Iraq: The Purgatorium

Epilogue

2011-09-16T04:20:00.001-07:00

Wanna see some scars and shit? Maybe some video? Some shit I couldn't talk about when I was in the Army? I might even throw in a set of tits, just to take attention away from that god-awful Jersey Shore bullshit.

BLOOD GUTS TITS FIRE

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

Vets got venom.

An Afterthought

2009-02-03T15:17:00.001-08:00

Sorry for not telling the whole story, for omitting what I felt I had to. And for what I couldn't bring myself to write about. Maybe someday. Maybe never. Re-reading old entries takes me back there, and I can only do it one or two posts at a time before I have to stop.

I just still don't get it.

"Home"

2008-06-16T05:34:00.000-07:00

We're back now. Back in the states.

Back to the booze. Back to the insanity of normal living. Fresh introduction to ridiculous gas prices. Great guys coming home to disastrous situations. The most unexpected, failed marriaged, and thankya very much Uncle Sam. Seeing as ol' Unc gives such a shit about fixing these quiet problems. Cheating wives. And who can blame who? Gone for over a year, what is a human being to do?

Just don't discredit the army, and everything is ok. Fuck you, Joe. Figure it out.

The Army cares about families. Really, it does. And that's why the happiest couples are in such an interesting state. That's why a married guy is crashing in the extra space in my room. Because we're all such heroes, we're all supported oh so much. But I guess refusing the dick is a bit much to ask from married women. I guess this is just our new culture. More money for the lawyers.

Here is your shiny happy future! Repetitive briefings filled with scare tactics, to the point where you don't even want to leave your room because it is a FACT that you will fuck up and the Army will destroy you. You're back, and "thank you" and all that, but really, hardly anyone truly cares. You're not in Iraq anymore, you're just another "vet" and yawn an' fuckoff kindly. Deny it all you want, but its the truth. The second day we were back, we went right back to not meaning shit to anyone except our mothers.

When I left, phones flipped open, but made sense. Now my phone has a keyboard and a touch screen. I should need a degree from MIT to run the bastard. You can't find a normal TV, they're all flat pannel HD spreadyercheeksandcoughupthecash crazy contraptions. Now I can see all the starlets blemishes in SUPER HIGH DEFINITION.

Sure, I catch myself scanning the freeway in high def, and the strangely shaped roofs. The shops and malls and hotels and godknowswhat. All to find even less.

"Oh, you're [Father]'s son, the one that just came back from Iraq?! How was it? Was it fun???"

I couldn't make this up if I tried. I've just been holding my tongue, being on my best behavior. That is, til I ended up at a friend's house, this friend being dead, and talking to his widowed wife, drinking wine and feeling awkward. Before I know it, I'm on the porch, hiding from everyone else, and the faucet is turned on, and I'm completely losing it, trying to find logic behind everything when I know that there is none. Trying to come to grips that one of the greatest people that I'll ever meet wasn't able to come home, and now I'm a guest in his wife's house. Oh you can bet I hung my head.

And then I went back to the Consumer Binge, namely in the mall. Sure, the Arabic fellow selling lotion didn't deserve the instinctive freak-out that I gave him, or the threats of bodily harm. He didn't deserve my desire to stomp the life out of him, but what business did he have being in my homeland, freedom aside?

Half the time, it's like I'm still There. The other half of the time, it's ALMOST like I had never actually left. Maybe just slept in. But now people are "proud" of me for doing whatever it is that I did.

I asked a Vietnam Vet a few questions. He said that it took him no time at all to readjust. Once again, we were the weird ones. Step outside and hear some other unit at the range unloading rounds, and for a second, it could be another firefight in Dourah, Baghdad. But no, it's not.

You're home now. You're no one again. All thanks aside, you're just a Joe. And no one here gives a shit. Most of 'em have done it, and the ones who haven't, well those newbie bastards are heading there sooner than soon. No ticker tape parade. Just a slideshow. Powerpoint.

Just liquor. Pouring as much of it into your face as you can, just as long as you don't have to work the next morning (even then, it's debatable). Everything is explainable, but nothing makes SENSE. We got no action, we got no motion. Don't think the boy can play much anymore.

We're kinda just like the rest of you now. Trying our damndest anyway. Got another year left. Then four years inactive.

Far as anyone else is concerned, I was never there. Never once.

The Grand Fucking Finale

2008-06-02T18:23:00.000-07:00

Kuwait. Nightmare of customs.

Waiting. Sleep deprivation. True sand. Dangling freedom right in front of us.

One flight after another. Layovers. Sitting in a bus in the middle of nowhere in Kuwait. Popping Unisoms and watching flight attendants disappear before your eyes. Next time they open, everyone else is eating. Everyone but you, as you wipe a thick sticky streak of saliva off your cheek.

You wake up in Ireland, just long enough to smoke a cigarette and catch another briefing.

You wake up in Bangor. By the time we got to our destination, no one even seemed that excited. Only a little. I always imagined that the plane would be fucking INSANE as we were landing, like a riot of very pleased Joes that no one could contain.

The truth is that most people were too tired and worn out or self conscious to even make a sound. Scattered "Whooo!" and clapping could be heard, but ultimately, our shit was weak.

When I stepped off the plane for the last time, a three star general and several other officers were waiting. As I shook the general's hand, I really couldn't think of a profound reply, so I responded to his thanks and hooah-congratulations with a heartfelt, "WHHOOOOOO!!!!!" Fuck it, treat it all like an AC/DC concert, right?

Another briefing. Turned in our rifles. Received packets. The voices echoed in the large room and no one had a fucking clue what the important ones were saying, and really, we doubted that it even mattered. We were home.

They stuffed us on buses. And to my LEGITIMATE SURPRISE, we waited. And waited. In my wildest dreams, I always thought that when we went home, it would be an expedited process. Truth is, they drag it out so long that you can't even get excited about it.

Then we arrived at Fort Lewis. It was weird. It was the same, and different at the same time. I didn't know WHAT the hell to think. They had us form up, big mass formation, complete idiocy if you asked me. Finally we marched in, in columns of twos, to a live military band.

Cheers. Like we were fucking rock gods or something. We were heralded, and for who know's what reasons, and dammit, who cares? It was without a doubt the one and only cool part about the redeployment process. The Beatles couldn't generate this much cheering. The families looked like they were ready to tear the gym apart. Ravenous for their American Boys.

It was weird. It was like I'd never left, but at the same time, like I was going to wake up at any moment and still be in Iraq.

I got my room key, threw my bags inside, and left with the family. Steaks. Beer.

My time in Purgatory is fucking OVER. Nice ride. See you on Part 3.

The Cover Jacket For My Book

2008-05-30T11:35:00.001-07:00

Yes, all this time on my hands to spam and spam meaningless posts about how great I think I am, naturally when I saw this, I'd repost it. It's all about our favorite subject: Me.

This is from Big Tobacco's blog at http://big-tobacco.blogspot.com

The Usual Suspect

I wrote this while smoking a Fincks Maravilloso.

I don’t know Specialist Suspect, but I’ve met him before. Suspect is the specialist that haunts my dreams. He is the one who cracks jokes in formation, shams to get out of duty and is the reason you always find yourself in front of the commander explaining why the lieutenant is so pissed off.

Suspect is a nightmare because he was good enough to reach the rank of specialist and smart enough to stay there. He’s figured out the system and he works it.Detail to do?He’ll grab a private to do it.

Need him to draw an expensive piece of equipment?

He’ll get his team leader.

Found “Two Girls One Cup” as your default webpage?

“SUSPECT!!!”

Yet somehow, Specialist Suspect always endears himself to you. You find yourself screaming at him, smoking him, and then walking away laughing. There are times when you don’t know whether to kiss him or kill him. If you are training, running patrols or blowing stuff up, he'll be the first one in line and you will be amazed at his performance. But if a truck needs to be moved, he will disappear. You will wish you had ten Suspects out in the field, but one Suspect in the rear is too much.

I started reading Suspect’s blog sometime in October of last year. He was featured on The Sandbox, a website that I started reading out of morbid curiosity when I found out that I was deploying to Iraq.

I’ve found that many milblogs are full of posing and preening. They use deep thoughts and beautiful, surreal colors to describe the sense of determination and wonder that soldiers want the world to think that they feel.

Suspect’s blog was different. First of all, he didn’t care what you thought of him. While other bloggers talked about the beauty of an Iraqi sunset, Suspect would be talking about masturbating in the porta-shitter. Secondly, he wasn’t afraid to show the world that he was only in this for the college money and definitely NOT having a good time.Suspect’s attitude is real. I would say that 80% to 90% of all soldiers are only in it for the college money. They only intend to do one tour. They bide their time shamming, play practical jokes, get drunk and lose their wallet at some fat girl’s house off post and come back to the barracks a vomit-soaked mess. Suspect’s Army is the real Army. His blog opened a window for the world to see Joe through the eyes of Joe.

Suspect is in Kuwait now, waiting to redeploy. As much as I’ll miss the stories he posted every few days, I start my own rotation in mid June and I’ll have my own stories to tell.Welcome back, Suspect. You made it. Now I need you to get a detail together to…SSG Big Tobacco

Not bad huh? He's about to hit the box, so put that link in your favorite's list and keep checking in on him. Hell, that post was so motivating that I kind of want to rip apart a huge steak, swallow some potatoes whole, and suck down a cigar, maybe even slap a General when I'm done.

This'un's for you, Sarge.

For The Nam Guys

2008-05-30T10:58:00.000-07:00

While I'm busy here in Kuwait, fucking off and wasting more time on the internet than I have in a single month in Iraq, I'd like to address something.

Some of the coolest emails and comments I get come from Vietnam vets. If anyone gets it, they do, and then some. I've heard some amazing stories from these guys, and I also read John Leppelman's book Blood On The Risers.

It blows my mind, because I end up feeling a little guilty for all the gratitude I get, when we don't have it anywhere NEAR as bad as these guys did. Most of us don't get spit on, at most, an idiot will spout their mouth off about how evil and brainwashed we are, and we laugh it off and that's it. Nam vets got fucked every step of the way. I think the Thank You emails are vastly overdue.

You can't cut it by putting out movies with Sean Penn and Charlie Sheen and dramatizing and Hollywood-fucking their war. What kind of consolation is that? If they feel anywhere near as pissed off as I felt when I watched "Stop-Loss" or any of the bold new Iraq cash cow dramawhoring movies that are eeking their way into the box office, then we all owe some massive apologies.

Yet another reason why I won't wear the CIB. My deployment really wasn't all that bad all things considered. Now stand me next to someone who spent insane amounts of time out in the bush with rotting feet and 90 day wonder left-tenants, and you'll see a Wayne's World style "We're not worthy!"

Warm beds, phone connections, INTERNET FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, laptops and portable DVD players with bootleg movies that we can watch as soon as a WEEK after the movie hits theaters, showers, a chow hall staffed with little brown people working for KBR, and the list goes on.

The hell with me, thank a Nam vet. Or Korea vet. WWII.

Then again, most of us, we just watch our war movie reruns on Memorial Day, catch the repeat of Band of Brothers, and that's pretty much it. Doesn't bother me personally, I won't need a designated day to remember my guys. I'm sure the vets don't either. Guess we'll always have our shitty movies.

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAH!!!!!!

Pff. Gimme a break.

If I ever sat down at a VFW bar and ended up in a conversation with one of the old-timers, I think I'd just shut the fuck up and listen, because I feel like I really don't have a damn thing to say in comparison.

And then again, "Thanks" just doesn't cut it either. I draw a blank on this one. Whatever it is, I guess it's just unspoken. You can't really communicate it either. But this post's for you, boys.

Vultures and POGs

2008-05-30T04:22:00.000-07:00

Here in Kuwait, there isn't a damn thing to do, and that's precisely the reason why posts have been so frequent now.

One of my friends and I were out and about exploring this wasteland (after Iraq, this place really doesn't seem that bad. It just sucks, but it doesn't seem like its been marinaded in runny, sickly shit for eons). Kuwait has REAL sand, not the Iraq dust and dirt, but legitimate sand. In the movies, when you see someone walking aimlessly across the dunes, there's always vultures circling overhead, waiting for the lost traveller to grow too weak to continue, then they descend on him and pick his bones.

Here, it's bootleg vendors. They've got their shops set up all over the place and they shout at you as you walk by, explaining how incredible their shitty merchandise is.

"Mista, you want dress? For sister, wife, girlfriend, mother, anyone, very good dress," one of them hounds me.

I looked at my friend. "Dude, I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I'd come to the Middle East to be harassed by carnies."

