We want...a Shrubbery!

Good evening everybody. Deployments are a strange thing. Usually they last about 12 months, and go fairly quickly. I have an awesome tshirt that explains the various mood swings that one goes through. I wish I could remember what they were exactly, but if you are in my family, you have seen me wearing this shirt proudly. Deployments aren't so bad when you have the means to pass the time inbetween missions. This usually involves reading a book, watching a movie, playing cards, etc. When the deployment gets long in the tooth you start looking for new things to do. And this is where the ennui sets in. You have watched all the movies you brought, read everything that is fit to read on the COP, and played enough various cards games that you have memorized the facial ticks of every Soldier who is capable of holding 5 cards or more. So what do you do? You could watch the Godfather enough times to the point where you could rewrite the script for the third movie, pull the Cusack manuever in your sleep (classified as a malaria med nightmare), level as many characters in the World of Warcraft before the next expansion, or.... plant a garden. CPT Pederson came to us late in the deployment, in truth he has only been at COP Lowell for 3.4 months, but this is the result. It keeps him busy though he has become quite protective of his little garden. We had a cow meander its way onto the COP the other day and decided the watermelon was easy pickings. After we convinced Doc that it would be a bad idea to shoot the poor thing, he built Ft Knox. And now, he patrols the 14 paces in front of the Aid Station at least twice a day to fend off any would be assailants. I asked the armorer if he had any bayonets but he frowned upon the idea. No idea what Doc might do to our mascot, the local donkey, CPL Ed.