The Unlikely Soldier

Time Warp

2011-09-16T05:22:00.002-06:00

The 19 year old that wrote all this shit never saw this coming.

-The Learning Curve of the New GI Bill (and how to effectively use it)

-Other Shit

-Just click this link. Part One sucks anyway.

http://1000th-yard.blogspot.com/

I love you all so much that it hurts in places that doctors can't explain.

Close The Book

2007-02-20T09:20:00.000-07:00

This little chapter of this little story is over. The blog is moved, the link is on this page twice.

So anyway, we went out on a nice little field training exercise, using Fort Lewis as a sector of an Iraqi city or something. I'm sure its all over the internet, just google "Fort Lewis" and "JRTC". Let me break it down for you.

We were SUPPOSED to go to NTC in California for some hardcore hooah badass training to put hair on our chests and turn us into six foot tall ironmen that eat nails and shit bullets, don't take no for an answer, and chew up our beer cans when we finish with them. But then this dude whose name is Mr President or something like that was like, "Hey! I think we should send an asston of more troops over to Iraq, to help that crazy little country get its shit together! Whaddya say guys?!"

So it was decided that we weren't going to go to this NTC place. Instead, we were going to sit around in some random motor pool here on Fort Lewis, just like last time, only for longer. Sweet! Perfect time to learn NOTHING! And then another idea was shat from the collective anus of The Powers That Be.

"Lets take a bunch of people from JRTC (another high speed training center from Louisianna) and send them up here to facilitate our super awesome training!"

Here's basically what happened on my end.

We packed up all the gear that we've been packing and unpacking for the last month or year or eon or whatever the hell it was, and we stuffed it into vehicles to be taken to some motor pool over by 3rd Brigade, 2IDs little corner of the Lewis. We set up tents, and inside, they were cramped full of cots. An entire company in each tent. Minimal walking space, it was pretty bad. Naturally sickness spread around there like a party at Courtney Love's house.

I slept in my Stryker. So did most of my crew, which is pretty amazing if you ask me. There is NO room in that abomination. Every few hours someone would be waking me up, whining about wanting the heater on. I was smart and actually USED my sleeping bag, because those things are really warm. Like "Goddammit, my cheek is all sweaty and pasted to the side of this bag" sweaty.

We'd roll out in convoys, boring shit with a capital terrible. Thats all I do. I drive. I sit in the seat and wait. I drive. I yawn. I shift in my seat. I try to keep the blood flowing in my legs, but my ass gets sore and me foot goes numb, so I have to fake a seizure to get feeling in it again. Oh, and then I drive a little bit more, but not all that fast (I later found out that we were virtually untouchable, that the MPs couldn't do shit to us unless we killed someone or something. Had I known that, I would've been the bat out of hell).

They had pyrotechnic guys out there, that was pretty cool. Like, vehicles would drive up on our convoy and detonate, and there'd be all this smoke, and then some OC (Observer/Controller, like a referree from JRTC) would walk up and tell you just how fucked up your vehicle was. Same thing for the IEDs. G-Man (what the OCs call the enemy players) did a damn good job of hiding them. It sucked. And the players that played civilians and Iraqi soldiers (most of which were actually Iraqi Americans) were pretty good actors, based off of what I saw in a video during an After Action Report.

Oh I didnt tell you? I never get out of my hatch. My job is to stay in that god forsaken seat the entire time we're outside of the wire. So look forward to second hand stories from now on. And yeah, I'm a little bummed, but fuck it, less chance of me getting all messed up. The entire training exercise, I was never "killed" or even "wounded", so thats cool I guess.

One night, we raided Leschi Town, the huge mock city, elaborate as a movie set if you ask me. It was an all night mission, and I stayed awake the whole time monitoring the radio like a dumbass. And also spent a ridiculous amount of time driving around trying to get into the city to help tow a vehicle that had been hit. When we got back the next morning, I was so tired that I couldnt sleep, if you can believe that. Since then, I learned that any time the wheels aren't rolling, put the seat back and catch some shuteye. I hate being so tired that I'm nausious. I get so tired that my mind won't stop running, it goes haywire on this illogical wild tangent train of thoughts, scattered and unrelated. So sleep is good.

All in all, not sure if I learned much or not. Who knows. My job is simple. Drive. Do what the vehicle commander tells me to do. Its not such a bad gig really.

I don't spend too much time thinking about most things. Just chilling really. Otherwise I'd go nuts. As far as deployment goes, I got that cushy driver job, wont ever really be on the ground I dont think. I just hope I wont have to run anyone over. That would definitely be shitty. Dont even want to think about it.

I'm closing the book on this blog, this chapter. Now get your ass over to THE NEW AND IMPROVED UNLIKELY SOLDIERand bookmark it.

Two weeks.

2007-01-31T19:28:00.001-07:00

See you then. This is the 200th post. I'll celebrate that by going out to the field for 14 days.

Vote.

In Limbo

2007-01-29T11:48:00.000-07:00

The clock is ticking with a mind-numbing sense of quicksand. I think I lied about my sleep patterns changing. Almost all of us lie when we go to these evaluations. If not, we'd all be in rehab.

Its not sleeplessness, its just lighter sleep. Noticing more sounds. Or maybe I'm imagining things. Self fulfilling prophecy.

My piece of shit Stryker always needs work. Its a hypochondriac oversized baby. Last Friday I gave the big bastard a big drink of fuel and then took it to drain out. Opened all the drain plugs, and the big bastard pissed its muddy water for ages. I was smarter this time. I changed out of my uniform inside the vehicle and put on a mechanic/flight suit looking green coverall. Nice to have a dry uniform to change back into.

And now I wait for a spot in the maintenance bay to open up so I can bring the stubborn multimilliondollar crybaby in for more work. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but now and then, I'm hit with a sudden revelation that reeks with deja vu. It comes out of nowhere, and hits me like a freight train carrying several tons of bricks.

Holy shit....I'm in the army...

Its something you know all the time, but the magnitude of it isn't always present. In comes in sudden glimpses, massive and all-encompassing, like the eye of God or something. And as quick as it came, its gone.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Damn...

2007-01-25T19:53:00.000-07:00

Someone from our unit died last night. Motorcycle accident. I honestly don't even know what to say. Its not real to me. I don't (didn't?) know him as well as I wish I did either. But I knew him well enough to know that he was a really good guy. I don't know what else to think, its hard to wrap your mind around something like that. But I'm going to spare the cliches and internalize it for the most part. I checked in on a few guys from his platoon to see how they were doing, they seemed all right. Not really words for things like this though. Don't think I have much more to say about it either. He was a hell of a good guy, and he shouldn't be gone, but that's how it is I guess. I don't feel right talking about him in the past tense.

I had to open up our Stryker and lounge out in its spacious driver's compartment and wait for our commo guy to work on some of our equipment, an arduous task that's taken a few days already. Days where I sit there and accomplish nothing.

Its slightly cold outside, not as bad as it has been, and the big green monster only has a little bit of frost on it. I removed the tarp covering the exhaust vents and opened the hatch. Plopped down onto the seat like a little kid and started monkeying with the controls, to wake my big friend up. It roars its waking salutation and I command it to drop the ramp. It budges only an inch or so and stops. Something must be frozen....God I hope so.

I turn on the heater and recline the seat. I forgot my fucking book....

I napped a little bit, and pretty soon it was time to go to our little psych evaluation. We take little surveys and get our blood pressure taken, we go from one waiting room to the next. I visited with a very nice and completely awesome (or rad, take your pic) young Asian woman. She was really funny, so I didn't mind BSing with her for a while. Since there was nothing really wrong with me, we talked about some things other soldiers experience.

She asked if my sleep patterns had changed at all recently. "Not that I've noticed."
She said that sometimes, soldiers will be more on edge, more alert, and their senses will heighten altogether when they're getting ready to deploy. The sleep lighter, they hear better, they may be less affectionate, and altogether more focused on the mission at hand.

She also mentioned that a lot of the time, soldiers remain fixated in that mode, even after returning, and it takes a little work to return them to their original baseline. Makes you think.

Who knows what time. Same BatChannel.

State Of The Suspect Address

2007-01-24T08:39:00.000-07:00

We went for a run wearing our body armor today. That adds a significant amount of weight and constricts your movement a little bit. Good sweat though. Now I just need to eat and then go sit around while my stryker gets worked on.

I haven't been following any of Bush's announcements or anything like that, none of the debates about his plan, nothing like that.

"Your only job is to keep the guy to your left and the guy to your right ALIVE, and complete the mission. You are not IN the fuckin political arena." I heard someone say that not too long ago, and I liked that a lot. He was really cutting through all the bullshit. And that's good, because we're knee deep in it.

Posts will probably still be few and far between, got a lot of things we have to do. Going to the field for two weeks soon, then we'll have all sorts of other tasks to keep us busy.

Please be patient, and I'll bring you all that juicy writing you've been waiting for, when I have time and when everything isn't this mundane.

CLS Yet Again

2007-01-08T22:48:00.000-07:00

Yeah, believe it or not, they put me in CLS (Combat Lifesaver) for a what, fourth time? I don't mind though, because I'd like to have as good a grip on this as I can. Hell, sometimes I think I'd like becoming a doctor, but I'm not so sure about eight years of schooling, not to mention the hours, etc.

Someone needs to remind me of course, but when I get out of the army, I'll be sure to post all kinds of videos I've shot, to include me giving and receiving IVs. "Oh yes, there will be blood."

Work is back to normal, and we're actually doing PT again. Seems like its been forever and good GOD do I feel out of shape. Some of the padlocks to our Stryker disappeared, so we'll probably have to get a brand new set. One of a million tiny issues I face as a cursed driver.

Now, I'm sure the internet knows way more about it than I do, but we all know that there's talk of more troops being needed in Iraq. Well I'm not even positive about our deployment date, and even if I was, I'd still be sure not to mention it, but it looks like this blog may become infinitely more interesting one of these days.

Kind of funny when you think about it. I've wanted to go ever since I signed up. The more that it seems like a reality, the more it nearly blows your mind, and that's only in the few and far between moments when your mind can actually grasp it. Despite the millions of questions I've asked people who have been there, I still really don't know what to expect. We, the infantry, never actually work unless we're deployed. Everything else is just training or details...or killing time. There's a blog called "Calm Before The Sand" (currently subtitled "Part Two: The Sand"), and that title really sums up what's going on here. Certainly would be nice to know for sure when we're going, if at all, but I never spend too much time worrying about it.

Typical Day In The Army: Revisited

o600: Wake up to annoying cell phone alarm, allow pure hatred to flow through your body. Self pity galore.

0605: Crawl out of bed, throw PT uniform on, brush teeth, shave.

0620: Head downstairs and stand in formation.

0630: Begin PT. Suck it up, always feels good to be done. Blame endorphins.

0730: Eat and change into BDUs (well, ACUs these days)

0900: Go to work. You are at the mercy of those in charge. God knows what you'll be doing.

1130: Eat. Waste time. Check your fruity myspace page.

1300: Back to work.

1630 (if lucky): Final formation. Released from work. Eat. Waste time.

2200 or later: Crawl into bed and embrace the wonders of sleep, before you know it, it all starts over again. Take it a day at a time and its usually not too bad.

Weekend: Deplete vitamins, minerals, and water in your system by consuming alcohol. Rehabilitate and repeat. Be sure to eat regular meals, eat vitamins, and suck down gatorade.

Relaxing and doing your own thing is also optional.

All things considered, all is well in my department. Homesick? Yeah, but I keep busy. All quiet on the Lewis front. I like it that way.

Survival Planning

2006-12-30T20:50:00.000-07:00

I'm of the opinion that everyone loses their mind now and then. In fact, wasn't that a quote from a movie? I think it was from the remake of Psycho ("We all go a little mad sometimes"). Anyway, I personally think that one should have some sort of contingency plan. So in that vein, I present to you...

THE USUAL SUSPECT'S STRATEGY FOR SURVIVAL WHEN HE COMPLETELY LOSES HIS SHIT AND GOES BATTY!

Ladies and gentlemen, people have all sorts of different coping mechanisms, some more healthy than others, but here's one that I'd prefer to cling to. You see, in the event that I temporarily "lose my mind" (grown-ups call it 'being stressed out'), I will lock myself in my living quarters, whatever they may be, and watch episode after episode after episode of [Scrubs] until the waves subside.

And on that note...Jenni...I kinda stole Season 2 from you before I got on the plane. That will be all.

Back In The Gray

2006-12-30T12:45:00.000-07:00

Leave was awesome. Leaving wasn't. Now I'm back here, in these empty barracks, like some kind of minimum security prison ghost town. The latrine across from my room is sickening. Both urinals are out of order and full of piss. The smell is awful. I go all the way down the hall to the other one now. Blew a lot of money for Christmas, so I'm clinging to the new paycheck as intelligently as I can.

Got a digital camera now. Maybe I'll share a few pictures now and then. Not sure why I still bother with anonymity, I'm sure the Pentagon already knows who I am. But the less attention, the better. They executed Saddam while I layed on my bed and slept through Rocky. Now I just need to keep busy in my little oblivion until everyone comes back and the tempo picks up.

Before leave, we had the field training exercise that everyone here knows about. Julie Anna wrote about it a little. On my end, for the most part it wasn't too interesting. I'm not going to really touch on what exactly we were doing as far as missions go, seeing as I'm still being as adamant as I can about not giving away any more information than is already thrown out there with all the care of a flicked cigarette butt in a haystack.

Several elements make up a day in actual soldiering, as far as our part goes. Details, waiting/eating, preparing, waiting, rolling out, waiting/anticipating/searching/whatever, and actual contact, well that's a variable. As far as I'm concerned, you get your game face on and go out and do whatever the mission is, and take it from there. No sense complicating it.

More thoughts/stories/rants/babblings as they come.

CLS Once Again

2006-11-27T20:27:00.000-07:00

Sub par writing. Now you know what to expect.

I'm in combat life saver course again. You know, where medics teach you how to try to save your buddies when they get fucked up. We got to see all sorts of graphic pictures of soldiers and Iraqis that were in pretty bad shape, to say the least. Those types of pictures don't really bother me at all (and yeah, they were pretty damn bad), but I wouldn't want to see any of our guys looking like that.

I call that stating the obvious.

I wonder if any combat medics blog? Those guys have some stories. They see a lot of shit. Kinda glad I'm not one of them. But for some reason I always enjoy being in that class. I don't find it hard to pay attention. And thankfully its dumbed down, Army style.

Oh, and get a load of this. In the class, they give us "book answers" (the answers for the test) and "real answers" (the answers for when shit hits the fan and those bullshit book techniques aren't feasible. I don't feel too "Army Strong" about that, but whatever.

Taking A Break

2006-11-20T19:28:00.000-07:00

There really isn't anything worth writing about exactly, and these days I don't even have the desire to write about the mundane. Plus we all know I can't be specific about a damn thing because protecting OPSEC is the most important priority.

With that said, I'm taking a break from this site. When I started, I was all about getting my experience out there for the world to see, but I just don't feel the same way about it these days. I work and then I relax. Storytelling isn't so interesting now. Maybe later.

Driving Miss Daisy

2006-11-09T18:40:00.000-07:00

As I've lamented, I've become a stryker driver. The job and everything that comes with it can be quite a bit of an armful, to say the least. Nothing too strenuous or anything, but there's a good deal of maintenance, and the wonderful PMCS (Preventive Maintenance Checks and Services), plus the hoops you have to jump through just to get the vehicle dispatched from the motor pool for use.

That aside, I also get yelled at a lot because driving a stryker is a lot different from driving a car. No big deal really, I can handled being yelled at no problem. The worse part about it was the sinking feeling along with my own inner dialogue saying, "God...I should NOT be in this position. Someone else should be doing this, I'm not cut out for it."

I went to bed last night and had probably ten different dreams about driving. This probably has something to do with dreams being essential to learning. Who knows.

Anyway, to wrap up this flavorless post, today was probably one of the funnest days I've had in quite a while. I'll explain why after a few notes.

Basically, we had to go back out to the mortar range to clean up all the trash, etc that comes along with doing a live-fire. In the army, this is called "policing it up". So we drove out to the aforementioned range, and driving wasn't nearly as bad this time around, so there may be hope for me yet. When we arrived, we find that another company is doing a live fire, and we have to drive back to get our body armor and helmets.

So we turn around, and head back to the barracks, grab our gear, and start heading back, when blocking an intersection are two humvees stuck together. Apparently one was towing the other, and they slid on a turn, and jack-knifed. They were somehow stuck, and our other stryker had to tow them far enough to pull them free. It was a great, happy, We Made A Difference moment.

Cleaning up the range was pretty simple, but uneventful. Its the kind of thing no one ever really talks about; the boring tedious things we do everyday that might make some think twice before enlisting. But who wants to read about that?

On our way back, we took a detour and went mudding with our strykers. It had rained the previous day, so there were some huge pools of water in this open area. I'd wait for the lead vehicle to get some distance ahead of me, then I'd gun it. Water shot in all directions, we were like a big green mechanical Moses, just parting the seas. Brown muddy water spraying up over the sides, soaking the two guys standing in the hatches. From all angles, it came pouring into my driver's "Hell Hole". It was hitting me in the face, in my mouth, spraying down my clothes and the goretex jacket I had behind my seat.

We'd get through one lake of water, then angle towards another, and I'd pin the accelerator to the floor with a vengeance. The vehicle would pick up speed and then WHOOOOOOOOOSHH, once again we're flinging the filth everywhere.

We changed our uniforms when we got back.

Retraction

2006-11-01T23:23:00.000-07:00

My sister sent me a link that potentially debunks a few chain emails, the Denzel one included.

It does state that he visited the aforementioned establishment, and did make a contribution, but that the story itself was tainted to shift blame to actors like Madonna and Sean Penn.

All this goes to show is one thing...YOU CANNOT BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ. God I love disinformation. If I wanted, I could make up a whole bunch of shit about how the army brainwashes us. I could make us out to be stormtroopers. Or I could spout off all sorts of Holy War, God is on our side, we are right and they are wrong bullshit.

The truth is, everything is one huge complicated web of miscommunication and the endless chain reactions that result from it. Welcome to the truth, life is just semi-organized chaos.

So just like the article I was sent from Chet Zar (awesome artist by the way), who got it from another website, use your own discretion and judgment when reading not only what I post, but EVERYTHING in general.

You know how you can BE THERE and witness something, and when someone you know retells the story, its not quite the same? Some things are omitted, some are exaggerated, and some are outright fabricated? Well the media is even better at doing that. Its their bread and butter. So once again, think for yourself, don't swallow the bait all the time. Disinformation is an excellent tool for manipulation.

Denzel Pwns Sean Penn

2006-11-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

Some of you may or may not have received the chain email thing I just got from my cousin who is stationed in Korea. Its one about Denzel Washington visiting Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, "where soldiers who have been evacuated from

Germany come to be hospitalized in the United

States, especially burn victims. There are some

buildings there called Fisher Houses. The Fisher

House is a Hotel where soldiers' families can stay,

for little or no charge, while their soldier is staying

in the Hospital. BAMC has quite a few of these houses

on base, but as you can imagine, they are almost filled

most of the time.

While Denzel Washington was visiting BAMC, they gave

him a tour of one of the Fisher Houses. He asked how

much one of them would cost to build. He took his check

book out and wrote a check for the full amount right there

on the spot. The soldiers overseas were amazed to hear

this story and want to get the word out to the American

public, because it warmed their hearts to hear it.

The question I have is why does:

Alec Baldwin, ? ?

Madonna,

Sean Penn ? ?and

other Hollywood types ?

make front page news with their anti-everything

America trash and Denzel Washington's Patriotism

doesn't even make page 3 in the Metro section of

any newspaper except the Local newspaper in San

Antonio? "

There are pictures, but I'm sure a simple google search could lead you to some obscure article about this. Normally, I don't care much for chainmail, but this is pretty awesome, so there you are.

Halloween?

2006-10-31T15:16:00.000-07:00

People seem to like it when I post something, even if it isn't about anything in general.

We still aren't doing anything that I'd consider interesting. We finished the Stryker Net training, and now we're slowly chipping away at more mortar certification. Gun drills and exams. More crap that we won't use in Iraq. And honestly, that we hopefully won't use anywhere else, because hopefully we won't go anywhere else.

I no longer have the idealist illusions about more soldiers being needed, etc. The idealist illusions that caused me to enlist. My presence here is an anonymous blip. All I do is show up, jump through hoops, and collect a paycheck while leaving my original life on hold.

No one likes to listen to someone else bitch, but believe me, this isn't me bitching. I could write a book if I wanted to full of complaints, but so could any of you. Like I'm always saying (to myself mostly), this is how it is, go from here.

I hate politics, so I won't use my very limited knowledge of how the world works to spout off about whatever party its currently trendy to dislike. I don't pay any attention to the news, its just people twisting words and events to further their own careers. The commercials advertise products I'm supposed to buy while the news advertises things I'm supposed to believe, and opinions I'm supposed to have. So there's something I won't be writing about.

Tell you what, I'll summarize what the deal is right now. Just like the title says, I'm just another fish out of water, doing my time. One of the guys in my unit reenlisted for six years today. You'll never see me do that. A handful of guys have gone AWOL since I've been here. You won't see me doing that either. Instead, you'll see me taking the bad with the good and sucking it up for a few more years. As for now, everything is pretty stagnant, and I just can't seem to bring myself to care about the busywork they're handing us. We are very VERY unlikely to be using mortars in the desert.

But, as always, I'll post later. I'm so unmotivated that even this writing is shitty. Thank god I'm not looking for a book deal huh?

A Bulletin

2006-10-25T00:13:00.000-06:00

We've already established that MySpace is a double edged sword, but let's talk about bulletins. Namely the few and far between that are worth reading.

The following is a bulletin reposted by an artist I admire a lot, Mr. Chet Zar. Though the original author of the bulletin is obviously of left wing alignment, ignore that. In my limited knowledge of the world, I've gained the sneaking suspicion that political parties just fuck things up more than they already are. That is why I invite you to read something I found intriguing, and form YOUR OWN OPINION rather than jumping on your own favored bandwagon (a woman who called me brainwashed before I offered a single opinion during a train ride home almost a year ago comes to mind). So come on, think outside the TV shaped box now and then. I'd like some input on this. Whether I hate it or love it is unknown to you, and also irrelevant. Agree or disagree, here it is.

from moveon.org

MoveOn's Plan to Win Congress, One Vote at a Time
An Opportunity for Change

Our country is headed in the wrong direction, but this fall is the best opportunity we've had in several years to turn it around.

It's a dark time. The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer; the deficit is through the roof; the climate is warming but our energy policy has been written by oil companies; our basic democratic traditions, from the 4th amendment to the separation of powers, are under attack; we're spending billions each month on an occupation that's killed thousands without making us any safer.

Our body politic has been wounded, and as long as right-wing Republicans control all three branches of government, we can't even stop the bleeding. MoveOn members have voted to pursue clean energy, universal health care and democracy restored as our core positive agenda. But this kind of progress is difficult to imagine as long as Republicans maintain their lock on power in DC.

That's why our goal is to win control of Congress, so we can begin moving forward on the issues that matter.

The Outlook for November

That won't happen overnight. But this fall, we have a chance to take a big step forward, to win a bunch of seats or even take the House entirely.

Why are we so optimistic?

Public frustration with the mess in Washington rose this winter to historic levels, and has been largely stable since then. The Republican Party is split over civil liberties and immigration. Polls show disapproval with Congress is higher than it's been since 1994, when Republicans first swept to power. The number of competitive congressional races has jumped in the last year, and Democrats' advantage in Congressional polls is as great as the lead Republicans enjoyed in 1994.

In this context, it's possible to imagine a tipping point election where Democrats sweep into power, just as Republicans did 12 years ago. In fact, experts say it's increasingly likely.

(Of course, simply electing Democrats won't solve our nation's problems, but once we've helped get Democrats into office, we'll push hard to make sure they live up to their promises and fight for progressive causes.)

Voter Turnout Is the Key

It can happen. Whether it will depends in part on what we do.

This election will be all about turnout. Congressional elections generally have much lower turnout than presidential elections, and pollsters expect this fall to have even lower turnout than usual. In this context, the winner will be the side that turns out its base.

Getting people to vote can be as simple as getting in touch with them, reminding them what's at stake in the election, and making sure they know where to vote. But to do this, you need people. Person-to-person contact by energetic volunteers is far better than direct mail, computer-generated "robo-calls" or TV ads.

The good news is, we have people—3 million motivated MoveOn members from coast to coast. If we can tap into this enormous well of potential energy, we can get enough voters to the polls to help defeat the Republicans.

The Plan

Our plan is to organize the largest grassroots phonebank in nation through Operation Democracy, MoveOn's network of local volunteer leaders. Between now and Election Day, MoveOn members from New York to New Iberia will make over 5 million phone calls into 30 highly competitive congressional districts plus selected Senate races . We'll use cutting-edge technology to connect volunteers with progressive voters who might not otherwise vote. We'll talk to enough people to change the outcome in some of these very tight races.

At the beginning of the program, we're going to use a new technique to increase the efficiency of our calls. We'll call voters in target districts and ask them a few questions. Based on their answers—and some high powered statistics—we'll be able to tell who is likely to be progressive and who isn't.

In October, MoveOn volunteers will call millions of these targeted progressive voters to talk about the importance of the upcoming election. Then, in the 4 days before the election, we'll go back to these voters to remind them about the election and make sure they know where to vote. And finally, on Election Day, we'll make sure they get to the polls.

And the best part is, this works. We tested this method in the April special election in California's 50th district. The result: our calls had a greater impact, per voter, than any volunteer phonebank ever measured! And we'll continue to use experimentation and technology to increase our effectiveness.

