Adding Insult To Injury

The death of Al-Zarqawi is a wonderful victory here in Iraq, as U.S. forces were finally able to get decent intelligence, moved on that intelligence, and finally eliminated a cowardly murderer that we had been searching for since the beginning of the war. Al-Zarqawi has waged a murderous war against innocent Iraqi’s using car bombs and suicide bombers. He is believed to have beheaded Nicholas Berg, a 26-year-old businessman from the United States. Certainly this will be welcome news to Berg’s family, correct? Uh, no, not according to Berg’s father.

"I think al-Zarqawi's death is a double tragedy," Michael Berg said after learning a U.S. airstrike had killed the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. "His death will incite a new wave of revenge. George Bush and al-Zarqawi are two men who believe in revenge." Berg said the blame for most deaths in Iraq should be placed on President Bush, who he said is "more of a terrorist than Zarqawi."

What a jackass. What a complete and total jackass. Let me begin by saying that, I have had a certain feeling of sympathy for the Berg family based on what happened. But Nicholas Berg was told not to go to Iraq on several occasions by both American civilian authorities and by military authorities, therefore the blame for Nicholas Berg’s death in Iraq falls on no one other than Nicholas Berg himself.

In light of these completely ignorant and self serving comments by Michael Berg, I have lost not only any sympathy I felt for their family, but any respect I ever had for them in dealing with this tragedy. How interesting is it that Michael Berg makes these comments while running for Delaware’s only House seat as a member of the Green Party, and is using his son’s death as a way to garner attention for his political platform.

"Zarqawi felt my son's breath on his hand as held the knife against his throat. Zarqawi had to look in his eyes when he did it," Berg said. "George Bush sits there glassy-eyed in his office with pieces of paper and condemns people to death. That to me is a real terrorist."

What?? Okay, so now Michael Berg has some sick sort of respect for Zarqawi, because he ‘had to look in’ his son’s eyes as he CUT OFF HIS FREAKING HEAD??? Is that the litmus test for acceptability when murdering someone? So it’s okay to saw off a person’s head with a knife, as long as you look into their eyes? Also, I can tell you from personal experience, American and coalition troops are working with Iraqi troops and the Iraqi people, we are not on any ‘terrorist’ campaign over here.

For Michael Berg to make a statement like that and call our commander and chief a terrorist is a condescending take on every person in the military, we are NOT terrorists by any stretch of the imagination, we are here to help the Iraqi people regain control of their country and set up a representative form of government. If Michael Berg were to come over here and actually tour any of the American bases, at least then he would be qualifed to make some sort of statement about what we are doing. But no, he has not been here, he is merely another mouthpiece for the radical left wing, spouting off anti war rhetoric from the 60’s in the hope of living out another Vietnam era, something that, thank God, is not going to happen.

Current Lyrical Ramblings

You just stood there screaming
Fearing no one was listening to you
They say the empty can rattles the most
The sound of your voice must soothe you
Hearing only what you want to hear
And knowing only what you've heard
You… you're smothered in tragedy
You're out to save the world

My Friend Of Misery – Metallica

Oh The Wonderful Military Doctors

Things are going well. When I got back from my two weeks of leave last month I wasn’t feeling too well. Hard to describe but that lethargic feeling was overwhelming, my chest was hurting, I was just run down. I tried running a 10K, and was disappointed terribly with my performance. I ran it in 57 minutes, roughly 8 minutes slower than my last one. Now, I was 10 lbs heavier than I was when I ran the last one, and I hadn’t been running, but even so, I was really disappointed with myself.

So I went in and the military is now doing some blood tests to try and see if they can pinpoint if I have a virus that just won’t go away, bacterial infection, or what. Don’t get your hopes up folks. I wrote down everything I have been feeling over the last two years, all the symptoms, what I think it might be, only to have the jackass military doctor tell me “Oh my, you wasted your time doing all of this, we will run our own tests and stuff, so let me ask you, what do you think is wrong?”

