Saturday, August 26, 2006

Base hike

Life on base is interesting. I was just walking back to my office and cut through the courtyard behind the base hotel. It's where wounded soldiers and their families stay after they're out of the hospital but still have therapy and/or further surgery.

One guy in a wheelchair was driving a remote control boat around in the fish fountain. Several more were sitting in a breezeway smoking cigarettes and drinking beers. A wife sat off to the side. She wasn't doing anything but didn't seem comfortable going over with her husband. In front of the hotel two more wives were swapping tricks to make their husbands take their pills. That was just one pass by there.

During the day a stroll across base is a parade of cybernetic replacements. Legs mostly. Running, walking, pushing their own wheelchairs until they get tired and then riding back. For the arms you have to go into the hospital and look around the waiting room or ride in the elevators. One guy I talked to was there to get his arm replaced since the one he had was twice as heavy as his last arm, his real arm.

This is a strange place to be.

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