HAPPY ANNIVERSARY BABY!!!




One year ago today I became the luckiest man on the planet. I married the most amazing woman I have ever met. I remember 02July05 as being a hectic day. Up around 0500 because I couldn’t sleep. Getting the clubhouse set up for our wedding, making a lot of last minute preparations, picking things up, and finally, picking up belly from that expensive flight home, both of our families together, waiting for that special moment when two lives were joined as one.

Although this year has not been ideal, we have made the best of the situation. 11 of 365 days spent together, 11 amazing days. But only a prelude of what’s to come. I have a few more months in the Sand Box before we get to be together once again. There are so many things I want to do in my life, so much I want to experience, but how special can these moments be without someone to spend those times with?

I have not always been the easiest person to live with, this much I know. There was so much I had to learn, situations I didn’t know how to deal with, friends who deserved much better treatment along the way. Despite all of this, one person was always there to help me stay centered, to pick up the pieces when I let things fall apart. I’m so thankful she never gave up on me, that she chose to share her life, her dreams with me.

It’s likely we would have been planning our full scale wedding right about now, a more formal and traditional setting than our quick ceremony one year ago today, but you know, I wouldn’t change a thing. For all these experiences help to make us who we are as a couple, our times apart help us to understand just how much we love and need one another. I know one thing for sure, there will storms from time to time, but the key is to never give up, to weather the rough times, because they always do pass. I will never give up on us, I know we are meant to be. I love you baby.

Current Lyrical Ramblings

Highway run
Into the midnight sun
Wheels go round and round
You're on my mind
Restless hearts
Sleep alone tonight
Sendin' all my love
Along the wire

Faithfully – Journey

”CALLING ALL CARS CALLING ALL CARS!!!”

Where the hell has Lord of the Poo stryfe been lately??? I HAVE NOT SEEN HIM AROUND IN SOME TIME!

I worry that the stickyfat has consumed him, where is our superhero MRBRICK when we need him? More vowels will save our poopgod!!

Current Lyrical Ramblings

Come
And talk of all the things we did today
Here
And laugh about our funny little ways
While we have a few minutes to breathe
Then I know that it's time you must leave

Darling Be Home Soon - Loving Spoonful

Music To Dance By When Sand Is Infiltrating Your Crack

Back in the middle of August of 2005, our unit spent about a week back in Wayne at the armory getting equipment loaded, personnel issues settled, etc, before our trip to the mobilization site at Ft. Riley, Kansas. If you lived within 30 miles of Wayne, you were allowed to go home and be with your family. The rest of us, well, they put us up in a motel.

So what does this have to do with my journal, nearly a year later? Well, for that 4 or 5 days I was in that motel, I holed myself up every night using Audiograbber to rip all 220 or so of my CD’s from wave file into mp3 files. Pop in one cd, as it would rip into mp3’s I would type out the names of the songs onto the files inside the folder, over and over AND OVER AND yah, well, you get the picture.

I was getting so pissed off though, because about 4 or 5 cd’s in I realized that the fucking files were not staying in track order, they would go to alphabetical or some other goofed up order, much to my irritation. So I ended up adding 01 and 02 etc to every file just to keep them in order.

So it took me pretty much ALL of my free time every night to get that done, while everyone else would be out drinking and partying, because I really wanted to have my music here in the Sand Box. FINALLY I was done, and then the first time I opened up Windows Media Player to listen to a cd, WMP connected to the internet and started renaming my tracks on the cd, in this case some Japanese classical composer. Of course, a few **(@*#ING **@#** &G spewed forth, because this was a shitload of work I did to put that many cd’s together and WMP was dicking up my work and I didn’t know why.

Thankfully belly told me about a beautiful little program called Winamp, which I immediately downloaded and it worked fabulously, except… none of the names of the songs would come up, they would list as just no name tracks. Again, frustration, and despite searching all over to find out how I could name them correctly I was unable to remedy the situation.

Yes, well, turns out I completely wasted my time naming all of these files just in the folder, I discovered a couple days ago that I should have been highlighting the songs in the folder, going to Properties, then Summary, and I could have added in a whole bunch of information, such as artist, song name, year, track number, even lyrics, genre, and other information. Even Windows Media Player has the ability to do that, although it’s not as in depth as adding in the information in the file properties while in the folder. Oh, and the kicker? Yah, it would have named each file individually in the folder, I wouldn’t have had to do it myself OR add in that stupid “01 02 03” in front of the files, because the track order can be added in too!!!

How did I miss this, you might ask? I’m certain that most of you are shaking your head thinking I’m a complete idiot for not knowing this, but when you do open Properties and go to Summary for a file, if you click right next to the Artist or Album Title, etc, it won’t open up to let you change the text, oh but if you move the cursor over just a little bit to the right, you can. THAT LITTLE F’ING OVERSIGHT IS WHY I HAD ALL THIS TROUBLE!! But then, I look on the bright side, I would likely not be using Winamp, which I really prefer over Windows Media Player. Winamp isn’t all tied into every Windows application like WMP seems to be. One problem, every time pop up blocker beeps or some other application makes a beep or ding, it screws up the sound on Winamp, and I haven’t found out how to keep that from happening, just short of shutting off sound altogether on my other applications, which would be ridiculous.

So now that I know how to correctly name my mp3 files so that they are compatible with all of the different musical applications out there, I will be redoing a few thousand file names. And of course, I’m very anal about my music, so I’m adding in as much information as I can. This includes my time off yesterday, spent perusing the net looking for what year every one of my albums was released in. Particularly troublesome: classical composers. I have about half a dozen cd’s of Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, etc, and unfortunately they are typically obscure titles that no one seems to have information about on the internet.

Now if I was at home, I would just look on the cd itself to see when it was released, but here I do not have that luxury. I’m thinking instead, I’ll just go back and put in the year the composer died. That would be better anyway, wouldn’t you agree?

Something I really don’t have a lot of in my music collection are obscure artists. Yah, I have a few, like Bass 305, an album consisting pretty much entirely of earth shattering low frequency tones to induce maximum performance from one’s subwoofers. Then there is my Days Of Thunder Soundtrack. Got that for Christmas one year from one of my sisters. Why the hell did I hold onto that??? Then there are 4 or 5 ‘freebie’ cd’s that I got when I bought different cd players over the years. Kept those too. Yah, that’s me, I’m anal about my music, I tend to keep it forever.