The key is to make lots of calls. We'll need 50,000 MoveOn members, making over 5 million calls from home, from phone parties, and from MoveOn offices. If we can do this, we'll make contact repeatedly with over 20,000 voters in each of our 30 target districts.

We can't get that many people involved by email alone. That's why we're deploying 100 skilled field organizers around the country. They'll help volunteer leaders in their area recruit MoveOn members to join in as Phone Volunteers, and then support those Phone Volunteers throughout the campaign.

Our efforts alone would be enough to swing a number of close races to Democrats. But fortunately, we're not alone—some of our most important allies are also working hard to make sure progressives vote (and, where possible, we'll be coordinating our work). On November 7th, these efforts will help Democrats win a bunch of seats--or even take the House entirely.

But this doesn't end in November. That's why, even as we get voters to the polls this fall, we'll be building for the long term. By the end of the campaign, we'll have a vibrant progressive infrastructure in cities from coast to coast that can focus on holding the new Congress accountable, electing more progressives, and winning change from the ground up.

Back From The Dead

2006-10-24T19:57:00.000-06:00

I'm still here folks, just haven't had anything worth writing about. Strykernet of the mortar pursuasion. Scraping your skin off with an old SOS pad is more fun, trust me.

And, as the more intuitive of you may have guessed, my morale has been pretty low these days. I went home for the weekend of my 21st birthday, and it was awesome to say the least. I'm just going to leave it at an understatement, and hopefully you can connect a really really great time with this notion here. Just to make sure we understand each other though, it was a weekend for the history books. And no, I didn't throw up.

Getting on the plane to come back would have been nearly impossible if I would have allowed myself to think about it. Being record-breakingly hung over probably helped too. For now, I'm here. I'm in the army. I got myself here, I'll deal with it. Same rant you've heard over and over again.

I'll reward you all with better, more interesting, nay, CAPTIVATING writing later on, when my muse has returned, and is in the office on the same day that something interesting actually happens.

Warning

2006-10-10T02:23:00.000-06:00

This goes out to all the young Joes. A little piece of what SHOULD BE common sense that I'd like to share.

DO NOT BOTHER TRYING TO MEET GIRLS OFF OF MYSPACE.

"Oh come on dude, why not?"

Why not, oh well pull up a chair, princess, and I'll tell you why not. You see, MySpace is the score upon which Satan writes his requiems of treachery. Nothing good can come from meeting a girl off of myspace, sorry. The truth is one bitter, broken glass shard pill that may be hard to swallow for some of you young hopefuls. But do yourself a favor and listen to the wise sage that is me. DON'T DO IT. Treat this with more importance than the safety briefings you disregard every Friday before close of business formation.

"Dude....I asked why not. Either answer or leave me alone."

All right spanky, listen up. Its a well known FACT that its not smart to mess with army wives. Its an even MORE well known fact that it isn't smart to mess with army wives whose husbands are DEPLOYED. Now, some, not all, but some army wives (or girlfriends even) are less than trustworthy. And MySpace, ladies and gentlemen, as you well know, is a perfect breeding ground for ALLLLLL sorts of scandalous activity. Hey, if guys weren't getting shot over this, I wouldn't care.

TWO married, YOUNG girls just left our barracks. They were hanging around here with some guys I know. After they left, one dude told me they were both married, which is why he kept his distance. Congratulations, guy, you aren't a moron.

But all ranting aside, let me just reiterate my point. DO NOT MESS WITH OTHER SOLDIERS' WOMEN, THIS IS NOT DIFFICULT TO GRASP. Save everyone some trouble and keep that Days of Our Lives bullshit ON THE TV where it belongs.

That, and any girl who will meet you off of myspace, will ALSO meet almost any other guy. Sorry dude, but this isn't a Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan movie. Use your head.

"Then why the hell do you have a MySpace account for your stupid-ass blog?!"

Shut up. No myspace girls/wives. No! Bad!

If by now I haven't made myself clear, well then you deserve to be shot (minorly wounded of course). Go look for girls in bookstores or something. Anywhere in the REAL world. Stop sucking so bad. The Divine Sage is going to bed. If you have any questions, don't look for girls on MySpace. Problem solved.

Barricade

2006-10-07T22:29:00.000-06:00

Being the stubborn You Can't Beat Me asshole that I am, I've decided that I would conquer even this pitiful little slump with vindictive arrogance.

"Well how do you plan on doing that, oh ruthless one?"

Simple. I walked to a friend's room and knocked until HE answered. Keyword here is HE. I then addressed him.

"Jessica, hi, listen, I'm going to need you to go ahead and grab those neat little keys of yours and hop into your beloved car and drive me to some place that sells DVDs. Now, seeing as you're currently eating pizza, I won't even have to feel obligated to buy you dinner or anything, which really makes my own selfish ends that much more wonderful. So whenever you're ready, knock on my door, princess, and I'll leave you some gas money."

We went to the main PX, where some musical pop-pseudo-divas that I've never heard of were supposedly autographing CDs while remaining an otherwise anonymous blip on the American Pop Culture radar. After he bought what he needed, my friend and I trekked to Target or something like that off post, where I snatched up Season 1 of the best show ever, Scrubs. Those of you who are in fact, Scrubs-savvy will catch my borrowing of Dr. Cox's use of patronization and calling a guy by a girl's name.

To compensate him, I took him to see Jackass 2.

And now I'm going to investigate a disturbance in the hallway.

....

The barracks are slightly festive. Scrubs is my alibi.

Purgatory

2006-10-07T12:17:00.000-06:00

Let's review the count. Two good friends AWOL, roommate/best friend in the slow process of medical discharge. And today I'm the "gay" one because I don't want to drink at 11 AM.

Murphy's Law states that anything that can go wrong, most likely will.

The 2nd Law of Thermodynamic Gravity as per the definition a friend of mine and I have given it, states that "gravity" takes everything that is good and pulls it down and causes it to seperate. Its the force that causes the unstoppable decay of anything that doesn't completely suck. It steals the good and leaves only the mildew and rust of the bad. And apparently nothing is safe.

This is where everything turns into different shades of gray, and I stop caring. Rather than lamenting it like a victim, I turn to stone. Not even bitter, methodically update the iPod and grab the hooded sweatshirt. Leave the barracks like a curse for a little while. Maybe I'll catch that new movie about dreams or whatever. Same guy who made Eternal Sunshine. Is that irony or what.

Atleast the sky is completely gray and isn't trying to lie. Blue skies on a shitty day are hypocritical. Like sweeping dirt under a rug and pretending it isn't there. The honesty is a lot better. Makes it easier to digest it all and spit it out that much faster.

The calendar is losing weight.

Low Man's Lyric

2006-10-04T18:14:00.000-06:00

I'd give a better update if I had anything to say.

Another one of my friends went AWOL. My roommate has begun the long tedious process of receiving a medical discharge.

Last night, I walked to the Rec Center and traded my ID for a movie and a pair of headphones. I sat down in the dark in a recliner and watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

It was the highlight of my week.

The Day We Almost Died

2006-09-30T11:16:00.000-06:00

Oh yes, title got you interested? This is an anecdote from one of the last days of our firefighting detail.

It was supposed to be our last workday. We were covering up bulldozer lines where the dozers had stripped everything off of the ground, leaving only dirt, so that dickhead fire couldn't cross. That's right, after we finished annihilating portions of the woods to keep the fire from spreading, we had to go back and UNDO what we'd been doing. Sounds like the army, right?

So we cover the lines up with fallen trees and brush and pretty much anything we can get our hands on so that no one uses the lines for dirt bikes or whatever. Yeah, I didn't understand that one either. Soon enough, we get a change of mission. There's some spotfire that we need to lay the smack down upon. Once we get there, we realize its nothing. Let me tell ya, there is nothing more terrifying than two inch flames and tiny whisps of smoldering dirt. After that patronizing bit of work, we all rested on the hill while one of the chainsaw operators from our team cut a tree stump into a toilet. We took photos, laughed, the usual bit. And then one dude actually used it. Number two. I'm telling you, there are some weird fucking people in the army.

Because of these charades, and since it was nearing the end of the day and our spirits were high, I expended all the exposures I had for my crappy disposable camera that I still havent developed. Moving on, we walked down the hill and to a road to take a "shortcut" back to the buses. Does anyone else smell bullshit here?

By some magical coincidence, we come across ANOTHER line that needs to be covered up. One of the worst parts about working on these hills is the grapefruit sized rocks that roll down and clip you in the ankle. After you shriek in agony, someone from up the hill will yell, "ROCK!" because apparently that's supposed to be funny.

We covered this line up as well and were finally ready to get the hell out. Our path (or lack of it) happened to be a steep downhill trek, which was something we had become accustomed to. But this time, it was so far down and so steep, it was just killing our knees. I'm a young buck and I'm bitching about my knees? Yeah.

We slid and stumbled down, using our tools for balance. And like I said, this damn route we were taking went on forever. I was really starting to get impatient, when our path took a turn around some trees and rocks and then up a short hill. I followed my cohorts only to find a cliff. A large one. Right in our path. Way the hell below, you could see the road. I can't even begin to describe my frustration. Everyone was bitching, I hardly said a word. Wait, no, I'm sure I was bitching up a storm. Come on, its me.

The LT that was with us felt it was necessary to take a different avenue. We walked off for a bit until we came to a spot where it wasn't so much a cliff as it was an INCREDIBLY STEEP ROCK BED, WITH JAGGED EDGES AND NO STABILITY. IT WAS DEATH IN A LANDSCAPE. We're all standing there going, "Ah HELL no..." and eventually the first guy starts moving down and a few follow, and they initiate a slight rockslide. We make the decision to keep a healthy distance between all of us. One of my buddies even played Traffic Cop, directing our order of movement. It was cute. Almost as cute as navigating a rock quarry.

The first seven or eight guys slowly begin to navigate the Face of Demise when my turn comes up. I start my slow, deliberate descent, just wanting it to be over. And that's when I hear the rockslide.

A wall of dust is kicked up between me and the guys ahead of me (at this point, they were actually to my left, as we were snaking down the hill). I couldn't see anyone, and these bowling ball+ sized rocks are tumbling over each other. It was loud, like river rapids. And it just kept going on....and on...and on. It must have gone on for twenty or thirty seconds.

There I am with my mouth open with that dumbfounded I-Just-Saw-A-Guy-Get-Hit-By-A-Car frozen trance. And I remember thinking [....I'm pretty sure someone just died. Holy shit...]. I stood there, watching and waiting, craning my neck to one side as if I'll somehow be able to see around the veil of dust, waiting for shouting or some kind of acknowledgement to come from the guys ahead of me. Finally the dust clears enough and everyone is still slowly moving along. Shaken, not stirred.

I turn to my friend who's about ten feet behind me and give him that wide eyed frat boy shit eating grin, "Dude!!! Did you SEE that shit?!"

He nods and says, "If anything happens out here...I just want you to know...I always thought you were cool."

I laughed, and then we told another guy that we always thought that he was an idiot. He announces that that is thoroughly fucked up. Then my friend makes a reference to a running joke I have.

"Hey, what are you gonna do when you get home?"

In war movies, you do NOT talk about what you're going to do when you're done. Because its always THAT guy, right when he's giving his sentimental monologue, that gets WAXED because filmmakers love irony and tragedy. I respond.

"Fuck you."

We continue to descend, taking each step carefully. At pretty much all times, I'd have a foot, a hand, and my tool in contact with the rocks, since there really was no ground. I'd test each rock for stability before I stepped on it. Pissed off and deliberate.

How many rants about blaming my recruiter have I gone on now? I've kicked that dead horse til my boots wore out. No, this time, I went straight back to the source. I cursed my parents for conceiving me and bringing me into this world where such colossal challenges lurk to torment me. And then I hit my shin on a jagged rock. This initiates a string of bizarre and random expletives. As I attempt to navigate this hill, my mind is constantly filled with images of me and my friends slipping and rolling with the rocks down the hill. Yellow helmet flying, heads striking the edges of rocks, painting them in splatter-patterns. Twisted and contorted limbs and crushed bones.

Yeah, so I decided that I was going to let my arrogance mingle with my meticulous care for safety. Call it a compromise. It beat the "We're all gonna die" mentality, atleast until it became more funny. We stopped for a break after a few million miles, and I offered a friend of mine, a non-smoker, his Last Cigarette. He took it. It was awesome, everyone had this "We're So Fucked" mentality. Most of us were joking about it, a few others were just straight up pissed off.

We finished resting our weary bruised and scraped knees and rolled ankles and decided to meet Death head on by continuing our mission. Around this part of the bend, we had a better view of the road, only now, the bus was there waiting for us. But GOD was it still far away. And behind the bus was our commanding officers pickup. And outside the pickup, standing with his arms crossed, very pissed off, was our commander. Apparently he wasn't pleased with our improvised route. The Sergeant Major apparently had already driven by and seen us. Rumor has it he laughed.

We finished our death march and all snatched powerades out of the back of the bus and guzzled them down, feeling like we had just slew an army of giants. Then we took a few team photos and headed back to camp. Once we were there, it was kind of funny, we all quickly learned not to even bother telling anyone about it. You'd start to explain how RIDICULOUS it was, especially without hazard pay, and then some dumbass would go, "Yeah, we had to walk X number of miles uphill and downhill today too, its sucked so bad (etc)" and that was about the point where I laughed and walked off to clean myself up. Any time any of us from our team would run into each other, we'd just kind of look at each other and shake our heads, letting out a kind of exhausted chuckle. A quote from one friend, in his southern drawl.

"Man, I've seen some crazy and stupid shit since I've been here at Fort Lewis, but this is by far the dumbest, most out there, unreal shit, bar none. That shit was crazy."

So yeah, we didn't REALLY almost die, but I'll be damned if you weren't curious when you saw the title. The best part though, is that I can do what we did with the members of all the other teams and say, "You couldn't understand unless you were there."

Yes, I am an ass.

Night Driving

2006-09-27T00:16:00.001-06:00

In the back of the unlit five ton, the dirt road was determined to spit us out and onto the gravel, bouncing like rag dolls. Inside, we were jostled (such a word sounds so jovial) around with an intensity that was more than inhumane. My innards were rearranged in a somewhat painful manner, my gall bladder and spleen have traded places and my kidneys are hiding in my stomach for safety. My intestines are in knots, but I think they're still in the same place they were this morning.

Driving with nightvision is an exercise in futility. Visibility? Hah, no. No humorous details, it was just a big mess and nothing bad happened. I was pretty certain I was going to end up rearing-ending a Stryker, but luckily, nay.

See you all in a few days.

On The Road Again

2006-09-26T13:58:00.000-06:00

I've effectively gotten myself out of Stryker driving school. Instead, I was redirected to learn to drive a 5 ton, those trucks we're always riding in the back of. If its one thing you don't want, its a 5 Ton license. That's worse than having a humvee license (which they're trying to push for me to get next).

"Whoa, hold on! Military vehicles are sweet! Why wouldn't you want to be licensed to drive them?"

Well my friends, the answer is very simple once you lace up your desert boots and dive into the world of the line company lifestyle. You see, when you can lawfully operate such "cool" machinery, that means that your name pops up anytime the bosses need a vehicle for whatever mission or errand. If a vehicle needs to be ready bright and early at some ridiculous hour, YOU are a volunteer.

"Ah. Well atleast you still get your weekends guaranteed off."

WRONG! The more vehicles you can drive, the more you are everyone's bitch. But that's the army lifestyle. What's worse, when we next go into the field, there's talk of me driving one of the strykers. That's cute and all, but I'm pretty sure I was supposed to be a SAW gunner for the time being. So I'm employing confusion and disinformation, as well as conspiring with others to somehow get a different driver OKed for our squad, so that I can stick out of one of the hatches on the Stryker and spit lead.

In other news, Liberals and Conservatives continue to argue and slander each other, effectively leaving me with large amounts of doubt and no real source for guidance. Information is twisted, sometimes even falsified. Thinking for yourself has never been more difficult.

Three Elements of Suck

2006-09-25T19:40:00.000-06:00

Once again, its being pushed that I get my Stryker license. Which makes sense, because I don't want to be a driver. Just like I didn't want to be 11C. But since bitching doesn't help, I'll go ahead and squash that for the next few paragraphs.

Some of you may recall the post from about a year ago where my platoon went to some pool and did a humvee rollover simulater. Well guess what? That's right, this time, it was the Stryker sim. Last time was no picnic, and this one really wasn't one for the Top 10 Most Enjoyed Moments of My Army Career either.

I am not afraid of water, I like swimming, even though I can't swim fast at all. I'm not claustrophobic. I don't mind being inside the cramped driver's Hell Hole in a Stryker. Being blindfolded doesn't worry me too much...when I'm not doing anything. But when these three elements are combined, I'm afraid I nearly lose my shit each time.

Allow me to break it down for your reading pleasure.

Hop in the seat (this sim is just a frame, not an actual stryker. If needed, you can swim through the open frame when you get completely disoriented and are about to die of Pussyitis), strap yourself in to the seatbelt/harness, and cross your arms over your chest. Now pause for just a moment to hate EVERYONE within your vicinity. Hate the person(s) responsible for sending you here. With nervous apprehension turning your veins and muscles and nerves into cold goo, hate the world in general.

You knew it was going to happen, but its a damn shock anyway. The water piledrives into your face with a slap that's cut off early by the sounds of rapid submergement. Open your eyes and yank on the harness release, spilling out of the seat in a discombobulated mess devoid of confidence. Grasp the poorly simulated latch and push the flimsy wannabe door open and swim through. Feel sorry for yourself because the body armor, uniform, and helmet all weigh you down when soaked. Feel sorry for yourself, because next time, you have to do it blindfolded, swimming all the way out the back.

I watched the others go through the second phase with contempt and loathing. I defiantly ask the lifeguard girl if she takes bribes. My turn comes around, and with the air of impending doom, a death sentence, I climb into the abominable contraption and wish for a swarm of locusts to attack my peers. I tie my blindfold while fantasizing about kicking my recruiter in the groin repeatedly and setting for to the MEPS compound. I fantasize about time traveling and dragging my past self into an alley and beating some sense into him, forcing a college application into his mouth. And why not, a swift kick in the jewels for him too. And while we're at it, the shins, and a Three Stooges eye poke.

This incendiary hatred filled reverie is shattered with the surprise of the water slapping the taste out of my mouth. I manage to get my harness off and twist around in an attempt to get right-side-up again. This motion lacks grace, to say the least.

[Where is the fucking handle? That's not it, that's not it, THAT's not it, and THAT IS NOT FUCKING IT!]

I'm stuck under the seat and I'm pissed off and nervous, and panicky. I am the epitome of all that is manly. And I'm a liar.

I'm not feeling any handle, and I have almost no sense of where I am. I can't stand straight up because the seat is in the way. I'm feeling around and I'm about to lose it, I can't find the goddamn door, fuck it, I need to get out, I'm stuck, I hate the army, I want out, I want out NOW, NOW DAMMIT, FUCK ME I CAN'T GET OUT, THE HELL WITH THIS!!!

I grab one of the poles and pull myself towards it and feel for a break in the panels. I flail about, in exaggerated gestures that comically defy the act of swimming, and finally stand up when I'm out. In the spirit of a pissed off nine year old Little League baseball player, I throw my blindfold across the pool, then rip my kevlar helmet off and throw it. It arcs through the air and splashes. I'm then told to take a break.

The intensity of my hatred threatens to boil the water around me. I lean against the side of the pool with my arms folded, pouting like a little baby, hoping someone breaks that fucking contraption. My turn to go again comes way too soon.

I mount the beast with the reluctance of a dog who knows a severe beating is on the way. Nervous and shaking, half shivering, half being a wuss, I take the better half of an eternity to put my blindfold on. Yes, I'm a complete pansy. I curse everyone who passed the second phase with ease, and silently hope they contract some nasty STD. I think by now you get the point that I was one pouty little bitch.

The water devours me whole and I yank my harness off with extreme contempt. I violently thrash around looking for the handle to the door, as attempting to exit the hatch is part of the exercise. I basically hit it with my hands a couple times and feigned to attempt to open it. In reality, I probably only spent a half a second on it, but I honestly could not have cared less. I spun around clumsily and began to swim/pull/thrash my way to the back. I can't see a damn thing and don't know how far I've gone or where I am or whether I'm moving at a slightly off angle and will end up exiting out of the side, nullifying my attempt. I finally hit a wall, and I push on it with murderous determination, and it slowly opens. I tore myself through the opening and stood up.

Ripping my blindfold off, as if my decision would carry any weight, I grumble, "I am NOT going through that motherfucker again. Tell me I got a No-Go, go ahead. See what happens."

One of my buddies tells me I got a No-Go, and I shrug with homicide in my eyes. He laughs and reveals that he's kidding, convincing me that he sucks at life and that I don't like him for the next five minutes. I give my name to the lifeguard lady and ensure that she writes me down. I hate those goddamn dunk tanks so much, I would prefer to be Susan Surrandon's housekeeper over that.

The rest of the day was spent viewing driver's ed videos, completely unnecessary. At Final Formation, we received neat little coins for our firefighting exploits, and may possibly receive a humanitarian ribbon for our Class A uniforms, and maybe even back pay, about three dollars a day. After that, I received my Stryker driving certificate from my section sergeant, that FINALLY came through from when I took the training several months ago.

That's right. I did the dunk tank thing again for NOTHING.

A Little Afterglow

2006-09-21T22:06:00.000-06:00

Today's been easy, just cleaning SAWs really. I decided to set up an email account specifically for this blog. And yes, I'll even ANSWER emails. How cool is that?

Oh, and I also found out that I scored the highest out of all the SAW gunners in the company. With one day of experience. Awesome. Its cool to brag, but if it weren't for the guys giving me pointers and even calling out targets, I'd still be in that concrete box trying to qualify. So there's their shout out that they'll probably never see.

Anyway, the address is the.usual_suspect@hotmail.com

SAW 2

2006-09-21T01:15:00.000-06:00

Tonight was our night fire, the SAWs and 240Bravos. We had to wait til it was dark, but that didn't take too long thanks to the earth shifting on its rotation around the sun (that's how seasons change, Jen).

Before I get into this, let me add a little footnote about the end of the night. The rest of it was spent lazing about while everyone else burned up tax dollars, SAWs and 240s alike. Once we were completely finished and had picked up all the brass shell casings and links, we waited for the bus and cheered, beatboxing a techno rhythm while one of my friends swung chem lights (glow sticks) attached by 550 cord (super durable string) with his finely honed raver skills. Someone broke a chem light near the bleachers, and my assault pack (just think "backpack", not rucksack) glowed with splatter patterns. I somehow managed to get that crap on my hand as well.

Anyway, I had managed to get into the first firing order, eager and anxious and apprehensive to do what I came to do.

Now let me just state a few things before I allow you to laugh at my expense. It was dark. My nightvision (only covers one eye) was adjusted to see things further away, like the targets. I was very nervous. I had never used a PEQ2, a laser pointer on steroids mounted on the side of the gun. The NCO in the tower is calling out to see if everyone is ready, so I'm being rushed here. I worry that my barrel is high enough where I won't shoot the concrete ledge in front of me. I'm trying to make sure my NODs (nightvision) are set right. I'm making sure the bolt of the weapon is locked to the rear. I'm making sure its on safe. I'm trying to move the sandbags from under me so I can plant my feet effectively. I'm making sure that I can see the beam from my laser through my NODs. I'm making sure the belt of ammo is laid down so that it will constantly feed with no problems. Lots going through my head, and not enough time.

My friend is to my left and a Specialist (rank is E4) is standing on the ground to my right above my pit. Both of these guys are aggressively "helping" me to ensure that I'm good to go. It was like staring at a wasps nest inches from your face and trying to track only one wasp, just so many things going on. The tower tells us to lock and load. I lay the belt of ammo onto the tray and it falls out before I can slam the cover on it. I fumble for the end of the belt the way a running back with vegetable oil on his hands fumbles the ball. I toss the belt in and slam the cover shut.

The first target pops up, so I put the laser on that little green bastard and squeeze the trigger.

Click.

Cue the self-chastising profanity while yanking the charging handle back.

I point the laser just under that arrogant little plastic green prick and squeeze the trigger, anticipating a hail of lead to wipe the imagined smirk off his face.

Click.

More profanity, repeat step one. Repeat results.

I pull the handle back again and put the noncompliant bitch on SAFE and open the feed tray cover. The rounds fall out, and just as I see the error, the two guys flanking me announce my stupidity by informing me that the rounds were in BACKWARDS. At this point, I'm listening to ridicule in stereo. I have once again proved that I should have been a cook, or continued to work for a warranty company, answering angry phone calls all day, or shelving low quality blockbuster movies for more people to rent and hate. Anything but be behind the trigger of such a sarcastic and vindictive weapon.

At this point, there's no sense in correcting it and firing, since I hadn't let loose a single shot. I have topped my Unfastened Barrel Folly. I might as well keep the grenade and throw the pin. Waiting until the next iteration, I shake off my inconceivable level of moronic density and watch all the wonderful red tracers sail across the field. After all, it really is one hell of a spectacle, to be in the middle of all this noise and imagery. A line of SAWs, all about thirty meters apart (my best guess....not so dependable) intermittently roaring like drumrolls on dangerously tight snare drums; red lines streaking through the air, sometimes bouncing high into the sky and burning out. And that's through one eye. The other is a sea of green, where the surroundings can actually be seen, and the tracers are bright green, and glow with a halo around them.

The time for the next iteration rolls around, and I defiantly set my belt of rounds with the tips pointing away from me. When the command is given, I give every ounce of my concentrated attention, my violent and artful focus, on properly loading the ammo. I seat the first round impeccably, daring it to screw with me a second time, and slam the feed tray cover on it like the lid of a coffin. I put my SAW, which is now a part of me, an extension, a medium through which I will communicate my determination to put the green men down. We are one, and we have one singular purpose.

