Keeping Our Sanity

One thing about mobilizations is the routine. I wrote about groundhog day. You get the point that it is pretty routine most of the time. Something I’ve learned over the years and deployments is you’ve got to take care of your troops and yourself by setting aside time for yourself. If you constantly work hard and never do something that is non-Army, you will eventually get dull and become ineffective.

We have limited ways to do that here at COB Adder. There is the internet which helps a lot. We have movies to watch, books to read and we get plenty of opportunities to call home and stay in touch. Even that can get repetitive.

Softball has been a surprisingly good way to escape the routine. We were looking for something to do together outside of work so we put together a softball league. It is made of teams from Arkansas. There are several units from Arkansas here so it seemed a natural thing to do. What has surprised me is the enthusiasm the league has had. Sometimes all you have to have is someone to just get the ball rolling and that’s what I did. I put out the word and set up the framework for our ‘league.’ With a little marketing and the help of a few others in the squadron it took off.

Now we have a regular Friday night softball league and we literally have hundreds participate. It took off like wildfire. I think our soldiers were just looking for something to do that was non-military and fun. That’s what we gave them.

We have a makeshift softball field. As you can imagine, no grass and plenty of rocks. It makes a grounder very unpredictable. The MWR (Morale Welfare and Recreation ) unit has a very limited supply of equipment so we do have something to work with but there is a whole lot of sharing going on.
A typical Friday night is the various units of our organization are paired-up and we have a good-natured game. There is lots of teasing and comradery. We sit around, watch the games, drink non-alcoholic beer and give the umpires a hard time…we are our own umpires.

The faces change from week to week due to the fact that some people have to be out on missions every day of the week. That’s no problem. Our league is mission-sensitive and we don’t get too carried away with the rules. Its mainly here to escape the routine and have some fun.
Here’s one way you can help if you’d like. Do you have any old softball equipment that’s gathering dust in the garage? Maybe your kids moved out and left it there or you have replaced some equipment over the years. Well, we would like to have it.

Particularly right handed gloves for left-handed players. We only have one and its for a little kid.

We barely have enough equipment to field a team. Only a few of us brought gloves or bats on the outside chance we would play the game. Well, don’t go out of your way but if you do have anything like that laying around send it to me at the address on the right and we will put it to good use.

Softball is just one of the ways we keep our sanity. Can we play softball up until Christmas and still stay sane? We’ll see.

Batter up!

Saber 2,
Out.