I recently sat down for an interview with Loyal Auterson at one of the local coffee shops he likes to haunt. With his iconic cup of Highlander Grog in hand, he was as quick to smile as always with a new found sense of confident ease. Clearly toned, he looked better than I could ever remember as he warmly greeted me. JN- Let’s first get at the question on everyone’s mind. How long are you back in the Ozarks? LA- (Laughing) That’s a great question. Next. JN- No, seriously. LA- Well, my best guess at this point is that I’ll be headed back to Fort Benning by the mid summer. I’m guessing that I’ll heal faster than the paperwork can be submitted to get me back to OCS. Gotta love that Army paperwork. JN- We are glad to have you home. How are you liking being back in the civilian world? LA- That’s a double edged question. I’m using the time here to take care of some ends that I’ve felt were still loose before I shipped out so that’s nice. I just miss Army life. I love being a soldier- the disciplines, the exercise, the tradition. My parents (and I guess Lance too) always say that they are glad to be home but can’t wait to get back to the field. I relate to that for the first time in a really long time. That is one of those TCK things that I’ve enjoyed reconnecting with. JN- You’ve written that being in the Army was like travelling through a third world country. That’s really true for you isn’t but mostly in a cultural sense. LA- Yes. I think so. I know that treating the whole experience in that way really gave me an edge at Basic and I suspect that in some way it will make OCS much smoother for me compared to some of my colleagues. The Army is a unique and somewhat foreign culture. I think that being a TCK really helps to embrace that. You know it’s one of the oldest cultures in the history of our country. I just really dig that! JN- You are looking good. LA- (Laughing) Yes! I gained 15 pounds of muscle all around my midriff and have a defined 6 pack to my abs. Before I dropped back at OCS I was well established in the top 90% of the APFT chart for males my age. 65 pushups, 65 situps and a two mile run just under 15:30. Of course it took huge amounts of Ibuprofen to move. My body just isn’t healing up as fast as it did when I was much younger. Getting up in the middle of the night to go to the latrine was taking 5 minutes of stretching just to be able to walk. JN- What less obvious changes occurred as a result of Basic? LA- I’ve become a lot more focused emotionally. Let’s face it, Basic training hits a psychological and emotional reset button for an individual. I knew that going into the process and faced it fairly fearlessly. I abandoned myself to submitting to the process and really drank it in. The result is that a lot of my insecurities burned away in the PT. Where some of my battle buddies needed to lose physical fat, I needed to shed some pounds emotionally. I had a close friend predict this by the way so if Chris is out there reading this… Buddy, you nailed it. I spoke with a young PFC the other day who complained that he’d been lied to by his recruiter. I love my recruiter, Sergeant Gary Combs. He’s an honorable man and lives his testimony out in our community both as a Christian and as a soldier. At basic I learned that not everyone is that blessed; time and again I heard a complaint about dishonorable recruiters with the people skills of a televangelist. I found myself challenging this young man to let the soldier in him come out and to let go of those resentments. I encouraged him to take the dishonesty of his recruiter with gratitude because he’s now been forged into a warrior. As we talked I could see his attitude shifting, his pride and confidence took over and a spiritual transformation began to occur. At Basic I figured out quickly that it’s all about attitude. I woke up everyday committed to having the best day of my life in the Army. There were times when really lousy things occurred but I still put my head down to sleep at night thankful that I’d had the best day yet since signing my contract. The minute a person let’s that perspective slip, it’s hard to keep the emotions in balance and that’s when either they get hurt or hurt someone else. I can’t thank Sergeant Combs enough (and I suppose my Drill Sergeants too) for recognizing that soldier in me and giving me the forge to temper the warrior out. JN- What happened to Cindy? LA- (Laughing) You’ve got to be joking? JN- No. Seriously, that interchange is so poignant and delightful to read about. Did you get a chance to keep in touch after Basic? You seemed so enamored in the moment. LA- Sadly, the real Cindy doesn’t exist- I wish she did! That story came out of watching this way that soldiers have of fraternizing without