Cogs In The Wheel

"Invaluable training..."
That was he had said. When I heard those words pass his lips, I almost laughed out loud, as I am sure every single member of my Company did.
A few of us sat around on milk crates and camp chairs, as one of the last days of Exercise Maple Guardian came to a close. Over a month of stupid-ness in Wainwright, possibly the most miserable place in Canada, doing nothing...sleep in overcrowded mod tents, reeking of body odor and other secretions, was interupted by daily gate duty, a movie or a game of dice. I was sick of hearing the beep beep beep of my Laser tag Tactical vest telling me I had died when the damn thing had been under my cot the whole time, so I took out the battery. No more techno death. I had smoked numerous cartons, ate every can of Chef Boyardi, mastered solitaire on IPod, and read every book on camp....Invaluable training for Afghanistan, a place that had already claimed the lives of over 140 Canadian soldiers by this point...
I shook my head as I sat there, debombing my mags, every single round still acounted for. Fuck..
I had my back to her as she began to walk past our little clan of disgruntled infanteers. However, when  6 or 7 soldiers stop bitching and start doing the nudges and head gesturing, it means only one thing...a woman.
Now...I use this term loosely... I am not saying that every female soldier in the Canadian Forces is an overweight, penguin-like wadler who can barely squeeze into her pants, and fights both button and stubble alike. But it seems that a great percentage of our female compatriots fit this description. But, after spending a few months laying inches from another man, with little or no contact with the fairer species, an elephant like lady will start to take the shape of Lindsey Lohan or Scarlet Johanson. Its the way it is...so my expectations were not high for this CadPat wearing disturber of the force, as I slightly shifted my seat to have a better vantage point for when she walked by.
 Every single day, without fail, I have thought of that moment. I imagine, that memory, that I keep inside me like a prize from a Kinder egg, will be my last thing that passes through my mind on my dying day.
 I can vividly picture  the mid-June sun dancing off her green eyes, catching the oranges and browns in them, forcing my heart to come to a complete stand still. Her short cropped hair and her thin lipped grin complemented her swagger, a confident gait born presumably of many of years of living day to day in a male dominated sub-culture, knowing full well that she was a thoroughbred in a world of spotted ponies. Her dress was immaculate; boots bloused high, shirt tucked and held firm, while the colorful half sleeve tattoo on her lower left arm screamed that the soldier in her only made up a part of who and what she was.
 As the others started in with usual vulgarities, describing in detail what they would do for her and to her, given the chance, I noticed that I had not breathed in some time. My throat was dry, my stomach twisted in knots, and it seemed that my own boots had decided to become one with the dry Alberta dirt. I couldn't move, I could barely think. I could faintly here my comrades prompting me for my own perverted thoughts on the masterpiece of female form that had just galavanted past. Admittedly, normally these type of promptings would have inspired a tiredless and endless devulging of the deviant I kept barely beneath the surface, but I couldn't for the life of me find the words. Truth be told, I didn't know if it was right to speak of what was surely God's work in those terms. What I am trying to say in laymen's terms, is that the mere pressence of this woman, had fucked me up.
 This woman had stopped my whole world on its axis, as if a child had spun a globe and dropped his finger on the Arctic circle. I would be forever indebted to my creator for the moment of peace and tranquility that had erupted so quickly out of one of chaos. I felt at ease, comfortably nervous in my own skin, as if my mind and body had just met each other. Enlightening almost.
 And as quickly as she had ceased time, time took her away.