The Time I Read Tolkien in the Mojave

 

(Left to Right - Private Ulugberter, Specialist Crady, Staff Sergeant Sulham, and myself. 

Photo taken at Platton Gunnery at Fort Riley Kansas in late 2008 before going to Fort Irwin, California for desert training then deploying to Sinjar, Iraq.)

Years ago, I read J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy while training in the Mojave desert.

As "executive officer" of a U.S. Army Cavalry Troop, I arrived 9 days earlier than everyone else since that's what executive officers (and select Non-Commissioned Officers) have done since the early days of organized warfare. Efficiency schmeficiency.

I accomplished the mission of arranging for billeting and sustenance of my Troop soon after getting off the plane (it took about a half hour), and this gave me something in the neighborhood of 8 days twenty three and one half hours to read, workout, or just sit quietly on my cot to think and sweat.

Anticipating this, I had brought along, as was my wont, a small duffle of books, among them being a hardback trilogy of Tolkien's masterpiece in a single volume. I read through The Fellowship in a few days, then started into Two Towers.

By now the rest of the Troop had begun to arrive, and when their were enough of us to make a group, we rode in a green Blue Bird school bus down to a local railhead. Our vehicles had just arrived after a cross-country trip from Kansas by rail, to a small Marine Corps depot (said local railhead) in the middle of the sun baked and arid Mojave.

We helped unload our vehicles, parked them in lines, got in, and waited for the other groups to unpack theirs. We planned to convoy back to the training area once all the vehicles were unloaded.

In the meantime, we all sat in our trucks and waited. I cracked my trilogy and read from Two Towers.

"Hooah Lieutenant, whatcha reading?" a big manly voice said, using the comically overused word for anything but no, in all seriousness. 

I peered up from my reading and out the window of my Humvee window.

The voice came out of the sunburned, sunglassed face of the Deputy Commander of our Brigade, a Lieutenant Colonel whom I'd spoken with once before. He'd been nice, but I could tell he didn't recognize me. 

I stared at him, then at my my book.  I had taken the colorful dust jacket off of it and reinforced it with olive drab duct tape, so I could have lied to impress him, which I briefly considered. I wanted to say "The Art of War", or "On War" or "The History of the Pelopponesian War", anything with "War" in the title, really. But I remembered the proverb that I'd memorized in my childhood which said "Lying lips are an abomination unto the LORD" and said simply. "Two Towers, Sir."

A disappointed look came across his face (young officers are encouraged to read, but only boring stuff that will help you help others kill people) and he walked away.

I went back to reading, and finished it later that afternoon.  

The third book of the series took a little longer to read since everyone had arrived and I almost got into a fist fight with my commander and got transferred to another Troop, but as soon as I was done I got out of the Army as fast as I could.

-Jake

www.theculturedbumpkin.com