omg lol BS

Ten months ago, i was attempting to prepare my brain for another year away from home. i was getting my belongings for a year of storage. i was giving pep-talks to my friends and family. i was terrified of not having my cell phone. i was unemployed and in the middle of many awesome (albeit self-thrown) going-away parties.

The beginning and ends of deployments are typically the hardest and most BS-filled. right now my unit is suffering through hours-long briefings after finishing 11-13 hour workdays. as if that isnt bad enough, these briefings are completely redundant. i'm not saying theyre not informative the first time, but when you see the same powerpoint for the 3rd time, you start wondering if anyone in the army communicates.

this ties into another factor for all of the nonsense: officers. there is always friction between officers and enlisted, but it becomes much more pronounced when officers are political. these promotion-hungry college graduates decide that they need to leave their mark on the army by engaging in what can only be categorized as 'shenanigans.' since it is rare that officers have to do actual work, they feel free to extend their soldier's mission, volunteer them for more work, less downtime, etc, while restricting their ability to complete their mission simultaneously. sidenote: there is at least one officer from my unit who reads this, so i feel the need to be diplomatic. officers serve a VERY important role in the army, and i hope this part is educational for you civilians. without officers there would be almost no need to ever salute. without salutes, we're just a poorly-dressed corporation. anyway, thank you, officers, for giving us a reason to salute something other than flags.

anyway, we're now about 3 weeks away from this impending BS-explosion. there are already telltale signs, but most people here arent looking for them. the sad thing is that this is an inevitablity for me, and knowing that they're on their way can't help me avoid or change them. luckily for you, this might give my blog some serious fuel, or at least an occassional rant or two.

to recap: got mobilized, officers, salutes, end is in sight.

The Bored

in the last 9 years, i have been in school for a total of 4 semesters, most recently about 3 years ago. i tell you this because i am now love handles-deep in reading associated with the Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) of the Month Board. it is the next step up from the Soldier of the Month/Quarter/Year board in the sense that it is for higher-ranking and, logically, more experienced soldiers. it has been almost 6 years since my last board, and in those years i have forced most of this information out of my head. staying sane in the national guard is hard enough without having to worry about which army regulation covers the length and uniformity of my sideburns, or which field manual talks about nighttime urination tactics. since my focus has been my own survival, i have forgotten many of these little military nuggets. the ones i haven't forgotten, i have never had to know: until now.

i was handed a 3-inch thick three-ring binder and some highlighted sections upon which to focus. i was also promised a 'sponsor' for this oral exam, and he has yet to help me at all (unless you consider telling me when to show up a form of help). not that i am afraid of this experience, i am just caught between the slow-moving but omnipresent glacier of ending my time in the army, and the mountain that is my competitive nature. simply put, i dont know if i should give a fuck. let us weigh the options together, shall we?

reasons i should give a proverbial fuck:

- as i mentioned a minute ago, i am quite competitive. i would like to walk into this knowing 100% of the material and really impressing everyone.
- i tend to 'do the right thing' a very high percentage of the time; why stop now?
- this would be a very fitting end to my army life.
- i have already decided that if i beat out the rest of the soldiers at this board, i would 'forget' to go to work for the rest of the time here.

reasons i should blog instead of studying:

- national guard soldiers have no reason being thrown into competition like this with active duty people. their occupation is to know this stuff. they eat it and breathe it. i should know, i used to be one of them. i have lost before i have even started.
- the award is little more than a pat on the back.
- "i was April 2009's NCO of the month" gets you as far with girls and employers as "i roadmarched 62 miles in 24 hours with a 55-pound pack." most people dont know what youre talking about anyway.
- my blogs are much more fun to write than all of my study guides are to read.

none of this writing changes the fact that i am going. it did, however, cut the time i have to potentially study by almost half an hour. army logic states that the less time i actually get to study, the more acceptable it is that i don't do well. maybe i should go running and then try to figure out how Twitter could possibly add to my life.