Something I have a LOT of is big hair guitar rock, and guitar rock in general. If it was in the 80’s and it had big hair, leather pants, screaming high vocals, and power ballads, there’s probably a 90% chance that I’ve got it. Is this sad??? Hell no it isn’t, if you can’t appreciate the bridge in Def Leppard’s ‘Armageddon It’ or you aren’t impressed by Slash’s 2 guitar solos in Guns N’ Roses ‘Estranged’, then you really don’t know what you are missing out on. If Quiet Riot’s “Cum On Feel The Noize” is just NOISE to you, or if “Epic” by Faith No More has you saying “WHAT IS IT?” for real, you really don’t understand or appreciate the music of that era, and well, you are dumb, yah I said it, DUMB!

There are NO concerts today that even come close to what the guitar bands of the late 80’s and early 90’s did, and I mean that, no one comes close. Loud, crazy, hot women everywhere, it was just one gigantic party where 50,000 people all had one thing on their mind, seeing one of their favorite bands up on stage tearing it up. Well, two things, I guess thoughts of the opposite sex were evident. The outfits, the hair, the pyrotechnics, the crazy behavior, today’s bands are preschool by comparison. Would I ever blame grunge alternative rock for the demise of the ‘Big Hair’ era? Nah, not really. It’s the progression of music.

Even alternative and grunge ended up fading away, more due to the blending of so many musical types that there was no clear alternative music anymore than any other reason. But I will always miss the rhythmic guitar of bands like Skid Row, Firehouse, and Van Halen. And while some of them are still making music, it’s not nearly as good or ‘fresh’ as it was back then. I consider myself lucky to have grown up in that era, music nowadays mostly f’ing stinks. At least now I can name my White Lion tracks correctly for all to enjoy!

Current Lyrical Ramblings

Full of sorrow, your eyes are too wide and too new
Though I know these feelings I get when you're near
Even I...I can't give you love without fear
You're too young, I don't know what's keeping me here

Wait For You - Bonham

The Anti Patriotic

It’s interesting how politicians have such short memories. Listening to the audacity of certain lawmakers on capital hill in Washington this past month has me puzzled. It is laughable to me that Democrats who voted for military action in Iraq are now pointing fingers at other people, trying to lay blame and using terms like ‘huge mistake’ and ‘unjust war’ to describe something they approved to begin with. You voted for it, based on the same information the White House had. Why would you say that shit now, it’s NOT true, and it only adds to the resolve of the foreign insurgents in Iraq and feeds the anti war movement stateside.

I guess I don’t really follow where this has suddenly become an ‘unjust war’, I mean, honestly, if this was an ‘unjust war’, if this were a ‘huge mistake’, then these lawmakers, thru their current views, want to give the country back to Saddam Hussein, apologize, and ‘cut and run’. “Oh, President Hussein, we are SO sorry that we attacked you, we respect the excellent job you’ve done here leading your country, here’s the key to the presidential palace, no hard feelings?” Yah, respond to that one, Murtha. This has been anything BUT a huge mistake. I really have to wonder about the media’s agenda in all of this also, with polls that talk about how “78% of Iraqi people do not like having the occupational forces here.” Well no shit???

In Iraq the media is doing the exact same thing they do in the United States, they ask questions on surveys that are aimed at getting a specific response to match what the network wants to hear, versus getting any real opinion. Of course they would rather we weren’t here. But where are the more common sense questions??? How about “Do you wish to have Saddam back in power again?” or “Do you feel you have a greater chance for a better future under the new government than you did under Saddam?” THOSE are the kinds of questions that answer that show results or lack thereof concerning this conflict.

I find the whole ‘cut and run’ idea to be cowardly and completely politically motivated. I really believe that democrats are trying to reignite the anti war rage of the 60’s, that they want to compare this to Vietnam in some hopeless attempt to stir up emotions in preparation for this year’s elections and as a prelude for the 2008 presidential elections. Well sorry, but this is NOT Vietnam, for a variety of reasons, from organization skills, backing, and content of oppositional forces, to the terrain being fought in, to the death tolls suffered by American forces. I find it to be disgusting and a slap in the face of those who lost their lives in Vietnam AND those who have given there lives here to make that comparison in a way as to suggest monumental failures, especially when we have an excellent opportunity here to succeed in Iraq.

“What?? Excellent opportunity to succeed? HOW can you say that?” Because I’m freaking here, that’s why. I see day in and day out the work being done here, I see the good things that are virtually ignored by the media, I talk to the Iraqi people about how they feel, that’s how. I have to wonder sometimes, if the media and political atmosphere had been this way during World War II, would we have had ANY heroes, would President Rooservelt be viewed as this horrible bully who attacked Germany unprovoked. I wish sometimes people would study history, and realize the importance of not only having a strong military, but in using it from time to time to fight tyranny. The way

For this to work in Iraq, you are probably talking about another year or so of current troop levels, then a gradual reduction over a period of up to 10 years, yes, that’s right, 10 years, to help maintain stability. This is normal. There are no quick fixes. We live in a society that wants everything quicker. Faster food, better service, speedier delivery… well some things just don’t work that way. The Iraqi conflict is a perfect example of that. Some of the problems here have existed for literally thousands of years. It’s going to take time. Even if Joe Public can’t understand that, politicians should be able to.

Sometimes politicians are in so deep that it just boggles the mind that it’s difficult to believe they can’t smell what they are shoveling. This is certainly a perfect example of that. As usual, Democrats have no problem finding fault with everything the White House and Congress are doing, without a valid course of action to repair what they see as problems.

Current Lyrical Ramblings

Don't you tell me to deny it
I've done wrong and I want to suffer for my sins
I've come to you 'cause I need guidance to be true
And I just don't know where I can begin

Criminal – Fiona Apple

Why Does The A.P. Publish 'News' By Racist Reporters Like Erin Texeira?

I wonder just how blind and racist people have to be to actually support a stereotypical and obviously egocentric 'reporter' like Erin Texeira.

I use the term 'reporter' loosely, because she is unfortunately NOT a journalist, but rather an opinionative writer who subjects her own theories and racist viewpoints into her literature. Time and time again her articles seem to find some way to lay blame for the ills of 'insert minority name here' on whites. In so many of her articles there is this feeling that you are supposed to be shaking your head with pursed teeth thinking to yourself "that is terrible, those damn white people!!"