Of course, I wanted to punch the lazy son of a bitch in the face. Rather than take one minute to read over what I had written down, he decides to insult me like that. I wrote it all down so I wouldn’t forget to tell him anything and then he just discounts it with an idiot smile and wave of his hand. Then the audacity to ask a question for which the answer was sitting in his hands. I replied with some sarcasm “You know sir, I have worked on cars for a long time, and when someone comes in with a specific problem and such as, the engine isn’t getting fuel, I don’t start off by checking the tire pressure and the tail lights.”

He got pretty pissed about that comment, which was fine with me. I found his behavior to be ignorant and disrespectful. I smoothed things out by the time I left, I was set up for a blood draw which they did two days later. It will be 3 weeks before the results are in though. I’m feeling a little better lately, which makes me wonder if this is a virus or bacterial infection that keeps flaring up but never completely goes away? I just want to know WHAT it is, you know?

I’ve got a reasonable chance of gaining an E-7 rank while I’m over here in Iraq, as long as a slot opens up somewhere in Nebraska, I’m fairly confident it will. I’m the next in line in the entire state to get a Sergeant First Class ranking. It would make things a lot easier in terms of finding a unit to go to in California, I could just find a slot and spend my next 3 years there. It also means more pay while I’m here in Iraq and that’s important too.

By the way sweety, I do not have a pet elephant.

Current Lyrical Ramblings

Well some say I'm lazy
And others say that's just me
Some say I'm crazy
I guess I'll always be

One In A Million – Guns N Roses

Military Relations (Part II)

I understand that Iraq, while dangerous, was not nearly as perilous as facing the German army and air force in WWII. Foster’s descriptive details of the battlefield and combat were very interesting to me. The enemy we face in Iraq is not nearly so organized, no where near the sheer numbers or support such as the Germans of WWII. What the soldiers faced back then on a daily basis was just unbelievable.

I was impressed by Foster’s ability to remember the names of people he knew from some 60 years ago. I don’t remember the mess sergeant’s name from just 10 years ago in Nebraska City. These days our food is prepared by civilian contractors, where as in WWII they had to survive often on “K” and “C” rations, neither of which sound all that great by comparison. We have MREs, Meals Ready To Eat, but we rarely ever eat them, because our chow halls have pretty good food. In WWII they were not afforded such luxuries, instead eating whatever rations they had, supplemented at times by “local cuisine.”

In December of 1944, the Seventh Army was heavily involved in the Battle of the Bulge, one of the most historic and important battles of WWII. Now, it gets incredibly hot here in Iraq, exceeding 130 degrees at times. But I would take the blistering heat any day over the bitter chill endured by the troops during the 1944 winter in Europe. January 1944 turned out to be perhaps the most important and difficult month for Foster’s battalion, as the artillery batteries fired more than 27,000 rounds of ammunition that month alone. The units were constantly repositioning to meet any enemy threat the Germans could muster.

Here in Iraq, we continue to modify our operating procedures to try and maintain better relations with the Iraqi people. We do not consider the typical Iraqi citizen to be our enemy, therefore we try to avoid warning shots, maintain a less aggressive show of force, and drive along with traffic rather than forcing them to the side of the road when we drive by. It’s important to maintain security, but to also put forth a friendly posture, because most of the insurgent activity is not done by Iraqi citizens, but by foreign fighters trying to destabilize the Iraqi government.

These foreign insurgents are killing innocent Iraqis as well as American soldiers, therefore by working with the Iraqi people, we can develop a trusting relationship in order to squash the insurgency. We have yet to suffer any injuries or deaths from combat. While our training, tactics and NCO leadership is a huge part of that, we’ve also been very lucky. We hope this continues. Few units if any were so lucky during WWII. This is what happens with “force on force” combat, something we don’t see in Iraq.

We wear our individual ballistic armor and other protective gear whenever we are out on the road, and during high threat times “inside the wire” on post, but we don’t face bullets wizzing over our heads on continual basis. Hearing that, along with artillery landing nearby, and enemy planes flying overhead, I don’t know if a soldier in WWII would ever get fully used to that. Then came the enemy jet, the ME 262, the first jet fighter plane. This must have been amazing to the allied troops in Europe, having never seen anything like it before. I wonder how Foster and the other men reacted upon first seeing them, it must have been awe inspiring, even as deadly as they were.