My friend picks up a power adapter for an iPod.

"Hey, how much for this?"

"Fifty dollar."

Without hesitation, he chucks it back onto the table and walks away. I don't blame him. We survived a tour of duty in Iraq. Hell, this dude was SHOT. Saved by his body armor. In our cross between being completely worn out from the whole process, and travel, and being completely elated by the fact that we're supposedly going home, we just don't have the patience to deal with little bullshit like this. In fact, we feel above it all, like it's so inconsequential that we really don't have to take it seriously. We can have fun with anyone.

The people we overhear in the chow hall, Navy personnel who verbalize their training plans.

"Well, I think the first week, we should leave the plates out of our IBAs (body armor) and then the second or third week, put them in."

"But the plates are half the weight."

"No, not exactly I don't think."

I look at my friend. "Plates? What about all the AMMO? No one ever takes that into consideration."

"....Who cares?" he stares at me with utter contempt for even paying attention to a conversation that no longer applies to us in any way.

"....Dunno."

As I write, some older guy with a perfect high and tight hair cut and a hook nose struggles with his body armor, an assault pack (army style backpack, really) and a bag from the PX while trying to log onto a computer. He makes strange grunting noises, like Donald Duck meets Gollum as he quietly curses the machine and the cubicle that he can't seem to navigate.

He swipes his card, and it doesn't work.

"Ah, dangit....grnn..."

His body armor smacks against the wooden wall and his bag rattles and makes that ruffling sound plastic bags always make. His assault pack snags on the chair or something as he tries to move it to the other side of the chair. He half stands, getting his ass thoroughly kicked by the desk and his equipment. I have no idea why this guy even has this shit in here.

"Gah........rrn! C'mon....shitshitshitdamn!"

He finally gets up and drags his shit to another computer.

With as much negative criticism as I have for the Army and the military, I'll still always have that Infantry Superiority Complex. Seeing noncombatant personnel, it's always surreal and comical for me. Their priorites all out of whack, their leadership with no clue what combat is really like.

"I make my soldiers roadmarch all the time, teach muscle memory," a female First Sergeant once told me when I was going on leave. We never roadmarch in Iraq. And her soldiers never patrol. It reminded me of the time I was driving one of our Strykers to the fuel point, and I saw a bunch of finance clerks outside, doing reflexive fire exercises (raising your weapon, ready to fire, on command). They had no ammo, just the clumsily long M16s, standing on the side of the road, looking like idiots, preparing for something that they'll never actually do.

Asinine. The new word of the year. Mark my words.

Free Bird Part Two

2008-05-30T02:48:00.000-07:00

After eons and millenia of waiting, we loaded our gear up once again. Let me tell ya, we are so fucking sick of packing and repacking and moving and hauling duffel bags and rucksacks, that at this point, I'm almost ready to just cut them adrift and show up with a carry-on bag.

We were stuffed into a tent, all on cots, cots against both sides of the walls, crammed together, cots wedged up next to each other all down the center, gear in the aisles for everyone to trip over, power that goes out at the hottest time of the day, killing the AC. And wiley MPs and Oakley thieves.

That is, until the Hurry Up And Wait game brought us to the airfield and we loaded up on C-130s.

"They have to leave the engines on," some dude instructed, "so make sure you have hearing protection."

I thought to myself, Dude, at this point, you can't do shit for our hearing. Explosions, gunfire, loud machinery, and iPods? Pretty sure if we're fucked, we're fucked, and our aging asses will watch The Price Is Right with subtitles on. Now move.

Rather than panick about the noise coming from the bird, they should warn you about the wind and heat that shoots out of the engines. It's like a giant blow dryer trying to knock you down and scald you.

I put on my headphones and jammed Skynyrd and fantasized about Irish Carbombs and attractive women when the plane took off, and it was just another military flight to me. Didn't really feel like we were leaving, just moving to another shithole, which technically is true. Some dude threw up during the landing procedure, inspiring passionate, "Aww, what the FUCK, man?!" cries from a couple of people. When The Vomitor got on the bus later, we all clapped and cheered for him.

They herded us all across white sand type places to new temporary living places.

Welcome back to Kuwait.

Oakley Bandits

2008-05-28T08:43:00.000-07:00

As we continued our reign of terror in this big Pleasantville FOB full of M16-toting clerks, I saw a couple of my friends standing by some concrete bunkers, with a group of Air Force MPs.

Apparently, one of the insidious Anaconda Gangs broke into the Oakley shop and stole a bunch of shit, and when some of my friends walked into the shop this morning looking to waste money, they found the door open and a bunch of shit missing. The vendor ran up on them, spazzing out, and the almighty authorities were summoned.

[Sgt BenHur] had been in the PX earlier and had bought a Monster energy drink. The Oakley Shop was his next stop. In all their action-seeking glory, the MPs commanded him, "PUT THE CAN DOWN AND STEP AWAY! STEP AWAY FROM THE CAN!!!"

How in the fuck can you even call a tour of duty on this FOB a deployment?

Questioning went on for about two hours or so as each guy gave the same story. Walked into the shop. Door was open. Display case was open. End of story.

Personally, I probably would have made an indignant scene had I been one of the individuals in question. After well over a year of the shit we've gone through for god knows what reason, I just don't see myself taking any rent-a-cops seriously.

No offense, Sandy. You are not, nor will you ever be associated in my mind with these vile creatures. Stay tuned as the bullshit unfolds. I expect a year's worth of idiocy, IEDs not included.

Arrogant Little Bastard

2008-05-28T00:24:00.000-07:00

Never one to be the patient type, I've been keeping myself entertained while waiting for the next phase of travel. Thing is though, this typically involves me having fun at others' expense.

Me (to a young MP): "What the fuck is that on your unit patch?"
MP: "Huh? Where?"
Me: "Is that a BEAR?"
MP: "Yeah."
Me: "Wow. I've seen some really gay unit patches. I've even seen one with a little seahorse on it."
MP: [nervous chuckle]
Me: "And the 2nd Cav patch, looks like a girl scout patch if you ask me."

Of course I'm wearing the 2nd ID Indian Head patch. One of the few unit patches that doesn't look retarded. The 101st probably tops ours, and 1st ID has a simple cut and dry one, but for the most part, unit patches just look stupid. Especially when they have a cute fuzzy bear on it.

Me: "What's going on, sergeant?"
Sgt (as he places an order in Subway): Not much, you?"
Me: "Not much. Going home."
Sgt: "On R&R?"
Me: "No. For good. Redeploying." [Shit eating grin]

It's essential to point out that you're going home, especially to the non-combat MOS types that hang around this base. Plus, we already stick out like sore thumbs here, being that we're Infantry and have no regard for social norms or manners or the opinions of others.

We're like outlaws in this domesticated, glitzed out FOB. America, you're next.

Free Bird Part One

2008-05-27T15:07:00.000-07:00

We packed the last of our shit up and tossed duffels and rucksacks into the backs of five ton trucks and played the waiting game on the gravel.

Sprawled out at the airfield and shot the shit til the sun went down, and soon the helicopters touched down in shifts, loading us up. The wind from the rotors damn near knocked me over, same as it always does, and we squeezed inside. I found myself staring at a wall of duffel bags, thinking about how bad it would suck if it all avalanched on me.

The bird began to lift off and I flipped the bird towards the back ramp and shouted, "FUCK YOU, WARHORSE, FUUUUUCK YOOOOOU!", barely audible over the roar of the helo.

Warhorse disappeared underneath us and dropped us off at our next transient destination.

My friend and I ducked out of a detail, cocked our hats on our heads, and went for a walk, proudly showing off our stripped weapons and making it known that we are going home.

Render salute. Greeting of the day.

"Going home, Sir!"

The officers from other units sure love it. The look on their faces isn't one of pure hatred or anything.

Phase One complete.

Lulz

2008-05-27T03:52:00.000-07:00

This came from a post at http://zionred.livejournal.com/.

"Of course, you do hear of a few that stray from the pack and try to give American soldiers a bad name. Unfortunately, those are the soldiers that the media often profiles while ignoring the rest. Case in point: just check out this blog from a soldier who calls himself The Unlikely Soldier. (warning: it is layered with profanities)It's a perfect example of a "rotten apple" within the armed forces that gives other American soldiers a bad name. His ramblings are some of the most immature, thoughtless and senseless postings you will ever read from a soldier. Thankfully, most soldiers are not like this. "

Oh the irony. I like this fellow already.

Final Minutes

2008-05-26T21:24:00.000-07:00

The Strykers pulled back onto the FOB, about a week or so ago, and the ramps dropped. We piled out and pointed our rifles at the clearing barrels.

"Clear."

"Clear."

We mounted back up, stripping off our gear and shutting radios down. I didn't know it at the time, but that was my last mission.

We turned in all sorts of high tech sensitive type items and gadgets. Turned in what ammo we had left. Cleaned gear, packed huge metal containers, the type of shit you see at docks, repacked them, unpacked them, had them inspected. We kept busy with all manner of Preparing To Leave busywork. And the whole time, it was never real.

Just going to a new tent. Maybe a new FOB. That's it. The States? Shit son, that's just a myth to keep morale up. There is no world, there is only Iraq.

We had all sorts of formations and award ceremonies and horse and pony cuteness on top of the scrubbing of body armor and the chainsmoking of cigarettes. Got me that fancy Army Commendation award, and wouldn't ya know it, El Tee pinned that Combat Infantryman Badge on my chest. Pushed the needles in all slow like. I don't remember where I put it, if I even kept it.

Asinine traditions aside, the best part is realizing that you will never shake another Iraqi hand (probably not, anyway). Never hear the screech of, "Mistah! Mistah! FOOTBALL! CHOCOLATA!" Never smell the burning trash and shit and body odor stench of Baghdad again. God I better not.

Not worry if a house is going to explode when I walk into it. Hopefully.

Not worry that some chubby woman in black is going to explode once she gets close enough to me. I pray.

Not worry about shit exploding in the road, about assholes with table cloths wrapped around their heads shooting at me for no particularly good reason. None of it.

Nah, truth is, shit like that, just might stick with you for a while. So be it. I can check my corners while I'm renting DVDs. Small price to pay.

This place isn't my problem anymore. In a matter of days, it'll just be another name in the newspaper. Headlines and warped stories nowhere near the truth. No more body armor, no more rifle, no more ammo or night vision or knee pads or helmets, only thing left is the idiot-patterned uniform.

Yeah, tap the kegs and hand over the American luxuries, in excess. The world can eat my ass, because I've done my time in Purgatory. As far as I'm concerned, I have no sins, never did. Sweated them all away. Blood, sweat, tears. Hell, I even have some credit now. Got some goodness to burn off. Sounds great.

It's over. Never bother me again.
Fuck you Baghdad.
Fuck you, Dourah.
Fuck you, Baqubah.
Fuck you, Iraq. Fuck you, Kuwait.
Fuck you mosques and run down schools and pitiful masonry and stripped down "houses".
Fuck you, donkey.
Fuck you, mangey dog.
Fuck you, screeching children.
Fuck you, corrupt militia dude.
Fuck you, lazy public defender.
Fuck you, Stryker.
Fuck you, M4.
Fuck you, FOB Warhorse.
Fuck you, pitiful attempt at a Pizza Hut.
Fuck you, bootleg DVD vendors.
Fuck you, Iraqi people with your cotton track suits.
Fuck you, soccer.
Fuck you, triple digit heat.

Fuck y'all. I'm out. It's over. Done. I've fulfilled my commitment. Enlisted with a mission in mind, and I did it. It's over.

Now how the fuck am I supposed to take my last year in the Army seriously? My mission is complete. Part Three oughta be interesting.

Shamming, short-timing, scheming. Cuz fuck it, it's all over for me. Garrison life is a complete joke. Tradition? Multiple formations just because the clock reads a certain time? Pristine uniforms and customs and courtesies? Come on. You gotta be joking.

It's going to be a rough year.

FUCKYOUIRAQIAINTNEVERCOMINGBACK.

Untitled

2008-05-21T04:32:00.000-07:00

Shh. Just listen.

Soon.

Too Short For This Shit

2008-05-09T02:48:00.000-07:00

It was a whiz, a zooming, a whistling, kind of like a low flying jet. You know, until it exploded.

[Sgt DolphLundgren] locked eyes in a moment of idiotic disbelief, just as that adrenaline ice-water-in-the-face feeling took over. We were taking incoming. And close.

We stumbled out of his trailer and outside was complete insanity, everyone running in different directions. One of the impacts was DAMN close.

