An Army of One (coincidence after another)

I should stop being surprised at this point in my career. That is, I should stop being surprised when I run into somebody in the Army that I had know from a previous assignment. Like the time in Kuwait when I met up with my beer drinking buddy from 15 years earlier when I was a newly commissioned Second Lieutenant. Or just recently here in Iraq. Since I got here I have ran into no less than 4 fellow officers that I had know while I was going to school in Monterrey. But tonight's reunion takes the cake.

I was having dinner with an Army Doctor that I met back on March 26th when this whole trek of mine began. His name is Mike and he and I boarded the same plane in Atlanta to go to CRC at Fort Bliss. We spoke every so often while at Bliss (where this picture was taken) and we just so happened to both be assigned to the International Zone only blocks apart from each other. But that's not the strange part.

While having dinner, Mike mentioned that he had gone to Med School at Penn State. That sparked my interest because I got a master's degree from Penn State at the Harrisburg Campus. Apparently Mike had gone to the main campus for Med School, but had lived in a small town right outside of Harrisburg. That sounded familiar to me because Mara and I lived in New Cumberland, PA (right outside of Harrisburg) for 3 years right when we got married.

Mike was shocked to hear this, because he too had live in New Cumberland. As it turns out, we lived in the same town at the same time and within a quarter mile of each other! We even attended the same church, drank beer at the same taverns, and saw movies at the same theater in town. Chances are we walked right passed each other numerous times without knowing it.

The Army is indeed becoming a smaller and smaller place, at least from where I'm sitting. It seems like every place the Army sends me, I run into people I served with in the past or people (like Mike) who were, unbeknownst to me, right there by my side.

Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m being sent all over the place to new places and work with new people that makes me appreciate it when I see a familiar face. Even though I wasn’t able to sit down and eat Easter Dinner with my family tonight, at least I was able to sit down and eat dinner with someone who shared some common experiences with his family. Meeting up with someone like Mike makes me realize that even though I'm far from home, I still have some ties with what I left behind.