On Easter Sunday, 2006, I was barely able to walk, the effects of having run a marathon the day before. On Easter Sunday 1944, Foster’s unit was crossing the Rhine River in Germany. At this point, the allied forces were pushing the Germans back faster than ever. Enemy prisoners of war were adding up, and they continued to advance into Germany, stopping periodically whenever encountering resistance, to do fire missions.

06 April 1944: One battery supporting the 19th Armored Infantry helped liberate a POW camp, many of the prisoners having escaped earlier came out of the woods, crying as the allied troops rescued them. I cannot imagine what that would be like, such a wash of emotion it must have been to liberate your fellow troops, even if they were soldiers you had never met before.

05 May 1944: Victory Europe!!! How incredible this must have been, after years of fighting, not knowing how it might end, things looking bleak at times, advancing on the enemy deep in Europe, and suddenly, it’s all over with. From his recollections, it sounds as if Foster got to see quite a bit of Germany following VE day. He got a good look at the German ME 262 fighter jet and had the same conclusion I did about the plane, that it would have been more effective earlier in the war when they would have been able to build more of them and keep them up with parts and supplies.

Foster noted the incredible damage in Munich, Germany, with entire city blocks laid out completely in rubble. Some 50,000 people were killed during air raids in the city. This illustrates the major difference in the weapons when compared to the weapons we have now. I have toured many of the concrete bunkers here in Tallil, built by Saddam Hussein during the Iran/Iraq war of the 1980’s. In several of the bunkers, you could find rooms in the basement that had rebar and huge piles of cement as though they had just fallen away from the ceiling for no reason.

I asked one of the Iraqi contractors about this, an English educated engineer who actually helped with the design and construction of many of the bunkers back then. He laughed when I questioned the quality of the construction of the bunkers. He pointed out that it was the United State Air Force’s precision bombing that gave the bunkers an outward appearance of being unscathed, yet decimated specific areas inside the bunkers. This was during the first gulf war, and it’s an amazing testament to how advance our weapons systems are nowadays. There would have been no way to get this kind of precision during WWII without collateral damage and civilian deaths. But now, you can take out a building next door to a library or church without worrying about destroying them. You can never completely eliminate civilian casualties during war, but it’s important to do what you can to reduce that number.

From what he wrote, Foster and his unit did see a lot of Germany. It’s interesting how he took notice of the many historical areas, where Hitler was nearly killed, where the Nazi party was started, among the more interesting sites. Here in Iraq I have seen a multitude of historically significant places. I remember walking on the Temple of Ur, thinking to myself that I was standing on a building more than 5000 years old, the most significant building of it’s time and the largest in the world by far in it’s time. The house of Abraham is another one, it was incredible to be walking around on the same floor stones as a man so synonymous with the histories of every monotheistic religion on the planet. I was utterly in awe. There were also many of Saddam’s palaces, most of those are now being used to quarter high ranking officers of the United States military (yah, imagine THAT!)

In July of 1945, Foster’s unit began the long journey back home, heading first by train from Germany back to France to Camp Lucky Strike, a dusty collection of tents near Le Havre. He wrote about all of the towns he saw along the way, and also of the massive railroad gun, which I saw pictures of in those Time Life WWII books. Undeveloped film was not allowed to be taken back to the USA, so Foster spent several late nights developing his film into photographs by hand in a tray.

It’s interesting that now during this digital age, everyone seems to have a camera that can transmit images simply by connecting it to a computer. This also contributes to some major problems, as seen by the images of the Abu Graihb prison and other photos of behavior that should not have been going on. In the days of WWII, photography wasn’t nearly so easy to do, which may have been a good thing, considering. I would like to see Foster’s photo collection, perhaps the next time belly and I are in Wisconsin. I believe it would be very interesting.