Well sorry, I do NOT subscribe to that racist platform of garbage. I am not white, I don't know anyone who is white. Let me explain. Just in the way that we should NOT celebrate the ills of blacks, nor should we point out and denigrate whites in the same manner. If people like Texeira insist upon continually shedding light on 'problems' purportedly brought about by white people, while using her own stereotypical viewpoints to try to force the issue, then I say everyone should drop 'white' and go with what they truly are.

As for me, I'm German, Bohunk, Lithuanian and French, and therefore I do not wish to be called WHITE by the likes of racists like Texeira. When you celebrate victories based on skin color, you also make it acceptable to denigrate race on the basis of skin color. It's really that simple.

What do I mean, you ask? Let me put it this way. Where is it ever acceptable to run around screaming white power, saying that white people need more of this or more of that, yet it's just fine for someone to continually talk about, even in a round about way, how whites are causing so much trouble for other minorities. So those of western European heritage are stuck, continually forced to bear witness to the supposed racism they perpetrate on others, all the while unable to celebrate anything based on their own skin color.

Let me clarify something here, I think celebrating/denegrating anything based on skin color is incredibly ignorant, in fact, in this day and age, it's just downright stupid. I tire of the endless attempts by some in our society to do so. Interestingly enough, in the process of promoting your own race based on skin color, your ignorance ends up by default casting a racist shadow upon everyone else. Why can't people like Texeira realize this?

Reflections On Fast Food

There are a lot of topics that come and go during discussions while working 12 hour night shifts at the company operations center in Iraq. Tonite me and Rod’ were discussing great places to get a quick delicious meal. Of course this did little more than to enlighten each other as to what the other person likes to eat, and of course ended up leaving us both quite irritably hungry for any one of the mentioned franchise eateries we discussed.

The following is a collection of my top 10 franchise restaurants. This doesn’t go by merely taste, it also takes into consideration how often I have eaten there, along with taste. They are in no particular order.

Burger King:

Favorite Meal: Whopper w/ cheese, large fries, Pepsi (or substitute the Whopper
with a Frisco Burger).
History: I have eaten Burger King for as long as I can remember.
Comments: I have always preferred BK to McDonalds for some reason, even
though their fries are typically shitty. Hey, but they have Pepsi!!

Taco Bell:

Favorite Meal: (2) bean burritos, a Chilito (chili cheese burrito), and a LARGE
Pepsi.
History: I started eating there in high school when my best friend Marc got me
hooked on the Chilito.
Comments: The only place you can go to at 3 in the morning and get stuffed with food left over afterwards, all for 3 dollars and change. What list would be
complete without Taco Bell? I have diversified my menu, I get the chicken
quesadilla, soft shell tacos (which admittedly suck, Taco John’s have them beat),
and the gordita now and again. Ah my stomach hurts just thinking about it.

Dairy Queen:

Favorite Meal: Ultimate Burger, large fries, Pepsi (or substitute in a chicken
basket for the burger and fries). Then of course the Blizzard. Oh man though,
what flavor of Blizzard to get??? Oreo? Butterfinger? Snickers? Reeses Peanut
Butter Cup? I had even gotten into the Heath Bar, oh the choices, what to do??
History: I can remember eating Dilly Bar’s after little league baseball when I was like 10 years old.
Comments: The Ultimate Burger could possible be the best franchise burger out
there, dripping with grease, loaded with burger, cheese, toasted bun, lettuce,
tomato, onions, etc. It’s pure glutinous bliss!!! And a Blizzard with it? WOW!

Taco John’s:

Favorite Meal: the (2) soft shell taco meal, large potato olays (spicy tater tots),
Pepsi, and of course the cinnamon churro for dessert.
History: They had a Taco John’s in Wayne where I went to school for about 2
years, there was something really filling about that meal.
Comments: I would switch off sometimes, chicken to beef, beef to chicken. I can
remember Gub’s getting the “6 Pack N’ A Pound” meal (six soft/hard shell tacos
and a pound of potato olays) and I used to wonder, how the hell is he going to eat
all of that?? Well, he’s did it, but then he’s not exactly skinny anymore.

Subway:

Favorite Meal: 12” Value Spicy Italian meal on white bread, with nacho cheese
Doritos, and wouldn’t you know it, a Pepsi (or substitute in Seafood and Crab or
Roasted Chicken Breast sub).
History: I must have eaten 250 Subway sandwiches a year in my first 2 years of
college, back around 93’/94’.
Comments: Back then the meal deal was about $3.50, probably because most
people were not into healthy eating. Look at what a trend setter I was!! There
were some days where I ate Subway twice a day even. I loved those sandwiches.
Now the freaking bread choices are just annoying, too much stuff, and of course
the price of the meals has more than doubled. That sucks, but I still eat there, just
not as much.

Old Chicago:

Favorite Meal: Full order of regular nachos, with a beer.
History: Got into going to this place with my old college roommate Broderick,
and his brother.
Comments: My first time there, we ordered the nachos and I also ordered a
a burger and fries, with the beer of course. I regretted that. I was so freaking
stuffed, it was miserable, yet strangely satisfying haha. They have the best nachos
on the planet, without a doubt.

Great American Steal Buffet:

Favorite Meal: Well, it’s a buffet.
History: To be honest, I think when I went to this place with midas was the first
time I ever ate there.
Comments: Oh the mediocre food, but that’s just is, there is so much of it!
It’s all just barely above average but damn you can just mow down plate after
plate of it. One steak or chicken breast per trip to the grill, dammit, just one!! It’s
good American eating, 3 kinds of potatos, corn, rolls, stuffing, etc. OH YAH, and SHRIMP, sweet delicious golden fried shrimp! And coincidentally, I will be
going here with midas when I get back home, along with Old Chicago, and quite
likely:

Valentino’s Buffet:

Favorite Meal: Again, a buffet.
History: We used to eat here when we would go to state in high school in cross
country and track.
Comments: This is the best buffet on the planet in my opinion. The pizza isn’t
the greatest, but they have manicotti, lasagna, several kinds of noodles and sauces,
not so Italian choices like fried shrimp, polish sausage, a taco bar, an amazing
salad bar, and a delicious dessert bar. Yes, I will likely be going back here when I
get back, consider this an open invitation to all my friends, hell I’ll even pay.
We’ll get the party room again!!

McDonalds:

Favorite Meal: Double quarter pounder with cheese, large fries, Dr. Pepper.
(substitute a 10 piece chicken nugget for the burger sometimes).
History: Just a couple of years ago, McDonalds would have never made my list,
But for some reason, I think the fries drew me in, and then that damned double
quarter pounder…
Comments: I really ate there a lot when belly was at boot camp, probably one of
the main reasons I had to diet AGAIN before I went to see her, after having dieted
successfully the first month she was gone.

