With the great number of "hot beverage" responses, it made me remember the "medicine," or "concoction" I relished when in the Infantry; c-rat cocoa packet, instant coffee packet, sugar and creamer packets, all in a canteen cup full of hot water.
A lot of guys ditched this stuff, along with the ham-n-eggs and other gastronomical treasures, but I always enjoyed snuggling up under a Fir tree with a twig fire (or trioxane fire) between my legs and boiling a cup of water to pour all thes goodies into (not the ham-n-eggs) and warming myself from the inside on cold, wet nights. I loved those miserable days and nights, when everyone was using their excess energy to stay as warm and dry as possible, they didn't have enough extra energy to be a pain in the butt.
I was very fortunate in my assignment, more fortunate than any recruit had any hope to be, in that I was "farmed out" to a section of Headquarters, wherein I was often alone or with just one other body. Sometimes the body was one of the great mentors I had who enjoyed life in the rain and the snow as much as in the sunshine on a lawn chair back home. Sometimes I had to drag along a, well, "drag."
It's funny - there are a handful of ex-Soldiers and "former" Marines at work, all previously unknown to one another, and the underlying cohesion is amazing, even among those who are very different or don't even like each other. Sometimes, the regular people at work catch a glimpse of that and the look on their face is priceless - absolute and utter confusion. I don't see that brotherhood among those who have served together in that company for twenty and thirty years. The familial bond is not there. Familiarity, maybe, but not the cohesion. They have been through some "tough times" together; "down-turns," "slow-downs," etc., but they never slept hunkered under ponchos together and never shared their "medicine" with their brothers who's mothers they never knew.
EDIT: I don't mean to exclude any here who have not been in the service either. The whole idea of sharing your "medicine," or sharing
about it is what I am talking about and
that is common among those here at WSS. The fact that there are so many out there who don't know what that's like is a bit sad to me and then, it also makes me appreciate the fact that I have the good fortune to "know" and have the means to associate with so many who do.
Man, I talk a lot, don't I?