five reasons i'm glad i enlisted

when i joined the army, i was a month out of my teens, and looking to better myself through discipline and guns. i remember the bus ride from the atlanta airport to fort benning. i only knew about basic training what movies had told me, along with general assumptions (screamed at, spit upon, beaten, and possibly complimented on my dimples), and it turned out that most of these were greatly exaggerated and played-up. i did get a nice comment about my cheek-craters, though. sometimes things in the army arent what you expect them to be. there have been a number of occasions since i joined that have exceeded any preconceptions that i might have had.

the first and best example i have is when i went to what is known as 'reclass school' in the fall of 04. i was an infantryman, but the national guard demanded i become proficient in the art of water purification (if you have ever seen In the Army Now with Pauly Shore...). i went to the middle of nowhere, virginia, for two weeks of classroom training on filters and valves. at the time there were only 100-something people on an army post that can fit thousands. we had free reign over every building on post, and our small class (about 13 people) had so much drunken fun that i can't even go into detail here. weeks 3 and 4 of the class were in fort lee, virgina, which is much more civilized. it was actually so populated at the time that we had to stay in a holiday inn for two weeks. the army paid for us to have housekeeping and fresh sheets every night. i spent about 6 hours a day in class, and the rest of the day drinking, rapelling off of the hotel roof, going to hick bars, and feel sorry for the cleaning lady who had to pick up all of the miller lite cans on my floor.

living in fort hood texas put me a 45-minute drive (mom, stop reading now) from austin if i drove over 90 mph. going down to 6th street for a night or weekend was always an amazing outlet for me. it completely removed me from the military vibe that i have never really gotten used to, and this reprive was always crazy and awesome. live music, UT girls, and cheap drinks usually led me to spending the night in a motel or in my car parked under the highway.

The national training center in fort irwin is located conviniently near nothing. it happens to occupy a good amount of space in the mojave desert, and it is where large units go to train. my squad went in january of of 2003 to be 'op-for' or the opposing force for a unit based out of new york. we were very autonomous, doing missions for 2 days out of every 4, and we spent those two days running around the desert shooting fake bullets at people and 'killing' them. since we were on our own, we decided to 'turn on' our equipment, making us impervious to their silly weapons. we slept under the stars, ate crappy food, and went to the stores and stuff that the other people werent allowed in while training. the best/worst part of the trip: my buddy Kyle leaving two open bags of beef jerky out. it attracted about 30 coyotes who spent the night sniffing my sleeping bag while i lay inside with a 6-inch knife in my hands and my eyes wide open in terror.

any weekend spent in fort dix is semi-memorable. the amount of alcohol i have consumed in the barracks there is astounding. with nothing to do BUT drink, there is an unlimited amount of fun things you can do with a few friends, a camera, and a lack of knowledgable supervision.

the 5th and final best thing ive done in the army (trust me, finding 5 has been kind of hard) is iraq. the deployments have really dragged, and i think three tours is two too many, but i have learned a lot about the world here. i mentioned a few of the things in an earlier entry, but there really are quite a few good ones. the iraqi people are incredibly generous. if you compliment a guy on his shirt, he will literally take it off and offer it to you. you'd be amazed how easy it is to turn down a gift from a strange naked man who is yelling at you in arabic. aside from the people, the harsh landscape and climate are really intense.

it appears that my mind is attempting to gravitate toward rewarding and happy thoughts about the army to help me through this last leg of my camouflaged journey. whatever it takes, i guess!

