Love Reign Over Me

This morning, I enjoyed one of the little recurring pleasures we have here - I watched a DVD on my laptop. Today's selection was Mike Bender's 2007 drama, Reign Over Me, starring Don Cheadle and Adam Sandler. One of the truths about being on deployment is that the one thing you have in abundance is time. That being said, this film was a very worthwhile way to spend a hundred and twenty-four minutes of that time.


 The film is about two dental school roommates (Sandler and Cheadle) who are reunited years later in New York City. While Cheadle runs a successful dental practice, it is apparent that the quirky and disheveled Sandler, who doesn't initially remember who Cheadle is, suffers from some type of mental disorder. As the story progresses, we learn that Sandler's character lost his wife and three daughters in the attacks of September 11th. They were flying from Boston to Los Angeles for a family wedding when their plane was hijacked.

Cheadle sets out to help his old friend make sense of his life and get psychiatric treatment; two things Sandler is resistant to because remembering is far too painful.

Sandler's performance is amazing, perhaps the best I've seen from him. His portrayal of Charlie Fineman is touching and poignant. He brings an incredibly subdued humor to this movie. In contrast to his normally over-the-top laughs, this portrayal is not slapstick at all. I was reminded at times of a young Dustin Hoffman. Sandler may very well have finally made the jump from comedic movie star to serious dramatic actor.

Cheadle, as always, dominates the screen with his subtle command of his craft.

Several other great actors and comedians round out the cast - Donald Sutherland, Robert Klein, Liv Tyler, and BJ Novak to name a few - but there is another supporting character deserving of mention: the music. Writer and director Mike Binder uses a specific selection of music including Bruce Springsteen, the Pretenders, and Jackson Browne to show how Sandler, mentally and emotionally running away from anything reminding him of his lost family, has taken to almost obsessively latching on to the music of his pre-marriage youth. Even down to his ongoing collecting of vinyl records. In addition, Sandler's character is never seen without his noise-canceling headphones and iPod that he uses to block out the outside world when it become too much for him to bear.

An honorary mention should go out to Pearl Jam for their cover of The Who's classic, Love Reign O'er Me. They honor the legacy of this song with an exceptional version recorded specifically for this film.

All in all this film is a portrayal of grief, love, loss, and mental illness. It is about friendship and camaraderie; it is about reaching out to a friend and helping in a time of need.

Sandbags and Cigar Smoke

Last night, we experienced an unusual drop in temperature. It felt like it was in the high-eighties, which is pretty nice for this part of the world. More importantly, there was no wind, therefore, no dust and sand. Lately, we've been beset by massive humidity in the evening hours.

The winds, called shamals, normally blow in across thousands of miles of desert. Sometimes, however, they shift and come in from the Persian Gulf, resulting in incredibly high humidity. We usually know when it is occurring because the smell of salt water precedes the humidity by an hour or two. This has been happening for the last two or three nights. It makes life difficult since the lack of humidity is pretty much the only thing that makes the 110 to 130 degree temperatures even remotely tolerable.

Last night, though, we caught a break. The temperature dropped and the shamals took a break from bringing us her sands or her humidity.

I took full advantage to the situation. I grabbed a Perdomo Habano-Corojo from my secret stash (a Pelican 1060 Micro Case turned field expedient humidor) and headed outside. I found a quiet and isolated spot outside the Command Post tent and lit up. Hard times demand simple pleasures. Sitting on the ground and resting my back against a pile of sandbags while the hum of diesel generators provided "mood music" in the background, I forgot about Kuwait, Iraq, the war, and about being deployed. Instead, I enjoyed a smooth cigar and looked at the stars that peppered the night sky.

As I watched the exhaled smoke drift away, I dreamed of home. Helping the kids with homework, helping Andrea make dinner, enjoying a glass of red wine, starting graduate school, watching Law & Order with Andrea, and running past houses in my neighborhood instead of past guard towers and concrete bunkers.

I was reminded about the two great benefits of hardship: it makes it much easier to appreciate what you have and it takes very little to improve on your situation with simple pleasures.

Back in the Sand

Hello again, faithful readers. Regrettably, I am posting this, my latest entry, from my command tent in the blazing sands of the Arabian Desert. My days of enjoying time with my lovely wife and amazing children at our compound in Wasillastan are behind me. No worries. Our time in Alaska was incredibly well-spent and enriching. As with any vacation, there are a few things I would have liked to do that we were unable to get to, but overall it was fun and action-packed. More importantly, I accomplished the thing I most wanted to do, which was to spend lots of time hanging out with the clan.

I managed to fly in and out of nine airports in two weeks - Kuwait International, Leipzig-Halle in Germany, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Anchorage, Houston, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Atlanta, then Leipzig Halle and Kuwait International again.

The high point of the traveling was probably Dallas. The American Airlines' Admirals Club in Dallas allows Soldiers traveling on R&R to use their facilities for free. Joe simply walks up to the reception desk in uniform and presents his DA Form 31 (the ever valuable leave authorization paperwork) and boarding pass to the clerk and he or she is granted access to the inner sanctum. The high point for me was the private shower room. Fresh towels, soap, shampoo, and a shaving kit in a nicely decorated and freshly cleaned private shower. After spending more than half a day sweating in the heat at Ali Al Saleem Airbase in preparation for leaving Kuwait followed by another thirty-six hours of trans-Atlantic traveling, I was more than ready for the relaxation of a hot shower. The coffee there was excellent, as well.

The low point of the traveling was definitely in Atlanta. After we boarded the filled-to-capacity charter flight that was going to take us back to Babylon, we experienced one delay for an equipment malfunction (repaired on site) and a second due to heavy congestion on the runway. All in all, we sat on this crowded airplane for two and a half hours prior to take-off. Thankfully, the folks in charge didn't feel the need to let us disembark the aircraft and wait the two and a half hours in the comfortable and air-conditioned terminal. It was much more character building to wait it out in my cramped airplane seat with no air-conditioning.

Finally, we got airborne and worked our way back across the Atlantic and into Arabia. I spent the first half of the trip working on a paper for school. By the time we reached Germany, my laptop was dead. After that, I finished reading Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut while drinking cup after cup of black coffee and listening to the Ramones on my iPod.

It didn't take long to settle back into the daily grind of desert life. Bland food on plastic plates, my messy and hygienically-challenged roommate, waking up to the sounds of Blackhawk and Apache helicopter rotors, and, of course, walking through the blinding sandstorms that leave tiny particles of sand embedded in your eyes, ears, hair, clothes, and every exposed wrinkle. On the positive side, I brought back a little bit of Alaskan delight with me - six beautiful bags of Raven's Brew coffee, one of the most delicious blends of joe ever roasted.

That's enough for now. I've got to check out of the net for a while. Tonight is grilled steak and crab legs night at the DFAC (Dining Facility, the facility formerly known as the Chow Hall. That's another thing I missed during my brief stay in America...the art of knowing what day it is by the dinner menu!