On July 25, 1945, Foster left France for the United States on luxury liner that had been refitted as a troop carrier. He arrived in New York on August 2, and was promptly given 30 days leave. He boarded a train for Wisconsin and was given orders to report to Camp Cooke, California, at the end of his leave. There preparations were being made for a landing in Japan in the Pacific, where the war still raged on.

Of course, because of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that never happened. On August 14, 1945, Japan surrendered, and WWII was finally over. Foster still boarded a train for Camp Cooke, and over the next six months got into a stateside Army routine. He was able to visit a lot of different places on the west coast on his weekends off, and on February 6, 1946, he was honorably discharged from service in the United States Army.

We likely have about 4 months left here in Iraq, and when we get back stateside, we’ll have about a week to 10 days of demobilization. This will consist of accountability of equipment, security classes, sensitivity training, counseling, and awards ceremonies. While I will not have 6 months of active duty to do upon arriving back in the states, I’ll have about 3 years left to reach 20 years of service, at which point I may retire if I choose to do so. Of course belly will have 2 years left in the Marine Corps at that time, so we’ll just have to see where things take us.

I have the utmost respect for the service members who fought in World War II. I have a hard time comparing what I am doing now to what those brave men did some 60 years ago. At present, there is little hope for unorganized radicals to defeat our military thru the use of sporadic cowardly bombings. But during WWII, there were times when it really appeared Germany and Japan might win the war, and even as isolated geographically as the United States was, the strike at Pearl Harbor was a wake up call, that we as a nation could not sit idly by and isolate ourselves from the problems of the world. We were a part of that world. What are we when good men do nothing in the face of tyranny?

The history of World War II, what led up to it, the actual battles, the aftermath, should all be a mandatory class for all American high school students. I fear that many do not understand the incredible sacrifices made by our armed forces during WWII, how those sacrifices protected the very freedoms we enjoy today. The media no longer promotes heros, instead focusing on vilifying the military with every chance they get. Although good stories outnumber the bad in Iraq 1000 to 1, all you hear on the news is about the negative situations that happen on a rare basis.

By studying WWII, our youth will not only get a better understanding of the war and our world in general, but also it will help us to keep from repeating history, by recognizing the need for a strong military to preserve our very way of life.

I’m incredibly proud of my wife’s grandfather, he is a hero, as were all the soldiers, airmen, marines, and seamen during WWII, and all other armed conflicts our country has endured. They certainly should always be remembered as such.

Military Relations

This will be a two part post, due to it's length. Also, I am using only the first name of my wife's grandfather.

Studying World War II has been a hobby of mine that started in junior high when I read the Time Life WWII series of books. My wife’s grandfather wrote a detailed account of his time in the United States Army during WWII. I enjoyed reading his narrative, and found many similarities to my own service, as I’ve been in the Nebraska Army National Guard since 1990.

In 1943, my wife’s grandfather Foster arrived by train at Ft. Benning, GA, to begin 12 weeks of basic training at the Infantry School. As amazing as this sounds, my basic training and Infantry School at Ft. Benning more than 45 years later also lasted 12 weeks. Foster was assigned to an area at Ft. Benning called “Harmony Church”, living in a one story wooden structure. When I attended basic training, we were taught about the historic importance of Harmony Church, and we actually used a number of the old wooden barracks there for our first aid, map reading, and other classes.

We would road march to Harmony Church from Ft. Benning’s current Infantry School, located at Sand Hill. It was a 6 mile “hump” to Harmony Church, and I remember the same poison oak, snakes, black widow spiders, and other aspects of Ft. Benning that Foster wrote about. I took belly to Ft. Benning in April 2005 following her graduation from Marine boot camp at Parris Island, to see where both her grandfather and I had gone to basic training. We were told that the majority of Harmony Church has been torn down, but some buildings were saved for historical purposes. Sadly, the entire area was blocked off, we couldn’t even go up the road to see it.

Foster’s discussions of drill and ceremonies, or as he called them, “close order drills”, learning to use your rifle, M-1 for him, M-16 in my case, hand grenade throwing, digging fox holes, bayonet training, gas mask training, and road marches, all brought back memories of my time at basic training. Foster’s “hikes” were 25 miles, where our longest was just over 15 miles. His completion of basics was the mock combat training “in the swamps of Georgia”.

