Assertiveness Training level 1 (I stand)

"What did you say to me, (explitives)?" Emotion laced words flowed fresh and alive from my mouth. Every muscle, every fiber of my being feeling the thrum of life as if for the first time, as I stepped up to Staff Sergeant P. Face to face, red countenanced, postures guarded, boundaries violated..then vindicated.

Muttered words instantly forgotten, as midstride confrontation stopped him like a red brick wall. Caught mid-mutter, wide-eyed in yet another degradation of my good name.

"NO...MORE!" "No more am I going to tolerate your unprofessional conduct, your disrespect against me" I spoke consumed with feelings long swallowed, choking at the relief like a breath too long held. I continued, "You mutter about me around officers around my junior Marines and around anyone you are trying to impress, it ends now!"

Words flow fumbled from his mouth, "I will do what you asked me to do." I had asked SSgt P to do something that the Marine Corps Orders require mere moments before. To which he replied that if I drop off the paperwork he would be more than happy to throw it away. Now when confronted with his inappropriate behavior he is more than happy to aquiese.

Words flow in quick succession like rehearsed, well oiled, machine gun volleys, "I told you that I would handle the paperwork and get it to where it needs to go since you weren't willing to cooperate, I am done talking about that, we are now discussing your inappropriate, unprofessional conduct towards me: You call me names, you mutter about me around people outside of our pay grade, you slander me behind my back. It all stops now. I don't disrespect you, I haven't once been unprofessional."

SSgt P retreated quickly onto his next destination. I stand.

Just another day in the desert?

I have been suprised at the changes that present themselves to me daily! I hear the same exclamation reiterated daily in different words from the Marines around me: "My life is on hold here in the Iraq desert."

While it is true that we have limited access to our families and loved ones and our 'lives' back in America, I have been shown that the potential for growth and for getting to know oneself has been increased exponentially. People pay good money to get this type of isolation from their daily lives.

Everyone of us looks at the same reality: WE ARE IN IRAQ. However we all draw different conclusions from the same data! Isn't that always the case? I work to get my Marines to see all that can be accomplished out here, I have completed online college classes and taken advantage of many other training opportunities. I have made new friends and renewed old friendships. I worked online to get support in the form of care packages and letters for my Marines to lift thier spirits from different sources.

The desert is lush if one looks with hungry eyes; hungry eyes that want growth; that require it. A thirsty soul that is only slaked with knowledge and wisdom. Many are content to fill themselves spiritually, mentally and emotionally the same way they fill themselves physically; with ambivalence, as if what one puts into one's body doesn't matter, perhaps thinking that some miracle occurs after eating fast food and it somehow becomes building blocks for a healthy body and a healthy life. The reality of course being that improper 'filling' creates deficiencies and drains the body's emergency stockpiles.

I look outside and inside here and I see an Oasis. Daily I find in myself the parched wanderer dragging myself to the Oasis again and again to fill myself with lifegiving substance. Ragged and weary, but determined. I look around at all the others that are pretending to be filled, but they look as ragged and weary as I, but they ignore the Oasis content to crunch on stale fears and insecurities and drink the tepid water of boredom.