The first target pops up and I squeeze the trigger. A torrent of metal spews with maniacal fury towards my inanimate opponent. The little blinking light on these targets only blinks for a second or two. I don't know if I got him or not. My SAW and I decide that we'll make sure. Another burst of tenacious stopping power spits into the green night and I hear one of my comrades announce that this particular green man has cashed in his chips.

I wait. The anticipation is sweet and almost addictive. Attention span is not a factor when you are completely committed to one simple and all important task. I yearn, I need, I LIVE for another green enemy to rise to my challenge.

The next target leaps up and the light on it blinks. My laser snakes across the field onto the chest, then I dip it just below and walk a line of fire into it. For those of you who have never had the chance to operate a fully automatic weapon, I sympathize at the treasures you have been denied. But hang on a second, there's another target.

Bursts and bursts racing to meet their mark, the SAW protesting against my shoulder as I lean into her, regulating her intense desire to sling lead in every direction. I am her muse. I inspire her. The green target guy definitely does not benefit from our union.

Somewhere along the lines, I missed one. That doesn't break my heart. What almost breaks my heart is that I ran out of ammunition, and had to watch three targets pop up to taunt me. The storm I would smite them with if only I had more...

And with that, the romance that I shared with the SAW ended for the night, because I qualified.

SAW

2006-09-20T13:31:00.000-06:00

Now first off, I've already established that there's a ridiculous amount of waiting involved with everything you do in the army, so no point in touching on that now. We've all heard it before.

By some bizarre twist of fate, your favorite writer has been assigned (temporarily?) as a SAW gunner.

That, my friends, is the SAW.

"M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon)

The M249 SAW provides crucial support for infantry units. The ergonomically shaped polymer buttstock contains a hydraulic buffer that allows gunners to maximize accuracy while maintaining high cyclic rates. In addition to the M249 standard features, it has a removable heat shield and flash suppressor."

Your typical belt-fed machine gun, using 5.56mm rounds, the same that the M4 rifle uses. Now we also know that after enlisting, I ended up as an Eleven Charlie (Indirect Fire Infantry - Mortar) and not Eleven Bravo as was planned. The mortar section is actually attached to one of the "line" (or 11B) platoons, for an indefinite period of time. Meaning I get to do more of the 11B work that I signed up for.

Rant aside, yesterday all the SAW gunners and 240Bravo gunners were to go to a weapons range to zero and qualify with our weapons. Give me a little time, and I should be able to upload a short video for you. Yes, naturally I brought the camcorder.

I hadn't fired a SAW since basic training, and had never used the optic sight mounted on this weapon. So I pretty much started from scratch, not knowing a damn thing yesterday. I took my sweet time making sure my weapon was atleast CLOSE to zeroed (there's always a rush to do that and get it out of the way, so half the time I have to use 'Kentucky Windage' with my M4 later on).

Let me pause once more to try to describe the soul of the SAW. Its best compared to a very vindictive woman. And I mean VERY. She'll take complete control of you and make you her plaything and embarass you if you aren't 'assertive' and take charge. You've got to lean into it hard, and with your non-firing hand, pull it into your shoulder from the buttstock to try to keep it stable while it rests on bipod legs. Otherwise, your rounds will jump all over the place. Learn how to work with her, and she's a very great asset. Not for the squeamish, which is why its typical that they put it in MY confused and uncapable hands.

Each firing iteration, you load a belt of ammo and slap the feed tray cover down on it, pinching the belt in place, ready to rock. At first, we would load only one round, and fire three seperate shots like this to zero. Boring. I should shoot myself for even writing about this part. However, once you start firing in bursts, the magic unfolds and a blanket of warmth and fully-automatic security falls upon you, and all is great and wonderful in the land of the SAW gunner.

We first qualified on paper targets. The sight we were using has multiple horizontal lines, like the binoculars used to estimate distance. You'll see why I'm an idiot in a minute here. Anyway, we used the 800 meter line to zero on paper targets from 10 meters away. This somehow works out apparently. But once we shifted over to the pop-up target range, a friend misunderstood my question and said, "You used the 8 line to zero right? Yeah, so use that."

This means that I was using the 800 meter line for every target, regardless of distance. Someone please do me a favor and cue Carlos Mencia's "Dur-da-durrrr" noise. And I wondered why I wasn't hitting hardly anything. I began to wonder if I hadn't zeroed properly, or if I had offended God in some way, or maybe if I just sucked at life. The positive side of this is I got to unload a LOT of ammo that day. Eventually, between firing iterations, another friend of mine and I are talking and I ask him what the hell I'm doing wrong, and luckily mentioned the sight. He pointed out that the numbers next to each line in the sight correspond to a certain distance, and that's what you use to estimate where you need to fire. Exactly as I suspected but was too afraid to try before. I should be waiting tables, while wearing a crash helmet to ensure my own safety.

At one point, we were off the lanes for a while, slacking and waiting, being lazy. We left our weapons where they were so we could start up again immediately when needed. I'm almost positive someone messed with my weapon to be a prick, because the next time we fired, I get my sights on a target and squeeze the trigger. The bolt slams forward and the weapon doesn't fire. I don't notice this next part, but I have it on video. The barrel (which is removeable) shifts forward a small amount. I charge the weapon again and fire. This time, the barrel nearly jumps off the weapon. No freaking wonder it won't fire. And in the spirit of Joe Rumors, later on someone approaches me and says, "Did you find your barrel?" At which point I inquire as to exactly what the hell this apparently hallucinating individual is talking about. He says, "I heard it wasn't on all the way and went flying when you shot." This is where I employ thinly veiled sarcasm. I tell him that yes, as a matter of fact, it did take a journey with the cow to jump over the moon, and also pulled a feat similar to one seen in the original Superman movie, where it travels so fast that it actually time traveled and took out the Twin Towers a day early. My feeble attempt at squashing that rumor.

With this new gem of wisdom bestowed upon me, I was prepared to fire once again. I fetched another delightfully long belt of ammunition and jumped back into my firing bunker....thing. Target pops up, my friend calls out a distance, I put the respective line on it and fire a burst. Miss. Burst. Miss. Dirt clouds kicked up in little plumes, which is a perfect reference point for adjusting. Another burst. Target goes down. I fire another burst. Yeah, I don't know why either. Squeezing that trigger is like eating peanuts. You can't stop. Its glorious.

More targets pop up, and I hose them down with lead. A few bursts per target and they go down. One thing: when I'm looking through the sight of a weapon, I don't think about much else. Even if I'm pissed off or depressed because I'm doing horrible that day, its all put on hold when I'm shooting. Thank god for that, or else I'd really screw myself over mentally. So with this mindset, I'm not getting overly excited. Its damn near emotionless. I feel it afterwards.

From the tower, over the loudspeaker, an NCO announces which guys qualified and which didn't. He announces me as qualifying with a perfect score, and invites everyone to congratulate me, give me a slap on the back, and a punch in the kidneys. I brag. I invite all to worship me if they feel inclined to do so, in fact, I even encourage it. I then turn water into urine. After all, I HAD declared myself the Messiah of the SAW, after one day.

Tonight, I have to qualify night-fire with the SAW, so now just watch as I totally botch it up. By the way, I have NEVER cleaned a weapon so filthy. Thick carbon like you wouldn't believe. Wet black residue just caked all over everything inside it. Its obscene. The black tar of the seventh level of hell is all over that thing. But now I must return to work.

Nevermind

2006-09-16T19:40:00.000-06:00

I've been gone for a few days, and came back to a bunch of comments emailed to me, all saying the same thing my sister and I talked about before I left. This is the way terrorism works, it instills fear and coerces others into going along with demands by using the threat of violence.

This just needs to serve as a warning, a reminder that myself and other writers have to be careful about what they put in writing, since anyone can see it. Same as always, I'll post when anything interesting happens or when I have some rant I feel I need to post. Unfortunately, I probably won't be posting pictures or any of the videos I make, or atleast not at first. Never say never, right?

An example from one voice of reason.

"It's your call of course whether or not you shut down your blog. But consider this; they'll still be using the internet as a tool to kill us. On the other hand if you shut down your blog; it's a small victory for THEM. You are a rational, intelligent, creative writer with a great sense of humour. We in the western world need people like you to voice their thoughts. You will soon be going from training to making history. People such as yourself, Tim Boggs, Buck Sargent and Colby Buzell help get the word out without endangering OPSEC.

Many people here in Canada and The USA have lost their moral compass. They can not/will not come to grips with the fact that we are at WAR. Our civilization is in danger. Think long and hard about this please. Don't hand them even the tiniest victory. Don't let them silence you." -Membrain

To let someone stop me from doing something like this would be completely unamerican. Fuck these guys, they aren't taking anything from me..

Life's too short...

2006-09-15T23:02:00.000-06:00

This really has nothing to do with Ryan, but I feel like I've learned an extremely valuable lesson...A friend of mine, who I went through Confirmation with in 7th grade, who I snuck drinks with junior year of high school in the local bowling alley parking lot, this girl that I lost touch with and just last month got in touch with again, instant messaged me yesterday. Her husband is in the Air Force, and was TDY for a few months. They have a year and a half old daughter, and she's due the day after tomorrow with their second daughter. The Air Force arranged to have Mike come home a few days early, just in case anything happened with her pregnancy. They were 40 miles away from town when another car crossed the median and hit the end of their van, sending it into a tailspin before it went off a 40 foot cliff. The two chiefs in front were okay, thanks to the airbags, but Mike was thrown out and hit his head on a boulder. They brought him to the hospital yesterday via Mercy Flight, and I genuinely believed he would pull through, that everything would be okay and he'd wake up and they'd go on as if nothing ever happened...until Rachel told me tonight they'd pronounced him dead ten minutes to 5 this evening...

I can't even imagine...this has to be every wife/mother's worst nightmare. Suddenly getting mad at Chris for taking the Powerade I was going to use for my lunch seems so trivial...so foolish. Would I be upset about the damn juice if he was going to be gone forever, tomorrow? I just remembered this quote I read, "A husband snoring is the sweetest sound in the world. Ask any widow." It's so true. I can't imagine what good can come out of this, but I know God has a plan, even if we can't understand it yet...but I know I'll think twice before I get upset with my mom for caring a little too much, or aggravated with my husband for not folding the towels just right. Life is too short, too unpredictable...

This Page May Go Down...Permanently

2006-09-11T22:11:00.000-06:00

9/11/2006

Now normally, I refuse to post articles by others, or even link to other sites, because this is supposed to be an account from my eyes only, but this is relevant I think.

Actually, nevermind. I WAS going to link some videos I found on YouTube, but a lot of it is shit no one needs to fucking see. I'll just get to the chase.

Anti-American Muslims are all over our neck of the internet too. I'm not talking about this because I heard some horror stories from my chain of command, I fucking stumbled across them myself. Using our own video sharing websites, speaking to each other on message boards IN ENGLISH. I mean fuck, they trying to recruit from within this country too? Example, paraphrased:

"Do not share any videos with [username]. He is pretending to be Muslim so he can report the videos and have them removed...Peace be with you."

There are also comments about a video where an M1 Abrams tank is hit with an RPG. One Marine (no shit) comments:

"I'm a M1A1 tank crewman for the Marine Corps and all I can say is that the crewmen in that tank are laughing their asses off, All it sounds like from the inside is as if someone threw a big rock at it. You can only disable a tank with an RPG by breaking the track."

Good idea, give them a strategy. This one is worse:

"he tank is fine. If you want to take an abram out with an rpg you have to hit it in the exuast where the jet engine is. That or take out the tracks."

A seasoned warfighter would probably already know this, but how stupid can you be? No wonder they shove this OPSEC shit down our throats. People are idiots.

Back to the "peace be with you" remark, I don't have anything against a Muslim wishing peace on his brother, but I find it VERY FUCKING IRONIC when he's talking about peace in messages attached to videos glorifying the death of American soldiers. I watched one of his videos, and it opens with quotes and stock footage from GW Bush. Part of it was him at some large party or some shit like that, telling a joke about how "the WMDs have got to be SOMEWHERE." Cut to a picture of maimed or killed Iraqi civilians. "Nope, not there." Another picture. "How about over here?" Another picture.

Its fucking propaganda. The same shit we churn out ourselves. For fuck's sake, this is synonymous with the way our world is. All this talk about good and evil, its all bullshit.

We're two different sides holding different views.

But that's too simple I guess. So apparently these people really don't like Bush. Ok, I can understand how that has happened. I'm not informed enough to villainize him or point the finger solely at him, nor is it my place to. For now, yes, he's my commander in chief, but that doesn't mean I have to blindly follow every word he speaks either. A president is one man, whose purpose is to represent the people and run the country.

My purpose is to be a good and decent human being, and to think for myself. To know right from wrong and to make my own decisions. And to serve this country, and the men I signed up to assist. Not for oil, not for dominance of the Arab nations, and not to spread Christianity. Part of their propaganda is stating that we are all Christian Crusaders. COME THE FUCK ON.

Let's open our underused minds for a minute and face the facts. We as Americans, are diverse. Every race, creed, religion, ethnicity, the whole potpourri, we're all here. We aren't clones. We aren't all the same. And the same goes for Iraqis and Afghanis, Iranians, Syrians, all of the Arab nations, and all of the rest of the world as well. There is no one purely evil collective of people. We all eat, breathe, love, hurt, shit, work, sleep. We all procreate and raise families and try to live our lives the best we can. Its just these major cultural differences, and people's own inability to see past the bullshit people feed us, that's a major part of the problem right there.

But there's no fixing the entire world's problems. John Lennon failed, because that's not who we are. The world is beautiful and hideous. Bad shit is always going to happen, because people, while wonderful things, are also shit. Once again, the Yin Yang, Duality, is a valid symbol.

But that's not why I'm posting this. That was a rant, not thought out, coming straight to the keyboard as fast as my mind thought it. The key issue right now is that these guys who hate us and want us dead, the guys who are our enemy for as long as they choose to fight us, can access anything we put out on the internet.

I'm all for milblogging as you can tell, I really enjoy doing this. But there's no veil between the two sides. I don't want any harm to come from writing on this site. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, they say. Fucking bummer, too. Earlier today, I was once again throwing around the idea of talking to my First Sergeant about this site, but now I may not have to.

Title of one of their videos: "Good way to slow down humvees"

They use the fucking internet for intel. You can find their videos pretty easily. And they've always got this really peaceful sounding Islamic (sorry if I'm using the wrong title) music playing, while a US military vehicle is bombed. They honestly believe that what they're doing is the right thing. They believe it 100%. There's no reasoning with that. When I say, "they", I mean the ones fighting against us, not all Muslims. I am aware of the difference. This is all one huge clusterfuck.

I'll keep writing offline, because my memory is shitty, and maybe one day after this is all over, I can post it or something, but for now, I may have to exit stage right, for the greater good. What an ironic day to end this blog.

The Deployment

2006-09-06T15:41:00.000-06:00

Monday August 14, 2006

We woke up before the rooster even took its morning piss and brought our gear downstairs. Plenty of waiting. Load duffel bags, wait, load rucks, wait, climb onto cattle trucks. They took us to the stadium where there was supposed to be a speech or ceremony of some sort. Instead, it was even more waiting, and lots of it. I don't know what happened with all of that, but eventually, we just got on the buses.

The ride itself was uneventful. When we came through the mountains, guys would stand in the aisles, taking pictures, and generally acting like they'd never seen mountains before. I'm from Montana. I wasn't at all impressed.

When we neared our destination, a huge column of smoke could be seen over a few ridges.

After a lot of hustle and bustle bullshit, we got our camp set up. Its not bad at all. We've got a tent city type thing going on here, and we each get our own. Civilians are running the chow show, so the food is actually pretty damn good.

We were told to pretty much stay in our area, and not to mess with the women. It was actually suggested that we not even bother associating with them at all. Makes me wonder what everyone else thinks of us infantry guys. Tomorrow we go out for some training at an actual fire site, but it should be pretty mellow. We were also told to bust our asses so that we can get all the "good" missions. To the north over the ridgeline, mixed in with the black sky is dark red illumination from the fire.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

I'm going to keep this short cuz I want to sleep. We woke up before the sun once again and put on our fruity uniforms and grabbed our gear. Due to some random holdup, we waited for a few hours, then took a long ride on buses. Long story short, we went out to the woods where it wasnt burning for hands-on training. All I have to say is that this is no joke. Wears you the hell out.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

More training, this time around an already burned out area. Skeletal charred trees like gnarled black toothpicks. Looks like a closeup of skin, where each hair is enormous. Smoldering holes blowing out smoke, radiating heat, and a campfire smell everywhere. The dirt and the ash have all mixed, and its like moon dirt. The slightest shift of a boot sends up plumes of the dust. When th eteam moves, you travel through thin walls of the stuff, breathing it in, building nasty black boogers in your nose, plus it mixes with the sweat on your face.

We took a horribly long clim up a steep hill through the ash, completely wearing us out, and we didn't even really go that far. Over the LT's radio, we hear chatter about someone in another team putting an axe through his boot. I don't know anything about who it was or how bad the injury was. We dug lines (basically a perimeter of dirt around an area so the fire can't spread).

Atop our mountain, we could see across the valley to the side of another. Seceral scattered columns of smoke were rising from the trees. Firefighters are badasses. This is hard work. This is blow-your-knee-out day in day out shit. Do this for a couple weeks and then try to complain about your job. My team has decided that our 'designated firefighter dude' is everything Chuck Norris wishes he could be.

There was one surreal moment when we were walking along a dirt road, and at the edge on our left, the trees gave way to a view of the valley. The sky was veiled in smoke, and in the middle of the huge cloud, the sun shone through, perfectly spherical and blood red. Where the smoke canopy ended, the sky was pink and orange, fading into a blue horizon that walled along the green valley. Normally that alone would be all sorts of scenic and artsy fartsy, but with the sun was completely behind that veil of smoke, bright red. Neato.

We've got a good setup here too. Trailers with showers, a new AAFES trailer, new phones (though I dont bother waiting in line) good food, an endless supply of water and powerade. When you come back from the day's work, you have a brief team meeting, then you're pretty much off to take care of little things like eating, showering, and before you know it, its 10:00.

Thursday August 17, 2006

First actual mission. Mop up. Pretty tired. Earlier today, I had all sorts of similes and other poetics means of expression sitting in my head, waiting to be used, but its all gone now. I'm tired and grouchy. We did a good job out there, extinguishing little smoldering spots with the ferocity of barbaric death squads.

-Ok, I'm going to deviate from the crap I wrote in the notebook, and just use that as a basic outline for this.

See, we thought we would be fighting these huge infernos, like the movie Backdraft or something. Then each day we'd be brought out to some little Nature's Cookout. Mop up really says it all. When we actually DID see flames, they were campfire sized, except for on a couple other occasions. Someone would spot a little whisp of smoke and shout, "We got action!" Then a few of us would approach it, and beat the hell out of it with our tools. The ultimate goal is to mix cold dirt with the burning shit and not give it anything to burn, but we usually just went nuts and beat it like a compulsive gambler. Watch the scene from Office Space when they beat the crap out of the printer. That was basically it. Anyway, back to the crap I wrote.

A fire cut off our return route and we had to take a long winding detour route from hell. Barely into it, the bus swipes a pickup, and the guy standing by it does the mandatory You-Just-Hit-My-Vehicle-So-I'm-Going-To-Throw-My-Arms-In-The-Air-And-Complain routine, and we laughed at him. He had parked his pickup too close to the turn. Just after that, around a bend, the check engine light must have come on or something. We sat there for about twenty minutes, and I was already trying to decide which of my comrades I would eat first, when other buses passed us. Back at camp, the food was mediocre, something was screwed up with the girls showers, and the lines were ridiculously long.

I really have no motivation to even type all of this up. Its not really that cool or exciting, its all really anti-climactic. Maybe I'll add more later.

The Inevitable Return of the Great White Dope

2006-09-03T17:25:00.000-06:00

I am back. Its been a while, and thankfully not the full amount of time like we figured it would. I did plenty of writing in a notebook, and I'll post all of that in heaps later on. Still settling in, wading through emails and reading Jen's posts. It was a head trip to come back and find that she posted the lyrics to "I Am The Highway". That's easily the song I listened to the most out there. Apparently I've got a theme song now. Anyway, I'm going to be lazy for now, and I'll have my adventures put on here shortly.

Short But Semi-Sweet

2006-09-03T10:18:00.000-06:00

So Ryan, you're supposed to come home today...finally! Way to prove my countdown wrong, but I'm not complaining. I am complaining that Chris hasn't picked me up yet for church and now I don't get my caramel machiatto because "we don't have enough time". Grr my life is so hard. Right. I wish I had your life...so easy! I mean, sleeping out in the great outdoors, the wonderful smell of smoke (I actually do like the smell of smoke...and gasoline. I don't think that's good). Anyway, all sarcasm aside, you need to get home and tell me to quit being such a baby. I'm expecting at LEAST 5 lengthy blog posts all about your adventures into the great outdoors and your heroic fight with Mama Nature.
♥~♥~♥

Koda says Hi

2006-09-01T22:15:00.000-06:00

Ryan called tonight. Second time I've missed his call cuz I'd forgotten to take my phone off silent after work...but he called Dad's and I got to talk to him anyway. He said he's most likely going back to base this upcoming Sunday, if nothing unexpected happens. And most likely will get a four-day weekend to come home-home. You know what I mean...So you'll no longer have to endure my mindless blogs... :) Should be interesting to hear what Ryan has to say when he reads what I've written...probably something to effect of "And this is why I call you Jentard..." but I'm not complaining.

Not Your Confidante

2006-08-31T22:13:00.000-06:00

One of the guys I work with put a CD in today while we were working...as the song started, I couldn't help thinking of Ryan. I asked him to play it again so I could listen to it more closely...once I heard the first couple of lines, I realized it was the song that Ryan had set as the background music to one of the videos he made, "Yakistan"...

Audioslave - I Am The Highway Lyrics
Pearls and swine bereft of me
Long and weary my road has been
I was lost in the cities
Alone in the hills
No sorrow or pity for leaving I feel

[CHORUS]
I am not your rolling wheels
I am the highway
I am not your carpet ride
I am the sky

Friends and liars don't wait for me
I'll get on all by myself
I put millions of miles
Under my heels
And still too close to you
I feel

[CHORUS]
I am not your rolling wheels
I am the highway
I am not your carpet ride
I am the sky
I am not your blowing wind
I am the lightning
I am not your autumn moon
I am the night

I hear a song and I like it, but it's the lyrics that make me love a song. This one to me, makes me think of Ryan.

Memories

2006-08-28T15:11:00.000-06:00

I remember us going somewhere, probably to Hasting's or Blockbuster, and me trying to get into your abominable Citation. That car was a death trap...but it was fun to ride in nonetheless, even if you did have to get in and out of the passenger side door to get to the driver side door. I think you sold it to Chance, and whenever I see a crappy old white Citation drive by, I naturally can't help glancing to see if it's you driving down 10th. Just like I can't help but look at The Worx to see if you're there. I remember when you took me there, and showed me all those stupid websites. They were hilarious, but stupid. I still don't get this one http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/banana.php :)

Maybe it was my junior year, maybe it was senior year, but I remember coming home way past curfew and realizing I had forgotten my keys. You were always there to bail me out :) Then I remember that time I was downstairs, Dad was yelling at me for my latest offense, and you were upstairs, talking to me through my hearing aides with that microphone thingy, trying to make me laugh, not knowing I was in trouble. I tried so hard not to laugh at what you were saying, knowing it would piss Dad off even more, but finally I couldn't hold back the smile. Ha ha...once he realized what was going on he wasn't quite so mad at me anymore.

I think about Grandma Norma a lot. Whenever I see "The Young and the Restless" I think of us, sitting in her lap, asking her when we could have our morning snack. You loved Popeye...and she would give you spinach to make you strong. :)

Remember when we took that IQ test online, and I got so mad at you because you scored higher than me? Ha ha...

I didn't realize this before, but I took having you right there for granted. Now I spend time with Cory and Chad, and I enjoy it...I told Cory he should write something to you, but you know him..."I'll tell him what I want to say to his face." We watched "Yakistan" and laughed so hard...he was able to explain the parts I didn't understand. We're still waiting for the sequel!!!

In a way, I'm a little envious of you. I know it has to suck at times being away from home, but you're out there, doing something. Fighting forest fires is making a difference. Gotta save the critters, you know? :)

Anyway, I'm bored, so I'm gonna go bother Dad and Cory while I wait for Chris to get his lazy bum home from work. :D

Military Wives

2006-08-26T13:41:00.000-06:00

I was bored, channel surfing the other night when I found ER: Afghanistan on the Discovery-Health Channel. I love medical shows, and this one looked especially interesting. It was a video documentary on soldiers in Afghanistan who've gotten hurt, and how they're treated. Most of the injuries were from IED's (I think that means improvised explosive device, but I'm not sure, so correct me if I'm wrong!!) The hardest part was watching when the Army personnel called their wives and families to tell them something had happened. I have so much respect for not only soldiers, but their families back home. I can't even fathom how hard that must be to always be wondering if everything is okay, and especially to get a phone call that something's happened...But on a lighter note, a friend of mine said more people were killed in Detroit than overseas. I don't know why, but that was a little reassuring...