This is exactly how we finished our training, we called it a Field Training Exercise, where we put all of our training together in a combat environment. Upon reading his account of basic training, it was amazing to me how the basics of infantry instruction have remained the same, even as the tools and weapons have been updated, over a period of so many years.

After completing basic training, Foster was assigned to the 499th Armored Field Artillery Battalion at Ft. Campbell, Tennessee. Foster’s description of a field artillery unit was really interesting, because I knew so little of the “King of Battle”. Artillery is commonly referred to as the King of Battle, where as the infantry is known as the Queen of Battle. This is not a derogatory comment, the references to royalty are made of respect, about how both the infantry and artillery work together to rule the battlefield. I became part of A. Co., 2nd/134th INF (MECH) Battalion, 35th Infantry Division.

When Foster was in the United States Army, WWII was raging, and after a summer of physical conditioning and training exercises at Ft. Campbell, they prepared for the overseas movement. Each soldier had their wool olive drab uniforms, steel helmet, blanket roll, “musette bag”, mess kit, canteen, gun mask, carbine (rifle) and duffle bag. All personal possessions had to be sent home. At this time, October of 1944, Foster was promoted to the rank of PFC, Private First Class.

A war was also eminent when I finished basic training in August of 1990. Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait and the United States had massed troops as part of a coalition in Saudi Arabia, to move against Saddam and force him out of Kuwait. I would have been unable to go, at age 17 I had another year of high school to complete, plus the first Gulf War was over so quickly that very few Army National Guard units ever got involved.

3 months after turning 19 years of age, I attended the Platoon Leadership Development Course, required to attain the rank of SGT E-5. I'm the youngest person to ever attend PLCD in the state of Nebraska. I spent my first five years in Nebraska City, earning the rank of sergeant. In the fall of 1995, the Nebraska City 2nd/134th Inf. (MECH) cased its colors and ceased to be an infantry unit, and was reconsolidated as a cavalry company. I was transferred to Wayne, NE, where I became part of the 1st/134th Inf. (MECH), 35th ID. This worked out better for me as I was attending college there at Wayne State College.

In May of 2000, I gained the rank of E-6, Staff Sergeant. 2 years later, our unit switched from 11B infantry to 88M medium transportation, and once again I was part of an infantry unit casing it’s colors and shutting down. We became the 189th Transportation Company, a combination of both the Wayne and Norfolk units, formerly troop A and B respectively, of the 1st/134th. Many of us were unhappy about this, but Nebraska closed the books on all of their combat units, instead switching to combat support units such as transportation, NBC (chemical company), military police, and water purification.

Being there were no other infantry units to transfer to in the state of Nebraska, I stayed in Wayne for the changeover to transportation, and learned another MOS (job title). The casing of the colors on the last of the 134th Infantry Battalion was hard on a lot of the soldiers and veterans who had served in the battalion over the years. The Nebraska units who made up the 134th have a long and rich history, starting in the 1800’s with the Mexican American war, and ending up as one of the most highly decorated infantry battalions during WWII, spearheading many of the attacks in eastern and northern France, including St. Lo during the push into Germany.

Switching to a medium transportation unit seemed like a real step down from the prestigious “blue cord”, but it wasn’t long and we got the call to be activated in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The call for activation came in the spring of 2005.

For belly and I this was a difficult time. She was still at Parris Island when I received the notification by phone of my unit’s impending move to active duty status. Her training was not yet completed when in August of 2005 I traveled with the rest of the 189th to Ft. Riley, Kansas, to begin mobilization training. We geared up and trained up, spending most of our 2 ½ months of training focused on convoy specifics, truck maneuvering, and basic tasks from the soldiers common tasks manual. These included rifle marksmanship, first aid, map reading, and also using the newest military electronic equipment, from global positioning systems to encrypted radio sets.

