How to Sleep with Thirty Dudes

First off get your minds out of the gutter. Although Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has been repealed any act of (hetero or otherwise) is against General Order # 1 (GO#1). GO#1 is the catchall that prohibits alcohol, sex, pornography, gambling and just about everything else, but I digress. How to sleep with thirty dudes is about the living quarters, which are ten times better than Camp Roberts, California and twenty times better than my first go round at Ft Bliss in 2004. Structurally the building is new and in good order. We live in open bays with bunk beds. Latrines and showers are indoors. That may sound like an odd statement, but the Army is known to separate these amenities such as placing a porta-potty and shower trailer a mile away from your barracks. Before I begin to start to sound too appreciative and get kicked off the blog as a contributor, let me break out the hell of having thirty roommates.

Lights out is 2200 (10pm civilian). This, like lanes on a Russian highway, is apparently just a suggestion. All this seems to do is encourage the others to start getting ready to sleep and carry out the prepping process in the dark. Skype calls illuminate the bay. Cell phone whispers echo from wall to wall. Wall lockers creek and bang around as clothes and toiletries fumble in and out. God forbid you are anywhere by the exit door that leads to the showers/latrines as it will open and close some hundred times before 2300 (11pm). This door is in dire need of WD-40.

Things will just start to settle down in time for the symphony of snoring to begin. The culprits are strategically placed throughout the bay so that no one is safe. There is one offender that ‘The K’ referred to a few posts ago (read 28SEP - "that deaf, dumb and blind kid, sure plays a mean pinball"). Quite honestly I am not sure if the LT will survive before we get out of Ft Bliss. It will require either an exorcism or a lynching (the Vegas over/under is 15 days).

As you can see so far it requires an incredible amount of planning and luck just to get to sleep. Fast forward through all the middle-of-the-night pee breaks that must cross through door of death and we start the ungodly sporadic wake up times. Alarms of all sounds could go off anywhere south of 0400 (4am). Some feel the need to wake up an hour plus before PT (physical training). Why someone needs to shower an hour before rolling in the dirt for PT is beyond me. But once those alarms start going off it is right back to lockers clacking and the door swinging in a fury. It is over!! Another night of good sleep has escaped a majority of us. You pray that you can catch another 5-10 minutes within the next half hour before another crop of alarms set off. It is futile. You lay there holding a pee and stewing about how tired you are while promising yourself that it won’t happen again tonight.

I will not leave you without a fix to this problem. The 80% solution for me, anyways, goes like this. Try like hell to get in the rack by 2155 (9:55pm). Easier said than done. Jam some earplugs in. Furl a t-shirt and wrap it around my head to cover my eyes and ears (ala P.O.W look). Around the ears provides layer two of ear plugging (essential to drown out most of The Snorer). Pray that you can fall asleep before the snore; some jackhole doesn’t come crashing in at 0100 (1am); or you have to relieve yourself in the middle of the night.

This goes to show you how much work and how exhausting it is to sleep with thirty dudes.