Brian Turner

So we try to pick up those things.

Some of it, for some soldiers, it was Machiavellian.

It was much more survival mode.

They want to learn phrases so that they could endear themselves to the people they're talking to or to avoid some kind of issue or problem.

And others would maybe that combined with a curiosity for the place where they were.

There's a whole range of reasons why people would try to learn about the space they were in.

And then there were others, it must be admitted, there were others that wanted to turn in, can I custom this thing?

They might say something like, we should just bomb this thing, this country, amen.

We should just bomb this country and turn it into a fucking glass parking lot.

And you'd hear that.

So it's a wide range of thoughts towards space, amen.

Well, I was an English teacher prior to that, and that was somewhat known in the platoon.

I don't know how many people knew that or not, but I think many of them did.

They knew I'd gone to college, but I was in for seven years, one month, and 29 days total.

And it wasn't until the very last month, I kept track, you know, after seven years and one month, that very last month when we had come back from Iraq and we were, I was getting out, many of us were getting out, and there were new soldiers arriving, as well as new officers who had just basically finished college.

So it's a very common question, like, what did you study, kind of thing.

So that was a point where I met the new lieutenant who was coming in, or a new lieutenant was coming in, and stopped me in the hallway, we talked for a minute or two, and they said, you know, I heard you had a master's degree.

I said, I do.

And he's like, oh, what'd you study?

And then I'd been keeping track, and then finally that last month, somebody asked me what I studied.