Anyway, thank you not only soldiers, but wives too... :)

Return of the King

2006-08-24T16:07:00.000-06:00

Ryan, you're going to make fun of me for making this "gay" little countdown thing, but I like it, and you know my opinion supercedes yours...always ;)

I heard Ryan might be able to come home for a couple days after he's done with this fire operation...I would love to see him, but then I know how the military can change their plans, so I'm not getting my hopes up. I looked at a few websites about Operation Task Force Blaze and the fire itself, http://www.northcom.mil/wildfires/wildfire_page.htm and www.inciweb.org/incident/341/...looks like so far the fire's 45% contained.

PFC Butters

2006-08-22T19:24:00.001-06:00

From Cory: "So there's my older brother, PFC Ryan aka 'Butters' doing what he does best, being a total bad a*s and showing the world that I'm the shi* and he misses me."

I had no idea what was written on Ryan's hard hat, so I asked him when he called. I guess it's "Butters". I don't watch South Park, so Cory had to explain to me that Butters is a character on South Park. Ryan...what can I say. You're special.

Answering the Call...

2006-08-15T18:04:00.000-06:00

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Every generation is called upon to protect our liberty."
--Thomas Jefferson

Ryan joining the Army really pulled me out of this sheltered bubble I didn't even realize I lived in. Yeah, I watched the devastating news from my chemistry class when 9/11 happened, and my heart broke for all those who lost loved ones. Yeah, I knew we would respond to the terrorism, but the soldiers who were going to fight weren't people I knew. I didn't know their favorite hobbies, their favorite band, etc. It made the war seem so far away.

So when Ryan first told me he was thinking of joining the Army, I didn't know what to think. The Army was the last place I envisioned Ryan. Maybe behind a computer programming software, or designing a comic, or especially crafting a video to share with his friends for some laughs, but the Army? A part of me, the selfish part, sincerely hoped he would change his mind and remain close by. But as the days turned into weeks, he didn't falter in his decision...he just became more determined.

I hated the idea of him leaving, of something bad happening to him. I wanted him home where I could see him, there when I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to know he was safe. I found the aforementioned quote a long time ago. Once I thought about what Jefferson was saying, I realized he had a valid point. From the American Revolution to the Civil War, to World War I and II, the Cold War (I know it wasn't really a war, but you know what I mean...), Vietnam and Korea, to now, it's true. The reason they're fighting is still the same...to protect our freedom.

It's so hard to say good-bye to him at the airport, not knowing when I'll get to see him again, that he won't be five minutes away when I want to go goof off with him, that I can't call him when I need someone to talk to because he'll be out in the field, it's so easy to lose sight of the big picture...of what's really happening, and what it is he and so many others are really accomplishing.

Because previous generations answered when they were called to protect our freedom, I can post this blog and not be afraid of the ramifications for speaking my mind, I can go to church without fear of reprisal and so on. He's following in our predecessors' footsteps, standing up to our generation's threat against our freedom. Even if he doesn't quite see it that way...

The Spokeswoman

2006-08-13T21:01:00.001-06:00

For some unknown reason, Ryan gave me access to this blog of his...for some other unknown reason, this makes me nervous. Maybe it's because I see people who've read his previous posts and posted comments, and the fact that people have somehow stumbled across it and choose to read his blog on a regular basis is a little intimidating. I don't want to ruin it, because I think what he's written so far is actually pretty good. Just don't tell him I said that. ;)

I was reading the Sunday comics while I was on break today...I came across this comic strip that I feel couldn't be more fitting. No, for once it wasn't 'Zits' (Ryan was the epitome of Jeremy in high school...), but believe it or not, 'Luann'. Here it is...

While I wouldn't be caught dead in Luann's outfit :), I couldn't help notice the symbolism with the fire truck and the way Luann is looking at her brother in a completely different light. It made me think...

He's no longer my annoying little brother who ripped up my beloved California Raisin cards when I was five, or told on me when I said a bad word. I never realized how close we were until he left. Somewhere he turned into a guy that I'm pretty proud of, even if I do wish he would've joined the 'Chair Force' so I wouldn't worry about him as much. Infantry just sounds scary. But that's his decision, and honestly, I'm kind of in awe that he's willing to do what he feels is right when a lot of people his age are choosing the easy way out.

Anyway, so here's my first post. Hopefully Ryan will be able to send his posts for me to publish while he's gone.

Take care Doughboy...

Into The Fire

2006-08-13T21:01:00.000-06:00

Last night here at the rear. Doing last minute laundry and repacking. Items have been taken off the packing list, namely the impractical ones I was talking about. Tying up loose ends.

We woke up butt-ass early today and went to some field, where we waited for too long. I had stood there in formation for maybe twenty minutes before I went, "Oh, hey, we're waiting again, aren't we? Heh, I hardly even notice anymore."

The purpose of this was to unite the deploying units as well as the civilian counterparts. They called it a "wedding". I laughed about that. The wedding ends when the flame is gone. Poetic justice at its most twistedly ironic beauty. After that, we ate breakfast at some chow hall I'd never been to. I think we were in the 3rd Brigade area, because the barracks looked really nice from the outside, and the chow hall was amazing. Civilians ran it, and it just looked really good. Like a hotel restaurant almost...or a hospital cafeteria. Anyway, it looked a lot better than the latrine we eat in.

The whole purpose of today was to get some classroom instruction and a little hands on training, as well as issue of more things we'd need. Death by Powerpoint. Everyone was nodding off. The only way I can ever stay awake in classrooms is if I intentionally get a Slipknot song stuck in my head and silently drum my fingers and fidget a lot. Not many other guys have learned this trick apparently.

It wasn't an interesting day at all, and I'm swamped with preparation and I'm tired. So let's get to the point here.

Now is about the time I need to be psyching myself up for this. Going to be gone for a month, living in tents, third world country style. The hours are going to be long from what we've been told. Odds are, we'll be down for the count at the end of the workday. Lots of walking involved. There's that selfish side that I mentioned before that nags. For now, I need to remind myself of good things. Why we're going, how its not bad, etc.

This is a real deployment. The orders came from Donald Rumsfeld's desk. The people fighting the fires are tapped, and they need some help. That's where we come in, step up like we swore we would, get in there, get the job done and done right. There are houses up there, there may be lumberyards or anything else that is someone's livelihood. This is humanitarian work. This is where societies earn their bread and butter. When you get off your ass and help someone else out who needs it. When you put your goddamn rat race on hold and get your hands dirty.

We're representatives of the army, and of the United States. As soldiers do, we complain a lot, gripe a lot, turn it all into jokes, but dammit, we get it done.

This may be long and tedious, but keeping it all in perspective is important. We answered the call, we have a mission to do. And its for a good cause. No one can debate that. No one. There is no disputing the fact that what we're doing is absolutely the right thing to do. And that's worth the shitty conditions.

See you in a month.

No Rest For The Wicked

2006-08-11T13:37:00.000-06:00

Today's actually been a pretty easy day to be honest. We had our layout, inspected by a Specialist (E4), and he was pretty cool about it. I wasn't missing too many items, and its a bit lax because the packing list is ancient. I don't know why we didn't devise a new one, but eh...ok.

Things on the list that make little to no sense:

-Rubber overshoes (NBC): Keyword here is rubber. Rubber melts.

-Polypro: It isn't too cold, and I can see having them with us for nights or something when we're back at the FOB, but as far as work goes, I know someone whose polypros fused to his fleece jacket. That was without fire.

-Pistol belt: these aren't even part of basic issue anymore since we have new MOLLE II gear, which we aren't bringing. Kevlar helmet is also not a part. We'll be issued specialized gear I assume.

-Poncho: also can melt.

-Wet weather gear: MELTS.

But hey, its on the list. Doesn't mean I have to actually use it. Also, our desert boots can't be worn to fight fires, so we were issued new all leather black boots. They look immensely stupid with ACUs. That, and ACUs get dirty easy, and they pretty much suck all around. I'm just going to wear my old BDUs the whole time. For those of you who don't know, BDUs (Battle Dress Uniform) are the green woodland camo uniforms that we've nearly phased out, thanks to our fruity new Logic Defying Uniforms.

We also spray painted the bottoms of our duffel bags a sand color and then stenciled in black our unit, last initial and last four digits of our social security numbers. Now we're about to go get a bunch of briefings, so peace, I'm out.

Shoot Me

2006-08-10T20:42:00.000-06:00

I'll try to keep this rant short. I'm more or less free now, was able to go to the shopette to buy some supplies and Gatorade. Staying in tonight, because we have to work up until we leave, no days off or anything as far as I know.

Since I got off, I've been lazily working on packing everything, because we've got a layout tomorrow morning. A layout is when you bring everything on the packing list outside or in the hallway or wherever the inspection is to be, and items are called off one by one, and you hold them up to prove you packed it. Pain in the ass, but Joe is stupid and forgets things, so its a necessary evil. I've got my menial task to keep me busy.

A knock on my door. They tried to call me in for extra duty. Sorry, dick, I'm done. Go away. Return to packing. Another knock.

"Hey man, you gotta have atleast one with us," says a jovial fellow.

"How about you eat my ass? There's no way I can settle for just one. Not doing it dude."

"Come on man."

"No."

Once again, slowly packing, like an elderly man going on a vacation he doesn't care for much. I step into the latrine to dump the remaining water out of my camelbak. Three guys, one can of shaving cream.

"Hey man, what are you on extra duty for?" asks one.

"I'm not. I'm done."

"Well what WERE you on extra duty for?"

"...Underage drinking."

"Oh. Wanna underage drink with us?"

"No. I'm still on probation. I fuck up again, I get busted down to E1."

Packing. Some more. Then my roommate and I decide to go outside and have a smoke. Exit the hallowed sanctuary of the room into the jungle that is the hallway.

One guy, bottle of Hpnotiq swinging in his hand. He's already killed a fifth of Hennesy. Along with him is a crowd of guys coagulated in one end of the hallway. Yelling, shit talking. Apparently one of the new guys was getting hazed and didn't dig it too much and kept bitching even after they untied him. Drunk soldier has wings and now everyone's a tough guy. More yelling. No action. Go figure.

Aforementioned jovial fellow comes out of his room. His roommate is yelling, "You suck. You're a bitch. He said you won't hit him." Instigating. Who doesn't want to see a fight, right? I mean look at it logically. They're fucking morons. There is no logic, I lied.

Jovial fellow: "What the fuck..." etc. Loud blah blah blah.

How this next part comes about, I don't know. Drunk Hpnotiq guy wants Loud Guy Formerly Known As Jovial Fellow to slap him. Jovial Guy scoffs. Hpnotiq insists. Jovial slaps.

"Again!"

Smack.

"Again!"

This fool wants a few good bitchslaps, because apparently that makes him tough or something? I don't know. I just work here. Let's take a look at the drink desire scale real quick.

The Usual Suspect's Desire to Drink: 0

Glad these guys make it so easy for me. It was annoying at first, now its a joke. I got two months to go til I'm 21. One month (at most) will be spent on this detail. Two weeks later, Yakima, or so the rumor mill claims. After that, my time comes around. Yeah, I'll drink. Not like that though. Oh, did I mention that we work in the morning? I'm gonna order a pizza and finish packing.

Don't let forest fires happen to you. Kick its ass. Til next time.

Its More Of An Itching Than A Burning

2006-08-10T07:50:00.000-06:00

The roof the roof the roof is on fire
We don't need no water let the motherfucker burn
Burn motherfucker burn

No longer bound by the chains that hold me on restriction to the battalion area, my freedom is mocked by our deployment status. Slept like a death row short timer last night, with no particular help from the Black Hawks flying overhead. Read some old posts, contemplated how bad my writing sucks, and was glad. Eventually passed out sometime around 1 AM or so. When my alarm went off at 5:30, it took an act of God to pry my eyes open. Pinkeye can't hold eyes shut this well. We formed up according to the teams we're assigned in, me being in good ol' Team 8, and by that, I mean Ladder 8.

The chow hall was the usual oddyssey of mediocrity. If elementary school cafeterias can get it half right, why can't the army? Because that wouldn't suck enough. Soldiers can't live like rock stars, it ruins the discipline we fake when needed. Want proof? A guy in my mortar section inherited five million bucks, and is now on his way to getting out of the army. Change of lifestyle. Honorable discharge. The rich can't fight wars. Fuck you, I'm a millionaire. Good for him, yeah, but the concept is assbackwards. Funny thing how the dudes who seem like their family could really use/deserve money like that...never get it. I'm not jealous actually: the only way I want to get out of the army is an ETS (estimated time of seperation, or some other string of words that fits the acrononym and more or less suggests fulfilment of contract). I want to do my time and take a bow, exit stage right. There's my four, Uncle Sam, don't ever call me again. Give me my cabin in the woods or some equally cliche romantic ending. I'll be Obi Wan Kenobi living in the hills, hunting the freaks from The Hills Have Eyes. That's an excellent retirement plan.

As for now, I'm waiting. Go figure. Early call, wait. Hahaha. In another hour and a half (an hour has already passed since morning formation), my team goes to do SRP (soldier readiness program, or some shit, which is the deployment preparation, probably at or near Waller Hall) where we'll stand like cattle in a slaughter house, moving single file, mooing and bleating, chewing our cud, minds already numbed to the experience, docile and stupid, as we go from station to station to see all the paperwork on us that's been fucked up.

Oh, and the hell with sleep, I think I'm going to my buddy's place tonight. Got to meet these air force girls. And to assure my dear mother, I won't use the "pickup line" I mentioned the other day.

"Excuse me, miss. Does this smell like chloroform to you?"

No wonder they're sending a little sinner like me to the flames. I love the poetic justice. Consider it purgatory.

The Mother of All Details

2006-08-09T20:15:00.000-06:00

This week so far has been relatively easy. Six mile roadmarch to a rifle range, burn off some rounds, roadmarch back the whole mile or two back to the barracks (odd route taken on the way there). Later that afternoon we were called back to go zero and qualify with our M4s, and came back again at dusk to wait for nightfall to do the night qualification. Pretty simple stuff, but roadmarches always suck, I don't care what anyone says. I can think of more fun ways to spend my time. The idea is to build us back up for an upcoming 25 mile roadmarch....CANCELED.

"Well Mr. UsualSuspect, why is it canceled?"

I'd be happy to answer that. We've just been alerted that we're being deployed to fight forest fires somewhere. We're already working on the whole preparation thing, and the next few days are going to be crazy, and altogether lame, a wonderful blend of nearly every flavor of suck.

-2 Hour break for Formation etc-

Tonight is my last night of extra duty, and in theory, I'm done now. We'll see. Passed up the opportunity to go chill at a friend's house off post (and possibly meet some air force girls that live next door) because I'd rather not screw up on my last night of restriction.

As far as the Captain Planet mission goes, I don't even know how much I should divulge (of my vastly limited "knowledge", to use the term boldly), seeing as an OPSEC violation would look great on my record. Apparently some talk about this was on Good Morning America this morning, or some equally mind numbing TV show whose sole purpose is to more or less take black paint and slop it over the collective "third eye" of the American people, spoonfeeding us more idiocy, junk food advertisements, and commercials of depression/anxiety/obesity/STD/and-or aging cures featuring unknown actors displaying their fresh and happy new outlook on life while they swing on a tire from a tree on some magic hilltop of impeccably green grass and brilliant flowers, while someone taps away on a piano or accoustic guitar. In fact, rumor has it that our orders are sitting on Mr. Rumsfeld's desk, waiting to be signed. In any case, its potentially high profile, and the possibility of camera crews was mentioned. Don't worry, you won't see me. This skinny would-be soldier will be more apt to hang out of official sight while not working, talking shit with friends and joking about the prospect of re-enlistment.

But still, the location won't be mentioned by me. Covering my ass atleast that far. Probably wouldn't matter anyway, seeing as this page isn't too popular. A blessing actually.

We've got to do paperwork naturally. All the Hurry Up and Wait you hear about any time you google the word "army". Next of Kin information. Not to mention new equipment issue. Training. God knows what else. They asked who all was airborne qualified, probably for smoke jumping operations or something. I remember friends of mine back home, during the elusive golden years of high school, who mentioned the prospect of being a (civilian) smoke jumper, because they make great money, etc etc etc. And then they passed the bong. Last I checked, the dudes still aren't jumping into any infernos, but it sounds like a shitty job to me anyway. Hell, I didn't make it to airborne school, so its not on my plate.

I'm not sure what to expect either. Seems every time I write about what I'm expecting something to be like, its either completely wrong, or a vast understatement. Not to mention pitifully corny. But when has that stopped me before?

I figure, we won't be receiving hazard pay or anything like that. In fact, I'm expecting NORMAL pay. I have no idea what the living conditions are going to be like. So I'll expect third world camps, M.A.S.H. type set-up. I'm expecting my e-tool (cute little fold out army shovel) to be on the packing list. I'm quite sure I'm not wrong on that front. All in all, who knows, we'll see when we get there. I doubt I'll be able to post. Maybe I'll try writing letters and sending them to Jen to let her post them. Or maybe I won't be able to. We'll see.

"Ok dude, enough rambling. Give us your feelings on this so we can go back to watching American Idol."

Of course I won't leave this precious gem out of my rant. I guess I have mixed feelings. Selfish Suspect says the hell with this. I paid an asston of money for tickets and parking to go see Tool at the end of this month, a band I've never had the chance to see live, and values said experience equally to female interaction. The tickets'll be going to ebay. Oh, not to mention the fact that my family, who I wasn't able to see during block leave, is coming through this area and was planning a stop to visit me for a couple days. NOT ANYMORE. Oh, and no I haven't told them yet. What about those air force ladies I was supposed to meet? Who are allegedly quite attractive? Nay, Navalton. What about closing my ASAP case? WRONG! What about hanging out with my cousin for once before she moves? HAHA, NO! Oh, and I'm not the only dude who's getting screwed in a big way over this. Another guy spent a large amount of money for Dave Matthews tickets and was flying a friend over as well. So solly, Cholly. I could go on all night.

"All right, you blubbering bitch. Now give us your forced optimism. My eyes hurt."

This'll be an experience I guess. You know, that whole feel-good humanitarian thing. Imagine how self-righteous I can feel afterwards. Some of you may remember the shitfit I threw when I wasn't able to splash around in Louisianna when the hurricane came through and messed that place up. Well now I can be Mr. Big Helper elsewhere. Smokey the Bear's little assistant.

One of the core army values or whatever that they cram down your throat in basic training is Selfless Service. This is an example. Ignore the fact that I'm making money doing this, and I don't have to live at home and work at Blockbuster, and get free food, and all the other fringe benefits of being another misfit in the biggest and baddest gang on the planet. Help is needed somewhere, and shockingly enough, we get to supply it. I can feel like my enlistment means more than half a shit. Until a branch falls and hits me in the head, inspiring a sequel to "Regarding Henry."

The new recruiting slogan is "A generation of heroes" or something like that. In our case, that may be an exaggeration, but whatever, milk that cash cow.

Introspection?

2006-08-06T23:15:00.000-06:00

Some Sundays'll do this. Give you plenty of time to think. I did my mopping and trash picking bullshit for another day, this being done during the day on weekends. Got to watch a handful of new guys run around most likely drinking underage. Damn near everyone I know either gone out of the barracks or drinking or both. Fuck it, I've got two months to go. It hasn't been as hard to say no as people would suspect, or the way people make it sound. I've seen guys leave while on restriction only to get caught and end up with more extra duty.

In fact, I think that night I was the only extra duty guy that stayed back in the rear. I slept. Same thing I did this weekend, worked and slept. Missed out on some action last night apparently. Or was it Friday? Who knows, its all the same these days. These dudes were drunk, that dude wanted to fight that dude, this dude was running his mouth to that group of guys, this dude hooked up with that random ugly girl.

Why the fuck did I enlist? And why would I be no better off had I not enlisted? Hell, I don't know where I'd be. Would I have even attempted college by now? Or would I still be procrastinating, minimum wage jobs here and there, living in limbo? Who knows. I imagine it wouldn't be anything special. This gig isn't so bad. Its just.....hell I don't know how to describe it.

Its a workplace. Its a fraternity. Its a distraction. Its Peter Pan and his boys in Neverland. The hell with fast food or data processing. We don't have to grow up. Its like a neverending summer camp or something. In the infantry, its just the guys. Yeah, you've got your senior enlisted, the guys who've been in for a good minute, but then there's all of us joes. Some of us still 17, 18 years old. Some in mid to late twenties. We don't pay rent (those of us in the barracks). Our meals are provided for us. We pay cable and cell phone bills. Maybe the whole car thing if you went that route as well. We only have bills that we choose to have. Our livelihood is handed to us. Plus the meager pay we bitch about.

This life isn't that hard. As long as you can tolerate living a fixed schedule and listening to superiors, you're pretty much good to go. Wake up in the morning for first formation and PT. Later on, BDU/ACU uniform. There's all kinds of things they can have you do. Go to some bullshit class, go to the rifle range, you could get tasked out on some cleaning detail, you could just be cleaning the barracks, they could have you square your Class A uniform away, or you could be going to the field for some real training. Thats rare, as you can tell by my posts, but it all adds up.

People ask me what we do from day to day and I seriously can't even answer. I mean hell, I don't know where the time goes. That's one benefit of the army. The days become weeks. Even Yakima. The one thing that never seems to leave though, is the uncertainty. I have no clue what's going on hardly ever. That's partially my fault for not following the (tentative) training schedule, and also for not really caring.

When I was younger, I'd work toward the weekend. Go to your bullshit classes, do your thing, and after five days you get yourself a break. These days I don't really work towards anything. I guess I've grown indifferent or complacent. I find myself saying, "God I can't wait to ETS (Estimated Time of Seperation, its when your contract with the army is more or less up and you're released)", but how the hell can you just walk away from something like this? This is a year and a half of my life already. Three more to go. For a young moron like myself, that's a decent chunk. Everyone else is off doing the college thing or in some way getting their life together, and I'm on vacation in a way. Don't get me wrong, I'll almost definitely NOT re-enlist, but its weird thinking about not being in the army anymore. Ever quit a job, then drive by a few months later and sort of want to go back in? Or want to go behind the counter of a place you used to work? I don't suppose this'll be any different. I'll see soldiers on TV and I'll try to relate and feel like I'm still one of them, but it'll be like it is now, the way I look at veterans. I don't get it, you'd say. They were in the "Old Army" and this is the "New Army". I'll get out, and I'll be from the Old Army. Then again, once a soldier, always a soldier, that's another sentiment of mine, but its just those little differences that I anticipate when I daydream about shit like this. I don't mean to say that vets don't matter or anything like that, far from it. I'm just trying to imagine how I'll feel when I get out. Instead of "I'm in the Army," it'll be "I was in the Army." Does it seem worlds different to anyone else?

A phrase to describe this temporary existence of mine: Someday the dream will end. Its the title of some song from a video game I had on my computer, and the phrase just stuck with me. What the hell am I going to write about when I get out? I'll be damned if I 'blog' about a normal life.

Its thoughts like this that I have from time to time that permeate my mindset and really make me wonder. What's next? Where do I go from here? What happens when this is over? What am I going to be doing five years from now when the wars are in my living room and not on my itinerary?

It blows my mind every time I think about it, and its like the realization never fully hits you. I'm in the army. Sounds surreal. "Nah, hahaha, quit messing around man. This isn't the army. This is like some replication, a poor one at best. You're just away for a while."

And in the back of your mind is that logical voice you never listen to. Your pal denial keeps him backed in a corner where he can't do much damage. But the voice still chimes in. "Dude....you ARE aware that you put your entire life on hold for four years, right?"

Damn. Feel the gravity of that one. Here's my little adventure that no one is going to care about in fall 2009. And then I'll disappear into the crowd of Americans just trying to make their way doing whatever the hell they're doing. iPods won't even be a big deal. Holy shit. These thoughts never really get me down, but its just crazy to think about. There's just so much waiting and downtime and uncertainty that you can't help but wonder.

Being in the army is like a Tom Clancy book. Its overcomplicated in some ways when it isn't necessary, and tends to drag along, then out of nowhere the action picks up and its over before you know it, and it drags again until the next adrenaline rush. But all in all, we're just Peter Pan's Lost Boys.

Leschi Town Part Two

2006-08-03T16:24:00.000-06:00

The hail of gunfire that had been coming from all different directions finally ceased. The three of us stood in the one room office building, dim against the bright sunlight outside. Where the light shone in, the dust in the air was highlighted in rectangular spotlights beaming at angles through the room. We'd already knocked a few things over to give us more room to shoot through the windows, and now one of the squad leaders was entering the room. It was time for me to search for weapons, explosives, or intelligence. The body of our downed enemy was already searched, so while everyone else was doing their thing, it came to me to search the rest of the room. I started tearing open lockers, kicking trash out of the way. Garbage from MREs. Tearing open drawers, the metal loudly bending and popping as only cheap thin metal appliances can, the sounds echoing off the concrete floor and walls. One desk was on its side, and its drawers were stuck shut, so I went around to the other side of them and kicked their back end to jar them loose. I rifle my hand through the first drawer, nothing. I repeat with the other, grabbing and tossing at objects in it. Suddenly it dawns on me. These are mousetraps. I yanked my hand out of there, envisioning that piece of metal snapping shut on my knuckles. No thanks.

Nothing of importance turns up in this building. The platoon sergeant makes a decision as he looks at me. "You. You're hit, you've got a sunken chest wound."

Great. I get to play casualty AGAIN. With that, I drop to the floor and go completely limp and stare off into the nothingness that hides just before the ceiling. Guys come over to give me buddy aid and I don't bother to look at them or assist in any way. I remember seeing the MRE trash and the unused beverage bag sitting on the floor, now on the far side of the room away from me. I absently wonder if anyone will think to use that as a flutter valve, which you SHOULD do for such a chest wound. They tear my body armor off (which apparently wasn't effective according to this simulation in which I was magically wounded after we had eradicated all enemy forces) one of them holding my upper body up, while I sag, another putting a field dressing on my chest.

