Adam came home from Kuwait this weekend. I picked him up in Vegas after finishing a geology program for fourth graders aboard a triple-decker paddlewheeler boat on Lake Mead. He was hungover and had lost a few hundred on blackjack the night before. He had three huge bags of gear, almost none of it civilian, which we locked safely in the car and went about our business. Our first stops: In n Out Burger and a gun range, because AMERICA.
After cheeseburgers and looking at guns, we stopped at a grocery store for booze and food for the weekend. Then we began the hour drive to Lake Mohave where I live, and where he would be staying for the weekend. I rolled down the windows and let him smoke in my car while he asked questions about what everyone had been up to during the 400 days of his deployment. I didn’t have much to tell him, because our friends haven’t done anything new besides more drugs, getting evicted, and getting a new pit bull.
I had no good news to tell him, so I changed the subject to him: what had he been up to? Transporting weapons and other sensitive items. Moving stuff so that other soldiers could leave Iraq. And he was getting divorced. It sucks to be 22 and already referring to someone as your “ex-wife”. I noticed he wouldn’t use her name, she would be called “ex-wife” all weekend.