"Suspect! GET AN AID BAG!" Sgt "Dolph" orders.

"Gotcha! .......Where?"

"On the truck!"

"I don't have a key!" I shout back at him.

"On TOP of the truck!!!"

"Oh! Ok!!!"

I sprinted towards our vehicles and started to climb on top when a thought hit me. I turned around and ran back.

"Where do we meet up?!"

"WHEREVER A BUNCH OF FUCKING PEOPLE ARE!!!" he yells back.

"Oh! ....OK!!!"

I rushed back out to the truck, scambled on top, spitting a cigarette out of my mouth and tossing a water bottle with NoXplode over my shoulder.

Aid bag, aid bag, aid bag, where the fuck, where the fuck, come on goddammit...

"SUSPECT! HURRY UP WITH THE FUCKING AID BAG!!!"

I stumbled forward, thinking I spotted it on the truck and racked my skull on the frame of the camo net. Then I threw my rifle behind me onto the front of the truck and scrambled through ammo cans and all sorts of shit on top of the truck while screaming and chaos ensued all around. When I finally spotted the bag and reached for it, the damn thing rolled back further and I had to crawl to get it. I was grunting and panting and cussing myself out while mental images of dudes thoroughly ripped up raced through my head. Once I grabbed the bag, I threw it off the truck, climbed over the cage and stumbled down, grabbed my weapon, and sprinted to the first crowd of people, screaming.

"AID BAG! AID BAG! GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY!"

Meanwhile, [Sgt CoolCat] had been in the latrine, taking a piss, when the impact occurred. He stood there, dick in hand, trying to decide if he should finish or not. People immediately start shouting for him, being that he's a medic, so he cuts off midstream, sprinkling piss on his PT shorts, and scrambles outside.

[Stan Marsh] is on the way to call his wife when one of the rounds impacts nearby. Before reporting back to the company for accountability, he assists with wounded. We didn't find out til later, as he never said a damn thing about it.

I looked around as everyone quickly got their shit together.

"Man, I'm too fucking short for this shit," says [Sgt Trucker].

"So, do I sense another blog coming on?" asks [Staff Sergeant Suspect-Almost-Killed-Me-In-A-Rollover]. I look back at him and quickly babble something about MySpace, not wanting to outwardly shush him. Attempted anonymity is a bitch.

The mantra of all the guys: We're too fuckin' short for this kinda shit.

That night, I couldn't sleep worth a shit. Maybe it was the NoXplode, maybe it was wondering if someone was going to spaz out in their sleep and start babbling about incoming, maybe it was because my new bed sucks ass and there's always a light shining on my face. I don't know.

But we are WAY too short for this shit.

The Ringing

2008-05-01T08:37:00.000-07:00

The heat wasn't too oppressive, in fact, there was a little bit of a breeze. The funny thing though, is that we didn't even notice.

"FRAG OUT!"

The grenade explodes, throwing up the big cloud of dust, not the fireball you see in movies. A 105mm tank round blasts its target with another deafening roar. 5.56mm shell casings are bouncing off of my helmet from the guy next to me, and my shell casings are hitting the guy on my right. We're spitting lead with apocalyptic fury. The .50 cals are rocking, the 240Bravos are chattering, the shotguns, the pistols, the mortars. It's an orgy of firepower.

Destroyed vehicles and scarred wastelands are once again disturbed by our mindless onslaught, and there we are, getting gloriously lost in the insanity of it all. Squeezing triggers and belching out metal, stopping only to reload. Our ears are ringing in ridiculous octaves and still we're throwing flashbangs and firing explosives and spitting out small arms fire.

The best part of it all, is that no one is shooting back at us.

Just a group of frustrated, overworked, tired, homesick, angry motherfuckers letting loose with everything we got. Relentless. Chaos. Sheer animosity. Beautiful.

I side-arm a grenade and hit the dirt while everyone laughs at my feminine throw. I blast away with my M4, switching to burst and chewing up anything downrange that looks fun to shoot. I hopped into the gunner's seat of one of our MGS Strykers (the ones with the 105mm tank gun on 'em) and blasted away at a couple car hulks. When I fired the first round, the whole vehicle bucked so much that the screen I was looking at kicked me in the face. It was awesome.

With the 240, I squeezed the trigger and held it down, spraying left and right with a nice, passionate ten second burst.

By now, I've fired almost every weapon the Army has to offer. When the fun was over, I reloaded my magazines and piled back into the truck, completely satisfied. Our female interpreter didn't seem too pleased. Apparently she can't relate to the pure joy that man gets from explosions and guns and all things rude. Amidst the fury of it all, our commander could be seen walking behind the crowds, with a cigar in his teeth and an ear to ear grin.

Hey, this is what it's all about. Part of me wanted to shoot off every last round we had, but we aren't done yet. No matter, consider this a refresher, because the amount of firepower we pack is astounding. So if shit hit the fan, we could let loose with epic wrath.

Tubular.

Through A Heat Stroke Darkly

2008-04-26T03:39:00.000-07:00

The countdown should have already begun but ol' Suspect here doesn't give two squirts of piss about how long we have left. Not til the last mission is over, then it's time to count days. Until then, it's just the same freakshow every day.

The boys all strap on their fancy high tech super soldier gear, oppressive body armor and an assortment of pads and doohickeys, and plop down on the benches in the Stryker. Prepare your nightvision. Click. Good to go.

The truck transports us to another nowhere neighborhood in a nowhere town of a nowhere country that makes big news and the ramp drops, and all of it is very familiar. Very.

Boots hit the dirt and good God is it hot tonight. Flip the NODs (nightvision) down over the eye and dart your focus in all directions, scanning through a green lens in search of that evil bastard that probably isn't out there.

Down streets, across fields, stepping over trash and concertina wire and donkey shit. Take a knee, pull security, step into the courtyard. Clear the house, wait for the word from someone who actually knows what's going on, step into the street, rinse and repeat. Gargle. Swish. Spit. Wipe the sweat out of your eyes.

My clear lens eye protection glasses fog up with sweat and after wiping them repeatedly with a filthy glove, I say fuck it and take them off. That's me, upholding the standard. Whatever, I'll take the risk of getting my ass chewed in order to see where I'm walking.

Miss a step, ankle almost went. And goddamn this place. God damn these streets, the filth, the fucking stench, the eyes on you, the gear you hump everywhere, god damn the fashionable Oakleys that protect our eyes from whatever.

Someone else misses a step and eats shit, hard. Bite your cheek to keep from laughing out loud.

Now I'm on another roof, looking out at the neighborhood, and I turn around to walk back to the doorway. A wire snags my foot and I jerk it forward. This causes part of a satellite dish to break free and skitter across the roof. Whoops. Maybe if they didn't string wires everywhere so much like spider webs.

I'm dabbing sweat away from my eyes with my disgusting glove and my face is good and red. It's the middle of the night. More houses and more streets and more trash and shit and I have no idea what our overall goal is. Hell, I never do. The only concept I can ever wrap my head around is "pull security".

You know the drill by now. Embrace paranoia and look for that monster in the closet, where's Waldo, trying to spot that threat that isn't there and you know it. But you also know what happens when you DON'T spot it when it IS there.

And so you spend a night keeping an eye out for the Islamic Boogeyman and no such luck good sir, and it's finally time to load back on the trucks and go home, get some sleep.

Wake up and do it again, mid-day.

Rooftops and radiating sunlight, the occasional breeze but never enough. More houses, more kids, more everything and the same thing we've seen for over a year now.

A shop vendor offers me an orange or some version of one. It's swarmed with flies. I drop it in my pocket and go back to looking for nothing. He starts asking me for things. Like my goddamn Oakleys.

I stand on another roof top with a friend, smoking and staring at the most miserable place I can fathom. On the street below, a guy with a tractor and cart throws rusty propane tanks on the ground. The people around him stare up at me and I stare down at them and I feel no connection whatsoever.

We're from completely different worlds, different eras, different EVERYTHING. And I'm just doing my time here. So do me the favor of not asking me for anything, not shooting at me or trying to blow me up, not interacting with me in any way and I'll be out of your hair in no time.

Kindly fuck off.

Kamikaze Kelly

2008-04-23T07:39:00.002-07:00

After my last day of tower guard, I was afforded a day off. When the boys got back for the day, [StanMarsh] popped his head into my living area and sat down on my bunk to enlighten me on what I missed.

He pulled his camera out. On the screen, he showed me what looked like a black mop head lay on the ground, covered in dust.

"Oh, damn, is that a head?" I asked.

"Yeah. Some lady blew herself up. Look at this one, here's part of her skull."

I whistled a little.

"The smell was so fuckin' bad, dude," he shook his head, chuckled a tiny empty laugh.

While I did laundry and cleaned my living area up, they were dealing with the aftermath of a suicide bombing. Scattered body parts, wounded and killed Iraqis. The attack was targeting the local "good guy" militia.

She walks up to the house, probably trying to have a "meeting" with their head honcho. They stop her at the gate to search her supposedly. She goes with Plan B.

And it's all summed up by a dirty, disheveled, black Cousin It laying in the street. Guess she was trying to prove a point or something.

Now once again, here is where the gloves come off for a minute.

The truth is that maybe this is the stuff that we live for, those of us who wanted to come here and fight. When we see shit that went horribly bad, people all gored up, we know that we're right where we need to be. It's sick proof that we aren't just jerking our dicks.

Face down in the middle of the road in Baghdad, nothing left of one arm except the bone.

Face down, hands tied behind the back, head severed and blindfolded.

Riddled with shrapnel and bullets. A line of ants already walking into his nose (he fell on an anthill).

After a while, it isn't even all that disturbing. Just strange. Different.

Better you than us.

Don't Recruit Me

2008-04-18T05:53:00.000-07:00

I have no place on any more bandwagons. This includes IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War). I have no problem with them whatsoever and I commend them for doing what they feel is right, but that ain't me.

There isn't a single cause I'm looking to rally for. I don't need any form of salvation or enlightenment or redirection. Don't need my eyes opened to the truth, I'll just kick it here in the Matrix, thankyouverymuch. Still committed to my last cause as a matter of fact.

I don't want your sweatshop petitions or dates of when your next rally is. Don't want to protest anything. Don't want to read about your Scientology. Don't want to know where mankind came from or even where it's going. Don't want to hear about evil political agendas. Don't want to fight "the good fight", don't even want to fight the bad fight.

I spent four hours in that godforsaken guard tower during a sandstorm that brought visibility down to less than a hundred meters, letting my imagination run wild. While I'm up there doing jack shit, my platoon is on a raid somewhere. When I get off shift before they return, the internet is down. That gets the old imagination running in over time. Phones and internet are cut off when something happens.

Turns out my connection is just shit.

Still, with this going on, and being preoccupied with things like Short-Timing, why would I want to rush to stand under another banner? WHO CARES? I'll be perfectly happy with what I have, no sandwich board sign required. I don't need enemies. Got enough of em as it is.

This is what hermits are made out of.

Truth is that no one out there has the answers. There ARE no answers. It's just a chaotic, crazy, fucked up world and all you can do is grab life by the short sweaty hairs and hang on, laugh in the face of it and be a little bit reckless. Most importantly, just don't bother to give one peanut-butter-jelly-fuck about half of the garbage people spaz out about. Who cares?

So please, no pamphlets, no seminars, no re-enlistment briefings, no weekend retreats, no meetings, no re-education, no fierce debates, no nothing. I don't have anybody's fight to fight but my own. Stop soliciting cuz I'm not buying.

Lemme reiterate real quick-like: I'm dooooone. Finished and kaput. About to punch the time card and toss my good work shirt aside, maybe even use it to mop up the after-party. Devoted enough time to a cause, now it's almost time to start working my way out of here, to get back into that groove of normal. Sell me that. I'll buy a thousand shares right now.

I've seen exactly what following a cause can do. Following a cause gets people killed. Religious zealots are following causes right up to the moment they push that button, leaving someone else to clean them off the street. I won't be anyone's tool anymore, not after this.

So dust off the brand spankin' new cars and write the prices with soap. Line up the furnishings and appliances, just swipe my card. File this application, check out these SAT scores, yo! Lemme rejoin the common populace and pick up where I left off!

Ah, not yet? K, well let's start working on it then. I'll be out of the meatgrinder soon enough.

And when I am, as far as I'm concerned, I'll be nineteen all over again. And I'll know everything, just like last time. Sounds great.

What A Dipshit

2008-04-16T17:18:00.000-07:00

I perked up in the tower when I saw my platoon rolling back into the gate. I waved at the first truck, waved at the second one, waiting until I was out of their view, then proceeded to give the third truck both middle fingers. Then I turned around and stood in the doorway to the tower so I could flip the rear air guards off.