Papa Johns:

Favorite Meal: Their specialty pizza with all the toppings, large of course.
(sometimes sausage or hamburger with onions, belly loves pepperoni).
History: Really didn’t go there till belly and I moved to Omaha together. I would guess that we ate more Papa Johns than any other place, certainly by far the most popular pizza we ate.
Comments: For years I loved Pizza Hut pizza, but then they changed the way
they made their pizza and I really did not care much for the chunks of meat and
vegetables the size of your fist. I actually think I like Papa John’s pizza better
than I ever liked Pizza Hut in the first place. The garlic dipping sauce and
jalapeno peppers sure help (but not with my behind the next day, yikes).

So there you have it, if I was in any town in the nation that had all of these places, I don’t think I would have a problem living there. Of course the Valentino’s Buffet isn’t exactly a nationwide franchise, some of the others aren’t either. But if you are on I-80 traveling past Omaha you should stop in at Valentino’s, it’s worth it. There were some other places that food wise could have made the list, China Buffet at 114th and Dodge comes to mind, but that’s not really a franchise at all, and just how many places call themselves “China Buffet” in the United States anyway, a bunch of them.

I LOVE STEAK, but we eat at a lot of different steak places, and I wasn’t going to try and pick one over another. The Nebraska Beef Company was darn good though. Oh, and another thing. I didn’t include any of the ‘clone’ restaurants because they really have no way of distinguishing themselves from the others. When I say clone I mean Applebees, Outback, Ruby Tuesdays, TGIF, and others, who are all the same in that they have the same type of overpriced atmosphere, and the menus are all somewhat identical. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy eating at these places, but any one of them can substitute for another.

I’m sure belly and midas will likely remind me of other places we used to eat at. I know I’m forgetting a few. I do love food, thank goodness I enjoy running too or I’d be a real fatbody!! PUT OUT THAT CIGARETTE YOU DISGUSTING FAT BODY!

Current Lyrical Ramblings

Someone said my words are out of balance
Nothing to say, you've got nothing to say
Dying words I bury everyday
Nothing to say, I've got nothing to say

Nothing To Say – Soundgarden

Patriotism And Respect

I have never been much of a fan of military ceremonies. They are long, drawn out affairs in which enlisted soldiers are stuck standing in big fancy formations to appease the inflated egos of officers and headquarters’ pukes. Today our Command Sergeant Major retired (mid tour, how the hell do you retire while in the middle of a combat tour to Iraq???) and of course they had an overblown lengthy ceremony to do the change from one Sergeant Major to the next.

It’s bad enough that we had to be out there at 0645 for a rehearsal, then at 0730 get in formation again to just stand there while the visitors arrived, so we could ‘look good’ for more worthless officers, and then finally have the ceremony at 0800. That stunk, but then, to top off this worthless waste of time, the girl who sung the national anthem butchered the hell out of it with voice inflections and even extra words at the end. I think you all know what I mean when I say this, basically it’s someone who feels the need to add ‘personal interpretation’ to the national anthem, which is freaking WRONG to do.

To me, the national anthem is a sacred symbol of our nation, our freedom, in the same way that the American flag is, the declaration of independence, and so on. I will protect anyone’s rights to burn the flag, to sing the national anthem as screwed up as they want to sing it, etc, but I’m going to have my input, because that is my right. However, this being said, I am not allowed to voice my opinions while in uniform, because we have a certain ethical code to adhere to, that precludes us from being very outspoken about most things.

That being said, I believe the same thing applies to someone in uniform who sings the national anthem. You have NO right, absolutely NO right, to be in uniform and to ruin that song by butchering it up with your own interpretations. To be honest I have a problem with ANYONE doing that, but while in uniform you should uphold a certain standard. You don’t ‘be bop’ while marching, you don’t wear your hat all cocked back and pants hanging off your ass, you don’t raise an American Flag with purple and orange stripes and asterisks instead of stars, and you do NOT sing the national anthem off key and out of rhythm. I was offended by what I saw today, and I’m sure I’m not alone.

Current Lyrical Ramblings

Admiral Halsey Notified Me
He Had To Have A Berth Or He Couldn't Get To Sea
I Had Another Look And I Had A Cup Of Tea And Butter Pie

Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey – Beatles

GO USA SOCCER (Go Home That Is)

Ahh yes, another World Cup, another underperformance by the US team, another early exit for the USA team. Seems to be a recurring theme for our low interest soccer elite. I really don’t watch much of it. I tried, honestly I did, but come on now, kicking a ball around, back and forth, up and down that field, it makes baseball seem fast paced and exciting.

I did take some pointers away from watching both the American team and the other teams though. The United States team seemed lethargic, very little energy on either the offensive or defensive sides of the field. It seemed as though they weren’t willing to work very hard to create offensive opportunities or they just weren’t creative enough to? I don’t know. But the US scored ONE goal, just one goal, in three games, what exactly is that supposed to lead me to believe?

The US team was ranked 5th going into the World Cup and I have to wonder, did they rank them that high just to try and get Americans to watch the game? Sure seems like it, because I’m certain they rank right at the bottom in terms of performances at this particular World Cup. Sure they played inspired ball against the Italians, so what? They tied the game only because Italy scored on themselves, and even that didn’t end up helping them much at all. The Italians are in the next round, the Americans are headed home.

I keep hearing soccer commentators saying things like “if American’s showed more interest in the sport, the American team would perform better.” Give me a break. Americans are just like anyone else, we enjoy quality performances that match the abilities of whomever we are watching. In this instance, the American team supposedly had all this talent, and they did nothing. I think a better comment would be “If the American team would perform up to its abilities, more Americans would watch the sport.”

I’m sure the rest of the world is not surprised by how the US team did. As far as myself, I honestly thought they would do better, but I don’t care much about soccer so forgive me if I’m not all that disappointed.

Current Lyrical Ramblings

I've seen your face somewhere before I swear
Could it be I've met you somewhere else
It's the way you turn and look at me
Your eyes are different but they're much the same

Somewhere - Default

The Boys Of Summer

Well, once again Oakland appears to be doing what they do every year. Starting off sloppy and horrible and looking like they can’t beat anyone (including losing 2 of 3 to the Kansas City Royals, the worst team in baseball), then coming on strong starting in mid summer. They’ve won 8 of 10 following an absolutely miserable May, typical for the A’s, who have had the best record starting in June for the last 6 years.