Post-Traumatic Sports

one of the largest facets of being a soldier is physical fitness. i have to be up front with my current lack of adherence to the army's "standards," but luckily i am in the national guard, where you can fly under the radar with a spare tire or two. sports have always been my way of keeping in shape. i have only been on a handful of sports teams since high school, but most were soccer leagues that encouraged post-game drinking and the like.

as some of you may have read, i was recently involved in what some might call a 'soccer miracle' that ended with an 11-day absence from work due to a superficial leg wound. since that has healed, our flag football season has started. we play on the same surface as before (consisting of sand, small rocks, big rocks, and sand), only this time i am aware of what might happen if you should choose to get daring and slide around on your knees. our team is lacking skills in only one critical area. sadly, this area is the 'actually winning games' category. we have the heart, the skills, and the drive to achieve greatness, but seem unable to get a second 'W.'

now let me explain something about flag football: it is more like golf with running than actual football. if you make contact with another player, it is most likely illegal. i'm not talking about your black-and-white 'good touch/bad touch' here since a lot of this falls into a flag football gray area. you are allowed to grab an opponent's flags, but you are not allowed to miss and accidentally grab, say, his shirt. if you get his shirt, this results in a penalty that causes a loss or gain of yards. the officials base their penalization on the strict and time-honored principle of 'whichever team is whining more vehemently.' this brings sporting to a new level, since the officials keep in mind that players on both teams are in possession of firearms and bad words.

activities like sports, running, and going to the gym are great morale-boosters here. losing games detracts from morale and adds to the frustration most of the troops here are already feeling. to anyone out there who might be on the opposing team for tonight's game: let us win. it is vital to the progress of our great country that our spirits stay high enough to deal with the daily rigors of sitting around, sitting around with gear on, and sitting around wearing gear while operating a vehicle.

iraq n' roll

as my third deployment winds down, i have begun to reflect upon the impact iraq has had on my life. this is supposedly the birthplace of civilization, and as history-rich as it may be i haven't been able to enjoy it much from a tourist's perspective. there have been a few things that have really made me pause and think about the differences between the U.S. and iraq, though. everyone who has watched TV or been on the internet in the last 7 years has a decent idea of what the terrain is like here, and how baghdad looks at night as it gets hit by missles and bombs. thinking back, that is very little of what i will remember about it.

the night sky in iraq circa 2003 was the most incredible thing i have ever seen. it would literally keep me breathless on a nightly basis as i watched shooting stars and attempted to grasp the enormity of the milky way (which looks like a long, thin cloud). the viewing was aided greatly by a total lack of electricity in the area along with the fact that i slept outside for 90% of the year i was there. some of the happiest and most peaceful times i had in 03 were lying on the dirt with alkaline trio on my CD player, looking up at the stars wondering if anyone at home was looking up also.

through the first month of my first tour, we 'showered' in streams and rivers that we came across. it was always amazing that an irrigation ditch in the middle of the desert allowed plants to grow on the banks. we would jump in in full uniform and use bars of soap to clean our uniforms and strip down as we cleaned until we were actually cleaning ourselves. we had two bradley fighting vehicles providing security for the swimmers so that no one snuck up on us mid-bath.

in 2005, i would stand on top of our building on the banks of the tigris river in Samarra and look out across the city. you could see the spiral minaret and golden mosque illuminated and if you time it right, you could actually see the locals bouncing tracer rounds off of them, and occasionally firing RPGs at them this always mystified me because both of these landmarks are centuries older than our country, and they were treated with apparent disregard for their historical value. hey, at least i appreciated them, right?

this past year has been much less beautiful and interesting. i have, however, been completely immersed in iraqi culture. on a given day, i deal with about 100 or so detained iraqis. they are big into kissing each other, speaking arabic, and not showering. 98% of them smell worse than any person youve ever had near you. in case you weren't aware, it is their culture to wipe their ass with their left hand (no toilet paper for them) and then rinse their hands with ... water. that's it. i'm sure this contributes greatly to the stench, and it isnt something i will soon forget.

there a myriad of other things that i will remember about my time here, but these stuck out in my mind the most. i can't write a tourism guide or anything, but i could probably drive from kuwait to tikrit without asking for directions.

waking up 3 hours before the crack of dawn.

there are certain things in life that you cannot grow accustomed to. think of stubbing your toe: you could do it every day for the rest of your life and still not get used to the pain. the army stubs your brain weekly, and the dull throb of your aching morale echos in your mind for at least 12 hours. here is a list of things that, after almost 8 years in uniform, i have not gotten used to:

1 - waking up regularly before 4 am. i get out of bed currently at 315 am, and snarl and curse at myself for a solid half hour. i am a morning person. i can honestly say that in my entire life, i have never hit the snooze button. getting up that early isnt the problem, it's the fact that my brain simply does not start up for at least 15 minutes. i often find myself standing in my dark room trying to figure out where i am, and wondering why i'm standing in a dark room.

