Keeping our focus

The first time I went outside the wire I went out with some soldiers from the unit we were replacing. We were not going that far beyond the gate, but as it was my first experience beyond the safe confines of the camp I was apprehensive to say the least. When we pulled over and got out of our vehicles my hands clenched my rifle tightly and I nervously turned my head from side to side, scanning for any sign of trouble. Not knowing exactly what I should be doing I turned around to look at one of the other soldiers in the hopes that I might imitate the actions of someone who had already spent a year in Iraq. The soldier, leaning up against a concrete barrier with his weapon slung across his back, was focused intently on the yo-yo dangling from his finger.

Complacency is an epidemic over here. During our training our instructors always stressed "situational awareness" and told us that we must always work hard to keep ourselves from becoming complacent. At the time I remember thinking that the point was obvious and couldn’t imagine how anyone could help but be alert and aware while in a combat zone. Now, after only a few short months in country, I see how easy it is to slip into a routine and lose your edge. It might not manifest itself in something as obvious and absurd as playing with a yo-yo while on patrol but, in one form or another, it is common.

Despite what you might gather from CNN highlights, this war is more often a long stretch of boredom interrupted only rarely by peaks of excitement. It isn’t all gun fights and glory. After you’ve driven the same route a hundred times and nothing bad has happened, or you hear the mortar alarm each day but rarely see the explosion, you sometimes fall into a feeling of false security. Instead of running for cover at the sound of the alarm, like you used to, you instead continue walking to the gym. Instead of stopping the suspicious man and searching his car you tell yourself that he probably isn’t doing anything wrong.

Unfortunately, it is this complacency that often results in the death of another American soldier. You have to force yourself to stay alert and perform your job as you know it should be done. We can’t afford to wait for a wake-up call, because by then it is probably too late. So we do our best to remind each other when we start to become lax and hold firmly in our minds the fact that our level of alertness may be the difference between living and dying.