Bipolar Bear Thoughts

Well here it is…June 12, 2014. I’m coming out of the closet again. But this time on a more serious nature. You see I’m ….. wait let me start from the beginning.

As a child  … no i’m kidding…fast forward.

In the summer of 2001, I decided that I couldn’t bare the thought of my then on-again/off-again girlfriend dating someone else. I mean, we weren’t together so why should it have mattered right? I was sort of seeing someone … by sort of i mean internet dating. So it really wasn’t serious. Besides she was all the way around the world (which to me was pretty damn far) in Germany of all places. So what did I do…like the “lust-struck puppy” i was, and the “determined to get over my ex and my feelings for her” type of gal…i went to the nearest recruiter and said sign me up for active duty. I want to go to Germany. Now I had never been a plane that damn long. Sure a few trips to Cali…no biggie..5 hours..i could sleep that. But now we’re talking like 10-15 hours on a plane. How the hell would i survive? would there be kids on the plane…what would i do???

But i packed some of my favorite pain pills, popped a few and slept as much as i could. I was nervous. Here i was barely 22 years old and i was a mess. I’m on a plane thousands of feet in the air and i’m leaving behind everything that i had known to go to a country that in my mind was war stricken (even though the war had been over for almost 50 years). I just kept picturing bombed out buildings from the documentaries I had watched. But alas, I landed and some NCO came to get me and drive me the hour south to my post. I was processed into my unit, given a room and told to be at formation the next day at 0500. Continue reading →