"Fuuuuuuuck yooooooou, buddy!" I yelled, demonstrating my ability to signal in traffic.

A hand reaches under the camo net of the Stryker and lifts it up to reveal none other than my First Sergeant. He points directly at me.

"Yeah, I got you now! I GOT you!"

I stood there in shock as my middle finger and the rest of my arm slowly dropped to my side, the same way my jaw slowly dropped to my chest. He has NEVER ridden in that truck before. What are the fucking odds?

Lemme tell ya about this guy real quick. Though most of the time, me and authority clash, not with this guy. He embodies what I thought the Army would be like. He's tough but fair, capable, he's not all about the bullshit. I have endless respect for the man. He's fucking awesome, but God help you if you piss him off. He'll snatch your soul.

And there I was leaning out of the tower with The Finger flying, shouting, "Fuuuuuuck yoooou!"

After that, I just shook my head and cracked open a bottle of water. Started hydrating.

Combat Blue Balls

2008-04-15T04:57:00.000-07:00

This expression, in this particular context, is not one that I made up. I read it somewhere, and lemme tell ya, it's a dead-on description.

I sat on a cooler up in my tower, miserable and sweating. I'd pull on the neck of my body armor and feel heat steam up from my chest. My Gatorade was piss hot within minutes. Minutes dragged on and I cursed all who were responsible for putting me on this detail.

"Hey," my Ugandan counterpart broke the silence, "That ambulance is coming down the wrong side."

I looked down the entrance and sure enough, there was an Iraqi ambulance with lights flashing heading down the military lane. I snatched my M4 up and chambered a round (I don't chamber one until I dismount or need to fire) and waited for him to reach a point that justified a warning shot.

"Wait, call it up first," the Ugandan Tower Guard Veteran advised. I grabbed the radio with my free hand.

"[BossMan] this is [TowerDude], we've got an Iraqi ambulance attempting to enter [EntryPoint]."

"....Say again, over?"

Ambulance slows as a couple Iraqis near the gate try to tell him he can't come in this way. Thing is, when the insurgency first kicked off, they'd use ambulances to get through checkpoints and ambush people. When I saw it coming with lights a-flashing, it flipped that Activate Infantryman switch. I sent the report up again, cursing this guy on the other end.

"Roger...well they aren't supposed to come in through that gate. Do you have an interpreter? If you have an interpreter, have him tell them--"

Is he fucking SERIOUS?!

"--that they need to go to [OtherPlace]."

I dropped the radio on the cooler and waited for the ambulance to come closer, ready to rock. It turned around and left.

There is such a thing as Combat Blue Balls. It occurs when something kicks off and your adrenaline starts rushing and you're more than ready to get it on and all you need is that final go-ahead, whatever it may be.

And that go-ahead never comes. Gets canceled. Disregard that. Negative. Return to FOB. Cease fire. Stand down. Abort. Pull out, Goose.

So there you are, all jacked up over a false alarm, and pissed about it. Not even getting to fire that one inconsequential shot. Can't get a healthy dose of what you came here for.

Hearts and minds? Come on, we never thought anything about that when we were signing up, when we were packing our gear, when we were eating Chicken Freezedried Bleu on the plane. No, we had all that action and insanity on the brain. That's what you enlist into the Infantry for. Young, dumb, reckless assholes like myself wanting to wreak some havoc on some bad guys. The hearts and minds thing, that only comes in small doses, when you have those occasional moments out in sector that make you want to ooooh and watch LifeTime for a month, that's just not us.

Instead, you're standing there with sweat running down your face, thumb still on the safety, ready to feel like you're in Iraq for a reason, to fulfill your own individual purpose, and nothing. Sorry bud.

You wait for your nerves to settle while you listen to the radio traffic. Big incident inside the city. Large number of casualties, civilian. The reports of wounded come in systematically as injured civilians are brought in to be treated.

Burns of all degrees.
Bleeding.
Shrapnel.
Head trauma.
Amputations.
Gunshot wounds.

Civilians.

So there's the proof. The assholes are still out there somewhere and I got a hardon that slings 5.56mm lead and agonizingly blue balls.

Another Brief News Mention

2008-04-14T10:52:00.000-07:00

"Others choose to remain nameless, like the Usual Suspect. He's the author of one of the most well-known and gritty soldier blogs called the Unlikely Soldier. The blog carries photos and uncensored thoughts. And the author warns the content is not suitable for everyone."

Hahaha.

Here's the article:

http://www.kwwl.com/News/index.php?ID=23059

Thank you, thank you. It's only because people read and spread through word of mouth and links and all that, that we military blogger types get any recognition, good or bad.

Also, thanks once again to everyone for reading and commenting and emailing and offering opinions, support, criticism, toilet humor, and shivers of disgust. You are the reason I make an attempt to spell check.

Ah Shit....The Experiment Continues

2008-04-12T06:14:00.000-07:00

Now and then I take it upon myself to firmly assert my position as the Bastard of All Bastards, Shithead Supreme. I can do this, even from the other side of the planet. With minimal effort, I had a gallon (yes, GALLON) of gorilla shit (yes, shit from a live gorilla's ass) delivered to someone's house. Was I wronged in any way? No.

Of course, this individual COULD act as my extended reach and use this newly acquired gorilla shit to get someone else for me, but in all likelihood, the dooker has already been disposed of, which is tragic.

Got a credit card and a desire to dish the shit out? go to http://www.poopsenders.com and enjoy.

The Zoloft Experiment continues with minimal progress. I still haven't been angry, rageful, or depressed, so I don't know how I'm going to gauge it when it supposedly kicks in. It may require the Old Yeller Challenge.

Side effects noticed:

-minor headache
-cotton mouth
-nausea
-drowsiness
-reduced libido (out here, I don't mind so much)

Gains thus far:

-Jack Shit.

So the experiment continues, with easy daily payments of discomfort and skepticism. I figure I have enough time to keep it up for a week once it kicks in, then come off of it and be over the half-life by the time I get back to the States. Progress reports to follow.

I had a new Ugandan tower pal today and we went with the norm: talking shop to keep ourselves awake. As always, the subject turned to women. That's a weakness in the cultural barrier. Men will always be comrades in the struggle with women, the only exception being when they are contending for the woman. The struggle between the men ends with one being the victor, and before long, the struggle between the man and the overwhelming dominance of the woman begins.

This particular guy was pretty fed up with women. He talked about a girlfriend he had for six years who suddenly cut him off, about cheating women, about a number of things. He looked legitimately bummed out, too. Not just the normal laughing and joking about the wrath of women, but seriously resignated. I felt bad for the guy. I didn't offer any lines either. In the normal world, this is the part where I motion to the bartender to get him a beer.

Here, I call up an inbound convoy and shift on the cooler I sit on.

He asked if I had a girlfriend on the FOB.

"Nope. You?"

".....Nope."

This is the most significant event I've experienced in days. I'm going to buy him a Russian woman.

On Another Whim

2008-04-10T07:13:00.000-07:00

I handed the forms back to the headshrinker in the digital camo uniform. Waited a few more minutes in a chair in the waiting room. Checked out the drawings sent from young American schoolchildren.

"I hope you have a nice war."

"Ok, let's see, you say you've been here before?" he asks. My attention snaps back to the task at hand.

"Yeah, I saw Captain SomeDude, last winter."

"Ok, what was that about?"

"Uh....anxiety. Occasional bouts of rage. Iraqmares. They gave me Benadryl. I stopped going. Still got the Benadryl though, if you want it back."

"Is this persisting?" he asked.

"Not as much these days," I leaned back. "Little here and there. Oh, I lied on some of those questions last time. Here, lemme explain."

I filled out some more forms, answered some more questions, explained a few things. I'm not bipolar, we know that one for sure. Said I got some sypmtoms of PTSD and depression/dysthymia or something like that. Nothing too serious, if I really had to be honest though.

"Do you ever feel like the world would be better off if you weren't around anymore?" I was asked. I laughed.

"That would be arrogant of me, wouldn't it? And no. I don't."

More hoops. Explain this. Have you experienced this? Uh huh. Hmm.

Zoloft. One bottle. 30 pills. Cottonmouth and nausea. Minor headache. Pissing all the time. And I wasn't even feeling moody or depressed or angry when I went in. Felt pretty good actually. Nevertheless, the experiment must go on. If I have improved concentration and energy in a few weeks, groovy. Let's see what all the rage is. What's it like when you chase the American Dream one little blue pill at a time? I think it's time I took a ride on this train, deep-imbedded journalism, investigative report. The test subject runs the experiments.

The doc mentioned a condition that was similar to bipolar disorder, but nowhere near as extreme, and mentioned the possibility that I COULD have a manic episode in reaction to the meds.

Awesome.

"Robin Williams?" the Doc began. "He's probably bipolar. It doesn't get much more manic than that."

Manic episode? Wait'll the guys in the tent get a load of me. I can already see myself laughing and having the time of my life, cracking jokes while doing pushups. "Can't help it!" I'll explain through fits of laughter. "They gave me bum meds!!! Oh what is this war coming to?!"

Down the hatch.

I gagged a little at the nausea and dry mouth on my way to brush my teeth. Shit better be worth it, cuz now I'm on day two (these little bastards take a couple weeks to build up in your system) and my stomach is already turning.

Zoloft. Hahahahahaha. It's just one crazy experiment after another, isn't it?

Put me on a commercial, smiling in the most content of ways while a slight breeze ruffles my shaggy hair and I cross my arms across my super-soft cream colored sweatshirt, sigh, then jump up and chase some chick down the beach. Zoooooloooooooft. Gimme a golden retriever while you're at it. We'll market these things like M&Ms.

Really, let's get to the bottom of this. I gotta tell ya, I'm skeptical as all hell. But good lord, am I entertained.

Tower Guard Reflections

2008-04-09T06:57:00.000-07:00

One of the Ugandans that I work with enlightened me with some incredible information that I did not know. He told me, in a very matter-of-fact manner, that American women fuck dogs. And that's where gonnorhea comes from. You can't make this shit up.

It's cool watching Strykers roll out at night, when they turn the lights off so you can't even see them, you just hear the high pitched whine of the engine, and before you know it, you can't even hear that anymore. I never knew we were such stealthy bastards.

The April Fool's prank seems to have failed. I'll wait a bit longer before I give up and reveal it.

Gnats are horrible creatures. I found that the can of spray that's in the tower isn't repellant, but insecticide. It only works if you can spray it in their little homes. I have no idea where they dwell, so instead I prefer to shoot each individual gnat out of the air with a long blast of toxins. My brain cell count is declining, faster than normal.

In light of my theory on the uniform itself having passive effects on the wearer, I'd like to point out that while in normal attire, I obey social norms, atleast somewhat. In uniform, however, I will pick my nose and blow snot rockets, regardless of where I am, what situation I am in, and who is around.

The Ugandan who enlightened me on the intimate relations between canines and American women has never heard of Tijuana, or donkey shows. He made a mental note to hit up Google after his shift.

My platoon rolled back onto the FOB as I watched from the tower. At first I waved, but then I decided that it would be more appropriate to flip them the bird. Later on, I met up with one of the medics in the chow hall.

"I saw you in the tower," he said.

"Yeah, I waved. Then I flipped [Hannibal] the bird," I replied.

"Oh we saw that too. First Sergeant waved. Then you flipped the bird."

"No shit? What did he say?"

"Nothing."

"Ah fuck..."

Now everywhere I go, I'm expecting to hear a voice somewhere behind me, shouting something along the lines of, "C'mere, 'Stud'!"

At that moment, I'll turn around and he'll see my hair all unregulation-long and I'll have what Army types call a "bad day."

The Yang

2008-04-06T17:21:00.000-07:00

Talked with a Ugandan soldier during my four hour romance with complete boredom. I mentioned how our enemy is the good guy in their own eyes and WE'RE the bad guys and vice versa, and that America's Founding Fathers could have been considered terrorists by the British back then.

Then this guy backhanded my statement with one simple clarification.

The terrorists that we're up against target civilians, non-combatants. Oh yeah, forgot about that part. And they've had a personal impact on me numerous times, in different ways. This place gets you so fucked up that you lose sight of things like that.

After all, we can't seem to find them to fight them.

But yeah, turns out I DO still care. I'm just too worn out to realize it.

Well, I got nothin. Thought I'd clear that up real quick though.