We received so much gear at Ft. Riley. The basic load that Foster received some 60 years before in 1944 seems so much simpler, easier. Each soldier of the 189th ended up with 3 duffel bags, a ruck sack, a small foot locker, and a large foot locker for all the gear we were given. Then we were allowed a regular carry on bag and a small laptop bag to actually carry onto the airplane that would transport us to the middle east. Most of our gear was sent over a month ahead of time in storage containers via a ship, where we would link up with it later on.

On October 29, 2005, we boarded a plane in Kansas and headed off towards the middle east. After stops in both New York and Germany, we touched down in Kuwait, some 22 hours of flight time later. We received the latest training and intelligence during a 10 day period at Camp Buering, Kuwait. Following this training, we boarded C130 airplanes and headed north, into Iraq. Our final destination: Tallil, Iraq, also known as Ali Air Base.

Foster’s trip overseas began on October 12, 1944, aboard a troop ship, in a convoy of 35 ships headed out across the Atlantic. His unit had guard duty on deck, which was fortunate, it gave them a chance for fresh air, considering how packed in the men were below deck. Bunks were stacked 9 high and 4 deep. There was cold salt water for showers and shaving. They were not told where they were going.

On the 28th of October, their convoy reached Marseilles, France, their point of entry into the European theater. The port showed evidence of the ravages of war. Even as the men disembarked from their ships, they walked on gangways built over sunken ships in the harbor to reach the dock, all uphill. The first night it rained, and it was a cold wet night for all. Foster learned to drink coffee black, and certainly welcomed it the following morning. They staged for 20 days to receive equipment and prep for the move north, where they were to join the Seventh Army in battle.

Upon the 189th’s arrival in Tallil, Iraq, we took over for a unit out of California and immediately set to work getting our “inherited” equipment up to our standards, which, sorry to say, were a LOT higher than that of the previous owners of the equipment. The staff sergeants in our unit were all tasked out with the job title of convoy commanders, each responsible for learning how to command a convoy traveling thru Iraq. We learned to integrate the gun trucks for protection with the M915 A4 tractor trailers for transporting cargo. I was made NCO in charge of a 15 man detail from our unit, tasked to work with the local Iraqi contractors on post, escorting them to job sites, ensuring they stayed where they needed to be, and providing them with security as we escorted them.

20th November, 1944: Foster also had a change in assignment, to the Reconnaissance Section as an instrument operator. They traveled by train into northern France. The weather in Europe is comparable to the Midwest in the United States, so it was quite cold. The land would vary, from low hills, to heavy wooded areas, to swamp lands. Finally they linked up with the Seventh Army on the fight thru the Vosges Mountains. Although the Germans were retreating, it was still some very tough fighting.

While our platoon did escort duty in Iraq for the first 2 months, the rest of the 189th was getting on the road, running convoys all over Iraq. A good number of our soldiers were tasked over to maintenance to get our equipment road worthy, and as more and more of our trucks and trailers got repaired, we were able to provide more convoy support for our combat support group, the 485th CSB out of Germany, a regular army battalion in charge of our unit.

The 189th convoys transported water, mail, MREs, retrograde, new parts and equipment, everything the forward operating bases needed to operate successfully. We loaded it all up and took it wherever it needed to go in Iraq. We’d also go on runs down to Kuwait to pick up supplies and equipment as needed. In January, one of our convoys went to Arifjan, Kuwait, to pick up around 12 older model M915 A1 semi tractors. We backed our tractor trailers in, got the old semi tractors loaded up, then lined up and were ready to roll out in under 45 minutes.

The regular army and civilian representatives on hand couldn’t believe it, stating that they’d never seen a regular army unit work so quickly with such cohesion, and certainly never a reserve component unit. This is normal for us though, we tend to exceed expectations all the time here.

ARGGGGGG NEBRASKA WTF????

Imagine how wonderful I felt to open Yahoo sports and find this gem:

San Francisco eliminates national No. 6 seed Nebraska from NCAA tourney

BLAH! Worst finish in a long time. Nebraska (42-17) went into the regional matchup, AT HOME mind you, as the top seed in their regional, and goes 0-2, losing to a couple of half assed baseball teams that they should have clobbered. I really don't understand this team, before the season people didn't figure they'd be all that great, that 'next year' would be the year they make a run.

