It's Hip-hop dancing in the Rec Center 18:00 - 20:00 followed by Karaoke from 20:00 - 23:00.
I'm not much of a dancer, but I have, on occasion, been overcome by an urge to shake a leg - particularly when urged on by a cocktail or two and for the general purpose of getting girls.
In the flashing, intimate dance-space of a night club, compelled by the spell of a proper beat, when groove and gregarious moods merge I have known my conscious-self to become seduced and recede and for a moment my unconscious self is allowed its escape - the flesh fades to reveal unchained soul - then every so often, and suddenly in the midst of this magical moment, my thoughts ever-overcast by the self-conscious cloud - I imagine in my mind's eye that suddenly the music mutes, bright lights glare on, the walls are whisked away and I grin to myself on these awkward imagined moments at the vision of the frenetic flesh bodies in noon's naked light writhing together in silly silence.
That fleeting moment of self-consciousness is the closest I can come to explaining to you what Hip-hop dancing looks like at the MWR this Friday night. Fifteen days no cigarettes or alcohol. A mere two weeks have never felt so long. Of the original 14 contractors that arrived 14 days ago at Ft. Benning like newborns the morning after Thanksgiving, the final six of us language specialists who survived received permanent placement today. The final exodus. Rendezvous tomorrow at 15:00 - a pair of Black Hawks are taking 3 to the airforce academy in Taji and from there 2 more continue on to Sadaam's hometown of Tikrit. After tomorrow I alone will remain in the IZ - an army of one - something in my file had caught the Colonel's eye and I was selected for a special assignment - to shadow an Iraqi / US combined Special Ops, Anti-Terrorist Task Force and teach them the language of "taking out bad guys". Colonel's orders. I will be issued an armored escort through the red zone back and forth to where these guys are stationed.
Hip- hop hour is over and the mood in the Rec Room is shifting now. From here in the basement of the former Ba'ath party headquarters a line of US soldiers in camouflage line up to sing Karaoke. Somehow, if only for tonight, this all makes perfect sense.
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