Truth is, I'm pretty sure I'm coming home with a sense of failure, guilt, and other things that I can't put a finger on. I tried though, I really did. But I got no enemy to attack, so it's back to the regular game plan: survive, embrace the paranoia. Wonder why I made it through unscathed (it's called survivor's guilt). Feel like shit every time someone thanks me or acts like I personally did something when I was really just along for the ride.

Bummer it has to end this way, huh?

"Do you believe in karma?"

"Karma is justice without the satisfaction. ....I don't believe in justice."

Yeah dude. Epic fail.

How It Ends

2008-04-06T08:46:00.001-07:00

My stomach churns and my head pounds, my sleep schedule is fucked almost as bad as this "war" or whatever the fuck you want to call it.

I spend two four hour shifts in a guard tower. Staring out at nothing. Waiting for that psychotic wiley asshole to hop in his 1977 Ford VBIED and plow through the gate so I can put the .50 cal on him and blast him and the car to shreds, slinging lead until the barrel melts or I run out of ammo, and only after my ears stop ringing would I hear someone on the other end of the radio screaming at me. Gimme my medal sir, shake my hand for the pichur in the paper, outstanding soldier yaddah yaddah, and it all means precisely: $dick.

But nothing happens. I just scan. And think. And think. And think. Too much time to think.

This whole thing ends anti-climactic as hell, that's how I'm seeing it. This crazy trip peaked a long time ago and I've been coming down for a long time, with a bitter-as-fuck taste in my mouth and no patience for bullshit.

But I'm Joe, so it doesn't matter if I got patience for it or not. Still chewing it by the spoonful. Shovelfull. Tractorfull. Om nom nom.

Let's contrast and compare the Then and Now.

Remember how idealistic I used to be? NOT AT ALL anymore. Don't care about anything but going home alive. Don't care what happens to Iraq. At all. Zero concern. In fact, I don't care about a fucking thing but getting out of this Army and trying to reassemble the fucked up mess that I've become, try to get back to something resembling normal so I can go about a normal ARMY FREE life.

Every salute is empty.

Every smile insincere.

Every "Roger" is hollow.

None of this means anything to me anymore. Iraq? Waste of time. I have nothing more to say because I've just been typing and deleting for two hours straight. Catastrophuck.

Any DAY NOW

2008-04-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

I went back and started reading some of the original posts on the old site. Who wrote that? Not me. Young and dumb, the enthusiasm dripping off of the page almost makes me nauseous. Guess you gotta touch the stove to know for sure.

All's the same. Same as it ever was. Griiiiiiiiiiiind.

Couple of days and things are going to get really monotonous for me, but don't let me ruin that surprise just yet. Looks like everything is going to come full circle. I started this deployment doing FOB details, I just may be finishing it that way too.

Sounds great to me.

There's a life sized dummy wearing a pair of my jeans and one of my PT shoes stuffed into a footlocker in front of my bed, with just the one leg hanging out. Freaks me out every morning, but it was too twisted and funny not to do it. That was after I threw it at an unsuspecting interpreter while screaming like an idiot. Scared the shit out of the poor guy.

Then we left the dummy in different guys' beds. Told them some new guy was sleeping in their bed. Good fun.

A deployment has gone on way too long when you get more joy out of chokeslamming a dummy across the tent than you do anything else. We're all on the verge of going for each other's throats some of the time. Other times we're just fine. It's just time to go. Forget this whole thing.

You get Part 2 of the April Fool's bit as soon as it's safe to divulge it. All I'm waiting on is for a certain someone to get royally pissed at me.

This person just might be madder than SHIT. I'm excited.

[EDIT:]

SHKSSSHHHH!

That's what an impacting mortar round sounds like. With those occasional rocket attacks we've been taking (I've always been outside the wire when it happened), who knows what to think when I heard it just after hitting the POST button.

I walked outside where some of my friends were smoking.

"Sound like incoming to you?" I asked.

"Haha, yeah we were just talking about that. But we didn't feel any vibration or anything, so who knows, maybe it was outgoing, short round or something."

"Yeah," I concurred. Profound.

I'm not even going to offer an opinion or what I think about this whole ordeal and what it's about. Doesn't change a thing. I'll just keep my eyes peeled for a little while longer and after that, it's all just filler in history books to me.

No one can make sense of this. There's way too many different angles to look at, different stories, different pieces of a puzzle. Catastrophuck, that's it.

Now will my unsuspecting victim PLEASE hurry up and deliver unto me their gallon of indignant anger so I can brag about what a bastard I am?

Escalation Of Force

2008-03-27T06:48:00.000-07:00

The kids in the school crowd in the doorways and peek out the windows at the foreigners clearing the area. Once we finish and take up positions inside the courtyard, the kids become more curious.

"Hello Mista!"

"Mista! Football!"

"Mista! Pen!"

"Mista! I love you!"

"Mista! Give me!"

The teachers were obviously annoyed by the distraction and the kids' unruly behavior. There was really only one way that I could ever respond to something like this.

I gave the kids the thumbs up, which they returned, moderate cheering.

I threw my fist in the air. More excitement. I started clapping my hands over my head and making hand gestures to further rile them up. The shouting and cheering and idiocy amplified. I threw both fists in the air, bringing them to a crescendo of simple childish screeching. It was all I could do to keep myself from breaking out the chant of, "USA! USA! USA!"

Satisfied with the grade school riot I had incited, I went over to the main doorway again. First Sergeant asked what all the commotion was about.

"No idea, First Sergeant," I said. "I gave 'em the thumbs up. Guess they're happy to see us."

As we walked back, I took point, with my good friend, the travel partner, Solid Steak, on the other side of the road next to me. I went about the usual scanning paranoia routine, looking for the supposed bad guy before the supposed bad guy could supposedly get it on.

Down the road in front of us, an old dude pedaled towards us on a bike. I gave him the closed fist hand signal to stop. He didn't.

I gave him the Iraqi hand signal for Stop. He didn't.

I yelled at him, something polite like, "Hey! Keef! Stop! STOP MOTHERFUCKER!!!" He didn't.

I raised my M4 and put my sights on his face. "HEY! STOP AND GET THE FUCK OFF THE ROAD!!!" He didn't.

This ain't right, man. This motherfucker is wearing a suicide vest, HAS to be, no one would keep on pedaling--

BANG!
BANG!

I release the trigger as two plumes of dirt kick up five feet away from him. I had jerked my rifle a little to the right and downward to fire a warning shot, and Solid Steak sure wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to spit lead, and fired at the exact same time I did.

The old man hopped off the bike with a weak, "Aaah--aaaaah," sounding more like a lamb than anything else. Not thinking, I started walking towards him while shouting profanities, directives, and pointing to a lot off the side of the road.

"Take your fucking bike OVER THERE and WAIT for ONE MINUTE! WAHEED!" I tapped my watch. It took what felt like a minute of screaming at the guy to get my point across. It was stupid of me to get any closer to the guy than I already had, but it quickly became clear that he was just old, and possibly stupid. He didn't have any bulges in his clothing. I'm still on this earth writing this, so fuck it. Dumb move on my part.

An interpreter and a female officer talked to the guy on the side of the road as we headed back to another courtyard. Once everyone was inside, First Sergeant was relating what happened with one of the platoon leaders.

"What the fuck was that guy's problem?" I asked Top (1SG).

"Shit, he's just old, damn near blind, near sighted as hell, and probably half deaf too."

I would have felt bad if I had smoked him, but self preservation comes before my bleeding heart. If he wouldn't have stopped after that warning shot, I wouldn't have hesitated, not even for a second.

Reflection

2008-03-26T10:12:00.000-07:00

The same familiar dry and dead landscape flies past me as I stand in one of the hatches, on the same repetitive missions, and in that moment, it was like I had never left Iraq. Nothing had changed, same faces, same buildings, some destroyed, some just in pitiful condition.

We stop and the ramp drops. I step out and scan windows and rooftops and nooks and crannies and everything in between as we all link up and enter a building. My travel buddy and I take up positions in the stair well, not having much to talk about. The sun shining through a small window dimly lighting up the stair well added to the recurring surreal feeling I sometimes get here in Iraq. Once again, I couldn't believe that I was here.

I lit a cigarette and my train of thought began to flow. I started thinking about all the events that led up to this singular moment, working backwards. For five minutes, I backtracked, blowing my mind with each significant event. At any one of these points, a different decision would have changed everything. I followed it all the way back to the first real decision of my life.

The places I put myself and the people I surrounded myself with, the places, people, and events that shaped me. Meeting one person caused a series of events and introductions which led to new insights, opinions, disasters. My head began to spin a little. Anything could have re-directed this train.

A different MOS. A different branch. No military at all. College, or no college. Associating with different people, choosing to live in a different town, ANYWHERE, ANY SMALL DETAIL would result in a completely different life for me. The scary thing was that I didn't want the ability to change anything. Reality took a hit of ether and a tiny part of me wondered if this was really happening, all of this, or was it just one long vivid dream?

As we drove down the streets again later, I waved at a kid and he extended all fingers except the thumb and the ring finger. More commonly referred to as "The Shocker".

I guess this IS real.

There I am, that's me, almost seeing myself from the third person, drifting through the most illogical experience of my life. Yeah right there, that's me again, teaching kids the universal hand signal for "rock on". Now I'm holding the flag at a friend's re-enlistment ceremony.

My feet are kicking up gravel and I'm on my way to get some chow. How the hell did I get here again? I'm explaining that yes, ratemyboobies.com IS in fact, a viable excuse for being late to work. I'm watching director's cut episodes of Beavis and Butthead in a third world country. What the fuck am I DOING?

Most of the time, I don't think any of us really think about the reality of us actually being here. We keep ourselves sidetracked when we're off duty. If you thought about it too much, it just might drive you insane. And then you utter that subtle mantra:

"Holy shit....I'm in Iraq..."

Lessons

2008-03-22T08:35:00.000-07:00

Like the plagiaristic prostitute I am, I will now steal a trademark from someone dear to me. A series called "Lessons Learned". Here are some lessons I've learned in/about the army/Iraq.

-It is generally not a good idea to respond to radio traffic by saying, "That's a big, throbbing negative."

-If you throw soccer balls from a moving vehicle, children will chase you like super zombies in a George Romero movie.

-It is rude to taunt children with an uninflated soccer ball as you drive past.

-Telling the driver to "thrust" his way through an intersection and making continuous innuendo regarding symbols of phallic aggression will result in a loss of headset priveleges.

-Shooting things is fun.

-If you damage your own equipment, it'll probably never be fixed and your best bet is to use Gorilla Tape.

-Running while drunk can sometimes be unpleasant, but running while hung over is far worse.

-The word "Sarge" is no longer acceptable in the army.

-It's your fault. Always.

-It's considered rude to taunt friends attempting to quit smoking by waving cigarettes in front of them.

-Children are only afraid when you aren't trying to scare them. Making the conscious attempt will only entertain them.

-Never ask an Iraqi soldier about his sex life, or even allow the conversation to somehow drift there, which it will. You might not like what you hear.

-Never tell your platoon sergeant about any stories involving transsexuals in foreign countries, as he will alter the story and spread it around the company. Lulz ensue, but not for you.

-Don't drop your dogtags in the toilet.

-It's considered rude to take a brand new private, get him drunk, and take him to a strip club to watch him blow an entire paycheck.

-It's also rude if you run out of alcohol and decide to sneak through the barracks, trying every door until you find a locked one, and raiding their refrigerator for bottles of Bacardi.

-It gets you fucked up though.

-Don't piss when you wake up in the morning. That makes the surprise urinalysis much easier.

-When going to the aid station, inform them that your level of pain is 8, 9, or 10. This increases your chance of getting good drugs. But odds are, you won't, especially if you really are hurting.

-Motrin doesn't do shit.

-You are wrong.

-It is unwise to roadmarch with stubbly pubes (not learned from personal experience).

-It is not cool to wander around the barracks without a shirt on when you hear a female voice (learned by observing douchebags).

-You picked the wrong job.

-It is generally unwise to challenge a superior with a phrase such as, "You won't do it."

-College really was a good idea.

-Duck when entering low doorways of Iraqi houses.

-Energy drinks are bad before missions. Unless you enjoy vomiting off of the side of a Stryker (which I sort of did).

-It's rude to teach Iraqi children to chant, "USA! USA! USA!"

-If it's funny, it's probably rude.

-Breaking and entering is extremely fun.

-Breaking is fun.

-Entering without breaking is not that great.

-It is unwise to mock another company and/or their motto while they are in formation and their commander is standing behind them. This results in threats of having eyes snatched from their sockets, and pushups.

