I left behind my MLK books and my little Brooklyn apartment and spent last week at a Media & the Military workshop at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The experience was designed to help the military understand the unique culture of the media and visa versa (we’re notorious for not understanding one another). So, after a week in the trenches, I present you with my three biggest surprises about military culture:
1. The physical training is not actually that hard, just constant. I had sort of blown this part of military life out of proportion, thinking that every soldier is a physical machine. In fact, plenty are in amazing shape, but it’s more a product of consistency and community support as opposed to sheer strength or intensity.
2. Much of the work being done in Iraq and Afghanistan is humanitarian work. When I spoke with Army majors, many of whom had spent three and even four tours of duty “in theater,” as they call it, the majority of what they spoke about were their experienced building schools, interacting with local leaders, figuring out sanitation systems etc. There is some serious nation-building going on.
3. I sometimes felt as if I had less in common with the other journalists than I did with the military officers. As always, it turns out that what separates us is often far less significant than what we share, and that a uniform–camo or blazer–doesn’t determine world view.
I have an addiction. I admitted this yesterday while staring at the ancient lady–her bright-red, hair-sprayed beehive and two-tone glasses–at the New York Public Library. She is practically a fixture, and has been here forever, or at least during the three years I lived here, and even now when I stroll the marble halls as a visitor. She looks the same. She is still perfectly coiffed. I like that she’s still here. But my brain says, Ugh, how boring. I don’t want to be her, or someone who, at any point in time, is still anything. And therein lies my addiction. I am addicted to that shameful, self-conscious, liberal, privileged concept–new experiences in new places. It feels as strong and confusing as a drug.
Indian women have been granted an unprecedented break–8 women-only commuter trains. Was anyone else struck by 
9/9/09, huh? It’s an exciting day! It marks the last set of repeating, single-digit dates that we’ll see for almost a century (until January 1, 2101), and the Remastered Beatles catalog, Beatles Rock Band, and the new Apple iPod are all being released today.