A field dressing? Might as well use a damn bandaid. Now they need to get me onto a litter (stretcher) but there isn't one within immediate proximity, no medic. They rip up part of a cubicle and lay it down. Two guys lift me while another slides it underneath. One of the guys is a member of the team I'm attached to. I'm not even sure who the other dudes are even though I know all of them. I'm badly injured, so I'm not looking around. Hell, I decide that I feel like being in shock. They lift me up and attempt to get me out the door, but this ghetto litter is too wide. So what do they do? They use their furniture moving instincts and turn it at an angle, one dude trying to hold me on as I'm sliding, and they walk me out the door.

The view of the ceiling is cut away by aggressively bright blue omnipresent sky and a few tree tops, a corner of a building here, rubble and a ruined car there, a face under a kevlar helmet, its all just peripheral details. They slide me into the back of a stryker, then slide me onto the bench and do away with the litter. This is all distant, all minor details. Really, the viciously bright calm blue sky turned into the white ceiling and shade of the stryker, panels of ancient looking equipment and the engine noise. It takes off and I shift with the vehicle, making no attempt to stay on the bench. I'm a casualty, I'm in shock.

The vehicle stops, they transfer me onto an actual litter, and put me in the back of a 5-Ton truck, where other casualties are eventually collected.

At the After Action Report, I was noted as being "the best casualty ever". Really not that hard. Its like being a heavily sedated cat. Lay there motionless and expect everyone else to do everything for you, and make no effort to correct their mistakes, instead lay there, indulging in how great you are, above the pitiful means of physical exertion.

A later mission we did at night was also pretty cool, but quite uneventful. I was on the ground outside the stryker pulling security, facing the woodline. The strobelight of machine gun fire lit up the area in front of me slightly. It was cool. THIS is the army, not the other 99% of it. Fuckin awesome.

Behind me, one of my buddies are injured in some way and placed on a litter. Two guys are carrying him to the stryker when the one in the back starts to drop him but doesn't let go and ends up skinning the bejesus out of his hand. I laugh quietly to myself. TWO guys are cas-evac'ed, one for real. Hahahaha. That's the only highlight of that mission.

Leschi Town

2006-08-03T14:43:00.000-06:00

I'm healthy. Hurray.

Leschi Town is the most elaborate MOUT (military operations in urban terrain) site I've ever seen. It looks like a normal town. The buildings are painted, have real doors and not flimsy pieces of plywood, there's actually bits of furniture in buildings, LIGHTS, I could go on forever. It seriously looks like a small town, streets with NAMES and SIGNS, etc etc etc.

I don't have much time, because right now we're working on getting everything taken care of, the post mission details, dealing with extra ammo and empty shell casings, cleaning everything, and so on. Here's a brief narrative.

The entire company is out in force. Some had bedded down in a building well before the mission even kicked off. Each platoon had their own job, and the specifics I'm not going into, because we all know how paranoid I am of catching hell for some OPSEC violation or another. In fact, I'll limit this STRICTLY to my own first person experience. To be honest, I wish I knew more of what went on, to see the bigger picture, but we can't have it that way, so oh well.

I climb into the stryker with the team I'm temporarily assigned to. A few guys have been shuffled around, and I'm one of them. With the addition of me, we're a three man fire team, which isn't ideal, at all. We wait until the time to roll out comes around. The stryker grinds into motion and we all sit in silence, rocking around with the turns, shifts, and bumps of the vehicle.

You can see the tips of trees passing overhead through the open hatches, but visibility is never that great in a stryker. Pretty soon, the tops of buildings are passing by as well. I take the caps off of my optic and turn the little red dot on. I chamber a round in my M4. We take a couple more turns. Now I can hear automatic fire, and lots of it. 240Bravos rocking the way God intended, and our Kiowa helicopter is overhead, also doing their part to make the enemy's life hell.

We reach our spot and the ramp drops. We rush out. The world is very bright compared to the dimmer interior of the stryker, and your eyes attempt to adjust as brightly lit gravel passes you, crunching underfoot. We jump a gate and keep running to our target building. I'm looking at the windows for any silhouette of someone who isn't our friend, with the intention of giving him some 5.56 mm love. We reach the door and burst into the room. A SAW and two M4s all lighting up at the same time, all of them oriented on one enemy in the center of the room. I was the third guy to enter, and I had put four shots on him, god knows how many times the other two had fired at him. With things going that fast, its not like you could count, or process that, or even care for that matter.

The building, an office, is now secure. Wall lockers and overturned desks block the windows that overlook the buildings we need to get aggressive with. We kick and throw the obstacles out of our way, making all sorts of noise in the chaos that's engulfing the entire block. The whole area was alive with organized pandemonium. Now we're unloading rounds out the windows at the next buildings, all the while other members of the company are completing their objectives like clockwork. When the shooting finally stops, its time to search the building for intelligence or munitions.

To be continued...

Eh....

2006-07-31T15:22:00.000-06:00

Yeah, so I'm pretty much healthy now, save for the headache that still hasn't left me, and the surprise I woke to. When brushing my teeth this morning (while everyone else was doing PT HAHAHAHAH) I noticed blood in my eye. As in when one breaks a blood vessel in their eye and it turns all red and freaks little kids out, yeah like that. So uh...ship shape.

I'm still on quarters for the rest of the day, and everyone else just left for the training exercise. And I'm uh.....you know....sitting here. I've got time to pass. And with this time, I've made an important discovery.

I hate traditional bloggers.

You know the type, right? The ones whose text consists almost entirely of links? More than half of those links being links to previous posts of their own? The type of people who have nothing interesting going on in their lives but still seem to harbor the intense desire to write? And complain about two guys who pulled a prank on some Fox News woman or something? Basically, what I am becoming right now. THAT's what I don't like.

I can just picture these people sipping starbucks and sharing their informed opinions that they borrowed from actors with an over-inflated sense of self importance. GOD I'M A HYPOCRITE AND I WANT TO GO BACK TO WORK. Catch you guys later, I'm watching Spongebob or something.

Update For An Illness

2006-07-29T18:30:00.000-06:00

I finished vomiting my guts out and feeling completely pitiful, ate some soup and popped another antibiotic and two aspirin, then wrapped up in a blanket and watched "Lost In Translation" while sweating my ass off. When the movie was over, I DID feel better, feels like the fever has broken, but I've still got a massive headache and my whole head feels incredibly congested. Like its in a vise, and its hard to see further away, but who cares, I'm in my room.

I took a look at my tonsils in the mirror, as well as I could see anyway, and yeah, they've got a nice healthy amount of pus oozing out of them like phlegmy white rivers of disease. Hell with it, I'll burn the infection out with overheated Cup O Noodles. With any luck, I'll be good to go tomorrow. We'll see.

Oh, and apparently some dude got a DUI last night. Sucks for him. Its funny, cuz the other day when I was mopping, I was joking with him saying, "Don't drink underage, this could be you." He laughed, being that he's in his mid twenties and said, "Not gonna happen." Writers call this "foreshadowing."

Misery

2006-07-29T15:47:00.000-06:00

i am so rificulously sick right now its not even funn. the clowns at the aid station look at my tonsils, exclaimed GODDAMN and then gave me aspirin and sent me on my way. After extra duty last night, i tried to go to bed and couldnt sleep for the life of me and neded up going to the emergency room. They gave me slightly better meds, but no pain killers, which would be nice so I could eat and sleep with no problem.

you're supposed to take the antibiotics with food, but my throat hurts so damn bad and I have so little energy that I cant hardly get up to move around. Well go figure, my empty somach filled up with acid and i threw up for a good solid three minutes, nothing but bile, hating life with alll my being.vMy roommate is going to grab me some Cup o Noodles nd stuff like that so that hopefully i can get some food i n me, break this damn fever, and get better. I'm on quarters (dont have to work, just stay in your room) for 72 hours and right now i cant even calulate how long that is. i have to go back to the aid station on monday, and the PA is still going to be gone, so I'm sure I wont get any decent treatment there, again. i'm going back to sleep.

The Verdict

2006-07-27T21:43:00.000-06:00

After work today, I was called into the CO's office and received my Article 15. I didn't opt for court martial, because that would just be stupid, and would draw this out even longer, and I'm guilty anyway.

The CO asked my section sgt and the 1st Sergeant about my character as a soldier and the recommended punishment. My section sergeant stated that I was an outstanding soldier (exaggeration is an incredibly ally, and yes, this statement is tongue in cheek) and made a stupid choice and am now paying for it. He recommended maximum restriction and extra duty (14 days) and the suspension of one rank and the suspension of the loss of pay. The 1st Sergeant agreed with him, noted that he'd seen me perform and that I wasn't a bad soldier, I just screwed up (stated in a very random and colorful way, as that man comes up with the most off the wall things to say, and it always catches us by surprise. I bit my tongue so as not to laugh).

The CO decided that he agreed with all of that, and reminded me that while the rank and pay reduction were suspended, should I mess up during the 90 day period, I'll lose all of that, and can possibly be demoted all the way to E1.

I grabbed some dinner and then signed in for my first night of extra duty. It isn't hard, and I had to laugh at myself a little as some of my friends periodically came out to point and laugh. I told them I hope their next urinalysis gets swapped with a urine sample from Keith Richards. And yes, you get plenty of time to think about how dumb you are. I was mainly thinking about walking on eggshells for 90 days, and also about how horrible I felt physically.

This is absolutely perfect timing. I woke up feeling like a bag of dog excrement left in the sun on the hot asphalt for a week. I figured it was because I'd started working out at the gym, and the past two sessions tore my girlish little boy figure up. But after a while, I noticed that not only were my muscles sore, but my nerves feel like razor blades, my eyes hurt, along with other sphere shaped organs that come in pairs, my joints, pretty much my whole body, and my head is pounding. The kicker, most likely my tonsils, the throat hurts and I'm pretty sure I've got pus on my tonsils. I've got flu symptoms. So odds are, I've got tonsilitis again.

I'm considering going to the aid station after PT tomorrow morning. The next few weeks are going to be pretty faced pace, and I don't want to clear houses feeling like this. If I can, I might just get the tonsils out. The thing is, that would get me put on quarters, where I would basically stay in my room and recover. Seeing as I've started extra duty, the days must run consecutively, even if I can't work. I don't really want people to think that I'm just trying to get out of it, but there's no way I'm going to keep working like this.

Besides, my alcohol counselor told me I should get them taken out last time I talked to her, and that was only a couple weeks ago. Along with a wisdom tooth. We'll see. For now, I feel pretty lame, and plan on curling into the fetal position and wallowing in misery like the little baby I am.

Extra duty tasks for today:

sweep, mop, and clean each floor and common areas.

attempt to locate weed eater, fail.

Mow grass.

Water grass.

Take trashes out.

And I think that's all we really had to do. Like I said, none of this is hard, or even anything to complain about. A friend of mine even came out with a camera to take pictures of me and one of my friends who is also on extra duty.

I didn't lose rank. Thanks, Cathy, for praying for me. Mom probably did too, she's quirky like that.

And Then Nothing

2006-07-26T18:49:00.000-06:00

Yeah, I did the JAG thing and turned my packet back in. So I figured I'd finally get started right? No. Maybe tomorrow. The army needs an enema.

Al....most......there...!

2006-07-26T15:48:00.000-06:00

I showed up at JAG an hour early. This is what I was supposed to do on Monday:

Wait. File into a room with a TV and chairs. Sit through an ancient short movie with actors that make low budget TV infomercial thesbians shine with Tom Hanks glory. Sweat in the hot room while half the audience sleeps and the other half text messages on their phones. We're more or less advised of our rights, and that's it.

Give me the goddamn mop already. Cut the foreplay and lets get this taken care of and out of the way. I'm sick of writing about it. I'm sorry, but tedious bureaucratic nonsense isn't quite as interesting as explosions and male bonding.

I'm considering shaving and bic-ing my head for a Mr. Clean look.

JAG

2006-07-24T15:12:00.000-06:00

This afternoon, I was to go to JAG, because apparently you do that before you get your Article 15. I don't even know what I was supposed to do while there, but ok. After lunch, I had to wait a little bit for the papers I needed so that my team leader and I could head out. When I got there, I was informed by a sign that you're supposed to be signed in by 1250. It was 1310.

I filled out some little card and sat in wait, half reading some NCO magazine. Lt Watada, the officer facing the shitstorm for refusing to deploy with 3rd Brigade (independent research he did led him to believe that the war in Iraq is illegal, and thus he refused to be part of it) was sitting in the small reception room as well. I said hello as I stood up to grab the magazine, and noticed his nametape when I sat back down. It took a second to register. Then I realized that I was waiting in line along with "the most unpopular person on Fort Lewis" as was quoted in an article. And no, I didn't bother him with questions, comments, criticism, or anything for that matter. I went back to my magazine. That guy has enough on his plate as it is. Besides, I'm pretty sure I managed to piss off an officer a few minutes later, but I'll get to that.

I hadn't waited too long when what appeared to be a Colonel (he looked young to be a Colonel, but I really didn't get a good look at his rank. Just enough to know that he is Sir and I am Joe) asked for any Article 15s waiting in line. I stood at attention and said that I was awaiting Article 15 but wasn't able to sign in yet because I was late.

"No problem. We'll see you Wednesday."

Shit. Pretty sure Wednesday is supposed to be the day I go under the gun, but ok. Who was I to argue? I left the building, preparing to call my team leader. As I stepped outside, haphazardly putting my beret on, a Captain walked up, carrying a heavy load of duffel bags and gear. So no salute necessary, but it would still be a good idea to greet.

"Good afternoon, ma'am........sir."

I then got the hell out of there. Moments like these are the reason this site has its title. I'm going to put my helmet on now, before I somehow manage to hurt myself. Apparently I need every last brain cell I can scrounge up.

No Surprises

2006-07-21T15:21:00.000-06:00

It was just a reading. Punishment: unknown. Nothing is final, nothing is decided. I have two business days to talk to JAG, as if that's even necessary. I'll find out next week. The reading went just fine.

Knock knock knock.

"Enter."

Open the door. Walk in. Stand in front of the desk. Salute. "PFC TheUsualSuspect reporting as ordered, sir."

The paperwork is read. I'm asked if I have any questions. Of course I do. But none that can be answered, and I don't want to complicate things. I just want to do this.

Salute. About face. Exit. To be continued...

The Defendant

2006-07-21T14:36:00.000-06:00

The guys who fell out of this morning's run all have to go on a nice long afternoon run, and its pretty hot outside, so that really sucks. They're getting it pretty harsh today.

As for me, I'm waiting to be read my Article 15. Its finally come through, and to my understanding, the actual sentencing happens next week, and this is the initial reading. Is this like when OJ Simpson's preliminary hearing went on for what, a year? My punishment won't be too bad I don't think, but still...this sucks. No matter though, I'm still going to go into that office with my dignity, take the heat I earned, and drive on. I'll let you all know all about it, when I'm dragging that ball and chain on my ankle. I'm almost positive I'll be getting 14 days restriction and 14 days of extra duty, simultaneous, and probably half a month's pay. Its the rank that I'm worried about. Definitely don't want to lose what I've earned. It isn't about the money. I earned every bit of that rank. I came in as an E1. An E3 I know got his rank by drinking with his recruiter. He's one of those dudes that can slack and sham and bullshit, and things always work out for him. Good for him though, no point getting jealous.

Next February is when I should be coming up for E4, Specialist. God I don't want that date pushed back. The thing is, since I've gotten into this trouble, I've kept my shit straight. I don't drink at all anymore. I go to my ASAP classes. I keep a positive attitude and I maintain respect for my leadership. Give me my mop and start counting the days, I'm ready for it.

And I Ran, I Ran So Far Away

2006-07-21T08:55:00.000-06:00

Woke up at 5 AM today and we prepared for a battalion run. That consists of four to five companies, possibly more in some cases unless I'm mistaken. Each company is usually about 150 or so guys. Maybe more. So you're looking at hundreds of guys running in formation. Each company runs together.

We stretched and waited for the other companies to show up, while speakers that were set up blasted "Disposable Heroes" by Metallica, a song that's about as old as I am. Once things kicked off, it was the same old run it usually is. Someone's calling cadence (those songs you hear when military types run around, popular in the movies), you're running, someone smells like ass, you better run.

We hadn't been on a serious run for a while, because we'd been so busy, then everyone went on leave. So this one kicked my ass a bit. The first half of a run like this, I tend to sound off a little louder and more fierce (my attempt at it I mean) than I should, and it makes me a little light headed. So I decided screw returning cadence, I was just going to run til I got my breath back (running to catch your breath...isn't that like bombing for peace?).

One of our NCOs, who calls some pretty good cadence I must say, ran his bit for a while, then called me out. I really didn't feel like doing it, but who am I to disappoint, right? So I veer out of the formation to the side of it and start warming the guys up to my particular brand of making loud noises for no apparent reason. After a minute or two, as worn out as I already was, I went ahead and broke out my signature cadence, which was stolen from one of my drill sergeants, but I'm shameless. Only the third verse is all that new anyway.

When I get to Heaven
St Peter's gonna say
"How'd you earn your livin, boy?
How'd you earn your pay?"
I reply with a whole lotta anger
"Earned my livin as an Airborne Ranger" (even though most of us don't have airborne wings OR a Ranger tab)

When I get to Hell
Satan's gonna say
"How'd you earn your livin boy?
How'd you earn your pay?"
I reply with a boot to his chest
"Earned my livin layin souls to rest!"

When I get to prison (this is where its new to the guys)
Cellmate's gonna say
"How'd you earn your livin boy?
How'd you earn your pay?"
I reply with a SHANK to his gut
"You ain't gettin this Infantry butt!!!"

After calling that cadence, it doesn't matter how bad I suck. They love that one. But as I was saying, I was pretty freaking smoked, especially on the last stretch. We even passed another company's formation, which probably didn't do much to help the rivalry we have with them (they work harder, longer hours, more bullshit, and we're still better. Ha).

We stretched, I wanted to yak all over the place, painting the sidewalk in lovely shades and tones of Hot Pocket and Powerade. When we were released, I went upstairs and took a 15 minute long COLD shower, and man was it worth it. Normally, when you get in the shower, and its cold, your reaction is more of an "Ah! Dammit!" But after a bastardly run, its just "Ahhh" instead.

Now its off to work again.

Ethics

2006-07-20T16:01:00.000-06:00

We had ourselves a little class on ethics, morality, and right and wrong. Subjects that came up included Abu Ghraib prison, where those incredibly ingenius MPs abused and embarassed detainees. Things that sound like common sense to most people, but when one is actually in the situation, odds are its a lot more complicated.

We talked about the massacre of a Vietnamese village, Mi Lai (or some similar name). That was where soldiers had lost a man and pretty much wanted vengeance. They were briefed that their next mission would be against a 'crack battalion' of VC. Long story short, the platoon leader ended up ordering everyone in the village killed, an order that may or may not have been suggested to him from the company commander, who later claimed he had no idea what was going on. In that case, he would be guilty of ATLEAST derilection of duty, because he should know what's going down on a mission with his men.

Another example was a recent event in Iraq where the marines lost a Lance Corporal to an IED I believe, and responded with an asston of force. Supposedly there's an investigation going on now to determine if non-combatants were killed. Ugly business.

We then watched a scene from "Platoon" when the men lose a guy to the VC, and hit a village for revenge. Sound familiar? We were told to take notes and write down any immoral actions we saw, and they weren't too hard to pick out naturally. We discussed all of that, and then went outside for a few practical exercises.

One Staff Sergeant was playing the part of an individual-not-of-the-U.S.-military (since we don't know for sure who the 'bad guy' is). He ended up grabbing one of our guys from behind in a chokehold. Pop quiz, what do you do? Quite a few of us instantly remembered the first ten minutes of "Speed" and were quoting, "Shoot the hostage!!!" We ran through a few exercises and then decided it was time for lunch.

This stuff seems like common sense on paper, but we're not always thinking the way we should be. That's why these classes are there to reinforce that. Because of Abu Ghraib and now the killings at Haditha, a lot of work that's been done by the guys who've been over so far has been set back quite a bit. Kill a man's family, and he's not going to tell you what you need to know. Instead, he's going to turn around and start believing what the other guys are saying. And now that guy is easy as hell to recruit. Along with everyone inside his sphere of influence. This operation is always ringing with the catch phrase "hearts and minds". The following three days after the Haditha episode were extremely bloody. Imagine trying to rectify this whole situation, with how insanely sensitive it all is.

Ye Olde Flashback

2006-07-18T20:19:00.000-06:00

I was sitting here in my very posh barracks room when for no reason I can seem to identify, I recalled a time when I was really really young, and some bastard of a bee stung me on the arm. In my youth, I was very unhappy about being accosted by such an evil beeing, and my grandmother gave me an icepack and told me, "Its ok. You're a tough little soldier."

Little things like that are always a slight head trip these days. In a movie, we would call that "foreshadowing" I believe.

Shifting Gears

2006-07-18T16:38:00.000-06:00

Everyone's back from leave now, and we're creaking back toward our previous pace. We're mainly taking care of equipment and weapons, cleaning them (again) and making sure all the equipment works right and has all of its components, little things like that. Killing time. Today was mainly just M4s for my squad, and we also moved some personal effects of a dude who went AWOL down to the supply room to have it locked up so it can be shipped to his home address. Plenty of new privates, as I said before. We don't mess with them too bad.

Barracks Rats

2006-07-12T00:06:00.000-06:00

The barracks. The army version of college dorms. Possibly more pitiful. I've heard rumor that ours were condemned before we moved in. That they ranked in the top 5 worst barracks in the American military.

Two floors of rooms. Two guys to a room. Not a living area like the air force dudes get, A ROOM. Singular. One open room in which furniture and personal effects are placed. Two latrines per floor. Sharing the same toilets and showers with fifty guys day in and day out. You wear flip flops in the shower. You bring your own toilet paper. You have your own empty fridge to share with your roommate. Your own unused microwave. Some guys bunk their beds. Saves space. Some don't. Either way, when living in the barracks, you have to have that tolerance for bullshit that the army has managed to instill in most members. Some guys hurry and get married just so they can move out.

In my cluttered half of the room, I keep this laptop on most of the time, even when I'm not on it. The TV (rarely used) and Xbox sit nearby. The clothes and clutter and gear, it adds up. All your worldly posessions forced to find a spot in one room. We've all lived in something like this, in one place or another.

When off duty, you're free to do whatever. Change into civilian clothes, and do your thing until the next day. Some guys disappear immediately to hang out with their girlfriends. Some chill and watch movies, play video games, lord knows what else. You find some way to stay occupied. The hours are going to disappear even if you don't.

You can eat at the chow hall, or you can catch a ride with someone who's going out to eat, or you can order a pizza. There's a Rec Center that no one goes to. Everything that place has, I have in my room. You can take a walk out of sheer boredom. If you can find something to do off post, congratulations. For me, its usually a weak attempt at killing time, and otherwise fruitless. All we're really doing is waiting. Existing. The exception being the guys who have families. Army life is really mundane.

I'd rant more if there was more to it, but its seriously that cut and dry.

CLS...Again

2006-07-11T23:44:00.000-06:00

A handful of us back in the rear were sent to Combat LifeSaver class. Which I've already been certified in. Apparently something's different now and we have to redo it. Maybe my enrollment in the alcohol program thing will be a good enough excuse to get me out of it. My life is wildly interesting right now. I sound like an old retired man who is conversing with someone (more to himself actually) about how he should trim the hedges. Such a great concern.

When you have little to nothing to do, your sense of perspective is skewed quite a bit. I'm getting lazy. Last week I actually got around to cleaning my room to the point where it actually looked good. I've already screwed it up again. And now I'm struggling for something worth writing about, to prove to anyone reading that I'm still breathing.

Its amazing how long these four day weekends last when you aren't annihilated. I'm still not doing anything productive, but also not doing anything destructive either. I'm in limbo.

Sitting in the class today, struggling to stay awake. The classroom atmosphere lulls your once alert senses into near slumber, and you begin to see two booklets instead of one. Your fifty ton eyelids drag themselves down over the irises that are crossing and rolling into your head. Nonsense gibberish in fuzzy image and distant sound quality replace your surroundings, and the subconscious babble sneaks its way into what little you still perceive from the classroom.

I force my eyes open and shift in my chair and attempt to hide a yawn. How the hell am I going to do college? The guy behind me sips from a Red Bull. I vow to smoke a fat bag of crack next time.

Despite a headache and tonsils that are becoming sore again (I hope they get bad so I can have the damn things ripped out), a friend and I ventured into the less often visited civilian world. To a mall. A poor excuse for a social gathering where people are terrified of eye contact. The new age bazaar selling nothing under the pretense of Something For Everyone. Kids with tight pants, eye makeup, and long shaggy hair in their faces. And pink boxer shorts hanging out of their jeans. A feeble and not entirely conscious attempt at counter-culture. Who needs moments of introspection when you've got all this free People-Watching right in front of you?

Maybe I need goals. I could always buy a car. And then what? I'd have the sincere and grown-up position of being a responsible bill-payer (paying for cable over the phone just doesn't do it for me). But wait, this is the army. You just set up an allotment, and your car payment is taken out of your paycheck before you even see any of the money, so you don't miss a payment. I'd have a vehicle to pay for, and nowhere to drive it. I think this upcoming rant warrants its own post...

Rear D

2006-07-06T23:00:00.000-06:00

We spent all day cleaning SAWs and 240s. Eventful, let me tell ya. There's a handful of new guys here now, and like me when I got here, they aren't taking block leave because they used their leave after basic. Another guy and I taught them how to take 240Bravos apart and clean them. Pretty strange that someone as clueless as I am is passing on knowledge.

