March 19, 2020
“Ignorance is Bliss” is a series conditions and developments from inside an isolation site at Fort Bliss, Texas, housing US Soldiers returning from overseas deployments.
Greetings from Cell Block Westbrook — the Army’s finest isolation site in the New Mexico desert.
As you should be aware (if not, read a fucking newspaper sometime), the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to spread. Today is day 1 of our 14-day isolation period, and the fun continues.
Our little row of quonset huts is partitioned off from the rest of the prison camp with white engineer tape; an impenetrable barrier if ever I saw one. We’re allowed outside our cell block isolation area once a day, from 0700-0800 to use the exercise yard. The host unit’s physical therapist has marked off a 1.4 mile run route to help us stay sane and occupied.
I woke up this morning to a crippling migraine on the left side of my head, which I’ll attribute to the time zone, dehydration and altitude change — we’re about 2,000 feet higher here than we were in Kosovo. (Again, I’m sure the JP8 I ingested last night had nothing to do with it.) I made an attempt at running, and was quickly put in my place — I returned to my quonset hut, begged some ibuprofen off of a medic friend, and waited for the knife to get out of my temple. I went for a jog inside the perimeter later in the afternoon; it was appropriately miserable.
Today’s breakfast was another iteration of the Army’s best hot field rations; reconstituted powdered eggs, a soggy chicken and waffle sandwich, an orange, a plastic cup of breakfast cereal, and a scoop of something almost, but not entirely unlike oatmeal. I skipped the gruel and eggs — I’ve got a couple pounds to lose, anyway.
The temperature range today was a balmy 48°F-64°F, with a light breeze; not cold, but not overwhelmingly hot, either. We got the official word today that we could wear civilian clothes for the duration of our sentence isolation period, and people went off the rails. I’ve seen more sunburnt flesh today than last time I was in Miami. We’ve gone full prison; people wearing nothing but “ranger panties” (very short shorts, for the uninitiated), doing whatever workouts they can improvise — think five gallon water jugs and random truck parts we find laying around. The infantryman’s creativity knows no bounds.
I should be making a lot of progress in my classes with all this downtime, but I’m not — mainly because the wifi here is shit. They gave us a MiFi puck, which is incredibly slow — especially when you have 13 people trying to share it. There’s also commercial wireless available, but the router quit working a couple hours after I paid for it. ($30 down the drain — I’m getting my money back from those rat bastards.)
Due to the connectivity issues, I took the time to re-read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies — a useful primer for what I imagine this camp will look like by the end of the week. (I’m currently looking for a pig head and a spear. Please let me know if you have any leads.)
Overall, a quiet day, despite the rough start. 1 day down, 13 to go. They say it will only get better from here, but I find that unrealistic. It’s only a matter of time before some jackass does something dumb and we lose the relative autonomy we enjoy within our impassable perimeter.
Another disclaimer: I don’t represent the Department of Defense, the United States Army, or any other government agency. I don’t represent anyone but myself. Opinions expressed here are mine, and mine alone, primarily because I don’t care what anyone else thinks.