You Better Not Be Dead, Or Else!!!

I am watching the Armed Forces Network tonite. They have their own commercials on AFN, typically public service and self help type commercials, and they are usually tacky, ignorant, or just downright silly.

So why am I bringing this up? Because I just heard this on one of the AFN commercials:

"Suicide is a threat to individual readiness"

Uh, no shit, Captain Obvious? I realize it's hard to believe, but being dead is quite a detriment to your combat readiness, which is so obviously contrary to popular belief? I mean is that why you feel the need to tell us this?

Can you imagine anyone who would dare challenge this policy? I can see it now: "WHAT? You killed yourself? WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING SOLDIER??? Well, it's UCMJ action for you, you are under immediate disciplinary action, and don't even think of leaving your quarters!!! You are NEVER going to be ready to deploy at this rate!!!"

This really isn't random, either. But this is probably one of the funniest ones I've heard yet.

Oh What A Day!

Had quite the day today! We were up pretty early, around 0630, to get the first round of trucks ready to load. We were bringing back KBR fuel tankers that had been wrecked, hit by roadside bombs, small arms fire, or otherwise damaged, to transport them back down to Cedar, a giant fueling station right next to Tallil.

That probably took till about 1100, then about 20 of us got ready and headed over to the Australian Island Pool, which is actually Saddam’s pool at his palace in Biap. The pool is built entirely of tile, which was interesting. It goes from about 4 foot on one end to 6 foot on the other end, in the shape of an “L”. Not all that big, but it was still fun.

We played a little HORSE on the basketball hoop they had there, that is until some moron from another unit tried to shoot the ball from across the pool and it bounced out and then into the lake or river or whatever it is that runs around the outside of the pool. They call it the island pool because it’s basically up on a small island type thing in the middle of another body of water.

Then one of the Australian soldiers came out and yelled at us for using the medicine ball from their little tent workout room as a basketball. I for one wondered why the hell that blue ball was so damn heavy, I guess now I know why. I had to mention to everyone, that very likely Saddam peed in the very pool we were swimming in, and how awesome is that? I mean come on now, it’s Saddam’s pool, do you really think he is going to get out and use the little boy’s room? I think not.

After about 3 hours of tooling around the pool, we all headed over to the Green Bean coffee place and the 24 hour PX. They also have a Pizza Hut there. I got myself a chai frappe, whatever the hell that is, because it’s what I’ve gotten at Green Bean the other 2 or 3 times I’ve actually gone to one. Some of the other guys got pizza, some did some shopping. Then we all loaded back up in our LMTV’s and headed back to the tents on the Liberty side of camp.

Then just as we were getting back, I realized that my wallet was missing. Of course I was freaking, because we were scheduled to leave the next day and typically it takes like 2 days to get a new ID card, along with counseling statements and sworn statements and other “Hi I’m a moron who lost my ID Card” procedures.

I headed back over to where we did our shopping and couldn’t find my wallet anywhere around there, then asked at the MP station just up the road, again, no luck. So we headed up to the Mayor Cell (administrative term for the people who ‘run’ specific areas of each base here) and what do you know, some 1SG had turned in my wallet just about 2 minutes before I got there, so the E-4 hadn’t even had time to do the paperwork for it, and she just handed it to me and told me not to worry about it.

Wow, talk about a load off my shoulders, I was stressing out pretty bad. I would have had to get a new ID Card, call the bank and cancel my check card, get a new driver’s license, new military Iraqi escort card, Kuwait/Iraq driver’s license for the operation of civilian vehicles here, military driver’s license, gas mask card, M-16 weapon’s card, etc, etc. I was mostly concerned though that I would lose pictures of belly, because I just don’t have very many over here. The rest of the stuff would be relatively easy to replace. Hell, the 1SG in question didn’t even take any of my cash.

I guess what comes around goes around both ways? I have turned in a couple of wallets I found without taking the person’s money too. Maybe that’s good karma? Who knows? I was just happy to have found the damn thing.

I went to be pretty early, it had been a long day and wow was I ever beat. Our hours are so strange here, we can sleep some days from 3 in the afternoon till 1 in the morning then be up for good. Oddly enough at Biap, there are more people at the MWR and gym at 3 in the morning than there are at 1500 in the afternoon, talk about strange. That’s how it works though. I noticed they had a big wall with all the states in the USA on it. People would put a push pin in the city they are from, it was interesting looking around and seeing where people in the military had come from. I noticed a couple of interesting ones.

Current Lyrical Ramblings

We call them weak
Who are unable to resist
The slightest chance love might exist
And for that forsake it all

Standing Outside The Fire – Garth Brooks