The Best Place on Base

I lean back against the afghan draped over this couch. "Thanks for all you do!" reads one of the sewn together squares. Others similarly proclaim support for the troops. The walls are lined with shelves of books. On the far wall the shelves project at right angles from the wall. Wedged between are overstuffed recliners. In the farthest one away now, a troop sits in PT gear, legs up on the extended footrest, laptop on his lap, headphones on his head, in some private Nirvana-- watching a movie perhaps, or playing a game online, or most likely, checking e-mail, that vital link to home. Sometimes someone with  an iPad or laptop sits Skyping. Then you can hear them also, as they speak softly with a distant wife or loved one back home.

In the next chair, with the recliner all the way back, some tired troop, perhaps from an aircrew, alternately gazes in a book from the shelf and dozes off. There are also a few magazines scattered on a table in the center of cosy easy chairs and a welcoming couch. The Sunday, color comics section from Stars and Stripes, a newspaper for troops overseas, prominently displays "Calvin and Hobbes" and "Beetle Bailey" on the front page.

The best thing about this space is what isn't here. The overhead flourescent lights, so insistent and intrusive everywhere else on Base, remain off. Only a few torchiere-style floor lamps lend a soft glow-- enough the read by, but lapsing here and there into shadows and blessed darkness. The other thing so evidently absent is a TV. There are a half dozen flat screens always playing in the chow hall. The morale tents are built around them, despite the fact that most people there have their own earphones in and are engrossed in their own computers. Luckily, most of these TVs are tuned to ESPN or some other sports channel, rather than the violent action shows and movies meant to grab your attention as you surf by evident on other screens.

I'm not sure how many people read books in this space. We're told, after all, that people nowadays are post-literate. They don't choose to read a book given other entertainment options. If they did so choose, they'd read it on a Kindle or other e-Book reader. Oddly enough, in my brief forays to this place of peace, I've not seen anyone reading a Kindle. Of course, they could be reading a book on some Kindle app on an iPhone, or a laptop or numerous other devices. Or they may be doing so while a TV is on somewhere else, or amid a movie on someone's computer blaring out from a tinny speaker. Maybe they are so much better than I at blocking out other sounds, even from media designed to get your attention.

I'm writing this on an old G4 Apple laptop, I'm not reading a book now either. The reason is that it's a bit of a hike over here from the dorm/ trailer/ tent area where we bivouac. Unlike the nearby morale tent, however, this lounge has the strongest wifi signal on Base. Thus, it's a natural draw for anyone with a laptop, self included. Just outside the lounge door is an anteroom with more inviting couches and the shrapnel from care packages collected in a big basket of various candies and mailable snacks. 

Down the hall is the sanctuary, where on Sunday one can attend Mass, or during the week, gather with a few others in a much smaller room. There are many other sorts of services, and the worship band can be heard practicing for the Sunday contemporary service a few nights a week. Chaplains have their offices down the other hall, and drift silently through the carpeted room like benign phantoms. Off duty, I instinctively gravitate to this space, leaving the hurly burly outside, the closest place to home.