Intro. Missions were coming in like crazy, breaks were limited, and peace was limited too. The base was always packed with people running around like headless chickens, working like crazy, handing files to whoever needed them, prepping for missions, and sitting in meetings. It was intense. Not once this month did we get to sit down as a team, enjoy each other’s company, and actually talk about the things bothering us—the real issues. We were all isolated in the missions, the prep, the gear checks, the training. Several rookies burned out and had to be sent to medical, and a lot of us seemed to just go numb.