Ft. Riley, my Chrysalis

I have been in Ft. Riley, Kansas since March 3, 2007. The post is located near a couple of small towns; Junction City—crappy place with no real attractions and Manhattan—not great but a lot better than the former one. Manhattan is small but its tolerable since is has the Kansas State University campus within it thus having the main necessities near by.

I have been provided with a small twin bed—bottom bunk—and three wall-lockers that are approximately 12 inches wide; quite exciting considering that I can barely fit my clothes in my closet at home. I share my room with 4 other females and we have to share the bathroom and showers with the rest of females in the building—the number varies depending on the classes present at the time. We have the military mess hall for our breakfast, lunch and dinner but you can always choose to skip the disappointment and either eat somewhere else or starve yourself to death. The people in Camp Funston—also called “Funtown” or “Kansistan—thinks is pretty humorous that you can sometimes find hairs and other foreign objects in your food. Thank goodness I haven’t had that experience yet!

Part of the training is to understand the Iraqi culture and to learn at least the basics of their language. As a female officer, it is quite difficult to tolerate the fact that part of their culture is to think that women do not have the same societal status than men. We were warned not go get offended if the Iraqi leader that we will advice does not want to shake our hand or talk directly to us. I honestly do not think I am going to be too broken hearted about that. The Iraqi nationals that are working for the military in Ft. Riley to help train us cooked us a traditional—as traditional as it was possible—dinner. They made us dress up as Iraqi women and sit in a table by ourselves but we too joined in the eating with our bare hands instead of using silverware. I was surprised with the food, it was tasty and not bad at all but then again…that was just one meal.

Before I left for Ft. Riley, I was determined that I will get a new tattoo. For reasons that I cannot explain in this blog, I decided to tattoo a butterfly on my right shoulder. I can only say that it signifies the many changes I have went through for the last 6 months or so since I found out that I will be going to Iraq. Ever since then, I have an eerie feeling that shouts “LIVE YOUR LIFE!!!” Feelings that tell me to make sure I do not keep to myself the feelings that are revolting inside of me; feelings that are forcing me to look at myself in a different light, a light that sometimes reveals things I rather not think of. So, this butterfly marks a time in my life where I have changed, grown and discovered what’s important for me…

Since the time I moved to “Funtown,” I have been going through some rough changes and discovering parts of me that I never thought reside in me. That’s why I call Ft. Riley “my Chrysalis.” I feel like I am in a cocoon waiting to come out, waiting to see the world in a whole different way and waiting to re-learn all the things that I thought I knew about myself and others. I am not sure what my meconium—leftover wing pigments and unneeded tissues from the butterfly's wing formation— is going to leave behind or exactly how my “showers of blood”—product left behind by a butterfly after going through metamorphosis—are going to affect my future but I am anxious to finally be able to look back at this time and comprehend why I had to endure it all and carry on adapting to a new me, for better or for worse.