2 - everyone who outranks me being my boss. it doesnt matter where you go or what you're doing, there is always someone there to keep you in line. i think i will forever be paranoid about doing little things wrong. example: every time i step outside, i always reach for my cover (in the civilian world: "hat."). when i do not find it, i freak out for 1/10th of a second, then laugh at myself.

3 - being away from home. time passes slowly, and you have ZERO escape. i can't hop into my car and go for a drive, nor can i relax with a cold beer after a 16-hour shift. my cell phone has no reception here and really cant pick out clothes to wear. adding all of those things together really tend to fry your brain.

4 - constant changes to the most mundane things. if you think that where you hang your workout clothes in your closet in relation to your polo shirts isn't a big deal, it would be if you were in the army. though i havent really encountered too much of this particular brand of nonsense since basic training, the small changes to things that dont matter are everywhere, and always quite annoying.

5 - the smell of burning feces. this is not meant as a joke (ok, it kind of is). everywhere you go in iraq, you are bound to smell lots of excrement. the overpowering stench of other peoples bodily waste leaves quite the imprint on your brain. think about the worst-smelling public restroom youve ever visited. now magnify that times 10 and make the smell EVERYWHERE. you cant hide from it here. indoors, outdoors, you name it.

this is just a list off the top of my head. i'm sure i could identify 5 more, but really dont feel like thinking that hard at the moment. now i have to start thinking about bed since i have to be up at 315 again tomorrow. pity me!

April 1 - laugh it up.

my first idea for an entry today was based on the fact that it is April Fool's Day, but quickly realized that any joke i posted here 1) wouldnt be as funny as most of the truths in my life and 2) would probably end up being cruel.

i decided to turn to my good friend Wikipedia for insight in to how such a day could come about, as most holidays are spent celebrating certain things, remembering dead people or fueled by religion. April Fool's Day (AFD as it is known in Army circles), preys on gullible and unsuspecting people. the wiki entry is hysterical, chronicling some of history's best pranks. Apparently a physicist wrote a paper in 1998 about Alabama's proposal to change the irrational pi to a 'biblical value' of 3.0. other pranks include left-handed whoppers at burger king and swiss people harvesting their spaghetti crop after eradicating the pestilence of the feared 'spaghetti weevil.'

this invesitgation into AFD along with reading an interview with Seth Rogen have brought me to really appreciate the humor of others. humor is my default defense mechanism, and making light of situations has allowed me to keep my sanity for almost 3 decades.

i feel that the world as a whole has quite the sense of humor, finding my proof in the fact that WNBA is still around, Fergie was able to sell records, and (prep yourself for a laugh) this. all kidding aside, i really dont know how people were able to tolerate life without being able to watch movies, go to comedy clubs, and enjoy pranks on april first. back in Ye Olden Days, they had court jesters, puppet shows, and people being burned at the stake to entertain them. before that... not so much. you never read in the bible about Matthew being a really funny dude, or Noah bringing 3 giraffes on the ark 'just for shits and giggles.'

the evolution of mankind to the point where we will go to great lengths to amuse ourselves signals progress. instead of having to rise and rest with the sun, we can now spend all night on the internet, googling 'tennis groin shot' and 'leading WNBA scorers' to give ourselves some chuckles. i am encouraged to keep finding funny people and things to add to my life so i can embody this step in the right direction.

sorry about the cracks on the WNBA.

no i'm not.