American life, and especially politics of the homefront military. Maybe it’s to be expected; a lot of us went forward to get away from that.

The "everything is organised for you and we're all a team" aspect of the military is something that a lot of people say. It seems to work well for them.

But. And I'm not directing this at you, but it jumped out at me ..

> On the bigger FOBs, the jet engines ran constantly in idle

.. using a considerable quantity of fuel, every drop of which had be trucked from Karachi through unfriendly territory. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11463490 Of course it was comfortable, the kind of comfort only the incredible profligacy of the war machine can offer.

Total cost: https://apnews.com/article/asia-pacific-afghanistan-middle-e... $800bn over 20 years. Let's say $40bn a year.

Peak troop numbers: ~100k. So at least $400,000 per troop per year.

No wonder it was so great, I'd be disappointed if you didn't enjoy it if it cost that much. It's all the Americans grinding away in the home system that made it possible for you. $120/year/American.

Did anyone ever say "we can't do that, we don't have the budget"?

> every drop of which had be trucked from Karachi

There were multiple supply routes used in Afghanistan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_logistics_in_the_Afghan_W...

In particular, the Pakistan routes were not used at all for many months after the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_NATO_attack_in_Pakistan and "by February 2012 85% of coalition fuel supplies were being shipped through the northern routes".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-16154331

>>It’s your entire life consumed by other people’s rackets

I lived overseas for 10 years and can verify that things got a lot shittier around here while I was gone. And the people as a whole got a lot dumber and more gullible. Cell phones. Social media. The 24/7 gossip news cycle. Your experience of a more meaningful, directly engaged, lower-bullshit life is actually the way things are, or were until recently, in a lot of countries. America's a runaway train.

Help me out here, please. Where has been good for you?

Well... the bureaucratic hassles, taxes, car payments, etc. exist everywhere I've been, since I haven't lived in a sealed work/life environment like you did. I don't think I could personally handle that kind of discipline or regimentation. But I've noticed a pattern in the places where I've found the most happiness. A few things:

(1) People value going out and having conversations over other forms of entertainment like games, television, social media, etc. Discussions in these conditions tend to be more honest and more nuanced. Wit is admired. I believe America has a pattern of politely lying and then back-stabbing, rather than openly disagreeing - and the UK does even more so - and this enters a vicious cycle on social media that doesn't exist when everyone's around a table.

(2) Tradition is valued over technology. This means more care and quality goes into the real world around you - everything from food preparation to the craftsmanship of an ordinary chair can be treated as a work of art and brings aesthetic beauty and pleasure. Pre-prepared things and plastic crap tend to be shunned. Old things are revered, reused and restored. Wealth is therefore not so much the accumulation of things as it is of the stories that go with them. This creates more depth and gives the world a human scale. America is pretty much the opposite; it worships the new, the fast, the convenient, the disposable, the gigantic. Everywhere looks the same because getting from A to B efficiently on the interstate has hollowed out a local or regional sense of place.

(3) Individuality is set within a larger social fabric. It's unacceptable to be alone on a holiday - even if you want to be. Someone will always come find you and bring you into the fold. Family and friends are sacrosanct - nothing you want to do personally comes before them. This can be heavy sometimes, and hard for an American. But if you let yourself be pulled into it, you get a sense of community that doesn't exist in the US. Maybe it used to exist in small-town America, but small-town America is also extremely conservative, judgmental, religious, and whacked out on opioids and meth.

So, the places I've lived that best met my qualifications were: Rural France, where you can rent a village house for €500 a month, if you can work remotely, chop your own wood in the winter, get your food from the butcher and baker, and spend every evening with stonemasons and hunters at the village pub, or walk country roads for a few miles to the next village; Buenos Aires, where all of life is a series of coffee dates and dinners with new and old friends that stretch late into the night; and mid-sized towns in Spain, similarly (away from the tourist coasts). I'd also say Prague - outside of the city center; and Vietnam (Saigon). The last one is tricky because of the language and the fact that their government doesn't really want you there, but the people are incredibly open, sincere and welcoming. My ex and I hit the road when we were 24, with a couple remote jobs lined up, and lived well for 10 years, mostly on under $2k/mo, by finding out of the way places. Paid no federal income tax because we stayed out. Saved enough to buy a house in the States, and now I'm sitting on my porch going - what am I doing here worrying about maintenance and bills, hardly seeing friends who are all too busy with kids and work? I should be back out there. Anyway, that's my story.

also - been thinking about this. The shit you said about this country was so incisive. I would really be happy to hook you up with some good places to go. And people who would have your back there.

For better or worse, your first paragraph is never what America was. The second is closer. The privilege of purpose, handed down from on high and wrapped in an American flag, is the socialism-flavored tradeoff for all the horrible things servicemen have to contend with.

I do think it's dangerous to romanticize what the military does for soldiers without recognizing what it does to our enemies and the innocents caught in the crossfire; especially when we, as a country, cannot fathom "service" (and all the things that flow from that structure, which we can agree can be edifying for one's soul) being anything but that which involves airstrikes and ammunition. As for how to cure the nation of its woes, I feel that a huge part of it is competition run amok. Things are difficult because it's an advantageous condition for those who are able to navigate the rough waters when their neighbors can't.

Perhaps we go the two-birds-one-stone route. I hear that there are some bridges and buildings and roads that may need repair.

I have similar opinions on these topics as many that were out there, which is to say, not at all what others may assume or want us to think, nor what may be in our best interest to share.

That may be for the best; I assume they are controversial. If they are rational, that controversy would frustrate; if they're unfounded, their exposure to credible pushback would perhaps leave you with an identity crisis. That said, keeping them bottled up may be similarly undesirable; when driven by principles not subject to community scrutiny, an individual is likelier to act in socially (even morally) unacceptable ways, perhaps in a moment of opportunity or crisis.

Something to think - maybe, talk - about.

Write more.