While waiting for formation: "What the hell? Why are you guys all clusterfucked? Stand in formation unless you want to get jacked up." (IE- "smoked" by an NCO)

"Don't take the buttstock [off of the 240] while the weapon is charged, pull the handle back, squeeze down the trigger, and ride the bolt forward, otherwise that spring is going to shoot out [causing who knows what kind of injury]."

"No, man. Hold the barrel up to the light, you can see the specks of carbon in there. Rod it a few more times and it should be good."

"See right there? All that dirt still caked on? Take a Q-tip and wipe as much of that as you can so we can turn these in."

Give them a month, and they'll know everything I know about the 11Bravo world. Two months, and half of them will know more. But I'll still have that minute amount of 11 Charlie knowledge over them. Plus, these guys are fun to mock-yell at. They get the humor in it, an added bonus.

Almost everyone is on leave. Our company as of now is about the size of a platoon. Right now, the barracks are empty, except for one new guy who's walking around sipping Budweiser, and maybe a couple other quiet souls. I'm just watching movies for now. Absolutely nothing to do. The civilians that I knew from the area around here are all home on summer break.

Tomorrow I might find something to do. I always say I'm going to go to Tacoma and find some way to entertain myself, but so far, I've only managed the first part. For now, anyway, I'll stick with these same familiar four walls. I think I'll check Julie Anna's page and see what's going on in her neck of the woods.

July 4, 2006

2006-07-05T00:59:00.000-06:00

The ceremony wasn't too bad. Wore Class A's, the sun wasn't too vicious thankfully. We waited around way too long, as it always is, comes as no surprise. But just to make sure I'm painting an accurate picture of army life, I'll be sure to let you know how often we wait.

Members of the crowd would cheer for their state when each state was called for the roll call. The biggest reactions were for New York, Texas, and California. Hmm, wonder why. Cannons would fire for each state. After all the states were introduced and America as a whole was mentioned, the crowd of people went apeshit, and that was cool.

Afterwards a few of us went to Hooters. I went because I really didn't feel like ordering pizza yet again, and I hadn't eaten yet. Ask me why I ever bother going to that place, and you'll get nothing but an exasperated shrug from me. For the articles, I guess.

Not sure exactly when it was, shortly after we sat down I think, that I slowly became pissed off. Could be that its cuz I've spent yet another 4th of July without seeing my family. Last year wasn't so bad because I had just been home on leave. The barracks are pretty empty. Oh, save for two dipshits who got drunk (underage) after the ceremony and were lighting fireworks in the parking lot. CQ from another company caught them, and gasp, they have to sleep in one of the rooms on the first floor, cuz they are in trouble. Gee, little harsh don't you think? Maybe I should have done something more extreme when I was drinking underage. I would have gladly slept in an office, but hey I guess the Article 15 should work just fine. Still no clue if I'm going to lose rank over something this stupid, but who knows.

I'll have one of those dudes cover my CQ shift in the morning and afternoon while I go to my alcohol classes/meetings/whatever. Fucking ironic, huh?

The Unlikely Patient

2006-06-29T14:10:00.000-06:00

I went to the ASAP (Alcohol & Substance Abuse Program) building today for my appointment and evaluation. I'm an at-risk type fellow, so I get to have all sorts of fun being enrolled in their program. I guess its not AA or anything, but an educational program to set dumbtards like me straight.

They do a good job of really neutering you with kindness in there. I almost forgot that I was only there because I'm underage, and had I been a few months older, the MP would have been more inclined to send me on my way (on foot) and apologize for bringing my buzz down. Still, I suppose it'll be good for me, because I don't usually drink casually, but passionately, with unyielding motivation and overall love of the game.

So I have to go to a few sessions at the center itself, plus sit in on 2 to 3 AA sessions. Now if that were all there was to it, I'd be tapdancing and singing show tunes right now. But the Article 15 monster is still lurking in a stack of paperwork, yawning and stretching, wiping the sleep out of its eyes and licking its chops. Waiting for the perfect opportunity to pounce suddenly in a cascading flurry of paper, attach itself to my face like those pink bastards from "Aliens" and suck the life out of me, leaving me a hollow shell of a man whose purpose is to cut grass, pull weeds, mow lawns, mop floors, and god knows what else. And then life will go on.

Detail Hookers

2006-06-28T13:47:00.000-06:00

I can't go on leave because I went home on emergency leave earlier. Those of us left on Rear D are tasked for CQ rotations (24 hour duty at a desk in the barracks), plus a large and unlucky handful of us, myself included of course, are assigned flag detail for a 4th of July ceremony. We've begun rehearsal.

So there I am, holding Maine's state flag. We were all just handed random flags, and that's what I ended up with. The wind is flapping, and the tassles on the flag at one point hit me square in the eye before I could even blink. The ceremony will be in Class A's. On the 4th of July. Its too hot to be wearing them all day, but we will anyway. I love that. The flag also likes to wrap around your face while you're standing at attention, and there's nothing you can do about it, even when trying to march. I honestly hate this crap.

My platoon sergeant was there, assisting the I Corps people on coaching us, til he was told to 'sit down and let Corps' handle this. If Corps is going to handle this, why the fuck are WE there? I hate ceremonies with a passion, I always have. My own graduation was a joke to me. Just some dog and pony show tradition that people carry on. I can understand the honor of unit history and Esprit de Corps and all of that, but come on. I signed up to be an Infantryman, not color guard.

I'll keep you all posted, as I'm sure a mildly amusing story or two may come from this. For now, I have to go to the sew shop and get my Class A's updated. If I had it my way, I'd never even wear the damned things. My Sunday Best is field stained fatigues and smeared mud on my cheeks and a perma-scowl, dammit. Leave the pretty stuff to Barbie & Ken.

2006-06-27T21:51:00.000-06:00

Last night, I was outside, and one guy from my unit wasn't in the best of moods. He'd gotten news. As a result, here I saw a young man with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth, face lit up orange except for the hollows where eyes should be, which instead were like two windows into an abyss. The orange light of course was from the fire he was feeding with letters and pictures. Now and then one would make a loud pop and sparks and embers would leap from the miniature break-up pyre. I BSed with him for a bit, and so did my fellow arrestee, and we both concluded that he'll be fine, and we'll chill with him whenever need be.

I didn't offer to share a few brews with him though.

Speaking of which, the Article 15 is still lurking in a stack of paperwork. That's all right though, I'll do my time in Shawshank. After all, I cannot be defeated. I'm ready to mop floors.

Yakistan!

2006-06-25T20:49:00.000-06:00

You've all waited long enough, here's your update, the harrowing tale of my deployment to Yakistan, more commonly referred to as Yakima Training Center. The first couple days I scrawled some notes down on paper, but that became mundane as well.

When I first arrived and dropped my gear off in our open barracks, a 1st LT was offering to take soldiers into town to go to Walmart, so I hopped in the van. Once we were at the store, it was sort of odd, because the locals acted like they'd never seen soldiers in person before. I guess most of the time no one goes into town. Back at Ft Lewis and the surrounding cities, Joe is everywhere, so being in the army is nothing special at all. Here, they were all eyes.

6-4-06

All today really was, was getting here and somewhat settled in. A small group of guys, mainly NCOs, are playing spades while everyone else showers and gets ready for bed. These guys have been there, done that a good many times. They rolled in with coffee machines and coolers and bottled water, and plenty of junk food. I couldn't find a Maxim or Stuff magazine anywhere in WalMart or Target (that was the only time anyone went into the city).

When we woke up this morning back at Ft Lewis, preparing to leave, it was a complete circus. Everyone running around trying to get things done. Without fail, I was always in the wrong place at the wrong time, getting tasked out for every little detail that had to be done. We finally boarded our buses at 10:00 and rolled out. On the aforementioned buses, everyone was either reading, listening to music, BSing, sleeping, or some combination.

We stopped in some town after an hour and a half of driving. Like the locals of Yakima (this particular instance I'm talking about was before we had arrived in the Yakima area), these Washingtonians don't see soldiers regularly, so we had a little more attention from them.

Back on the bus, the typical Washington green slowly melted into the dead grass desert we were headed for. When we arrived, we were immediately tasked out to help everyone else unload. We also ended up doing pushups and flutter kicks within our first five minutes there, because the weapons of two people who didn't even travel with us were unaccounted for. Someone else had grabbed them, so no big deal. After that, we sat around. A lot.

6-6-06

We still haven't done a damn thing. Been here two full days, not counting the day we got here. Yesterday, in the afternoon, we were told to break out our mortar tubes and show the line platoon guys the ropes. They pretended to watch for about five minutes, then flocked around my friend's sniper rifle. Glad to have done that for nothing. Part of what we call "Looking Busy To Please Superiors". While grumbling about this, I managed to drop the white stake from the aiming poles directly on my foot, where the laces are, and there is no leather, just a thin layer of GoreTex. The point hit the bone perfectly, and I did what any rationale, ascended life form would do. I stomped around spouting expletives, viciously feeling sorry for myself. Bruised the bone on my foot. I hope the line bunnies learned a lot about mortars.

I've already finished two books. The hours crawl by, and there is nothing here, at all. The heat makes you tired and I'm probably not hydrating enough. The funny thing about Yakima is that it royally sucks, and isn't bad, at the same time. How that paradox works, I have no idea.

6-7-06

I was tasked out to go with our 1st Sergeant and shadow 1st platoon with my ever present camcorder. They had a mission in a village, and guys from another company were dressed as Arabs, acting as the villagers. It was actually pretty intense. They were all really into character. They'd walk up and try to touch the soldier's weapons, and they'd try to sell them worthless shit, and babble in what sounded like me to a half decent attempt at being Arabic. Two officers dressed as reporters would follow the designated Press Release guy around, I thought that was cool.

One villager was chased down for stealing from a vendor and imprisoned by the local police. A sniper from the mosque at the far end of the village wounded one of the policemen and everyone took cover. The villagers spazzed out and shouted to the Americans to aid the wounded, but for the moment, they had to stay out of sight and orchestrate a way to neutralize the sniper and help the wounded policeman. The villagers grew impatient and soon began to riot, shouting something that sounded like, "La la lumbrika."

The soldiers searched houses and found a woman with explosive materials in her hand, and brought her outside, and rather than searching her (seeing as she was a woman and with respect to Muslim culture, we don't touch the women), one soldier visually instructer her to pull on her sleeves and garments to show she wasn't conceiling anything else.

The sniper was taken out by automatic fire from the Stryker vehicles, and the rest of the village was secured, though local support wasn't as high as it was before. The soldiers later moved on to a house out in the boonies, where the 'insurgents' were holed up, and cleared that house, but took a couple wounded in the process. Its pretty cool watching these guys in the process. Anytime I'm doing this, all I get is my own view, but when I was allowed to roam freely, I was able to get the bigger picture. Dealing with the villagers looked very stressful. Hell, I was stressed out, and I was nothing but a spectator.

After that, we, the mortar section had a grueling week. We would roll out with one platoon for a 30 hour mission, where they would raid a 'terrorist training camp' and we would provide mortar support. We spent a lot of time in the back of a five ton truck, waiting and screwing around. We'd ride with the convoy and split when we neared the hilltop we needed to set up on. So much dust, I can't even begin to describe it. Those dirt roads would kick up layers and layers of grime that would settle all over our weapons, our gear, US, it was ridiculous. I'll never forget the taste.

We'd set up, do our thing, sending rounds down range and blowing things up the way Uncle Sam likes to see it. We'd do that for the day fire. Then wait. Then do it for the night fire. The day fire would consist of a dry run (no shooting, just simulating), then a blank run (using blank ammo of course), then the live fire. The night fire would be run the same way.

We did that for three different platoons.

Each mission, 30 hours or so. Then we'd head back to the rear for the rest of the new day off, then we'd start the next mission. It was like being stuck in deja vu.

All in all, Yakima was a really mellow purgatory, that's about the best I can do to sum it up. Other than that, it was a few moments of gung ho Hollywood action amidst hours and hours of nothing. Hurry up and wait. Only those who have been in the service truly understand that concept.

Yakima Revisited

2006-06-03T19:13:00.000-06:00

We're heading back to the bastardly desert tomorrow, for about two and a half weeks or so. Packing a lot of gear with, as you'd expect. For now, there really isn't much to say about it, and there probably won't be any updates here while I'm gone. I'll probably pack a notebook and pen so that not everything is lost in the relief of being back.

I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, its Yakima and it kinda sucks, but its not that bad. Sort of fun. You actually feel like a soldier out there.

Ha ha ha ha ha

2006-05-28T16:07:00.000-06:00

Can't the dreamers dream in the comforts of their own home? I was always taught not to play in the road, because humans vs moving metal is usually a losing battle.

Go to this URL to see what happens when the Grateful Dead doesn't show up to keep these people occupied. WARNING: If you are disturbed by images of hackey-sack kicking, tie-dying, pot-smoking, annoying smelly people, this may not be for you.

Nugget of Joy for the day.

Stryker Net

2006-05-24T23:07:00.000-06:00

From the beginning of this week, we've actually been driving the Strykers. We've also been working very long hours, so I'm not going to bother making this post spectacular. Here's the skinny:

Strykers are awesome. They weigh a good 30+ tons. They don't accelerate too fast, but they handle decently, and they've got power. I managed to get one of these bad boys airborne a good three or four feet. Its been rainy lately, so rather than kicking up lots of dust, we've got wet dirt and mud puddles. Perfect to send the water from these puddles spraying around and over the vehicle, onto the instructor and another student, both sticking out of the top hatches. Granted, driving with the driver's hatch open, you're also vulnerable to getting wet. I've caught a couple mouthfuls of water.

We rigged an iPod to the comm system, so we pretty much just rock out and tool around in these bad boys. I'm exhausted and at the moment, have little else to say. More later.

Priorities

2006-05-16T22:21:00.000-06:00

Every time I've thought about my situation lately, I've always done one thing without fail. I became pissed off. That alone doesn't do anything, and moping certainly doesn't do anything. So I figured I'd seek the wisdom of a true badass.

What would John Wayne do?

The answer? Well, he'd probably slap the one reprimanding him and demand they focus on the mission. Probably not the best idea. But a better idea surfaces as a result: Take it like a freaking man and learn from it. I screwed up, but the game isn't over yet. Would Ditka complain? No, he may tackle the MPs and use their vehicle as the getaway car and find a REAL party, but he certainly wouldn't feel sorry for himself. Chuck Norris...would probably stroke his beard and then roundhouse kick anyone in his vicinity, while doing a commercial for the Total Gym. But he'd be damned if he'd shed a tear.

I'm relieved. For a minute there, I forgot that I am truly and inarguably awesome.

Stryker

2006-05-16T18:10:00.000-06:00

There's a lot of switches and buttons and controls inside the driver's seat of a stryker. Looks like the inside of a airplane's cockpit. I don't like it. We're trying to learn this monster in and out, and its a lot to take in.

The sun is back from its long vacation it seems, and the rain is gone until fall for the most part. I haven't sweat like I did today in a while. I climbed into the driver's hatch, and fumbling around with that, with a helmet on, and just sitting there in the seat, it was stifling. I was dripping sweat in no time. Guys from the Ranger Battalion were also training on some of the other Strykers. They were easily recognizable. Patrol Cap has the trademark roll in it, "Mitch" helmets (I forget the acronym, we just pronounce it mitch, its the newer helmet) painted tan like their berets, and no unit patches worn on the ACUs for whatever reason. They had all taken their ACU tops off, working in their t-shirts. We weren't allowed to do that because apparently you can't do that in Iraq.

I personally have nothing against Rangers, but it seems that all the guys that are actually IN a Ranger unit (not guys who just have the tab on their shoulder) that I've met so far, they sort of strike me as elitists. Yeah, its cool that you're hardcore and all that, but you aren't bulletproof either. Doesn't really matter, I don't work with them, and I also shouldn't generalize. I'm sure they're some pretty kickass dudes once you get to know them.

It may be a while before my potential punishment even goes through, because apparently I have to be counciled by my leadership first, then it can be processed. My leadership is busy these days. So until then, I'll just focus on learning the Stryker.

The Wait...

2006-05-15T21:16:00.000-06:00

First day of Stryker training. Uneventful.

I'm off work, moping around in my room. I still don't know what's going to happen to me. I'm not the first guy in my unit to do this. I definitely won't be the last. But as it always is in the army, there's loose talk and rumors.

I won't be getting kicked out of the army or anything like that. This is really a small offense, but it didn't happen at the best time. I have a friend who works in the training room, where all the company paperwork is done. He had to fill out a coversheet for a recommendation for a Company Grade Article 15. To his knowledge, that means 14 days of restriction and extra duty, possibly a loss of one pay grade (rank), and forfeiture of 1/3 pay for a month. So my PFC may be gone. Fuck the money, I don't care about that. And the restriction, the extra duty, that's not a big deal to me either. Its not the punishment. Its that thick level of remorse and shame that clings to you. Like wading through tar.

My platoon sergeant is pretty pissed. My friend and I have had better days. Atleast I've only got the underage drinking charge. He's got a DUI. Blew a .082 when .08 is the limit. But excuses don't really matter at this point.

When the First Sergeant was talking to me back at the MP station, he didn't even seem angry. It was like he was completely used to this sort of thing, and probably is. You know when you screw up and do something wrong, and someone doesn't even get angry with you, it makes it that much worse? I sat there, drunk and angry and confused. All he did was give me some advice, along the lines of needing to take a long look at the mirror and figuring out who I am and what I want, and how I'm going to get there. And how I'm not.

One thought that went through my head was "Had I only been stationed in fucking Germany like my fucking recruit said I'd be able to request, this wouldn't even matter." Just an excuse. Part of me is furious that this is even being made into a big deal, because I'm only a few months shy of age. These things must happen sooner or later.

Assessing the whole situation, with the big picture, its pitiful. Here I am in a different state, knowing only army guys. I have nothing to do off post, and without a car, travel is expensive as hell. I can't stand most TV, and can't even bring myself to play video games for very long. Every day, its the same faces, the same chow hall food or Dominoes, the same routine, and the same four walls around me. White painted bricks with two windows on one wall and cheap wooden furniture. A 13" TV stuffed into the bureau. 500 channels of social decay. An empty fridge. Tile floor with a couple mats. Anything to try to keep it from looking like a prison cell. The same voices shouting in the halls for no reason. The same toilets and showered shared by twenty guys. The same laptop constantly online, MSN messenger waiting for old friends to drop a line. Same four walls.

Same group of friends drinking on every carbon copy weekend. Its right there, in your living environment. I don't mention that because I don't want to be the guy to ruin it for everyone else. We're infantrymen. We live in an all male barracks. Some guys were successful and find places to vanish to during the off time. As for the rest of us, we dwell like rats. In this situation, getting drunk really doesn't sound like such a bad idea.

Even then, it doesn't do enough good, and with some guys, does a lot of bad. Its always fun at first, like when I first got here. The good times can't last forever. You wonder what the hell you're going to do for fun when you get out. And all that this tells me is that getting twisted is pretty much a pisspoor escape from this place. I don't mean to come off as an alcoholic, but if I keep this up, I'd sure as shit be in danger. The isolation here is my X factor I think. Shit or get off the pot, I've got to make some changes. As much as this sucks, this is a minor incident, but I don't want a stronger wake up call. I'm better than this, dammit.

At times, I've come to really resent this blog. People immediately in my life have gotten wind of it, and I can't bring myself to lie or sugarcoat anything. I told myself I was going to give an honest account of this whole experience, and I'm going to stick to it. I just don't like people worrying. Aside from really regretting this weeked, and being bored a lot, I'm doing pretty damn good. I stumbled, but I haven't fallen.

So with all that said, I'm going to bite the bullet and take the kick in the groin that's coming to me, and drive on.

The Joys Of Being Arrested

2006-05-14T03:24:00.000-06:00

No, this isn't a joke.

What? You thought you'd get the sugarcoated version of my army experience? Nnnnnnnnope. Here's the Newly-Fucked-Up-Knuckles truth.

First of all, no excuses. I am the one to blame. I committed the 'crime', and I fully accept that. I am no scapegoat, I'm not even an example (yet). I was busted drinking underage. Big fucking whoop, right? Your kids do it regularly. They pay a small fine, go to a class, and call it a day. Here's what happened.

I woke up. I spent the night before doing NOTHING but watching episodes of "24" on my computer through WinAmp. Welcome to a healthy new addiction to rival The Sopranos. Once I gained cognitive consciousness the next day, I opened my fridge and grab an illicitly acquired beer. I cracked open said beer. The rest of the day had been a downward spiral. Me with my computer in bed, drinking a few. Me at my Xbox 360, playing Ghost Recon with teenage shit-talking strangers, drinking beer. Me watching TV, drinking beer. Me me me, beer beer beer.

Eventually, myself and another of more rank than I end up heading to the shopette. We're on our way back to the barracks, and we see two girls walking. He pulls over and asks what the hell they're doing walking, and offers them a ride. These girls want to meet up with some dude in some random unit that we don't know. For some reason, we have a heart, instead of laughing at them, and accusing them of indirect prostitution. We drive a total of fifty yards, when flashing lights fill our irises.

Our driver is asked to step out. The girls and myself are asked for ID. I supply my military ID like the total idiot douchebag moron that I am. The MP steps away, and cures cancer or whatever it is they do when they aren't grilling me. At this point, I'm telling these two civilian girls to shut up and chill out, and to stop being stupid. Their panic annoys me, and only serves as a flag to further fuck us over. Yes, I said fuck.

Five minutes later, an MP wants ME to step out of the vehicle. GREAT!!! I drunkenly fumble past the steering column, which scored me MASSIVE points. No breathalyzer. No questions. Put your hands on the car, CLICKETY RATCHET CLICK! I'm in handcuffs.

Yes they are painful.

Next thing I know, I'm in the backseat of an MP's cute little car. The seats are plastic. The seatbelt is not reassuring. I realize how easily I could put my arms under my legs and bring them to my front, but decide not to risk it, because comfort is NOT that important. So instead, I do the smart thing, and I shut my stupid mouth, because I'm freaking guilty.

After Jesus rose again and saved mankind from complete stupidity and Reality TV, we finally began to move, and the cute MP Impala crawled down the road along the airfield. After God reinvented Heaven and fixed everything that was wrong with Earth, we arrived at the MP station, which is Spanish for "The Epitome of Suck".

I got to sit in a cell, and lost the cuffs. Everything in my pockets, shoes, and belt were confiscated. Seeing as I escape from prison with my cheap Etnies belt that often...

After I beat on the door and begged to take a piss in a toilet, I was finally allowed to do so. Don't get me wrong, I was not above pissing all over the tiny cell with the two chairs and table in it. I should have written my name on the wall? Why? Because you're supposed to be a pissed off badass when you get in trouble with the law. But I didn't . I'm a sellout.

An MP, Sergeant (E5) comes in and questions me and gets me to sign all sorts of shit. I decline the opportunity to have a lawyer because the truth is that I AM in fact not 21, and I WAS in fact drinking alcoholic beverages, and loving every motherfucking second of it. The MPs themselves were actually pretty cool, considering their suckass job. I have to give them credit. Granted, if I were in their shoes, I'd be doing all I could to reclass to...I dunno.....INFANTRY. That's just me though.

I pissed a couple times when I was stuck in that holding cell. They only watched me once. The first time. I pushed while I pissed, inspired to prove to the MP that I did in fact have to piss. After demonstrating a 45 second urine jettison, I was satisfied for the next five minutes, and was ready to go back to my cell.

After the questioning and after I signed my life away and completely fucked myself (admitted that I was a guilty little moron), I was moved to a cell that had a cute little bed. I sat there for a good thirty seconds before I started to get really pissed. I was in trouble for underage drinking. Whoopity fucking doo. That's like J-Walking when traffic isn't allowed on the road. My buddy was losing a lot more than me. In fact, we're yet to see.

This was all sinking in, and I realized that a damn, DAMN good friend could be losing a lot because of this, and it got to me. I was seeing red, and needed something to break. My knuckles were the only choice. So there I am, half drunk and pissed as hell at myself and the situation in general, beating the piss out of the walls, which have more endurance than I do. My cell door opens.

My First Sergeant (the sergeant that leads the company, the big boss) steps in. He asks me nwhy the fuck I'm beating the damn walls and acting stupid. I have no logical answer, so I stand at parade rest and provide no argument to his assumption that I am in fact an idiot. He manages to mellow me out, and then he leaves to talk to the other guy I suppose. The door closes. I sit back down on the little bed, silently livid. At what, I don't know. At me, at the MPs for doing their job, at the legal system for allowing 17 year olds to join up and get blown into Chef Boyardee splatters, but not allowing anyone under 21 to get stupid with alcohol. I understand that the liver takes time to develop. The liver also doesn't stand so well against explosions and bullets, so pardon me if I don't give two shits.

I wait for a couple more minutes. Eventually, I'm given all my shit back, I put my shoes back on, and the MPs can finally take their gas masks off. I get my precious iPod and my dogtags. My wallet. I am the first OFFICIAL member of my platoon to fuck up. Great. When I got in shit before, we kept it In House, under the table. A slap on the hand and a shitty detail. Now I have a record with the fucking MPs. So we'll see how bad I get sodomized.

I get my shit, we head out. The guy that got in trouble with me is pretty distraught. I'm trying to shut him up, the First Sergeant is driving us back to the barracks. My friend orders me to shut up. So I sit there and listen to him talk all sorts of idiotic shit. We get to the building, the First Sergeant enters first, I grab my buddy by the shirt, give him the evil Steven Seagal stare in the eyes and tell him he is GOING to stay in the barracks tonight and not think about shit. I was told to go to my room and go to bed. Of course I didn't. Can't withold a good story from you great people.

