How Did I Get Here?

Quote of the Day: “When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion.”

It’s officially one week since I got sick. There’s been recovery and recurrence but here I am a week later, once again SIQ.

For you non-military types, that DOES NOT mean “Sexual Intimacy Quotient” no matter what Google Images would have you believe. It means “Sick in Quarters.” The military does not have “sick days” that we can use willy nilly. If we are that bad off, we go to medical and the doctor will determine if you are too sick to work and you will get an SIQ chit which is basically a note from daddy to stay home.

You go back to your unit, present the chit, and you get to go home. Since we are paid salary, there is no deduction of leave or pay.

Of course the deduction comes in the form of having to admit weakness and despite the medical realities of the situation, the overall view from your fellow Marines is not always positive. We have an attitude of “suck it up” which does not allow for pesky realities such as bona fide sickness.

Another nuance to this is that the whole SIQ chit system really doesn’t apply to Officers. The general understanding is if an Officer deems it necessary to stay home, he calls in, stays home, and self-medicates. Only if it’s severe does he go into medical and even then when the doctor asks sheepishly if he needs an SIQ or light duty chit, the Officer will normally smirk and politely inform the doctor that will not be necessary.

I’ve seen both sides of this in my career. You longed for that SIQ chit and damn skippy if it wasn’t absolutely paramount to come armed with it if you had any hope that the Gunny would let you go home. Hell, he kept going with a half dozen bullet holes in him back I Nam.

Now as an Officer, the worry is more what the others will think and how much work is going to pile up if you take a day to recover.

Along those same lines, let me announce that I about went nuts today. I slept until I could sleep no more and was too messed up to even sit up at the computer. So I was reduced to watching daytime TV which I wouldn’t sentence my most hated enemy.

At times I just wandered the house. I stood in the middle of the kids’ rooms and reminisced. I sat on every couch and chair in the house, just thinking. The silence was deafening.

The moment I thought I could maybe fall asleep, I tried. Mostly to no avail.

No reading. No computer time. No sleeping. The most active activity available to me was watching TV.

The horror. I need to get back to work.

Free Advice for Today: “Never be photographed with a cocktail glass in your hand.”