Am I going to get my hopes up? Well, let’s see, they currently also have the record for worst record EVER in series deciding games, 0–9, meaning, that in games that could win a series for them, they have lost 9 in a row. Needless to say they haven’t made it past the first round of the playoffs since like before I can even remember.

Oh well, at least they aren’t the Cubs (haha, sorry midas).

Current Lyrical Ramblings

I've seen your face somewhere before I swear
Could it be I've met you somewhere else
It's the way you turn and look at me
Your eyes are different but they're much the same

Somewhere – Default

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

Oh YAH!! I figured I could use it for farm work, but now I know for SURE!!!!

Alleged Cattle Thief Tries to Squeeze Seven Animals Into Back Seat, Trunk of Dodge Neon

05-31-2006 7:54 PM

OGDENSBURG, N.Y. -- A man was arrested Wednesday for allegedly stealing seven calves from a Canton farmer, sheriff's deputies said.

Victor R. Gardner, 22, is accused of squeezing seven of the young cattle into the back seat and trunk of a 2000 Dodge Neon. He is charged with third-degree burglary and third-degree grand larceny.

Gardner had the help of an accomplice when he allegedly drove the calves to a barn in DeKalb, St. Lawrence County Sheriff's deputies said.

Two of the calves were sold, the rest are missing and presumed dead.

Gardner, who has a history of burglaries, is being held in St. Lawrence County jail without bail.

MOO! X 7 :)


Current Lyrical Ramblings

Two faced! I feel you crawling under my skin.
Sickened by your face.
By the way, to think that your so fucking kind?
You ain't!

Greed - Godsmack

And They Said Iraq Was Hot... PFFFFFT!!!

Soooooo, I had decided earlier today that I was going to go running, and I did get 4 hours of sleep, a relative miracle while working nights. So I headed out about 1800 (6 p.m. for you civilian yahoos) and well, my thermometer said 140 degrees. Now this is between the trailers mind you, and it's usually at LEAST 5 degrees hotter there than out say running on the black asphalt roads :)

So I headed out to do a 3 mile run. I get about a mile and a quarter in and I realize I MAY have underestimated just how hot it was. That and the giant panda I saw dancing in the middle of the road led me to stop and walk during my run at certain points. That panda was fast too, holy shit, I couldn't catch it. So, I finally finished up and headed back into my room, air conditioned, thank God.

I will likely reevaluate my idea of running late in the afternoon and attempt to do it at night or something, during my night shift. There is a problem though, panda's are f'ing SCARY at night!! :(

Current Lyrical Ramblings

Again, no lyrics:

Allegro Attaca - Beethoven

DAMN, and I was going to try this!!!

Here are some things you should not do.

Never ever stick your willy on a frozen pole.
Never drink poprocks and lye, it just isnt cool.
Never stick your finger in a blender.
Never stick your dick in a blender.
Never put your cat in the microwave.
Never put your friend in the microwave.
Never use a fudgesickle during foreplay.
Never snort white powder from unknown envelopes.
Never use a slinky as a contreceptive.
Never use a glove as a reusable condom good for 5 uses.
Never shoot a load in your friend's sock.
Never put your friends cat in the oven.
Never use a spork for a home abortion.
Never use a foon for a home abortion.

spam found this on the internet after I mentioned the slinky bit. Well that just SUCKS!

Current Lyrical Ramblings

NONE, no words in this:

18-1 in E Flat Major 'Grande Valse Brillante' - Chopin

Kid Being Noisy During Whore Island On Fox? SEDATE HIM!!!

I have to wonder sometimes just what society is coming to when such a high percentage of children are labeled as ADD and ADHD and then put on drugs and/or into counseling. I myself was labeled hyperactive, which I thought was bad at the time, but there is no doubt in my mind that some dipshit in a suit with a psychology degree would have diagnosed me ADD and had me popping Ritalin like candy. What is it with psychiatrists and psychologists that they have a need to label as many people as they can with emotional and mental disorders? As though that question even needs to be asked, it’s all about money and name recognition, if you would believe the conspiracy theorists.

While I have no doubt there is a measure of truth to that theory, I believe that in the long run it boils down to lazy behavior. If children came with an instruction manual from God, it would say they are energetic, have a short attention span, are loud and boisterous, and require continual supervision until a specific age. Parents no longer feel it should be their responsibility to take care of their children. “Oh, my kid doesn’t sit down and watch tv, he runs around and acts silly all the time, doctor, we need help.” Why not tell the fucking truth? “Doctor, I’m a lazy piece of shit parent, my kid is normal but I want to drug him up so that I don’t have to take care of him or supervise him so he learns good behaviors, we need help.” That’s the story here, it’s not about kids with problems, it’s about PARENTS with problems.

The whole idea of using drugs to sedate children is disgusting, because when you do that, you develop a need in children for chemically related outside sources of help to cope with the world. What does this say? It should be obvious, if it’s okay for a child to be taking drugs at age 4 and up, when they reach the teenage years they believe it is totally acceptable to go on their own and start in with alcohol, cigarettes, weed, or worse. Anyone who doesn’t believe that using Ritalin and other drugs of that type act as a gateway to elicit drug use later on is an ignorant fool.

It would be wonderful if parents, teachers, administrators, and doctors of all types would quit trying to label all children as abnormal because they don’t meet over restrictive guidelines, guidelines imposed by a society that seems to try to weed out creativity and differences in children that make them unique and wonderful.

Current Lyrical Ramblings

In your house I long to be
Room by room patiently
I'll wait for you there
Like a stone I'll wait for you there

Like A Stone - Audioslave

Getting Back Into The Swing Of Things

Transition is a difficult thing sometimes and this is no exception. I traveled back to the United States on about a 24 hour plane ride, then stayed for 2 weeks, then back over to Iraq after another 24 hour plane ride. I am back running the night operations crew out at our unit's operations center. My body seems to be punishing me now because I cannot get any substantial amount of sleep to speak of. Yesterday was the best I did, with about 6 hours perhaps? Today I'm working on 3 hours of sleep. I really don't think it has anything to do with working at night either, it just seems like I can't seem to get into any rhythm. But that's what happened when we arrived here the first time so I expect things to get back to normal.