Besides, after all this? What would I do? Go to bed? Or grab another beer? I think you know. Gotta ease the knuckle pain.

:P

[All is good with me, if I lose rank, I'll let you know.]

What?!

2006-05-12T11:25:00.000-06:00

They're trying to send me to driving school for Strykers. I suck at driving. Why the hell do they want to send me? Plus my roommate actually WANTS to be a driver, and they aren't sending him to the school. Think I need to try to get out of it. See if he can't take my spot.

Something different everyday...

You Are A No-Go At This Station

2006-05-08T09:24:00.000-06:00

The mentality is a lot different when you're actually in front of the grader and he's got the stopwatch. You're looking at what you have to do, and no matter how unmotivated you were the night before, suddenly you've got this desire to conquer whatever it is that you're doing.

We woke up this morning and got all our gear ready, and waited. There was a couple hangups in the transportation department, so we ended up chilling in the Day Room, watching "Boondock Saints" until the cattle trucks arrived. Outside, everyone's sounding off with false motivation, screaming "EIB!!!", the mantra of our misery.

Pile into the truck, sit on the bench, barrel of rifle is pointing to the ground, assault pack (cute little army backpack) resting on your lap. Someone is singing "I believe I can fly..." then "Afternoon Delight". Everyone's spirits are high for some reason. Our entertainer pauses, thinking for another song, when I shout.

"Shot in the heart!"

And five or six voices respond, "And you're to blame!"

More voices, "You give love...a bad name!"

And the mandatory echo, "BAD NAME!"

That was a thing with some friends of mine back home. For no discernable reason, out of nowhere, typically in class, one would give the introductory line and the rest would follow. I guess it translates well to others.

Step off of cattle truck, shouldering assault pack and hanging M4 to equipment vest via carribeaner. Every infantryman in the regiment is out here, masses of formations. Seas of intermingled BDUs (green camo uniforms) and ACUs (bizarre new uniform) fill your eyes as you meld with them. Scoresheets are being passed out like Halloween candy. Loudspeakers are set up, and "Bad To The Bone" begins to play. We get a speech from the Sergeant Major, and then we're off.

Some go to where chow was set up to eat first, but I skipped that. Better to get started while the lines aren't as long. I found myself at the .50 cal stations. First task: set headspace and timing on a .50 cal machine gun.

This is a really easy task once you learn it. One of the gimmes. Basically, the purpose of it is to ensure that the inner parts of the bad beast are correctly spaced apart. Too easy.

"Time starts when you touch the weapon."

There is a memory aid I was taught to make the steps easy to remember. Its pretty humorous, and it works. As much as I'd love to share it, my gut tells me not to. Its basically a big sexual metaphor, and could easily offend people. So it stays there with the .50 cal. Maybe some day later I'll write about it, but for now it probably wouldn't be a good idea.

I lean a little on my hand that's resting on the charging handle, backing the bolt off an inch or so, and with my other hand, I screw the barrel in. Once its fully seated, I loosen it two clicks. I stick one gauge into a small nitch to ensure it fits. I stick a larger gauge into the same nitch to ensure that it DOESN'T fit. Headspace is properly set. I charge the weapon and allow the bolt to go forward, then I wedge a skinny gauge in between the side of the barrel and the housing (or whatever). I take the backpiece trigger housing off of the .50 and loosen a nut until its touching the trigger mechanism. Then I tighten it a click and attempt to push a rod up to make the weapon fire. I do this over and over. Tighten, push, tighten, push, tighten, push until it clicks when I push the rod. The I tighted the nut two more clicks and put the backpiece on again. I take the skinny gauge out, charge the weapon, and then put the fat gauge in the same spot and attempt to fire it. It doesn't fire, and I'm a Go at this station.

This is true except for one thing. I had forgotten to wedge the skinny gauge in the barrel and had taken the backpiece off and had already been working on adjusting the nut. Thankfully I caught myself, put the backpiece back on, wedged the gauge, charged the beast and brought the bolt forward (so that the spring inside didnt shoot out when I took the backpiece off and impale me) and continued on. Thankfully my grader wasn't a dick and didn't No-Go me, but instead waited to see if I went back and corrected the problem.

Congratulations! You've completed one task out of a lot. I think there's thirty some tasks total. I grabbed my gear and moved over to the next .50 cal station: load, fire, correct malfunction, and clear a .50 cal machine gun.

"Time starts when you touch the weapon."

I'm holding five linked rounds in my hands. I use my forearm to slam the feed tray cover down, and attempt to shove the first round in. This is the official way to load the beast, and no one uses it, because its stupid. Easier to load it like a SAW or a 240Bravo, with the cover up, place them in, and shut the cover on it. For this, we have to cram them in there.

My hands are freezing and I'm nervous as hell. I'm thinking about all the uptraining, and how there are a couple different ways to shove the rounds in, and I'm second guessing myself, pushing on the bastards and having no luck. For this part of the task, you have ten seconds to get the rounds in, then move around to the rear of the weapon, charge it twice, lock the bolt catch down, and fire. That ten seconds is over quick.

"At this time, you are a No-Go at this station. You have one hour to retest."

"I have to wait an hour before retesting? Or I have to retest within an hour, sergeant?"

"You have to retest within this hour."

Dude, weak. I went to the end of the line, thinking about how this time, I was just going to shove those fucking rounds in there and show them who's boss. Soon enough, I'm in front of that goddamn machine gun again. Time starts, I stuff those fucking abominable brass bastards into the beast's mouth, and jump behind the gun and grab the charging handle and yank it back. I forgot to hold the bolt release button down. The bolt doesn't slam forward, and now I'm fumbling to get back on track. Time runs out.

So I'm done with EIB for this year. And now someone is yelling for everyone who is here at the barracks to go to the day room. Time for a shitty detail. Lame.

Almost Over

2006-05-07T15:11:00.000-06:00

All this training at the EIB site, reminds me of an episode of South Park. The kids are playing little league baseball, and are trying to lose so the season will end and they won't have to play anymore. All the other little league teams are doing the same thing, trying to lose, which becomes its own competition. Here, a lot of us just want to get to testing and hurry up and get our No-Go so we don't have to do this shit anymore.

This is great and all for the gung ho, high speed guys, but for the rest of us, its pretty much a suckfest. When you have to keep on training for something you know you aren't going to get, it tends to dampen your mood a little. Testing starts tomorrow, and probably won't last long.

I've never been this excited to fail something.

EIB Uptraining Continued

2006-05-05T21:06:00.000-06:00

Another long day at the EIB site. I got out of a few of those last week, seeing as I got sick, and was lucky enough to be put on quarters, which means you sit in your room and don't do anything. Take medicine, sleep, watch TV, sell nuclear secrets to China, things like that. Now we're out there again, fifteen hour days, and will be going out tomorrow and Sunday as well, but hopefully not as long.

Monday is the beginning of the testing. We'll see how it goes, but please, no comments wishing me luck or wishing me well or anything like that. 95% odds that this is a learning experience, and I'll have to give it another shot next time around.

We got our bi-monthly motivational speech, which is always well delivered. Always mentioned are the words "not if but WHEN we deploy" (I'll be sure to bring sunscreen). I'm convinced that one requirement to be a 1st Sergeant is a very strange personality. Some very bizarre and really funny things come out of that man's mouth, and the sad thing is that its usually so abstract and original that I can never remember what his impromptu sayings are, only that they were completely out of left field. He's also an awesome 1SGT and is pretty good at getting us pumped, and usually offers a lot of good advice (earning a Ranger tab opens lots of doors of opportunity for those staying in the army, investing is smart, blah blah)

And if this thing ever blows up and finds familiar eyes, maybe he'll see my honest and humble musings and not completely destroy me.

EIBEIBEIBEIBEIBEIB

2006-04-24T21:42:00.000-06:00

The sizzling sound of one young male's brain as it struggles to form words on the computer remind the male of that old anti-drug commercial with the egg and the frying pan. The sleep deprivation isn't that bad, to be honest. Nothing to really complain about. We hit up more stations today, started at the same early hour, and remained out there until after the chow hall was closed (unless it stayed open late for us?). As always, some stations are insultingly easy, and others...give you a healthy push down the road of accepting the blank space on your uniform where an EIB should go.

For those of you who aren't familiar with this particular award, let me shed a minute amount of light on it. The actual badge worn on the Class A uniform has a blue background, because blue is the infantry color. A long rifle adorns the foreground. The BDU version is a green patch with the same rifle. The ACUs now have a metallic black pin on-badge. That's how you spot someone who is more badass than you, and has the testicular fortitude of Terry Tate.

9mm handgun: easy. NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical): Not so easy. I'm sure that someone out there with their EIB will read this and laugh, which is technically their right. Well I say that its hard, because it is. You have nine seconds to take your helmet off, put it on the barrel of your rifle, open your gasmask carrying bag, put that bad boy on, cinch it down, and clear it. That sort of thing takes a lot of work and muscle memory. Then there is all the questions you have to answer, etc etc. NBC, grenades, and M240B machine gun are so far the most likely killer of EIB candidates.

I actually fired a .50 cal for the first time today, even though it was with blanks. Though I would only be firing off four rounds, I wasn't completely stupid, and I stuffed my earplugs in. The 240Bravo had my ears ringing yesterday.

Another odd thing about all of this, is that you have to do all of these tasks by the book, and not in any practical, real world way. Once again, its difficult to throw a decent post out there, because I feel about as slow and sluggish as nearly frozen molasses. Its time for a quick shower, and then deep comatose sleep.

Guess What? EIB. Still.

2006-04-23T22:29:00.000-06:00

Random sidenote before I get started. I had an epiphany about an hour ago. Milkshakes with alcohol content! It couldn't get any better. Then my dream was shot down when someone else informed me that they do in fact exist, and are commonly referred to as 'mudslides'. I died a little inside.

This morning demanded a 0430 wake up, in order to draw out weapons at 0500, and leave for the EIB site at 0600. Rather than hanging around our immediate area, we actually went to the spot that will be used for the testing in a few weeks, with the graders and everything. I forgot to get autographs, which I would later superimpose onto my grade sheet while marking all columns off as "Go" rather than "No Go", which in layman's terms means "You failed completely and miserably, and consequently, you suck."

"But wait there, Mr Unlikely Soldier dude, isn't today a Sunday?"

Why yes it is. It was also a fifteen or sixteen hour day. This trend will be kept up for the next few weeks. I was so distraught over this theft of my weekend that last Saturday, at Applebee's, I ordered a Long Island Ice Tea. I got kicked out. Apparently the Rule of 21 doesn't follow the Close Enough guideline. Six more months, and then I'll start posting the police reports on here too.

It was cold in the morning, the kind of cold that makes one want to piss and moan in the traditional Private fashion. But it wasn't long until I got it in my head that we were going to be there for a long time, and for the next few weeks, this is all we're really going to be doing. So I just sort of went along with it. And go figure, I learned quite a bit today.

First off, we plotted points that we could see in the distance onto a map to get the grid coordinates, and the instructor knew someone we know, and told us a story about someone in their unit accidentally shooting their own tire out in the humvee when in Iraq. We also enjoyed some map reading activities, and that's sort of confusing. Contour lines and all sorts of crazy graffiti that doesn't belong on maps, and we have to understand that gibberish? Maybe I should still be renting shitty Vin Diesel movies out to bored customers.

Before, I always had trouble with the AT-4s. They're these one time use, disposable anti-tank rocket launchers. Today though, the gods seemed to be favoring me, and the mojo was flowing. I found a way around a part of the task that I was always getting hung up on. Apparently a lot of people get hung up on the M240B machine gun, because if you do any of the simple steps out of order, its an instant No Go. I managed to do all right on that too, but then again, this is all practice, so I can't get cocky. The grader for the 240 was some E4, and really seemed to take his little position of authority to heart. We were using "his 240" and had to make sure not to step on "his sand bags", and he gave the impression that we were going to follow his rules at "his station". What a freaking hall monitor.

We did a lot of shit today, range cards, grenades (I did surprisingly well, considering I throw like a little girl on a high dose of Percocets), amidst numerous others. I planned for this to be an interesting post, but my brain is scrambled, and this is only the beginning of long workdays, so I'm better off hitting the shower and going to bed.

Tune in next episode to see how the EIB drama plays out. Same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel.

Right In Two

2006-04-22T17:55:00.000-06:00

Today is my only day off. Tomorrow I get up at 4:30 to get ready to do more of this EIB stuff. I could have ordered some tickets to see Tool perform in Seattle on May 2nd, but that's a Tuesday that we happen to be working late on. All for this EIB that I probably won't get this year. I'm not being melodramatic, I just don't care about the badge. The upside is that there's a lot of good training we're getting out of this, that we usually don't from day to day.

These days, I'm pretty much just existing here. Its all becoming tedious and monotonous, the way it always does, the way everything does. How it all comes in phases and cycles, a lot like the tides do. There really isn't anything that I'm looking forward to. In the somewhat near future, we'll be spending more time in Yakima, and who knows what else. I'm just along for the ride, really. Its all kind of like a roadmarch. You just keep putting one foot in front of the other. No point in trying to rationalize it, you just keep on doing it. If you think about it too much, it makes it that much harder. I'd buy a car if I had anything to do off post. Since I don't, I'd pretty much just be dumping money down the drain, and giving people rides to buy alcohol on the weekends.

But to be optimistic, there is one thing I can say. Being mind-numbingly bored like this is better than being down and depressed. Oh, and apparently someone in the distant area around here got into a small amount of trouble over OPSEC. I don't really know the details, and I don't care a whole lot either. Apparently I haven't screwed up so far. And it looks like people from Fort Lewis are starting to find this site as well. Kind of a weird feeling. Reminds me of that really crappy Christian Slater movie about the high school dude who starts his own pirate radio station or something like that, and pisses the PTA and the FCC off. Another correlation: I'm starting to think that this generation is just as lame as the one from that movie. Just different flavors of What The Hell Were We Thinking? Pop culture will probably always suck, which really makes you wonder how it all works. Wait, no I think I have a potential answer. Its in mankind's nature to totally and completely suck. Yeah, that makes sense to me. That certainly is one profound little quote there. You'll be seeing that at the beginning of books in the future.

"Its in mankind's nature to totally and completely suck."
-The Unlikely Soldier

Yawn

2006-04-20T19:43:00.000-06:00

Excluding the evacuation (which was not at all like what you'd imagine. No Day After Tomorrow pandemonium, instead "You can't be in the barracks or in the area. Just go somewhere for a few hours. And don't let me open up one of them rooms and catch you sleeping."), not a whole lot has happened. A couple guys and myself ventured off to Lakewood or one of those strange towns and enjoyed some McDonald's. We returned to find that the only thing that had changed was that the MPs were gone.

I still don't know what to believe. You hear some people saying that they actually DID find a bomb, and were going to blow it up with a 50 cal round. Uh.....k? Who knows. I've learned not to believe ANYTHING I hear. For all I know, Natalie Portman was coming through, and they got rid of us to prevent a feeding frenzy of sorts.

Natalie, if you're reading this, call me. I like long walks off of short piers, dressing the same as all of my friends and superiors, cleaning rifles, waking up early for exercise, and The Sopranos. And I don't live with my mom. Something to think about.

Calmly and Quickly!

2006-04-20T12:19:00.000-06:00

Once again, we're doing EIB training. I messed with a .50 cal machine gun, as in attaching a barrel and setting the 'headspace and timing', which basically means making sure the barrel and the pieces it works with are the proper distances apart, etc, so that the weapon system would operate correctly. Loads of fun. Then I went to the only other station that was set up, the call for fire station.

That's basically what the forward observers do to get the information that we mortar fellows need. Interesting look at the other side of the coin. That one was simple enough, so I ran through it a couple of times. Beyond that, my friends and I pretty much stood and sat around and felt sorry for ourselves for having to do this, and we also made fun of each other, which we do a lot. I just bought my ACUs (Army Combat Uniform - http://www.rangeroutfitters.com/acu.htm -), which the army is slowly transitioning to use as its official uniform. When we were in basic training, the Army Chief of Staff, General Schoomaker, came out to our MOUT training because he was also going to attend the Best Ranger competition. He was wearing ACUs, and at the time, they were pretty rare. You'd only see high ranking personnel wearing them. So we've got a running joke that if you're wearing ACUs, you have way more clout than someone equal in rank to you who is wearing BDUs. We're losers like that.

As we were walking back to our barracks, we noticed a bunch of people standing outside of a building, and there were MPs all around, and one of them ran across the street to where we were and told us that we couldn't come through that way, and that we needed to calmly and quickly walk the other way and go around. Naturally we scoffed at him, but did as we were told, running our mouths the entire time. We assumed it was a bomb threat or something like that, which would make perfect sense, because everyone was standing right NEXT to the building in question. That's all I know for now, and odds are, it'll be nothing. There's your update, not a lot going on. We'll be working part of the weekends for a couple weeks, which is lame, but what can you do? I ordered an Xbox 360 online that should be here in a couple days, and with that, I intend to kill all monotony and boredom, whilst off duty.

Catch Up

2006-04-19T18:06:00.000-06:00

I've been shamming the past two days, trying to make up the SRP paperwork (Soldier Readiness Program or some weird crap like that). I was gone when everyone else did it, and so far, I've only made up the injections, which are always fun. I've been running around left and right trying to get this done, but everyone is telling me something different.

"Oh, you have to have the training room schedule an appointment."

"Huh? No, just go over to S1 and they'll hook you up."

"Nah, just go over to the SRP by Waller Hall and you can do it then and there."

"Well, I'm afraid we can't help you without an appointment. You'll need to have the boys in the training room schedule an appointment."

I love this.

EIB A La Unrelentum

2006-04-12T22:00:00.000-06:00

Guess what we're doing? I'll give you a hint. It involves spending all our time training up for EIB. Calling for fire (a mortarman calling for fire...that's funny), grenades, bunch of different weapons, both operating them, correcting malfunctions, and assembling/disassembling them, to name a few.

Basically, a whole bunch of crap. You probably won't get any good or interesting news for a while. Oh, and if anyone would care to write and let me know how college would have been, that'd be great. ;)

Land Nav Pt II

2006-04-07T02:48:00.000-06:00

I'm done with the night land nav as well. Got a "go". Whatever that's worth. More shit ahead.

....Great.

Land Nav...Tedium

2006-04-05T20:10:00.000-06:00

The past two freaking days have been dedicated to the Land Navigation task for the EIB trials, which I completely hate as of now, just to let my beloved readers know. Let me break it down for you.

Fort Lewis is a rainforest. I don't mean like those idyllic movie backdrops that leaves room to walk around, HELL NO. No, this is more like your worst impression of NYC. Its every man, plant, creature, and aspect of nature for itself. Trees and brush and godknowswhat wrestling in a frozen battle royale with a moshpit proximity to each other. If you could freeze time and try to navigate through a moshpit or a riot, you'd have a slight idea of what this abomination of God (rainforest) is all about. Navigating in normal terrain isn't TOO bad, though I suck at every form of navigation, especially when it involves driving.

So there we are, a bunch of young, dumb, and ugly Joes, herded out into the woods to continue our EIB adventure. A quote I overheard when one dude said he didn't even want his EIB:

"You will GET your fucking EIB, and you will fucking LIKE it!!!" He then went on about how maybe the Joe should reclass and be a cook, and flip burgers, etc etc etc. I just chilled. At this point, I was already pissed off. Let's take a look at why, shall we?

Our hero has successfully completed a grueling roadmarch and qualified expert with his rifle. Sweeeet. Now he has 3 hours to find 2 out of 3 points. He is given a map, an answer sheet with coordinates, a compass, and a protractor. Go play. I plotted my start point and my three destinations on the map before stepping off, figured the azimuth (think angle I suppose) that I had to travel, and the distance to and fro, yaddah yaddah. As I stepped off, I had to do my best to stay on my azimuth (direction of travel is probably a better description) as well as monitor my pace count, which would tell me how far I've traveled.

Apparently I was an intruder in these woods. The trees are hostile. They LOVE to slap you in the face as you "Pardon me" your way through. My legs are covered in cuts and bruises, and my hands aren't doing much better. I could swim upstream with salmon better than I could crawl through these woods.

By some miracle, I found my closest point. Whoo hoo. I wrote down the letters and numbers from the sign, proof that I had been there, and began to travel towards my next points.

Let me spare you the details. "You are a NO-GO at this station." That means I failed. Get back in line, do not pass Go, do not collect EIB. Try again. All day yesterday I was doing this, hurt as HELL from the roadmarch, to the point where the night before, it was a challenge to roll over. It was an epic BATTLE to get out of bed in the morning. That kind of hurt. After the all-day land nav, it was time to do the night course. Needless to say, I failed. I love getting lost, its almost cooler than Richard Simmons. Almost. Tromping through the woods, using Vietnam era training as always, your mind begins to wander, usually debating on which direction your ankle or knee is most likely to break in. Then a tree slaps you in the eye, also fun.

I'd been doing this over and over for two days. Walking kilometers upon kilometers through thick woods. "No Go. Do it again." My morale withered with amazing speed. And while I'm complaining, let's be sure we get one thing straight.

I have a lot of respect for anyone who earns their EIB. Its not easy. I'm three events into the prerequisites, and I'm ready to kill someone. Personally, I think it would be cool to get one, but I'm not placing any hope on it. I don't want one, but I don't NOT want one. I just don't care about mine, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to try. This year may not be the year for me though.

I finally DID pass my day land nav, but remember how I said my expert rifle qualification seemed suspicious? Well, let me just say that my day land nav is also suspicious. More so. I still have to go back out tomorrow night and do the night navigation, but where I'm sitting now, if by some miracle or manipulation, I DO get my EIB, I'm not going to wear it. Not if I'm not earning it. I might as well go to one of the shops on post and just buy an EIB patch and put it on my BDUs. Maybe the higher ups just want their units to have a large number of EIB qualified soldiers, or something stupid like that. Whatever, already, it isn't mine. Just like that army achievement medal or whatever that's supposedly coming to me for that day out on the mortar range, where I didn't do shit but play with my camera, help prepare a few rounds, and fire ONE round....oh, and get wet.

Wish me luck on earning my now hollow award.

Aside from that subject, I'm doing very well, and actually don't have much to complain about.

Rifle Qualification

2006-04-03T17:56:00.000-06:00

So far as I know, there isn't REALLY a nightfire tonight. God I hope not. My feet still hurt, and I just realized that my asscheeks are chapped. I had forgotten how bad that sucks, which isn't THAT bad, but there's still the fact that your ass is chapped, and that can never be fun.

On to the meat of this update in the Quest For The Holy EIB. We joined another company for some fun on the rifle range. Nothing too special, really. I rezeroed my rifle (to a point, I'm still not positive its dead on, but whatever) and then stood in line to qualify. They gave us four 20 rounds mags each. When you qualify, you fire 20 rounds in the prone (or foxhole) supported position (you have a sandbag to rest your rifle on) and the other 20 in the prone UNsupported.

After a good four attempts, I finally managed to shoot expert. At that point, I was sick of shooting and figured I'd have to come back a later day and try again. So when the first target popped up, I put the red dot from my sight on it and squeezed the trigger, acting like the helicopter gunner from Full Metal Jacket, capitalizing on the infamous quote, "Get some!"

Figures, I stop caring, the targets uproot themselves and RUN to catch my bullets. So as of now, I'm still in it for the EIB. Tomorrow is Land Navigation, and we DO have to do a night course as well, so it'll be a late night. Yay for that.

EIB Roadmarch

2006-04-03T11:13:00.000-06:00

I've been gone the past week, but apparently all I missed was a long day of paperwork and plenty of needles. Now that I'm back, I was welcomed by a 3:30 wake-up to prepare for our 12 mile Expert Infantry Badge ruckmarch. To pass this phase of EIB testing, you have to complete the march in under three hours.

I got myself pumped ahead of time with the recordings of loud 20something year old men who scream for a living. Totally sweet. I brought the trusty iPod, but didn't bother using it, because I recalled that it was put out that we couldn't use them. So it stayed in my pocket like a little security blanket.

We crammed into a cattle truck with our rucksacks, and that's never fun, but usually not too bad. A slightly interesting experience the first couple times, then it becomes pretty mundane. I tried to catch some sleep on the way, but that never really works out. At most, you can daze a little, and that's if you have skill. When we arrived at our start point, we piled out, dropped our gear, and stretched out for a few minutes until we were told to get on the hardball (apparently it means "paved road"). Several companies, if not the whole battalion was out there, so it was pretty much a sea of young men with obscenely large backpacks and M4s. Standard issue for soldiers and students of inner-city LA schools.

Once we were given the command to begin, the aforementioned sea of backpacking, rifle toting, testosterone fueled Everymen became a river, lurching forward a bit with a creaky start. This is what the inside of an anthill must look like. It was like trying to drive on a freeway with no lanes. Already, everyone has their own pace, and there you are, wanting to take off, but the dipshit ahead of you is going so slow, and you don't really have an opening to go around. I KNOW you can atleast relate to this.

Before long, the Dudes On Crack (me) began to seperate themselves from the Dudes Who Hadn't Had Coffee Yet (them). There I was, completely full of myself because I did so well on our last six mile march. So I'm just shuffling along, passing people like a dude with a new Mustang, and before I knew it, I was past mile 3, and I was without a doubt The Coolest Guy On The Planet. Soon I started getting sick of running all the time, so I'd periodically look at my watch and calculate how much time I could spare. Factor in the time buffer that you want to have, and basically, your calculations don't matter, and you just keep on boogeying. I ended up finishing the first six miles in an hour and twenty minutes, roughly. That's pretty much what I expected, but Houston, we have a problem.

There's still another six miles to go.

