I sat here typing up my last article, trying to express the anger and dread that the second oil rig explosion has caused me.  I had a hard time bringing up  really harsh expressions, though.  I made the mistake of putting the "Bluebird" CD by Emmy Lou on the player before I started.  It is one of my very favorite albums, ever.  It always brings me to a quiet, simpler place.  I first heard it playing at the little PX on the main post in Hohenfels.  The piece that was playing was "No Regrets", a favorite of mine from way back...written by Joni Mitchell...made popular by Tom Rush.  So I asked what was playing and bought it right then.  
Hohenfels is a training area in southern Germany.  In the middle of the training area is a huge tract of land called the "Box".  It is where tanks and other armored vehicles practice war on each other.  The Box is surrounded by a dirt road called a "Tank Trail".  The support troops, with their wheeled vehicles, are only allowed access to the Box in certain places to resupply the maneuvering units.  These missions are referred to as Logistical Resupply and the meeting places are called Logistical Resupply Points (LRPs).  In common usage, however, we just used LRP to describe the place and the action.  I was the Support Platoon Sergeant, responsible to set up the resupply "packages" for each of the companies in our battalion.  The company First Sergeants would radio to the rear and let us know what they needed in terms of ammunition, food, fuel, and general supplies.  I would set up the convoys with trucks dedicated to each of the companies.  We would convoy from the rear to the LRP and meet with the units' First Sergeants, who would then lead their chunk of the convoy forward to their company and conduct the unloading, fueling, re-arming, etc.  I would wait at the LRP until all my trucks got back, then convoy back to the rear.  This operation is so simple in Hohenfels because all the manuevering elements are contained in the Box and the "rear" is always in the same place.  In major exercises at other locations, all of these different aspects of the logistics mission are constantly in motion and present a huge challenge.  
In Hohenfels, we stayed in concrete barracks, and had access to showers and other niceties.  We were within walking distance of the gym and PX and theater and snack bar.  We called our stay there a "Rotation" and it was usually three weeks or so away from home and family, but it wasn't as bad as some of the other kinds of exercises we went on.  As long as the LRPs went off without a hitch, my life was fairly calm and peaceful, and it was Bavaria. So when I hear Emmy Lou telling me about how "Heaven Only Knows" or life on "Lonely Street", I think about Hohenfels and how relatively easy it was to do my job there.  The funny thing is, when I bought the album, I played it over and over.  Because it reminded me of MamaCharlie and how blue I was without her around...I missed her but the music cheered me up.  I bought it as a cassette tape the first time...and the second time (after playing it so much the tape got stretchy and warbly), and now have the CD, which needs to be replaced as well. 
"Bluebird" doesn't make me blue anymore, it mellows me out...probably because unlike my days at Hohenfels, or Grafenwohr, or Wildflecken, or any-other- where...now days she is always near by.  In fact, I think I'll go sneak up on her right now and give her a hug.