Listening Posts

I am a man of many different identities. I am a young man from southwest Arkansas who's parents are high school teachers. I am a United States Marine, trained many times in combat arms but its peacetime - there are no wars for me to fight. I am in a social fraternity named Sigma Pi Fraternity International. 

I have many social groups where I feel like I belong. I have many friends I feel like I could tell anything, but much of my communication with anyone outside of the fraternity is through my phone because most of my friends who are not in the fraternity are either busy or too far away to warrant a surprise visit. So, when its time for me to sit down and surround myself with like-minded individuals, I usually find myself in one of two places.

The Corner Clubhouse, Tuesdays

The Corner Clubhouse is a Magnolia restaurant with a baseball stadium atmosphere to it. All the time, sports games will be playing on the TVs surrounding the large dining area, but my group of men isn't all that interested in watching the game. We came for two reasons: to drink a couple of dollar beers and catch up with our brothers. 

Not all of us are 21, but we will usually make it there with five or six guys. We will order a beer each and discuss a multitude of topics aside from your typical, "How you feelin' - you doin' alright?"

Discussions range from Greek life, Philanthropy and Charity events, and what is all going on at SAU. We have guys in multiple other clubs so this branching out of multiple student activities makes all of us aware of what is going to happen on campus.

After the first beer, we will nurse the second - wait a while before we all make it to our vehicles under the limit to drive home.

A Brother's House

Not all of us are 21, as I had said before, so many times we will gather up at a fraternity brothers house to enjoy each other's company. This is much different because we can have all of the fraternity there but what makes this a more journalistic endeavor is that our veteran buddies come out as well. 

We usually go to the same brother's house: an Army veteran named Wes. Devil dog Rhett Gentry shows up then suddenly Wes and I are calling our veteran buddies on campus. In total, there will be four to five of us reservists and veterans hanging out amongst the brothers, and we always talk about the same things, just different stories, and events.

We talk about our training, the crazy and crappy places Uncle Sam has sent us to. We talk about our rifles, our Machine guns we shot, and the vehicles we drove. We laugh about the horrible things that have happened, the ridiculous moments where we got injured and broken, and the moments where some poor boy or two lost his life because of something that should never have happened. We don't laugh because we are heartless, we laugh because what else can a man do other than cry? 

My listening posts for events is very localized and centered on my interests. Some would say that this would be no journalistic endeavor - you are just shooting the breeze with some buddies, but that's simply not the case. I can learn about what is outside of SAU from a multitude of sources. These stories can be crazy and incredibly interesting, but they don't have my heart in them. For me, I just want to hear about the world I like the most, this podunk town with my brothers of Sigma Pi and my brothers in arms.