The police lieutenant's description of a recent arrest jogged the Fort Wainwright soldier's memory. "Last October, we stopped that same guy with his big pole in the water," Capt. Tim Walton recalled.

"Do you know anything about football?" asks Sgt. Jeremy Pitcher. "Because if you do, you're not allowed in the league."

I was sitting in the coffee shop when I noticed people running by outside. Then I heard the alarm, "Incoming...Incoming..." and realized that it had been going on for several seconds.

Sitting below hundreds of dead soldier's names and controlling the sun in an insect's world, I thought about how this conversation would never take place back home.