Leisure in War - How Our Soldiers Wind Down

George Orwell once wrote, “We sleep comfortably at night because rough men stand ready to do violence.” Or something to that effect, anyway. As one of those “rough men,” this reporter finds there is so much more to being a soldier than just violence and excitement. Soldiers aren’t simply robots designed to kill without remorse. We’re human beings who just happen to spend our days (and often nights) working in dangerous situations, looking for trouble.

Of course, what happens after we drop our armor, clean our weapons, and shower off the several layers of dust, dirt, debris, and, on occasion, blood? What do soldiers do for fun?

My platoon consists of 34 soldiers. We’re all combat engineers, varying in age from 20 to 53. Some are married, some are divorced, some are single, all are in need of relaxation after the duty day is done.

For most everyone in my platoon, DVD movies are the most basic form of entertainment. For the younger soldiers, a DVD player is among the first big ticket purchases. It’s the soldier using his money - which is, in most cases, the most money he’s ever made - however he damn well pleases. It’s an expression of independence, even if the quality doesn’t always exactly hit high marks.

Most of the older soldiers showed up to the theater of operations with their own DVD players. For them, it’s a link to the outside world. It provides the soldier with a reminder of the things back home they enjoy.

What brings the soldiers together, both young and old, is the choice of movies. Most soldiers have the usual films one would expect in the DVD binder of someone who kills people professionally. We Were Soldiers, The Patriot, and Blackhawk Down are universally popular. Being guys, Adam Sandler movies are popular, as are other traditional “guy” films. For example, one of my buddies just finished watching Super Troopers for the fifteenth time… this week.

When you’ve seen all the movies every soldier has available (two of my senior sergeants are in open competition - four 96-dvd binders a piece), and you still have ten months to go in the one-year deployment, it comes time for new diversions. For some soldiers, physical training becomes a viable option. Even if the tour of duty has called you away from the major installations of Afghanistan to a “hot zone,” you will still find state-of-the-art exercise equipment in the gym. The common joke throughout the theater is that when a new compound is being built, the chow hall, chapel, and gym are the first three hard buildings erected, and the last three torn down.

“Downrange,” the common term for anywhere in Afghanistan that isn’t nice and 98% secure, often means an absence of leisure capabilities. Sure, there’s probably a phone or a single computer terminal, and most certainly a gym of some kind, but past that, soldiers have to be creative with their free time. If you want to have something more advanced than a twelve-year-old copy of The Bourne Supremacy to read, you’ll have to bring it or have it mailed in from home. Even so, the ingenuity of the common soldier can overcome even the most crushing boredom.

During service in Iraq, my platoon supported the invasion force. As a result, we were often assigned to secure construction of forward bases long before any of the major components were assembled. We ate our chow out of MRE bags, drank 100 degree bottled water, and slept on cots under bombed-out ceilings. Even then, we managed to develop our own diversions. My friend Ricky created a game called “Five Hole,” a take-off on the game horseshoe involving small sandbags and plywood. My squad leader taught us how to throw a knife, which ate up several hours each day and resulted in more than a few calls for the local medic. Ah, good times.

And then there was the Ghetto-Flex 2000. Every soldier deployed to a hot spot has built the Ghetto-Flex 2000 at some point in time, but ours was, without a doubt, the most advanced in the history of expedient exercise equipment. Sandbags, old Iraqi machining equipment, and expended acetylene tanks comprised the base components. A duffle bag strung from the rafters with parachute shroud lines becoming the punching bag (or the beat-the-green-off-the-bag-with-a-stick-bag, anyway). Running the perimeter of the compound, especially with the risk of enemy snipers, provided the cardiovascular portion of the workout.

With the developments in wireless technology over the past few years since the initial invasion, wireless LAN gaming has become all the rage. Counter-Strike and Command and Conquer are the most popular, of course. However, there are small circles in which several soldiers, including this reporter, organize Neverwinter Nights parties and modules. In a world where the danger is very real, it is refreshing to play some simple role-playing games.

And, of course, there are console video games. Playstation 2 and X-Box games have found their way to the Army/Air Force Exchange Service facilities across the country. For most soldiers, their TV and X-Box are staples of field equipment, and they will go to extreme limits to ensure their investments are protected in transit and in the field: foam padding and trash bags for shipment via convoys or helicopter, compressed air and cleaning discs for the field. Again, combat games such as Halo or SOCOM are the most popular.

For those who aren’t into stacking an elf ranger with fortitude saves, a friendly game of cards is often a viable solution. Soldiers meet all across the theater to play Texas Hold ‘em or five card draw, even if only for fun. Gambling has been banned in the theater, but for soldiers who simply want to sharpen their skills at cards and conniving people, the games are on and always popular.

One might wonder, why on earth would soldiers spend their time in such frivolous ways? Why do these soldiers, the epitome of men in rough conditions, want so badly to watch stupid movies or play combat-based video games? The answer is that these games and movies take these soldiers from the doldrums of the warzone. Ninety-nine percent of the time, combat is boring as hell. Out of the five dozen combat missions this reporter has under his belt, only three have resulted in actual contact in one form or another. As a wise man once said, combat is hours and days of boredom punctuated by a few seconds of sheer terror. For the soldiers who call this “life,” a little childish insanity helps bring the whole combat scene to a level of normalcy.