I have yet to play a new game that belly bought me. The Godfather for Playstation II, some of the other guys here say they have heard it's a kick ass game, so I'll have to take my playstation out to the ops center some night to play it. I drew a couple more mazes out there in the last couple of days. Needless to say, at 0300 in the morning it can be very quiet and also boring as hell. It's hard to stay awake out there too. Oh well, I have 5 hours yet till I have to be out there tonite, I may try and get a couple more hours of sleep before I go.

Running has really sucked lately, I never thought it would get to this point. I'm tempted to start running sets, quarter and half miles, but I think it's my chest that is making it hard on me, it's like I can't get my breath, and it hurts to try to breath deeply. I need to figure out what this is, an infection or virus or whatever I've had for 2 and a half years, but there are no specialists here in Iraq and as most people know, I dropped probably 10,000 dollars on civilian doctors and didn't find out shit. Seems it's worse when I'm tired, stressed, or sick, in fact, worst of all when I'm sick, even a light cold now just seems like death. My chest burns like hot lava when I get a cold. I will see a specialist when I'm back home, I have 90 days following deployment to take care of medical issues.

Let's see, other than that, I'm next in line in Nebraska to get an E-7 Sergeant First Class slot. Let's hope one comes up, I think it would be wonderful to get my E-7 rank while over here, the only problem I can foresee is trying to find a decent slot in California to take when I move out there.

Well, time to take a nap. Dreams about belly coming up :) IF I can get to sleep that is!!

Current Lyrical Ramblings

Now your pictures that you left behind
Are just memories of a different life
Some that made us laugh, some that made us cry
One that made you have to say goodbye

Always - Bon Jovi

Two Weeks Too Fast Gone

Once again, I sit on a transatlantic flight, headed for the sandy box that has been my home for the last 6 months or so, cramped in with my elbow cocked forward so as to be able to type on my computer. It’s about 2200 Pacific time, and although I didn’t complete get over my previous jet lag, here I go again, certainly to completely goof up my internal clock once again.

What a vacation! I’m guessing I gained about 10 lbs, but it was worth it, it just means I’ll have to really work my ass off (literally) with running and pushups and situps galore oh my!! I must have eaten steak like 8 times haha, and it was totally worth it. We spent 4 days in Las Vegas, at Sam’s Town. I have to really give a thank you out to belly’s parents because without their help the rooms would have likely been at least twice what we paid, which wasn’t much at all.

We went to see the Amazing Jonathan, who bills himself as a magician but in my opinion he is more of a crude comedian who uses a few little tricks but hardly any magic to get his show going. It wasn’t too bad, but I think maybe we should have chosen the Blue Man Group, even though the price was rather high to go to that particular show. We also checked out a really kick ass car display, got really trashed drinking these two tall margarita/daiquiri drinks (half a yard they call them), although I think I got the worse end of that one by finishing belly’s drink off for her.

We saw the Star Trek Experience, because, for those of you who do not know this already (and you must live under a rock if you do not know it) belly and I are big time nerdy trekkies. Of course I damn near got motion sickness, due to my complete inability to handle enclosed rides, or any rides that shake you laterally for that matter. We did a LOT of walking around, and a little bit of shopping, along with about 4 h ours or so of gambling. All in all it was pretty fun.

On the way back we stopped at Calico Ghost Town, which was really neat. It’s sort of amazing how they took a deserted old mining community and rebuilt it, but you can see they don’t make near the money they need to keep type place up the way they should. I suppose that’s because they have kept the place intact, without adding gaudy shows and modern roller coaster or action rides, and that’s a hard thing to maintain when people are always looking for thrill and adventure and they find ‘merely’ history here. I say that not about myself, I really enjoyed the town, it was quite entertaining.

I bought some new clothes, 3 new pair of jeans, 1 pair of khaki carpenter pants, a pair of leather sketcher shoes that look almost like old fashioned football shoes. I also bought a new pair of running shoes. SURPRISE! I went away from Nike for only the second time ever. I bought a pair of New Balance. I’m interested to see how well they work for me. They are supposed to be quite a bit better for pure running, longer distances, like I’d like to do, slower pace for longer distances, as I’m getting a little older now heh.

Let’s see, we dropped off the truck to get it fixed, drove a Chrysler 300 around for a few days, then picked up a Chevy Cobalt (what a cheap pile of crap) for my wife for the last few days they are fixing the truck (they extended the amount of time it will take). We saw a few movies. The Davinci Code, interesting, worth seeing in the theater, but not likely worth the hype. I’m sure all the fundamentalist Christians will be screaming about it and out to get people’s scalps, despite the fact that the author of the book admits it’s based on fiction.

We are almost halfway through our flight. So far, two movies have been played, we made sure to suggest action movies, if any. The first was a sports drama called Glory Road about the first all black basketball NCAA team to win a national title. It was pretty good. The second one was King Kong, a remake of the classic. It was quite long and drawn out and it really lost a lot of it’s charms with the overwhelming amount of unrealistic computer generated action scenes (although, of course, there is no 10 ton ape in reality anyway, so how real can I expect it to be?). How can one ape fight off 6 T-rex dinosaurs? Well, thru a lot of crazy computer imagery, that’s how. I didn’t really care too much for it, although they did capture the humanity of the ape fairly well.

Oh, and of course I purchased something else, but I’m not going to tell you all what that was, you’ll have to find out at a later date, but I’m excited about it. My big thanks go out to midas for that one, he’s been very helpful, even in the face of some real ignorance from those we were working with, bah!!

I hope belly isn’t perplexed by how things went at time, I had a lot of trouble sleeping and I was grouchy quite a bit, but our situation is so different from what a lot of people go thru, even other military, considering that I was staying in a place I had never been, trying to dig thru boxes to find stuff that was repacked and unsure of what was where, not ever finding some things, finding other stuff seemingly out of wack, and doing a TON of laundry (wow storage units stink up the clothing). Things will be different when I come home for good. The only problem is that belly may end up getting deployed, but if that happens, so be it, we’ll deal with it, just like we always do, it’s what we signed up for, our obligation to our country : ) I LOVE YOU BABY!!!

Well, landing in Ireland now, might see if we can get ourselves some internet access there and post this shizzlenits!!!

Current Lyrical Ramblings

As you search the embers
Think what you've had, remember
Hang on, don't you let go now
You know, with every heartbeat, we love.

Ask The Lonely – Journey

I Miss You

Already... as I walked down the plane boardie thing in San Diego I felt it already. Bah.