Almost immediately they were proving people wrong, blazing thru the season winning 18 of 19 games in April, then inexplicably losing 11 or 17 in May, but finishing off strong with a 2nd place finish in the Big 12 Tournament.

Oh well, there's always next year. I'm starting to sound like the Ancient Ghost of Nebraska Football Past (1980's) or something. BLAAAAAAAAH!!!

Current Lyrical Rambings

Got a beat-up glove, a homemade bat, and brand-new pair of shoes;
You know I think it's time to give this game a ride.
Just to hit the ball and touch 'em all - a moment in the sun;
(pop) It's gone and you can tell that one goodbye!

Centerfield - John Fogerty

Excitement Delivered Monthy

When I was young, probably around 10 years old or so, I can remember reading Popular Mechanics and Popular Science at the local public library, and how enjoyable that was. Mind you this was in like 1984 or so, in a time long before the internet and in a period when cable television was not yet taking off, and certainly not available for our family being way out in the country (to this day there is still no cable or satellite television at my family’s house where I grew up).

I think sometime around the end of the 7th grade, beginning of the 8th grade, I sent in a subscription card to Popular Mechanics and started receiving their publication once a month. I loved it. I can remember how excited I was to get a new magazine each month and spend hours reading it from cover to cover, and then some. It was an amazing, innocent time in my life. Too early yet to be interested in girls, too naïve to realize the impracticality of pursuing many of the amazing gadgets I read about within those pages.

I held that subscription all thru high school, and once I headed off to college I let it go. In college I became much more interested in sports than I ever had been in high school, from watching ESPN, on cable television of course, and I ordered Sports Illustrated and Time magazine to keep up with current events in both the news and sporting arenas.

After getting out of college I ordered a few more magazines, I gave up on Time and instead got U.S. News & World Report because it was, and to this day is, in my opinion, the most reliable and unbiased source for accurate news reporting. Time isn’t real bad but they have a liberal slant, where as Newsweek is pure liberal garbage and propaganda and has no value whatsoever in the field of credible journalism.

I remember getting Car & Driver for a few years, an amazing magazine dedicated to promoting the newest vehicles available to the public. I can also remember my frustration with them about their continual fascination with European cars (I have never liked BMW’s and Mercedes cars, too much money, too little distinction, all YUPPIE). I ordered the inaugural subscription to ESPN the Magazine, and although I enjoyed it somewhat, it just wasn’t as good as Sports Illustrated, I’m not even sure ESPN still does a magazine? I’m guessing they still do.

Currently, I have no subscriptions save for the Maxim subscription belly has for me, which goes to my parents house, because I never got the address forwarded. I sort of feel bad for my father, he reads it and tells me “You know that is terrible how the girls dress and some of what they say in there” but he is also quick to point out “Some of that stuff is really really funny.” My mother, as is true to her nature, throws them away as quickly as she finds them, sometimes right out of the mailbox, because she tends to be hypocritical, and while allowing if not reading Cosmo and other women’s trash, she fails to see that Maxim is merely the exact same thing, only for men.

In this age of internet information, I guess that’s why I likely let my subscriptions to the magazines I loved run out. I spend a lot of time getting whatever info I need online now, and therefore do not see the reason to pay for something I’m not likely to read. But as I sit here in Iraq reading issue after issue of Hemming’s Muscle Machines (a magazine dedicated to muscle cars of my father’s era, which someone thankfully sent us about 30 copies from 2004 till now), I remember a time where a young boy sat in his room reading about the new space shuttle, 6000 people on an aircraft carrier, and the brand new 1987 Corvette (not sure about that year midas, just guessing haha). Wow, those were the days.

Current Lyrical Ramblings

You know the tunnel of love, well it ain't my style.
So I'm gonna take on the ferris wheel.
Way up in the sky, with the stars in her eyes,
I'm gonna tell her just how I feel.

County Fair – Chris Ledoux