The faded laundry mark from January 2009
after a few hundred machine washings.
Ten years ago there were piles of Army uniforms and clothes and gear of all kinds on my living room floor. I was sitting on the floor with my wife and occasionally one of the kids. I was writing my name on every piece of gear I was carrying in duffel bags to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and then to Camp Adder, Iraq.
Underwear is not easy to write on, even with a marker. It was a long process to put my last name or my laundry mark (Last Initial, Last four of the Social Security Number) on t-shirts, shorts, belts, pants, shirts, hats, ammo pouches, boots, gloves and backpacks.
But write I did. Because when there is only one laundry service and everyone has sand-colored underwear, the best way to keep your stuff is to mark it.
Marking my clothes made the deployment seem oddly real. Although we knew the deployment was coming since November of 2007, and we had several two or three-week training sessions, marking my gear meant I was really leaving. Although I had been in and out of the military since 1972, the last time I went overseas with the Army was in the mid 70s.
As I marked my clothes, it seemed more real than before that I was leaving for an entire year.
Right now, ten years later, it is still strange to think that Fort Sill and Camp Adder are in the list of places I have lived, not just visited.