Current Lyrical Ramblings

You always reached out to me and
helped me believe
All those memories we share
I will cherish every one of them

Stand Here With Me - Creed

ANOTHER OLD POST, this time from October of 2005 : ) Just doing some cleanup, this one may have been posted already but I can't find it in my archives (and I'm not looking that hard for it either)

More Hollywood Rubbish

This time disguised as a news article. I was catching up a little bit on the news and came across a movie project that Hollywood has decided to work on. It’s going to star Kirsten Dunst, as an American Citizen who went to work in Iraq to get aid to war victims. Now, let’s look beyond the obvious disturbing ignorance in making a film about a war that is STILL GOING ON, with our military members STILL FIGHTING, and visit some of the more idiotic parts of this editorial so thinly disguised as an article.

“The movie, to be made for Paramount Pictures, will tell the remarkable story of Ruzicka, 28, who ran a non-governmental organisation that lobbied for financial compensation for civilian casualties of war, Daily Variety said.”

Ohhh, ‘remarkable story’ now, is that how we describe non biased news these days, with adjectives implying good or bad? Interesting, now let us look at some other parts of this ‘article’ that are misinforming.

“Ruzicka, through her organisation Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, worked extensively in Iraq and in Afghanistan to document the exact number of civilians killed or injured by US forces.” UH, WRONG!!! Way to doctor the facts. This campaign was not aimed at those ‘killed by US forces’ it was aimed to help ANY civilians harmed during this war, by either side. Why do you think she was targeted and killed by a suicide bomber? Well, there are those that believe her investigative work was working against the insurgents by putting exact numbers killed by both sides up from an impartial source. So certainly if it were just ‘civilians killed or injured by US forces’ , that would work FOR their cause. Way to get the facts WRONG. And way to misspell organization in your ‘article’ too, great editing.

But hey, it’s being produced by MTV films, which should really say a lot. MTV can’t even put music on a stationed named after music, how can you expect them to put up factual information in a serious movie? This is typical of the media, who trumps up larger than life estimates of those who have died in Iraq anyway, and attribute all deaths in Iraq to American forces, taking no time to break down the numbers in terms of who killed who, such as when suicide bombers kill a hundred civilians, that’s attributed to the US Military. They also lump insurgents who are killed in with innocents to inflate the totals. Gotta love the bullshit.

The article goes on to talk about how the Hollywood is lining up films about the ‘three year old conflict in Iraq’, listing several titles, and stupidly includes "Jarhead," starring Jamie Foxx and Jake Gyllenhaal, which is set to open on November 11. Wow, way to do your research, considering Jarhead is about the FIRST Iraqi conflict, Desert Storm, more than 15 years ago.

Interestingly enough, the article is not attributed to any author, instead listed simply as LOS ANGELES (AFP). I wouldn’t want to put my name on this garbage either, considering the inconsistencies and one sided viewpoints that are inferred within. Just another attempt by the half witted non educated Hollywood types to try and sway political opinion concerning topics they know nothing about.
Current Lyrical Ramblings

Bend and shape me, I love the way you are
Slow and sweetly, Like never before
Calm and sleeping, We won't stir up the past
So discretely, We won't look back

Doesn’t Remind Me – Audioslave

The Home I Have Yet To See

As many people who read this know, belly was still doing her military occupational specialty training when I was activated in August of last year. Everything we owned went into storage and I headed to beautiful Ft. Riley, Kansas, for a couple of months of training in preparation for my time in the Sand Box.

Even as I was deployed to where I am now, I had no idea where we were going to live. We figured Yuma, Arizona, given belly’s high test scores and class ranking, and because not many people would actually pick Yuma given the climate and that Yuma isn’t exactly party central, so to speak.

Of course, as seems to be the military’s way of doing things, they went another direction than where we intended, and sent belly to San Diego to Camp Pendleton. Then we battled with the Marines over her basic allowance for housing, that all married people are SUPPOSED to get, but of course they wanted to keep her from getting it and call our marriage one of ‘convenience’ (aka FRAUD MARRIAGE FOR MONEY).

So we finally got that sorted out, and now we have, as I have been told, a quaint little apartment in a suburb of San Diego on the northern side of Pendleton, a place that I have not yet seen save for pictures. California… as most of you know I despise pretty much everything the so called “Sunshine State” stands for, smug self serving liberals with that pseudo intellectual superiority, with their smothering red tape liberal legislation and expensive reform programs and moronic political viewpoints, but belly says the weather is nice. I’ll just have to avoid getting my srt4 pulled over if I get some modifications in Nebraska, cuz they certainly won’t be legal in California.

With that said, I have obviously not seen my apartment, save for a few photos that my baby has sent me. I am excited about finally being able to see our apartment and checking out some of the sites around San Diego, and maybe a little bit of time doing a couple of adventures, but I hope belly realizes that I’m doing a lot of adventure right now and for me, living a normal life during my break is what I’m most looking forward to.

I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have belly in my life. This deployment would be a lot more miserable, that is for sure. I know I can have a truly crappy day and all I have to do is hear her voice or get an email from her and the stress just melts away.

***OLD JOURNAL ENTRY, for some reason it was never posted? Oh well, and if it has been posted I never found it, so who cares right?

Book Review: The Broker by John Grisham

This book begins during the waning hours of the presidency, as an ousted president makes several very controversial pardons, one being Joel Backman, a major power broker who was sent to prison after pleading guilty to theft of military secrets. Turns out that the CIA pressured the president into making the pardon, then quickly secreted him out of the country to Italy, where they would release his whereabouts to several other countries, who are very intent upon killing him.

The book started off rather well, but upon Backman’s arrival in Italy, things slowed down too much to really keep a person occupied with the novel. The main problem was the daily Italian life that Backman was leading was drawn out much too far and became relatively boring. Certainly Bologna, Italy is likely a wonderful city, but it seemed like Backman went to every café and little restaurant in the city, and Grisham had to write in detail about every one of them, and also about every single day’s Italian language lessons that Backman was taking. It was all a little too boring for my tastes, and you ended up wanting to skip ahead to find out just what was going to happen.

In the end, Backman has a moral dilemma, does he sell the technology that he has or does he do the moral thing and give it up to his own government, despite the fact that part of his own government wanted to see him killed. I was disappointed with the ending because there were many ways that Backman could have made a great variety of people pay for their greed and treachery, yet Grisham sort of ended the book without any of that being done, there are far too many loose ends in my opinion to really slam the book shut and think to yourself “what a great ending”. It was a little change in pace from Grisham’s usual works, and an interesting yarn, but had too much filler in the middle and too little substance in the end.

