First, we all lamented how different life in the army was as we were all getting enlisted, about all the regimentation, about how mindless everything was just following orders, about how simple everything became when you stripped your old life apart and were left with the most rudimentary of activities to perform each day.

Then, we all start lamenting how different life in the civilian world is, how smooth and sophisticated people out there have become, how uncouth and simple-minded we have become after being locked away, shuttered away from reality, how difficult it is to strike up a conversation without anything military in content, how trapped we are in our new world.

And so, here we are, underlings of the world, of a greater system, a greater order, thrown about at the whims and fancies of someone else; as much as we would like to be on the other side of the fence, we are already ten thousand miles away from it, irretrievably trapped somewhere else, well, at least for now, and the next two years from now.

At least I can still write/speak in correct, proper English, when I try hard enough.