At this point, I'm having to force myself to jog, and when I need a break, to take long, quick strides. Did I ever mention that roadmarches suck? The further I'm going, the more my feet are screaming at me while my endorphins take the day off, and my knees ache and I'd rather be eating milk and cookies and watching Spongebob. At certain points, older soldiers who already had their EIB set up points where they'd hand out styrofoam cups of gatorade (if I may be so bold as to call it that) and orange slices. Apparently oranges give you energy or something. I figured it was either that, or all the acid in it would upset our stomachs and make us that much more miserable. Neither would have surprised me. Graveyards of discarded styrofoam cups lay on the right side of the road for the next fifty meters or so, and orange peels were more or less randomly thrown. For a moment, I almost felt bad for whoever has to go clean all that up. It was at that moment that I did what any good samaritan would do. I threw my half full cup off to the right side of the road, and savagely tore an orange apart with my teeth as I strutted along. Hey, they TOLD us to leave the cups there.

Around mile 8, I, The Dude Who Is Not So Cool Or Good At Roadmarches As He Thought, cursed myself for not wearing underwear, as the chafing on the insides of my legs was making me feel slightly forlorn. It was also around this point that the sweat on my face dried to leave that nasty salt residue. The miles seemed to stretch on longer, which also wouldn't surprise me. Pretty soon, I was straight up sucking. I went into Fussy Baby Mode. I stayed there for pretty much the rest of the march. At mile 11, my legs put their conspiracy into effect and cramped up. I was not pleased with their mutiny, and at this point I couldn't really run, just shuffle and hobble. I kept checking my watch and I started to wonder. I'd be cutting it close. I swear, the guys walking back to encourage us had been saying, "Half a mile" for three miles. I crawled across the finish line at zombie speed and dropped my gear off to the side to have it inspected (to ensure I wasn't shamming and carrying a lighter load).

As of now, I feel like Tank Abbott just made me his lover, the tough way. We have to go qualify at the rifle range after lunch, and stay to do a nightfire qualification. A nap is in order.

The Recurring Fields

2006-03-23T19:05:00.000-07:00

So yes, we spent more time "under God's blanket" (what a friend referred to the sky as), playing Infantry, no mortar gear included this time.

Pause for wild celebrations that put Spring Break and Mardi Gras to shame.

The bad news was that we were....STAYING OUT IN THE FIELD AGAIN! None of us were in the least bit excited, considering we had just returned from sleeping in the dirt in Yakima, and we're all a bunch of whiny little babies who would rather play Fight Night Round 3 on PlayStation 2 than do our jobs.

As much as we kicked and screamed and clung to each other's legs, we still somehow ended up in the field. Nothing we could do about it now. So we coddled each other like lost orphans, took turns wiping our buddies' tears away, and loaded our magazines with blank rounds. Then we consumed living proof that God hates us: MREs.

The training exercise took place in the same spot that our bunker assault was, except the concertina wire was all gone, the bunkers and all the holes were filled in, and the tread marks from the combat engineers were also gone. One of my friends didn't even realize where we were til I said, "Remember carrying my lifeless corpse up this hill?" I love watching people being hit with realization, when it smashes into them with all the force of the generic fat drunk guy through a coffee table.

The way the mission basically ran down, we were divided into two teams, and the whole squad piled into a Stryker. One dude hadn't gone to Yakistan, so he'd never been in a Stryker before. Giddy. We lurched around, jammed together in that cliche sardine fashion, until we reached our stopping point and the vehicle commander spoke the magic words.

"Prepare to dismount......drop the ramp.....dismount!"

We piled out the back ramp about as fast as you can when you're hunkered down that low in such a cramped space. Imagine trying to keep up with a stampede in your house's crawlspace. Once we were on the ground, we peeled off the road and into the thick bushes and ferns that I love about as much as I love the common cold. There's nothing greater than trying not to trip while trying to keep up while trying not to catch a recoiling branch in the face. I'd prefer that over winning the lottery, becoming Hugh Hefner, or going to college. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm lying again. Silly me.

We had done this whole assault three times by the time we were done. Blank fire, live fire, and then another night iteration with blanks. Just after dismounting during the night operation, one of the team leaders stepped right into a two and a half foot ditch and completely ate it. So naturally, we were crashing through the woods, laughing the entire time. Even when we got to our little "ready spot".

Back to the story.

In each case, after coming through the aforementioned woods, we'd arrive at a spot where we'd chill out (and by that, I mean pull 360 degree security) while we waited for our signal to move out and assault. Once that happened, you can probably guess what we did. We moved out and assaulted. Run to a spot with your team, hit the dirt behind a burm, shoot at unarmed targets (I'm remorseless like that), repeat, until we reach the end of the course. As always, I don't want to go into too much detail, because even though pretty much anyone could get the information on these tactics, I'd rather be safe than stupid.

And for the record, I still hate NODs (the nightvision devices), and they also hate me, and choose to fog up, and refuse to adjust properly to my eyes. Its very comical watching me in action. I make Pauly Shore look good.

We were relieved to find that we wouldnt be spending the rest of the week in the field, but rather just the night, but there was still a chance we'd be able to go back that night. We held on to that dream with a deathgrip that would make Sly Stallone proud. Well, dreams are made to be broken, as I realized while I zipped my sleeping bag up under God's blanket.

Yakistan

2006-03-18T16:31:00.000-07:00

I spent the last week "in the field", and by that, I mean at Yakima Training Center. We, my friends, played the part of the bad guy, the OPFOR (opposing force). You'd think that'd be pretty fun right? Well, at times it was.

We woke up on Sunday and got all of our gear loaded up, and played the waiting game. Then some E6 (Staff Sergeant) came out and rattled off a lot of words to us, which we pretended to listen to, and we then finally piled into two vans, and down the Yellow Brick Road did we travel to this fun training center we'd been hearing about.

How the HELL is there a desert in Washington?!

That's what everyone was calling this area, a desert, and I suppose it made sense. Then I realized that it looked exactly like the place I grew up for 12 years in Montana. I grew up in a freaking DESERT?! Dirt and dust everywhere. And this was at the Yakima military installation, I'm not even talking about the actual field.

We got our barracks for the night and crashed there after many hours of boredom. Invest in a PSP if you're in the army, I'm probably going to go out and buy one after I post this. Better investment than the ACUs...

The next morning, we loaded all our gear up into an FMTV (big truck) and we piled into humvees and strykers to ride out there. I'd never ridden in a humvee before, so that was pretty sweet. The doors are like rubber tarps with metal rods for the frame. Reassuring. Humvees are pretty noisy too. Strykers are actually more quiet, believe it or not. After a long, dusty, boring, bumpy convoy ride, we arrived at our destination and more or less set up camp. And then we, the OPFOR, did NOTHING. We seriously didn't do anything at all the whole day. Why are we here?

I remember coming out of one of the Porta Johns and seeing all the vehicles in the camp and the soldiers hanging out in small colonies with this huge open sky above our plateaulike hill, and a river ran around two sides of our camp off in the distance, and on the other side of it was some small town, and the sun was setting, and it reminded me of a scene from the original Star Wars where Luke is on Tattooine and is being a big whiny baby because no one loves him and James Earl Jones didn't hug him enough as a kid, and he's watching two of the suns set. I thought it would be funny to take the panorama I recorded and add that mellow star wars music, because I am a really big dork.

The next day, we prepared for our first ambush. Let me spare you the monotony and let you know how all of our attacks against the infidels went.

-Prepare, takes like five minutes.
-Ride to ambush site, takes like 20 minutes.
-Prepare ambush, takes like 10 minutes.
-Wait, takes like two hours.
-Engage the stupid heartless evil American imperialistic dogs with the most massive Jihad ever, takes like two minutes if Allah even remotely likes you, otherwise thirty seconds.
-Be dead and wait, takes like anywhere from a half hour to two hours.
-Return to camp and wait for another mission, takes like two or three more comings of Christ. I swear I saw him walk by a few times while I was out there.

Repeat.

Now, for OPSEC reasons or whatever, I'm not really going to touch on how we ambushed them and how they reacted and what worked well and what didn't. Besides, I had enough of that at the repetitive AARs (After Action Report).

Anyway, just heading out there, or when we'd roll out in Strykers to do another mission, or anything, just having all those vehicles around and people doing the jobs they signed up to do, I actually felt a little like an actual soldier. Strykers are cramped inside, and when they lurch forward, they make a sound that you'd figure a big five year old with a tuba would make. I found this slightly entertaining. More entertaining than when I found out that dust and sand had gotten inside the earpieces to my iPod. The field is rough. Especially when you're sleeping outside because you and your friends dont have your own vehicle yet, and everyone else is racked out inside their strykers, humvees, and five-tons, and when you wake up for your 0200 guard shift, you find that your sleeping bag is covered with a thick layer of frost. I pouted.

An LT from the unit we were supporting dubbed me Chandler, from Friends. Apparently I've always got some witty quip or remark. I suppose I could see that happening. Overall, for as long as I was out there, not a whole lot really happened a lot. Maybe I'll write more if the mood catches me, because I'm clearly not into it right now. So yeah, in summary, we went out to a desert and did stuff.
"How was your week dear?"
"Fine."
"That's good."

Mortar Range Revisited

2006-03-09T22:04:00.000-07:00

We just returned from another fun filled day out on one of the mortar points. We woke up this morning, got all of our gear ready, and then waited, as always. Waiting is more sure and more recurring than the wildfire spread of reality television and low calibur Hollywood films. Get used to it. By the way, the average American spends some ungodly fraction of their lives waiting in line. Something to think about.

Once we arrived at our mortar point, naturally, the weather was bad. The gods of weather couldn't decide if they felt like raining or snowing, so they threw in plenty of both. Cold and wet, welcome to Fort Lewis. We set our cute little 60mm mortars up quickly enough, and then waited a couple HOURS for the ammo truck to deliver the rounds for us. Yes, logically, we could have stayed back in the rear (back at our barracks for you civilian types), until that afternoon. But WHERE is the fun in logic? Sorry, there is none. I prefer to shiver.

At one point, I was sitting in the back of the MTV (deuce and a half, whatever you'd like to call the stereotypical big green army truck with the back covered by tarp) in front of a propane heater, holding my gloves in front of it in an attempt to dry them. Steam rose from them, making me wonder if they were burning. They weren't. But they were pretty much useless for the rest of the day.

By some blessing of the spirits of productivity, our ammo finally arrived, and we spent a short time opening the crates, then the ammo cans, then the cardboard tubes that held the rounds, and we removed all of the excess packing, and it was the absolute most intense thing I've ever done. Heart pounding, non-stop action. And I'm a liar.

So now your guns are up and your rounds are ready, time to rock, right? WRONG! The other mortar was having all sorts of trouble getting layed in or something. They couldn't seem to get on target, and maybe our Forward Observers were sucking, maybe the sight was off, maybe the gunner is craptastic, who knows. My team played the Wait and Freeze game. It was AWESOME!

After all of that was finally over, we slowly picked up momentum. My sniper friend, who was out there for pretty much no reason, was complaining about how boring the mortar job is. Hey pal, eat me. You didn't get stiffed by being put in a mortar platoon in basic. Allow me to digress:

This site is called Eleven-Bravo, because I thought that my MOS was going to be 11B (Infantry). When you enlist for infantry, the temporary MOS (Military Occupational Specialty; Job) is 11X. X is the universal variable I guess.

Me: "K, I want Infantry as my MOS."
Recruiter: "Ok, we'll sign you up as eleven x-ray.'
Me: "Uh, I want eleven-bravo."
Recruiter: "11X IS infantry. That's the enlistment MOS for infantry."

I figured that they had changed the nomenclature for infantry or something. I didn't know that there were various forms of infantry, like REAL Infantry (11B) or Infantry With Mortar Specialization And The Wonderful Position of Being Shit On By The 11Bs And Receiving No Respect Or Praise Whatsoever (11C). But whatever, I'm a mortarman, I like it, it has its moments, I still get to do gung ho G.I. Joe trigger puller shit, so it all works just fine. I don't need to be figuratively fellated by everyone else in the army because I chose a particular flavor of army green.

Would I have come off a little less bitter if I would have just drowned a kitten instead of writing that? Close race.

Back to some shred of a point, after a slow and creaking start, we finally got it together, and were able to rock. I spent most of the time prepping the rounds, pulling extra charges (little half donut yellow looking things that ignite upon firing and propel the round through the air) off, setting the fuse to Impact or whatever the fire mission called for, pulling off the safety pin, and handing it to the dude hanging the rounds. When I wasn't doing that, I was practising my papparazi powers by whipping out the video camera and recording the wonderful destruction we rained upon the forests of Washington. Call it revenge.

My sniper buddy hung quite a few rounds, and at the end of the night, since I was done being the ammo bitch, I dropped the remaining rounds into the Wonder Tube and sent them on a one way trip to the rainforest, where they left their mark. Wait, no, I think I only fired off infrared illumination rounds. Oh well, its all the same at the end of the day. Here's a profound statement.

"Combat medics are the shit because they are sick, twisted fucks." -Me.

Our ears rang like bells today, and we had fun. I think I like my recruiter.

Another Roadmarch, and I Am Awesome

2006-03-07T09:34:00.000-07:00

So we, the mighty "Leg" (non Airborne, non Ranger) Infantry fellas had ourselves another roadmarch, again, preparing us for the EIB. This was a 6 mile roadmarch to be completed in an hour and a half. Our platoon sergeant shaved an extra ten minutes off of the goal.

We stood around at our start point for a couple minutes, until we were given the 'Go'. I started walking with a friend of mine, but to be honest, he was all moody and down over some girl, so I did what any truly caring, concerned, and loyal friend would do. I took off and left him behind me, cuz it was bringing me down a little. Once I was far enough away from the start point, I pulled out my little iPod, tied it off to my belt loop the way we used to tie down our 550 cord in basic (with which you tie a knot in for every canteen of water you've consumed that day) to keep it from getting lost. Leaving the body of it in my pocket, I ran the headphones up between my brown t-shirt and my BDU top, and put in one earpiece on the right, which was concealed by my kevlar, but six inches of white cable could be seen clear as day anyway.

Now, the past few years, I haven't been to into metal. More the melodic, progressive, and slightly bizarre music. I'd been into Tool and A Perfect Circle heavily, The Mars Volta, and a few other bands here and there. But since I've been in the army, I've slowly regained my taste for sonic ass-kicking. So naturally, my iPod is crammed with songs by Disturbed (the first album, only the best will suffice) and plenty of Slipknot. How can you NOT get pumped?

So anyway, there I am, rucking my cute little heart out, passing up the guys in my platoon who took off faster. Wasn't long before I was in 3rd place, behind this tall lanky guy from Arkansas who can ruck like nobodies business. The supply Sgt that I unloaded on with blanks last week was in first. I blame his Airborne history.

I ran almost the entire way. Yes, I did walk a bit, because rucking kind of sucks a lot. For the most part, I'd be doing what is called the "Airborne Shuffle", which isn't necessarily running, but is certainly not walking. There were a couple times were I actually fell in to the rear of PT formations where guys were running in formation. You are correct, I do happen to be a smartass.

One thing about roadmarches is that you want to stay hydrated, because you sweat a lot. However, you don't want to drink too much water, because then you'll be kicked in the gut by the Nausea God. This may be a phenomenon with me alone, I don't know, but roadmarching makes my nose run, but in a sticky manner. I blow a lot of snot-rockets while rucking. At one point, my aim was not so true, and a thick, translucent gob of nose syrup shot out and clung to one of my shoulder straps. As I walked, I recall looking at my mess with an agitated look that likely spelled out, "....Why?"

I ended up finishing 2nd, behind the demonic supply sergeant. The tall Arkansan dude, as far as my suspicions go, let me beat him. He finished up practically right behind me, and I seriously think he could have burned my nerdy ass if he wanted to.

But since he didn't, I rule, and everyone should worship me. And no, this does not mean that I will become "high speed", or some sort of super soldier. I will still treat this endeavor as though I am crawling across a sea of broken glass, with an affectionate whining. Its what I do.

Happy trails, I'm off to some random range that I know nothing about because I didn't pay attention, but instead focused on not throwing up water at the finish line.

Thoughts On Basic Training

2006-03-04T15:16:00.000-07:00

Basic was a hell of a fifteen weeks for me. I know I've touched on it a couple times before, but its hard to tell the whole broken, blurry story. Our first week, the inprocessing week, seemed to be the longest week by far. That's when broken privates who couldnt hack basic yelled at us as we were issued PT sweats, and where we had thick gooey penicillin shot into our asses. After that week, time passed relatively quick...for the most part.

You first arrive there, and the drill sergeants are playing all kinds of mindgames. There is no right answer, you are an idiot, and you are SHIT outta luck, pal. Everyone will always be screwed over when one dude messes up, and odds are, you'll have a couple people that are constantly screwing everything up. You lose count of the smoke sessions, of how many times you've been woken up in the middle of the night and were annihilated because the fireguards were sleeping when a drill sergeant walked in. You forget what real food is like, the fatty, greasy, kill-you-next week fast food burgers, huge pizzas, all of that. Nicotein is a thing of the past. Then again, so is free time for the most part.

Odds are, you'll get sick, and holy GOD will it suck. I was in pretty ba shape through most of basic. For about half of it, I was having back pain constantly, and when I got really sick and came down with bronchitis, constantly coughing made it hurt even worse. I could only sleep in ONE position. I remember a couple occasions where we'd been running the PT track, doing sprints and things like that, and my lungs would close up and it was nearly impossible for me to breathe. The drill sergeants thought I had asthma, and a couple times, I wished I did, so I could just get med dropped. But you never REALLY want that. You'll see other dudes do it, but what's the point of quitting? Its only 9 weeks, or 14 weeks in my case. Either way, its all temporary.

The thing about EVERY shitty day in the Army is this: Its just like every day period. No matter how horrible and impossible it is, it always ends. No day is eternal. Days become weeks, and soon you're wearing your jacked up Class A's or Class B's with your freebie ribbons, out on pass or fresh from graduation, seeing women again for the first time in ages, and you realize that they DO exist.

I remember a few of us from my basic training platoon going to Martin Army whatever hospital, because I was getting bloodwork done or some crap like that, and we stopped in the shopette to buy food. We thought we were smooth by taking our earplug cases and our 550 cord (used to tie knots in to keep track of water consumed) off of our collars, trying not to look like basic trainees. Didn't work so well. You see, we all had shaved heads, soft caps (can't wear the beret until you graduate), no unit patches on our shoulders, and most of us had no rank on our collar. Privates always think they're smooth and that they can beat the system, but you can't. As you learn more about the army, you realize how dumb you are, and its pretty comical.

There are always those kids that are constantly breaking the rules and trying to get away with it. The kind of guys that will go to sick call to get out of training, possibly to buy some contraband. They're called Shitbags. I always stayed away from those guys, because they aren't really worth the time and energy it takes to be around them, and guilty by association is an ugly thing.

Basic is something you'll actually miss, and kinda want to do again. Yeah, it SUCKS. But there's something about it that I can't quite touch on. My drill sergeants were the shit, even though they were like rabid rotweilers. You can't come out of basic without a fistful of funny stories (and hopefully a couple grand in the bank). We subjected a couple unbeknowing guys to The Impossible Sit-Up (consult the movie 'Heavyweights'). Hell, my memory kind of sucks, which is probably why I'm doing this. When I'm talking to some of my friends in my platoon that I went to basic with, the stories come out. For example, during the first week, we weren't ALL in bed in time, so our senior drill sergeant smoked the bejesus out of us. There were guys running out of the showers in their towels, then doing pushups etc, losing their towels in the process. Well, we didn't get to stretch out or anything, and immediately when he was done, we had I think 10 seconds to get in our bunks, under the covers. After I'd been asleep for about 20 minutes, I woke up to the absolute worst cramp I've ever had in my life. It was in my right calf, and the left one was trying to cramp up too, but I caught that one in time. The right one, however, was clenched so tightly, it was like a rock. I'd never seen it balled up like that before. I'd punch and grab at it and there was absolutely no give at all. It went a little something like this...

Fifty five stupid enlistees are laying in their bunks, light from the latrine spills out of one door and across the Kill Zone. The silence is suddenly shattered by the surprised and agonized cries of "Ah!? Ahhh! Gaaaahhh!!! FUCK ME!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!"

Everyone is startled and wake up from their fresh dozes, some wonder if people are engaging in wild homosexual intercourse, others wonder if someone is dying, others assume that this nerdy voice is having withdrawals from women, but in no time, a laughing crowd gathers around the bunk of the victim. Different advice from twenty different people drones over each other, most of it wrong, and they try to get this dude to his feet so he can walk it off. Not going to happen. Eventually, a big black dude who used to play college football for Rutgers in New Jersey (or something like that) gets fed up with the dying shrieks of some young dumbass with a muscle cramp, and gets up to squeeze the knot out. Yes, he definitely had football experience.

To this day, I still hear about the "Fuck me!" episode. Or the time one guy buttstroked another dude with his M16 because he was pissed off about something stupid. Or the kid who didnt wear anything under his PT sweats, and then had to explain to the drill sergeant that he couldnt remove his sweats because he had nothing on. Or the kid that put his kevlar helmet on backwards and actually wore it like that until a drill sergeant, not sure if he was being a smartass or if he was just a moron, corrected him. I've got a million of them, and they seem to randomly pop up here and there, but never on demand unfortunately.

The trick to basic, and pretty much else, is to bitch and vent quietly if you need to, but adopt the mentality to just say, "Fuck it" and just get it done. Keep your chin up and your head down and do what you're told, and just wait it out. Basic isn't the real army. Its mainly there as a crash course and to weed out some of the selfish, useless wastes of space. The ones that make it through generally later tend to get themselves in trouble with the freedom at their duty station, especially with drugs. All you really have to do to successfully navigate basic is just keep on trucking, shrug off the bad and bask in the good.

And then you, too, will someday be bored in your barracks room, and decide to wrap up your post so you can walk to the PX and grab some food to kill some time.

Too easy.

Dude, Where's My Post?

2006-03-02T22:48:00.000-07:00

So yes, we did in fact spend the night in the field, and what a magical day it was. We walked through the woods with mortar equipment, randomly setting up when instructed to. To anyone who, for some ungodly reason, has ever wondered what its like to move through the woods with all that gear, imagine what it would sound like if elephants were tiptoeing through a forest. Gear snagging on branches and bushes, which then cordially welcome you to their habitat by striking you in the face. Once night fell, we practiced even more emplacement drills. I could write about flossing my teeth, and it would be more interesting.

After we finished, we basically stood around and BSed, sharing stories with our First Sergeant, it was pretty sweet, and you would have had to have been there. Too bad you weren't. It was cooler than Tony Danza.

The next morning, we packed up. A friend of mine and I decided we were going to ambush our supply sergeant, who was picking up breakfast for us. We loaded up a mag of blanks each and walked a for a while down the road, and found a pile of broken furniture and vacuums, etc, that we used to block the road. I climbed into a tree that hid me from his view as he approached, and gave me a perfect shot when he'd stop and get out to move all the junk. Taking my blank adapter off (to make the shot louder and more intimidating), my friend and I decided that once I fired, he'd pop up with his rifle on burst and really let him have it.

Yes, we're total geeks. Its awesome.

And so we waited in our positions, with anticipation welling up inside us. I felt like a liddle kid again, waiting to nail someone with a water balloon. We waited, and waited, and waited. Soon, we hear his truck coming, and realize he took a different road. Ruined.

So we walked back, feeling useless, and I decided that I was going to get him, one way or another. Our platoon sergeant had prior knowledge of our ambush, as it was his idea. My friend went back to the camp, and I started stalking through the brush. Within thirty seconds, my pants were soaked from crawling through the bushes and across the moss. I got a decent visual of some of the camp, but couldn't positively ID my mark, so I get back down and crawl some more.

At a snails pace, I'm getting closer, while the whole time I can hear them talking as they eat, and I wonder if they can hear me. My arms were smoked in no time, crawling that distance, but this was too good. For some geeky reason, I was all fired up to commit this solitary annoying and ultimately inconsequential act.

I had finally made it so close, another minute or two, and I'd have a guaranteed shot, seeing as I was only sporting an M4, and not some godly sniper rifle. Unfortunately, by then, it was time to start loading up, so my platoon sergeant is calling for me to get my ass back there. "Dammit" doesn't quite say it, but its an excellent try. Turns out, they didn't know I was there, which was surprising. If they'd posted guards, I'd have been found I'm sure.

So we're getting ready to load up, and my platoon sergeant takes off. Then he turns right back around and tells us that the sergeant major is on his way out. So me and my pal set up a couple roadblocks, where we can supervise two roads. We pile up big branches that no humvee would want to drive over. I take cover behind a berm and he occupies a hole, and we wait. After a good ten to fifteen minutes pass, a big green deuce and a half truck comes rolling in and annihilates our roadblock. Great. So once again, we decide to bring it back in.

Turns out, he was never coming. Go figure. By now, I was frustrated, and I was talking with the supply sergeant, my previous mark, and he asked me what happened with our supposed ambush. I explained what had happened as I screwed my blank adapter (basically a metal plug that attaches to the end of the barrel for use with blank rounds) back onto my weapon.

He turned his back to get something out of his truck, and I lit him up, twenty rounds. I wish you all could have seen him jump. It wasn't as glorious as I had originally planned, but dammit, I got him. I filled my tag.

Since then, nothing cool has happened. I'm now busy converting oxygen into carbon dioxide.

Comments

2006-03-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

Thank you and hello to everyone who takes the time to leave comments. I'm not always good about responding to them sometimes, though I suppose I should start. Glad to hear from all of you. I'm heading out to the field now, for yet another night under the stars, and by that I mean rainclouds. I'll fill you in on anything interesting when I get back.

Happy trails.