-It is unwise to point and laugh at someone who has to do pushups. You will join them.

-Volunteering never helps you out.

-If you don't clean your room, you run the risk of having to sleep outside.

-It is unwise to climb a mountain, start a fire, and get very drunk, but it IS fun to tell your drunk friends that you saw a mountain lion.

-Children seem to grasp the concept of the middle finger.

-Dogs and paintball guns go together very well.

-I am a bad person.

-iPods are for music, too.

-Launching water balloons at the Air Force can be excellent stress relief.

-It is unwise to inform a superior of their shortcomings.

-If I want to do it, it is probably unwise, and likely rude as well.

That's all I can think of for now. There's more, and there certainly will be even more, but that's all you get until later.

Switch It Back On

2008-03-20T03:45:00.000-07:00

We poured into someone else's strykers, bags and all, and sweat in the dark all the way back to the FOB. When the ramp finally dropped, we stumbled out into horribly familiar territory and sulked our way back to our tent, dropped our gear, and began getting "normal" again.

This uniform really does do something to you. Being in this place, all of it, it pulls a different side of you out. Already, I'm not the person I was in Japan. Not the person I am when I wear what I want, do what I want, and don't have to worry about anything. This person is bitter, cynical, loudmouthed and rambunctious, dark humor and raucous profanity, arrogant and blasphemous. It's just what the uniform does to me, like that movie "The Mask" with Jim Carrey, it transforms some of us. Some more than others.

But atleast now I know that when the uniform comes off, it all switches off.

I walked back outside and took a look around at the familiar desolation of the FOB. No color, no life. Concrete, gravel, dirt, and hideous sky. The summer heat is on its way, and I'm dreading wearing all that equipment again. I dread walking through the streets of this pitiful wasteland, looking at the faces of local inhabitants. I dread interacting with them, the kids begging for soccer balls.

I'm not the only short-timer now. We're all short. This nightmare ends soon enough, and I don't know how everyone else feels, but I'm dead set on getting the hell out of here. I'm sure everyone else is getting excited, but I've got a scowl. From here on out, no one out there gets close to me. None of the Iraqi Armies or Sons of Iraq or Iraqi Police are going to get any small talk out of me.

Pull security and emanate disdain, that's the fourth quarter game plan. Fuck you, Iraq, I'm going home. And switching off for good.

Rear View Mirror

2008-03-17T03:19:00.000-07:00

That horrible fucking day had to come, and it came way too fast for our liking. I found myself grudgingly checking out of the hotel. I made sure to say goodbye to my friend that works in my favorite lounge, and the next thing I know, I'm watching the city melt away through the window of a moving car.

I never understood anyone ever really being bummed about leaving any place, to me it was always like a kid going nuts when it was time to leave the playplace at McDonald's, but this was different. All those amazing signs, bustling crowds, incredible architecture, everything I'd come to love, the clean streets, the most incredible city I'd ever seen, it was all sliding past me.

At the airport, I hesitated. Getting on that plane was the hardest thing I'd ever done. Part of me knew that there was a small chance I could just say screw it, turn around and walk out. Find a job. Perfect the language. Plant my roots here and live it up. Why not? Everything about the city felt so right.

Back in the worst country on Earth, the rest of my friends are sucking it up, and it's my duty to do the same, but I'll be damned if I didn't have the most bitter taste in my mouth about it.

Waiting in the airport in Korea, the reality only intensified, leaving a massive lump in my throat. I could turn around and buy a ticket back. And I never miss places for some reason.

Maybe some other time. The Purgatorium is only one border away now. I have to finish this, but right now, I'm promising myself, I WILL visit Tokyo again.

What An Asshole

2008-03-14T11:05:00.001-07:00

Never to be defeated, the arrogant bastard that I am, I refuse to succumb to the depressive knowledge that I have to leave what I feel is the coolest city in the world.

I try to take my friend to my sacred lounge, only to find that we wasted too much time shopping for stupid shit, and they're closed. This bummed me out further, so we settled for a pisspoor bar on the second floor with no windows, brick walls, and no sense of Awesome that the previous one did.

On a whim, we decided to hit the famous sky lounge from the hotel featured in my favorite movie, "Lost In Translation". We take a taxi to the Park Hyatt Hotel, with only a half hour left until last call. We cross our fingers as we catch every damn red light in our path.

By some sick twisted miracle of a bizarre god, we make it on time and make our way through the hotel. I'm silently tripping out, like a rocker that stumbled across the stage of the first tiny gig that Metallica played. I see familiar hallways, and I do all I can to contain myself, already buzzed with the blessed sake that I've become to intimate with.

The elevator doors open and we turn a corner, and fuck me rotten, there we are, in the same bar that I wanted to be in for four years now. I order a drink dedicated to the movie as well as an order of sake, my friends order their own sake, and we squeeze the last half hour of the night out.

Once everyone else was gone, we took our drunken cue and left. At this point, the only decent and good thing to do is to ride this out and keep on wringing the juices out. I feel fucking great, and we decide to hit up a convenience store for more booze. Fuck it, we have to go back to the shittiest place in the world, why not go apeshit while we can? It's what our friends would want us to do.

But the sad thing is, for a twisted bastard like myself, that alone just isn't enough. I was born with an innate ability to disturb and occasionally entertain my mother. God save the world, this ability multiplies each year. I adorned myself with a freshly purchased track suit modeled exactly after the getup of the main character from the Japanese cartoon "DragonBall Z".

The crossing light turns green and I sprint across the road, screaming at the top of my lungs. We ransack the convenience store, loading up on Suntory Whisky, anti-hangover potions, drunk eating, and any seemingly nonsensical items we can think of.

After returning to the room, we realized that we had no ice. Personally, I'm not above drinking rancid liquor straight from the bottle and accepting the hellish consequences, but at a request, we made the order for ice, courtesy of room service.

Five minutes later, there's a knock at the door. I jump up, wrap a white headband around my head, the kind with Japanese Kanji characters and a red sun in the center. I tear the door open and bow.

"Arigato Gozeimas!" I shout (It means thanks very much, homie).

The clerk takes one look at me and does his best to keep a straight face. I worsen the deal by giving him my most dipshit drunk grin. He politely offers me the ice as he continues to completely lose his shit. This poor bastard is trained to be professional and courteous, and he is welcomed at a random door by some psychotic white kid dressed in anime-hero gear and a stereotypical Japanese headband. He is visibly biting his cheek and his stomach is convulsing.

I hope I made that dude's night. That was ten minutes ago.

Anyhow, this one is to you, you the reader, you the anyone, wherever you may be. Though my friend and I return to horseshit duty soon, we aren't there tonight, and we'll act accordingly.

Kon-Pai motherfuckers.

Closing

2008-03-12T23:34:00.000-07:00

The past few days, we've had the looming knowledge of having to return soon clouding over us. We do all we can to look the other way, not let a damn thing rain on our parade.

We stay at a traditional hotel and sleep on mats. Paper walls. Yukata robes.

We check out Buddhists temples and incredible green gardens, shit that takes your breath away and makes you wonder just HOW the rest of the world, normal civilization, can suck so completely. Caverns so small we have to duck walk through them, candles illuminate Buddhists sculptures.

A large wooden wheel that you turn by pushing, walking the full circle with it. They say that turning this wheel once is the equivalent to reading the Bible. Something to think about when you ride the subway I guess.

A park, beautiful as ever, hosts the most random cats running around that I've ever seen. Everywhere you look, there was a cat just chilling out.

We went to the beach. The weather was just nice enough for a t-shirt, for once. We take our shoes off and squeeze sand between our toes, skip rocks, walk in the tide. Best fucking vacation ever, and in the back (and the front) of our minds, we know that it's all ending soon.

When I drink, I wake up the next morning, and I suck down vitamins and orange juice and food to replenish everything I pissed away the night before, so as not to lose any time. If necessary, I even take the hair of the dog to reset my overcompensating nerves. Can't afford to lose any more time.

I look out the window and see the most amazing skyline. In the lounge at night, as I chat it up with my pal Hide (Hee-Day), I stare out at the lights, sip hot sake, chew on salted peas, and clap for the pianist and bass player, even when no one else pays them any mind.

Every time I look at my watch, we're on a new day. Time started off dragging beautifully slow the first week. Now it's taken a snowball avalanche momentum that we can't fucking stop. Like pressing against closing walls. Where the fuck is C3PO and R2D2 to stop this one?

We've had enough rest for today. No time to waste. Time to go and enjoy this while we can.

Fuck Iraq.

More Fine Dining

2008-03-10T02:36:00.000-07:00

In Harajuku, I followed narrow streets and bizarrely painted buildings to what seemed like some sort of crazy drug-addled arthouse. The only thing though, is that drugs are supposedly next to non-existent here. I find that hard to believe. After five minutes of channel surfing through their TV channels, I am convinced that they are ALL covert potheads, because the ONLY thing that would add any logic (or explanation) to these TV shows and commercials is a healthy helping of Bob Marley Feelgood Spinach.

This crazy Jamaican-Meets-Korean Neo Pop Art And Mescaline building led to a restaurant, the kind where your table has a grill or whatever inserted into it. I experienced Japanese Pancakes, which are in no way like American Pancakes.

You mix up bowls of all kinds of crazy concoctions and pour them onto the hot black thing, and go through an arduous process of preparing your own meal. When it's finally done, you take that first clumsy chopstick bite and go, "Damn, that's pretty good!"

You eat about half of your share when you notice something purple and frighteningly familiar on your plate.

Goddamn octopus. Sneaky bastard found his way into my meal.

This is the point of no return, you can't unsee that slimy fucker, it's too late. Your meal is forever changed, because you KNOW that this unnatural monstrosity has tainted your food. I shoveled bite after bite into my mouth, chasing it with orange juice. No sense in going hungry, after all, the only way...is ALL the way.

Fucking octopus.

In The Company Of Those Who Rock/Shameless Endorsements

2008-03-08T21:19:00.000-08:00

You can find any obscure movie or album in this city. There are specialty shops for everything. But nowhere will you find a copy of any of the American Pie movies. Except for The Naked Mile, which hardly counts.

Amidst the crowd, I wandered down the streets, from shop to shop, entering anything that had a sign reading DVD. You can find movies about 50 Foot Tall Women, any cult classic movie. Shops dedicated to horror flicks. It's awesome, you just can't find a good, common movie. It has to be a rare gem to be discovered here.

One building had a genre of music/music DVDs per floor. Progressive rock, heavy metal, punk, indie, and so on. As I climbed the stairs, I saw pictures of famous musicians on the walls. The pictures were taken in this store. The first one I recognized was Kirk Fucking Hammett of Metallica, pausing his perusal long enough to pose for a picture. Next is Lars Ulrich with his wife, and then Rob Trujillo. The only member that wasn't present was James Hetfield. As I climbed, I checked out all the pictures, thinking about how cool that was that all these dudes stopped in this store.

Then again, when you're out walking, you'll see Tommy Lee Jones on coffee vending machines. Boss is the brand. His facial expression looks like he was somewhat confused, listening very intently to an interpreter or something. A picture like that would have been scrapped in the states, but here, that's prime modeling at its best.

Cameron Diaz hawks cell phones for a company called SoftBank. Watch "Lost In Translation" and tell me that Anna Faris' character is NOT a total parody of that woman. I'll tell you that you're wrong.

Hillary Duff is selling cameras or something, and dancing with Mickey Mouse. It plays on giant video screens on gigantic buildings.

Hell, if they want white people to prostitute their image out for the sake of marketing, sign me up. These celebrities don't need to make an extra stop here, I'll take that bullet. Pay ME millions to have a deer in the headlight expression while I hold some tea or a PSP. I'm not too proud.

Off to Shibuya for more exploration, more immersion into the crowds, bombardment of the senses. I live for this.

Sure beats Iraq.

Moar Rad

2008-03-05T01:44:00.000-08:00

We sleep when we have to, just to keep ourselves going. A few hours and we're fully charged and we're back out there again, devouring this place.

Tokyo is the opposite of Iraq. It's clean, safe, and thoroughly enjoyable. We walk down narrow streets lined with shops, rubbernecking unapologetically. Arcades, pachinko "casinos", stores selling DVD porn (we learned that if the sign is pink, it's probably porn or some other appendage of the sex industry).

There's a Chinatown in this city that we took advantage of, stealing an extra mini-vacation. Paper lamps are strung across the streets and you know they'd look fucking amazing at night when the candles are lit. Chowing down on their food, we fumbled with chopsticks, and then we went to an old temple and enjoyed some oooh ahhhing mindblown tourist goodness.

