Strange Sort of Freedom

**Disclaimer**
I have been thinking about this post for a while, but I never really got around to writing it until now.  It examines how we live over here, and is not meant to be critical, but oberservational.

We live in a strange sort of freedom.


We don't do laundry, rather we drop it off to KBR and they do it.  We don't cook or do dishes, the DFAC does all of that for us.  We don't pay rent, electricity, or water, we live in CHUs.  We don't carry blackberrys or cell phones, so no calls at 0400 or emails always coming in.  Nothing to spend money on, so we save a lot.  Company pays for all transportation costs in country, so no money going out there.  

The flipside is.....

We have to preschedule all of our laundry needs, because if we don't plan, we will run out of clothes before the clean ones are back.  we don't get to cook and have to eat when, where and what the DFAC says.  (I don't have anything to say about the lack of doing dishes.  I enjoy the heck out of that!)  We live in CHUs.  That is a 12x12 room that we share with another person.  No privacy, no time by yourself away from everyone else.  200 yards away from showers and toilets.  However, its better than a tent, and no matter how dirty it is, is still better than most of our front line boys in Iraq and Afghanistan.  We don't get phone calls or emails all the time, but We also don't have as much contact with home as we would like.  Nothing to spend money on....I guess that's good too.  If we buy it, we have to haul it around with us or ship it home.  Company pays for all the transportation, but they can use that transportation to move our living and working arrangements hundreds of miles with 24 hours notice.

Everything has two sides.  It is just which side you choose to believe in and dwell on that will either drive you crazy or let you live in relative peace.