actually fraternizing. It’s a social cue that I think I picked up a little more easily as a TCK. In fact that’s probably why and where the TCK thread ended up weaving in and out of that story. It’s also a huge part of what makes the dynamics of my family work. We often speak in metaphors as a safety mechanism. It’s where I get my love for writing from I’m sure. Couple that with my belief in a God who goes so far out of his way to speak in metaphor that he speaks himself as “the Word,” the final culmination of all language and presents himself to us in the form of Jesus Christ. All of that was simmering in my thoughts and so out comes that story that is as you say, “poignant and delightful.” After I posted it to both Xanga and Facebook I sat back chuckling as friends debated in the comment section over whether I’d actually written it or not and then over whether or not Cindy actually was the woman of my dreams. The essential timeline of that story follows a conversation that I’d had with someone whose father did work for Exxon Mobil. It began inline for meds and carried on at a bus stop. There was enough real life in that to make the space it occurs in believable but as far as I know she’d never left Texas before getting to Fort Jackson. I think that story actually has more to do with finally coming to terms with some unresolved TCK issues that touch deeply into who I am emotionally. JN- Why hadn’t they surfaced before now? LA- The longest I’ve ever lived in one place has been nearly 20 years in Springfield. Emotionally I suspect that Springfield became the metaphorical woods that I got so lost in that I couldn’t see the trees anymore. I’ve lost you haven’t I? OK. Let me try to say it this way. I’ve never resented being an MK. At least not like other MK’s I know. The only two negatives from my childhood were the possibility that exposure to hepatitis had done permanent liver damage and that some stresses from the last year in Ethiopia had surfaced and contributed to the dissolution of my relationship with Carol. Or at least I thought that was all. MK’s say goodbye differently from everyone else and I had never realized that I’ve built some careful boundaries to keep from hurting too much from that. A lot of people have wondered why I’ve never left Springfield since getting here 19 years ago… it has largely been a way of having to not say goodbye unless someone else is leaving. This adventure has forced my to have a sense of home that is no longer anchored Springfield. I couldn’t hide from it any more. It really came to a head at OCS. One of my close friends in 1st Platoon at Jackson is another OC I refer to as Senator. We come from conservative Christian backgrounds and both of us lead from a place encouraging. At OCS we’d been talking about the TCK experience and whether or not he should seek to take his young family on overseas assignments. For a couple of days I kept espousing the upsides of the TCK experience and encouraging him to absorb those risks as a young husband and father. Because of a clerical error he was suddenly dropped out of Charlie Company at OCS and like that (snaps his fingers) I’d lost one of my best friends. I grieved for several days and found out later that he had too. After I got rolled out of Charlie on medical reasons, Senator and I reunited at HHC and were able to have some measure of closure as he classed up with Bravo and I came home. At the time though, I had to deal with why I was enraged at the loss. I remember standing on too many airstrips as a kid and waiting until the sound of a Cessna droned away long after the plane had disappeared from sight. There’s an empty silence in one’s soul saying goodbye like that. It sucks. Every time I watch my parents or Lance and Amy leave it’s with the knowledge that I may not be seeing them again. They are about the only people anymore that I’ll bring that kind of pain on for me. I’ve come to form quick, deep attachments that can be easily released. JN- Wow! So where’s that leaving you? I’d think that Army life would be similarly stressful. LA- It is. It’s spiritually something I’ll probably be processing for a bit. Still, I think it draws me back to the promise that Christianity holds- goodbye, loss and death are not the end. They are the beginning to a future moment when we are promised and by faith trust that in a face to face experience with Christ it will be full of all hope, all beauty and even all love. Through his own resurrection we will see something so beautiful, lovely and full of meaning that all the goodbyes, losses and deaths that have lead to that point will have made it all worth it. JN- Well I want to thank you for your time. Will it pain you too much to say goodbye? LA- You are joking right? | 