Another discovery we made: the restaurant that inspired the set of the epic fight against the Crazy 8s or whatever in the movie Kill Bill. If you remember Uma Thurman running across balconies, up and down stairs, hacking her way through an army of dudes in suits and masks, picture that building, only as a restaurant. That's the real incarnation of it. One of the waitresses informed me that Quentin Tarantino likes to hang out in this restaurant, and devoted that fight scene to it.

That's what I call awesome, folks.

De-Loused In The Chill Room

2008-03-03T05:29:00.000-08:00

On a whim, from sheer boredom itself, mixed with a little bit of curiosity and the lack of the desire to leave the hotel, I found myself wandering up to the top level lounges.

It was quiet, so quiet that you're almost afraid to speak beyond that level just above a whisper, where your voice isn't quite natural but still amiable. The bartenders worked with delicate precision mixing drinks, setting glasses down so gently as to not even make a sound once they made contact with the counter.

I tested out the famed Santory whiskey. If you've had whiskey, you've had them all, that's my opinion. I've never been a liquor snob though, so take that with a grain of salt. After that, I ventured to the other lounge, and decided to try out sake, since I'd already crossed sushi off of my list of things to make me vomit.

This devil liquid goes down like water. I eyed my glass suspiciously, like a worthy opponent, and tried to guage its abilities. I sipped warily, pausing to observe the effects as they accumulated. As I waited, I'd stare out the windows, at the night time skyline of Tokyo, letting my mind get blown over and over again.

This lounge was quiet, calm, and downtempo as ever. I was just about to leave when a pianist and her bass playing counterpart showed up and laid out their sheet music. These people have this kind of chill music down to a science. It's the kind of thing you'd never let someone catch you listening to (if you're me), but once you're in an environment like this place, you open up and welcome it, and congratulations, you've just been blown away again.

I slowly sipped two jars or glasses of sake as I talked shop with one of the bartenders. He said my Japanese pronunciation was really good (overstatement, I'm sure) and we talked about the various places in the States that he visited, almost all of them being areas I never ventured to. When he asked me how I learned the Japanese that I did know, I wrote down the name of the company that does the language CDs and explained that he could probably get one that teaches from Japanese to English. This made him pretty happy, which in turn made me happy. These little interactions make the world go round if you ask me.

I continued to chill, sip, listen to the music, get lost in thoughts, stare out the windows, watch the employees and the patrons alike, and I realized that this was one of those unknowns that I had been searching for. No matter what, I have this particular place to relax in. For the time being, I've got my own spot.

I'd been searching from district to district for something I couldn't place, only to find that there was something right here in my own hotel.

Sushi Is Fail

2008-03-03T00:07:00.000-08:00

There's an unwritten rule that requires any dipshit tourist in Japan to run out to a sushi restaurant, grab a menu, and point and grunt at a random picture, having resolved to try the Sushi Phenomenon. We were no exception.

Your beloved dynamic duo aimed themselves down a narrow street lined with shops and lights and signs, restaurants, convenience stores, little bars, anything. We found a restaurant that had doors that looked like the old school wooden sliding doors. They were painted to look that way though, actually being metal in reality, with a button in it labeled PUSH. Upon pressing the button, the doors automatically slid open, creating a paradox of old school antiquity with Star Wars technology.

The seats were tiny and I had no legroom, so I had to lean forward. We ordered some platter thing that was supposedly for two people. And then we waited, whispering smartass comments back and forth.

"What, are they still trying to catch the fish? How long does it take to grab a bunch of raw shit and throw it on a plate?"

A microscopic plate covered with assorted bits of What The Shit was delivered to us. We broke apart our chopsticks and fumbled with them like we'd been gassed with ether. I snatched up the first piece that was obviously fish, as it still had the skin and whatnot, and shoved it in my mouth. Not bad.

I just burped, and I can still taste it. Thought you should know.

Next, I snared a purplish square of some mystery meat, spotting suction cups on one side just as I threw it into my mouth. Must be octopus. Not bad to be honest, until you feel the suction cups crunching in your teeth, and you realize you're chowing down on Spongebob's pal. Speaking of Spongebob, a square of egg resembled a sponge, in an uncanny way. I decided to go ahead and eat Spongebob too.

A green blob of what appeared to be Play-Do lied in wait for me, so I threw that into my gaping maw as well. It stung like crowd control and set my mouth on fire. I did the typical hilarious reaction, where one realizes too late what they just ate and they suddenly go rigid and their eyes grow large.

Fucking wasabe.

I sucked down orange juice and any other random shit on my plate, ignoring the tough entrails that refused to break as I chewed through them. Shrimp or something that were fully intact, beady little black eyes staring at us.

"Aw dude, I can't eat something that still has EYES!" my friend laughs. We choke down the majority of the plate, looking at each other with regret in our eyes as we chuckle about this bizarre failed experiment.

We stood up, paid our check and walked out.

"All right," the friend says, "Wanna go get some dinner?"

We walked back to the hotel, glad that we could scratch sushi off of our to-do list.

Forever.

Adapt And Overcome

2008-03-02T21:13:00.000-08:00

In yesterday's episode, we were left with the inconclusive ending where my friend and I decided to go back to Roppongi, on a quiet Sunday night, as opposed to sitting in our hotel room.

I dropped all expectations, played it the same way he was, and I'll be damned if it wasn't one of the funnest nights we've had here. We went on a junior bar crawl, hitting one dead nightspot after another, getting a drink here and there. I chatted up some of the guys who worked in these bars, and they were cool as hell.

That's the upside of Roppongi, is all the English speaking people, it helps a lot. So no matter what, we've always got that. With that baseline established, the rest of the trip is golden and about where it needs to be for one important reason:

I'm on vacation, NOT in Iraq. Better bear that in mind at all times and act accordingly, whether we're club crawling or TV watching or bullshitting or getting more lost and dizzy than Cameron Diaz, being bombarded with lights and sounds and all things Holy Shit.

"What do you want to do today man?"

"I don't care. Let's go get lost again."

The Great Wall Of Whiteness

2008-03-02T01:38:00.001-08:00

Days and nights and days bleed into each other, with periods of unshakable sleeplessness. The initial ooh and ahh has partially worn off, given way to dealing with insanely crowded areas, and a nearly impossible language barrier. I didn't study enough, but even then, as reserved as these people are until you get them drunk, I don't think that would have even mattered.

Hung over or waking up drunk, sucking down water WHILE drinking, trying to avoid beind debilitated, of wasting ANY time here, because it's precious, and I still don't feel like I've tapped the vein of this city.

Crowds of people, businessmen, trendy hipster young kids, girls in short skirts, all walks of life fill the streets and the subways are packed as hell but no one wants to know you it seems. I catch myself wondering if that Alleged Marine Rape Case or whatever has anything to do with this outsider feeling I get, or if that's just part of being here, a "Fucked Gaijin", as it were. Then I wonder if the Iraq War has fucked our image.

I chilled in my hotel, contemplating this, did more of the same while walking around. Can't let that shit get in the way though, I have no control over it. There's something intangible and indescribable that I'm trying to get ahold of here, and I gotta pull it off somehow.

We chilled in Shibuya, walking past endless porno shops and love hotels and pachinko (their primary means of gambling) machines. Hip hop culture has pretty much dominated the world, which adds to those feelings of isolation. My friend is much more relaxed than I am, and he just enjoys things for what they are, but I'm fucking hungry for something and I don't even know what. Can't even tell what it is I'm trying to force here.

Before this turns into some kind of fuckwit emo livejournal, let's get back to the sights n sounds and stories you all seem to like. Nothing has exploded here and no one's been shot.

This place is a concrete labyrinth, skyscrapers galore, and it pretty much looks like any city until you get to certain hubs of commerce and entertainment, and that's when the lights explode all around you and you're in some kind of technicolor pseudo-psychadelic dreamland. Tokyo is its own hallucinogenic (and no, it's no longer legal to purchase shrooms here).

In Roppongi a night or two (or three???) ago, I watched some Air Force or Navy or something group of guys I'd been hanging out with go apeshit on each other over money. Not even that much money. And they couldn't understand the concept that it really didn't matter that much. I left them to their bullshit and continued to wander, bombed-out drunk as the sun came up. The place was full of foreigners and locals and the obligatory black dudes who try to get you to go to their titty bars (I've befriended a couple of these guys just for the drunken hell of it).

Now the sun is up and everything has that early morning blue tint to it and two girls walk up to me and ask if I want massage. I decline and I decide to find an ATM to pull out more money. Another girl approaches me and asks if I'm looking for a massage. I tell her no, and we start almost debating with each other. Soon it's revealed that SHE isn't the one who does the massaging. Like the black dudes, her job is just to get customers to go there, to advertise on the street. She didn't seem too fond of it, kind of like the waitresses at strip clubs who sort of look at the "dancers" with disdain. It's funny. The whole thing depressed me a bit.

Anyway, she actually helped me find an ATM that had English options, and as it turns out, we'd already withdrawn my maximum for the day. My friend was with someone else we had met and we'd agreed to just meet back up at our hotel. As I wandered on the streets, I was nailed with this weird Catcher In The Rye syndrome I tend to get now and then.

All the massage hookers trying to rake in some cash, and the foreign strippers, the dipshit military fuckwits making asses of themselves, people jerking your sleeve to check out their particular den of evil, the locals that I just couldn't seem to connect with, it all started to depress me.

I had stuck to vodka the entire night, having heard that it contains less toxins, and sticking with one type of drink will keep you from being even MORE hung over. I had forgotten that vodka seems to have two phases: happy drunk phase, and depressive phase. The Navy Or Something crowd fighting like twats over money, drunk and retarded. Being temporarily broke for the next 24 hours. The stripper that I for some reason began to tell her about what kind of money she could make in America, breaking down the math of average cost of lapdance, average time of each song, to just how much insane money per night she could make. She was Romanian and seemed pretty nice (don't they all).

It all coalesced into one miserably failed night. I just started walking from there, somewhat bummed but wanting to figure it all out. I certainly wanted to get out of Roppongi. So I kept walking, not sure if I even had enough pocket change to ride the train.

I found the general direction that my district was in, and I started running. Hey, just some foreign dude out for a morning jog, right? Every now and then, I'd stop and make sure I was still heading in the same direction, and I just kept running. I didn't know how far it would be, but I knew I had to cross atleast two districts. I hadn't done any serious running in about a year. Stopping at a vending machine for a moment, I bought some orange juice and chugged it while I traversed the endless urban jungle.

And no one so much as looked at me.

I ended up in my hotel at about 9:30 or so and crashed out. I forget how many nights ago that was, probably two.

Now here I am, bored, wanting to go do something, unable to speak the language, with no friends here, wanting something I can't put my finger on, and directionless.

We're probably going back to Roppongi, the foreigner's fucked up haven.

Fuck me.

Insomnia

2008-02-28T11:36:00.000-08:00

It's 4:30 in the morning and neither of us can sleep.

I opened the curtains to our massive window to check out the epic panoramic never ending city of lights and grandeur. There's definitely something about this place. Clean, urban, spread out, larger than life and wonderfully idiosyncratic. This is the home that I'll never belong to.

I've only thought about the other guys a little bit, and the guys we lost too. For the most part though, we're thoroughly distracted. It's almost like I was never TRULY in Iraq. Almost.

My friend agrees that the bidet is a little too much. He crawls back into bed, where he can't sleep either.

"Oh Jesus, we're gonna be sucking tomorrow," he moans. I'd heard from a friend earlier on that he could hardly ever sleep when he was on leave either. I don't mind. As long as I can function and enjoy myself. I don't want to miss anything.

We're phantoms here. No past, no background, just like I hoped. Almost. The girl who pointed out the tranny called me out on being military. So did an old man in the first bar. I guess there's no hiding it. All there's left to do is try to leave a good impression, I guess.

The realization that this is all temporary, it haunts me once in a while. I want to hold on to this as long as I can. We've got a clean slate, even if its a different color than everyone else's proverbial slate. We're finding something out, but we don't know what. This isn't just R&R from Iraq, its R&R from my entire life. Just picking up and leaving for somewhere where I don't know anyone, I've probably needed this for years.

Random thoughts occur to us while we lay in our beds in the dark.

"How bad do you think it will suck when we have to put our uniforms back on again for the first time?" he asks.

"Oh fuck dude...."

This has to last. I have to keep something from this with me, take something back, so to speak. I don't even want to think about going back to Iraq. Hell, I'd go job hunting tomorrow if I didn't think that Tokyo can't be this perfect forever.

Tokyo is like the girl that got away. Phenomenal but never meant to be yours.