Rating: ***

The Not So Joyful Traveling Extravaganza

I’m sitting at 34,500 feet at this point, row 14, seat G, traveling somewhere over the northern Atlantic on a North American Airlines Boeing 767 with around 300 other servicemen and women. I don’t know that I have ever even heard of an airline called North American until I stood on the tarmac staring at this plane, but even so it was wonderful to see a piece of high tech machinery that wasn’t military in nature, for the first time in more than six months.

The last couple of days seem almost to have been drawn out into weeks. I was in Kuwait with 3 other members of our unit and we fully expected that we would be in Kuwait just a couple of hours and then head to the airport and be immediately on our way home. Well, how sadly mistaken we were. The entire process is a TOTAL clusterfuck. We arrived in Kuwait at about 1700 on the 2nd of May, and we find out that our flight doesn’t even leave until 2300 THE NEXT DAY, so we were stuck spending 30 hours on this itty bitty “Purgatory” between Iraq and the United States.

This didn’t have to be so bad, had it not been for the completely asinine and incompetent way the personnel stationed at the installation ran the place. Lazy, ignorant, non caring morons is about the best way to describe them. We turned in our IBA vests and Kevlar helmets upon arriving, and got ourselves rooms at billeting (tents) to stay overnight in. Then for some reason, rather than do the 2 week rest and relaxation briefing right there, they made us wait till 2130, despite the fact that many of us were very tired (a good portion of the soldiers were under the impression we would be on a flight right away so we had been practicing sleep deprevation so we could sleep on the plane).

Upon arriving back in the reception area at 2130, we discover that we are in there with about 100 more soldiers who had just arrived who were given the SAME BRIEFING that we received (orientation, turning in your equipment, getting billeting) some 5 hours before, so we were stuck waiting nearly an hour and a half for the newly arriving soldiers to get that taken care of. Then finally at some time after 2300 we got started and were able to turn in our request for final destination packets, and then we were told that we had to come back at 0500 to pick up our itineraries that would tell us what flights we were on.

Okay, so 4 hours of sleep and then back for ANOTHER meeting, no big deal, it’s important to get the itinerary, right? Oh, but wait, it gets better, “Be back here at 0730 to find out if there are any changes to your flight times for Atlanta or Dallas” (everyone flies to those two ‘gateway’ airports before taking a final flight to their home airport). I went up front and asked the PFC “Why are you having everyone get up at 0500 to get their itineraries when you are having another meeting at 0730 anyway, why not just give the itineraries out at the 0730 meeting???” to which I was told “I’m sorry sergeant that’s not how we do it.” Okay… “Well, what is the reasoning behind having two meetings 2 hours apart that could just as easily be combined into one meeting at the later time” to which she looked at me stupidly and said “We don’t make the rules that’s just how it’s done.”

“Oh, okay, so basic ignorance, is that it?” and I walked away. At that point I was pretty pissed off, as were a lot of other soldiers, because nothing was making much sense at all. Adding to the confusion was the apparent complete lack of NCO’s on the post doing any leadership at all, everyone running the briefings, handling the situations, etc, were SPC’s at best and many times PV2’s and PFC’s, completely and utterly nonsensical, any questions you had for them in terms of better ways of doing things were always met with the same response: “We don’t make the rules that how our leadership wants it done”. WELL FUCK, then get your leadership down here so we can discuss a better way of doing things!!!

May 3: We had an NCO pick up everyone’s itineraries for our group, which was very nice of him, a red haired SGT out of the 82nd Airborne who didn’t mind getting up early and grabbing about 150 schedules for us all, which we didn’t give much of a shit if that went over well for the people running the place or not. After all, if your freaking leadership skips out all the time and leaves the shop run by idiot subordinates who don’t outrank you, they can’t do shit about it when you do things the way you want to do them, in a way THAT MAKES SENSE.

I don’t think they were too happy about it, but fuck ‘em, they had done an admirable job of ruining our last 24 hours already. Oh, but it got better. Lockdown for our flight was at 1400, nearly TEN HOURS before we were even scheduled to board. Why? Ohhh, we get back into the reception area, and guess what? “Okay, those of you that just arrived, line up single file to turn in your IBA and Kevlar…” hey hey hey, they did it again, hooray for ineptitude, three cheers for bungling stupidity, they had EVERYONE arrive early to enjoy another hour and a half or equipment turn in by yet ANOTHER group. By this time there were many of us who were ready to choke the shit out of the military staff running this shit hole.

So, then everyone from Dallas stands in a big formation outside for about an hour before we are sent off in a giant single file line into the customs area, where our bags are ex rayed and gone thru. Then after that, we sat in another tent for 3 hours or so waiting, for what you might ask? WELL, you’d never guess it, we waited for 3 hours so we could board a bus and ride for an hour and a half then wait for an hour on a cramped bus with seats spaced out for toddlers or midgets, so we could finally board the plane.

You would never think you could actually get onto a plane and silently scream with delight about the leg room in coach, but you do when every bus in theater (Iraq/Kuwait) has legroom for little people, and you are 6 foot tall. About a half hour later and we were airborne, and I was streeeeeeetching out and loving it, MP3 player out and plugged in, sleeping, then reading a book, then sleeping, then eating one of the meals they serve every 3 hours (I am eating one, skipping one, as we go, don’t want to eat a lot before I get home, I’m sure my baby has big food plans haha).

Seven hours later we landed at Shannon International Airport in the Green Emerald Isles. I did a little shopping at the duty free shop, got some chocolates for belly, and stayed away from everything else because it was rather pricey. Ireland is every bit as pretty and green as you can imagine, and for all of us sitting on the plane as we took off a couple of hours later, after a long time staring at very little green and mostly sand for months, it was a welcome sight.

So now here I am, roughly 4 and a half hours into a 9 hour flight to Dallas, still marveling at human scientific achievement, the ability to create a machine that flies you some 5 miles in the air, whisking you around the world in such a short amount of time.

Did I say a short amount of time? Because actually, it does seem like an awfully long time. But at least the seats are comfortable, at least we have movies to watch, and food to eat (although the food has been pretty bad haha). Halfway to Dallas… then another 6 hour wait for my next flight to San Diego. Hey, look on the bright side, at least I don’t have the farking idiots from Kuwait having briefings and meetings every two hours in Dallas. I can call my wife, then find an internet café and enjoy myself.

It’s good to be coming back to the USA, even if it is to somewhere I’ve never been, and only for a couple of weeks : )