The Three of Us - 2013

I will never defend the men who make amends with any enemy's friends,
I will never pretend.
I will never bow down to another man even when everyone's sayin' I've sinned,
I will never repent.

Song: The Three of Us

Artist: Streetlight Manifesto

Album: The Hands That Thieve

Year Released: 2013

Memory Date: May 2013

I joined the Army Reserves in May of 2008. During my next 8 years in the Reserves I did two stints working active duty. The first was a stateside mission to do port security. It was an easy job with a steady pay check, heck I even got to go home at the end of each night. The second was that I deployed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as a prison guard. Before I left to go to GTMO I trained in Camp McGregor, New Mexico.

I was leaving my wife, Kortney and our 1 year old daughter, Ellie at home. This was the first time I had been away from them for an extended period of time. It was a difficult time not just for me and my wife, but for our whole family. I assured them all that it was something that had been done a million times before by people who weren’t as strong as we were and that everyone would survive the year with me gone. Kortney and I made plans for her to move in with her father while I was gone so he could help with Ellie.

I packed my bags, spent a few days in Concord, California getting all my paperwork together and 

then I took off. I left Oakland Airport on May 5^th 2013 for Camp McGregor. When you prepare to go overseas on a deployment there is a few weeks to a few months, depending on your mission that you go and learn how to conduct operations. In my units case this meant lots of shooting, PowerPoint training and prison operations. My unit (the 357th MP CO) also had a slew of new soldiers join us for our deployment so this was a good chance to get to know them. The whole time at the Camp was a shit experience for everyone involved.

The Camp is a place that I can only describe as the worst location I have ever been forced to visit. It was blisteringly hot during the day, freezing cold at night. We had random sandstorms that would come out of nowhere. God help you if you were outside when they hit, say goodbye to your eyes and lungs. Our living conditions weren’t great, but not to terrible. We bunked in dome shelters that had 12 per shack. I brought a ton of stuff, including my Laptop and my external hard drive which I had loaded with movies and music before leaving. Most of my belongings found their way under my bed as my personal space was about 4’ by 6’.

The one thing that I was looking forward to each day was possibly listening to the most recent album I had downloaded. The Hands That Thieve by Streetlight Manifesto. I was a big ska-punk fan and Streetlight releasing a new album was a big deal to me. I was really excited to listen to it. Sadly, I was far too busy and tired with all of my training/work to listen to it when we first arrived. It was about 2 weeks into my time there that I finally sat down, put in my earphones and listened to what I can only describe as the best thing about this entire time of suck.

I listen to the album front to back every night for the next 3 weeks. It was my way to de-stress after each day. Even on days when we worked from before sun-up to after sun-down I plugged it in and gave it a listen. Our lights would go out at 10pm, the room full of me and 11 other guys would all go about bedding down, I would put those earphones in, sink into my bed and I would just let the sweet horn sounds melt away the stress of the day.