The Adventure Continues

2008-02-28T09:04:00.000-08:00

My homedude woke me up at some mid-morning hour to inform me that we had to leave, that we didn't have this hotel booked anymore. I thought we still had another day. I crawled out of bed in a still-half-drunk buzz and attempted to pull myself together.

We threw our shit in our backpacks and walked out, slightly bummed. It was a damn good hotel, and fucking CHEAP as it gets. If you're military and kicking it in Tokyo, check out The New Sanno Hotel. The ultimate hookup.

Walking down the clean streets of Tokyo, trash cans rarely ever seen, litter just as rare, concrete and asphalt and greener than green trees, crazy signs with English and chicken-scratch Kanji writing. We searched randomly for a new hotel as our hangovers crept up on us. Every convenience store we found, I stopped and bought sandwiches and fruit juice, greedily sucking them down, trying my best to mitigate the oncoming trainwreck.

As hard as I fought it, it crept up slowly and aggressively, like a very patient hunter. I finally flagged down a taxi driver and squeezed my temples as I asked, "Hotelu wa doku des ka?"

"Ah....which....hotelu?"

"Any hotel."

"Hotelu Enni?"

"No, I mean like.....the first place you can find, the nearest, you know...uh......fuck, dude, where's the translation book thing?"

My friend shrugs. "I threw it in one of the bags." He then rattles off random words until he recalls the word for "nearest". We end up at some uber-businessman type hotel. I was too fucking hung over to notice or care, I just wanted a room.

44,000 yen. Roughly 440 bucks a night. Normally I would have laughed and told them to fuck right off, but we were hurting, so we took it. We slept all afternoon and woke as the sun went down, booking a new hotel for the rest of our stay, doing a slight amount of planning, sending emails to friends we made the night before, recovering, taking it easy, and having a couple Jack And Cokes between the two of us. Tiny little buzz and internet browsing while we wait for Friday night to unfold.

The Japanese people are fucking fascinating. They take their jobs very seriously. At the airport, we asked an old taxi driver how to get to the New Sanno Hotel. He had no clue, so he promptly SPRINTED across the street and asked some girl. She didn't know, so he did another dash back into the airport.

The guy at the information desk gave me his lighter out of courtesy.

A Nigerian dude in Roppongi, after attempting (and failing) to get us to go to the titty bar where he works, showed us where all the normal clubs are.

[Mini-rant: In the Roppongi district, there are a lot of Nigerian dudes whose job is to stand on the streets and direct people to various tit clubs. With my ritual of getting New Guys drunk and allowing them to blow their entire paycheck at Fox's in Washington, I've had my fill of titclubs (See Also: Suspect's 21st Birthday/The Weirdest Family Gathering Ever). We'd been warned not to trust these guys with our credit cards, so I dealt only in cash while I was in that area. These cats live to hustle, and part of me respects that. Stupid faaaawking tourists. After a while, when they'd approach us and try to get us to go to their clubs, I'd respond with, "Fuck that dude, we're getting wasted at 911! What time do you get off work? No man, I'm serious, don't jerk my fuckin' chain and waste my time, when d'ya get off work? Y'wanna do some shots with us? Course ya do! Arright man, I'll be out here at three o'clock to get you. You better not fucking dip out on us!" Anything to put the ball back in my court. Let them feel assaulted for a change.]

While the Japanese people are amazing with customer service and professionalism, their also incredibly antisocial. It's like everyone walks around in their own little world, head in the clouds, stuck in a bubble. Half the time they don't notice when you greet them. The other half of the time, they just ignore you. Once in a while, someone will mumble a meek response, "Ohio Gozeimas" or "Konnichi wa" or "Konbon wa" depending on the hour, but that's it.

I still attempt to recall events from the previous night. I don't remember if I wrote about the German guy who posed as a retarded person to grope girls. He went to the bathroom the same time I did, so there I was, drunk as shit, dick hanging out of my pants, pissing out five different types of liquor, when I start talking to him. At first it's cordial with hidden undertones of distrust as I try to figure this dude out. He was a little weird, but he seemed more normal suddenly. So I screwed that shit on, brought out the hate and fury and amped up the accusations. He said that next time I come to Germany, he won't help me.

Roppongi is Sin City.

Now we sit in our hotel room, my friend racked out, resting up for our next busy day. I've already tried out the bidet (SIC) for the first time. I was pretty apprehensive about asking for a squirt to the ass, but dammit, it was just too weird to pass up. I hit the button, raised the water pressure, and then warm water is spraying my ass. It was a little disturbing, with horrible undertones that I didn't want to think of, and I began to wonder if this thing was designed by my tansexual tongue-fucking Tequila slurping friend from the night before.

This city is from the future or something. Everything is technologically advanced. Motion sensing faucets and soap dispensers, a remarkably efficient subway system, beer in vending machines, incredible shit. Speakers with sound feed from the TV that play in the bathroom, even though there's no screen there.

Each thought is broken and scattered and interrupted by a hundred more, even writing is an ADHD challenge. I'm charged and on fire and ALIVE here. I love this place, and I'm damn glad I didn't come alone. It wouldn't be the same. My friend and I ate pizza and discussed our old friend who got out of the army because his back was fucked up.

"Man, I'd be down to pay half for his plane ticket to get him here, he needs to come do this with us."

"No shit! But he'd be like, 'Man, ah WANNA go, believe me, but ah cain't, ah got my job now, ah wish ah could though, MOTHERFUCKIN' BITCH...'"

"Yeah, but what's ONE job versus coming here with US and kicking it in fucking TOKYO? This shit doesn't happen to everyone, this is something monumental. It's epic dude, epic lulz and shit."

"I'd be down to ask him, but I know his answer would be no."

Well dickhead, since I know you'll be reading this, I'll put you on the spot in front of everyone. Yosemite Slim and I will buy you a plane ticket here if you're down. You have to do this man, this shit is insane.

Fifteen stories above the world, I look out the window and see the orderly scramble of neon night life in the most incredible city in existence, and I fidget a little. It's early AM Friday, so tonight and tomorrow, it's going to be insane in the nightlife. I'll be there personally to cover the story. But first we have to check out of this ultra expensive hotel and go to our next. In this building, everyone wears suits and ties and makes a shit-ton of money, classical music plays in the lobbies, dinners are priced at Your Soul, quiet aristocratic elitism permeates the building.

And two hung over Outsiders stagger in wearing jeans and t-shirts and the scars of a brutal night of mid-deployment rampaging, demand a room, and pass out for half a day. We don't belong here. It's awesome.

Tonight, we're checking for Adam's Apples first.

De-Loused In The Tokyotorium

2008-02-27T13:14:00.000-08:00

You lucky, filthy vicaracious living leeching fucks, you get a 100 per cent Un CENSORED post from super DRUNKASS Suspect, ready to lay it all down with ruthless God Knows What.

The sun is apparently coming up, I've got a pocket full of cigarettes I've never heard of. What I'd LIKE to brag about all depends on the permission of my past-out friend. So that will wait.

Here's the fucking sticky gooey story bullshit for you voracious starving......people.

We traveled for fucking DAYS. Waiting, doing, but MORE waiting. You have NO purpose bitching about the DMV after going through this shit. I used the word Purgatory as a joke and a motif of sorts, but fuck me rotten and call me Anne Frank, this is RIDICULOUS.

FOB Anaconda, POG-ville, lasts for an eternity enough as it is. Yes, I'm an evil little bastard and I should be whipped and caned, but even I have never done enough evil to warrant a waiting period in this pitiful land of Fobbit-FucktardVille.

After the escape of such horrid bile and monkey spooge, one boards one of MANY MANY MANY fucking planes and somehow travels to their intended destination, and all is cool and everyone gets their rocks off. 'Cept me.

Kuwait airport. Subtle terror seizes me as I walk around in civilian clothes, realizing too late that my shirt broadcasts a gas mask resembling a skull, with crossed MISSILES behind them. Very diplomatic.

I hop another plane, eat another joke of a meal, attempt to sleep a wink, and I'm crossing time zones, and now we're in Dubai, and who knows if THESE Arabs dig us or not, and whatever, as long as they don't behead my dumb ass. Connect a flight to Seoul, pause to grab a quick shot of whatever SOJU is, and pow! On to Tokyo, where we arrive, and my intestines suffer travel-agony and I temporarily regret rubbing it in to my friends back in the 'Raq that I finally get some damn vacation.

All four ninja turtles perform a Battle Royale on my lower guts and I groan like a little girl as I make periodic bathroom stops with NO success, just increasing self pity. I become the poster-boy of Excretory Agony. Quite humorous, I'd have to admit.

My friend and I eventually just say FUCK IT, and I spring for cab fare, dropping shit....what...something like 200 bucks American in cab fare just to get to our hotel. From there, we walk to a convenience store, buy some weird booze, drink, watch "2girls1cup" (you are all whiney bitches because that video isn't SHIT), laughed [and pleaded for Jesus] and drank some more.

We woke up, hopped our dumb asses on a train for some district called ShinJewKu, and explored. Buildings has floors upon floors of women's clothing, and we explored it anyway, because fuck it, we're foreigners, and WHAT are they going to do, DEPLOY US?!

Most Japanese people seem to be in their own little world and do not socialize AT ALL. We great a stranger on the street, and unless we give ourselves enough time to stare them down after greeting them, we won't get a response.

GOOD EVENING, YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER.

Atleast I'd get a reaction in the states. Here? I might as well be Michael Keaton's WELL ACTED ghost. Like that metrosexual Patrick Swayze from "Ghost".

Anyway, like any true American, I decided that this was all unsatisfactory and that I'd shift the influence a little.

In all reality, I just proved that white guys + liquor = Sure, We'll Do An MC Hammer Impression.

Sweet Jesus, King of Jews and shit, I don't even know where to start. Let me just admit this, and you are completely welcome to laugh at MY expense:

We hit up some bar and it's great and all. We're buzzing from our pre-game (Yes, by the way, we found an IRANIAN restaurant and ate there, all the while I put on the most PITIFUL Australian accent you ever heard). Short (but not as short as we thought) Japanese types are getting their drink on to AnyType Music playing through the FuckItWe'reDrunkOrSoonWillBe speakers of anywhere, ShuHolyShit District, Tokyo.

Some filthy SKANK, ultimate dirty hooker face eyes me. I immediately think of hooking this filthy STD market up with my friend [I probably have deep rooted self-esteem issues, to explain why I love watching my friends destroy every last semblence of courage and self-confidence that they could ever own]. I buy this monstrosity a shot of Tequila (at her request) and promptly get a "Forgive Me Father, no, I MEAN IT, FORGIVE ME FATHER" Lick of the earlobe. I mean, this bitch went Beethoven's Bathouse on my ear. She got FILTHY with it.

And I thought, "Strange, but kinda cool I guess."

Until this tiny little 30-or-so Japanese/American girl came to my rescue. It all invovled a lot of drunken "dancing" (me being wasted enough to accept the inevitable humor in me trying to get my "groove" on) and plenty of ME BEING DEAD SEXY.

Point is, this tiny little sweetheart was kind enough to fill me in on important information. Long story short, I found out that I bought a tequila shot for a TRANSEXUAL DUDE WHO SUBSEQUENTLY SUCKED MY EARLOBE LIKE IT WAS THE COCK OF JUDAS.

Is this wrong? I'd like to think so.

The nice little Japanese woman laughed at me, told me I was 'down to earth'. Did the European greeting fake-ass kiss on the cheek bullshit and that was that. We ended up wandering around Roppongi looking for more action, but it's all the same "I Got Wasted And Called The DJ Out, And DJ Starscream is STILL Better" story.

I don't even know where the fuck I was going with this bullshit to be honest. All I know is that the sun is coming up, and I'm wasted (but not blacked out), and it's been crazy so far.

I do miss you all from the back home parts, but I still feel that the only way to do something like this, is to go totally crazy. So sorry that we turned down Nigerian pimps tonight, random asian "Masseuses" etc etc etc.

Blah blah blah, more bullshit. Til next time.

ALSO: Fuck you, I'm drunk.

The Shire Of Fobbitton

2008-02-24T16:13:00.000-08:00

In-transit limbo, the mind numbing foul tasting garbage that never finds it's way into the brochures, that's the current phase. Different flavor of purgatory.

I'm waiting for a flight from one nowhere to another, killing time on some giant FOB filled to the brim with POGs (Personnel Other than Grunt). We lay on the floor of the terminal with our gear, trying to sleep while a butchered version of The Butterfly Effect plays on AFN. Of course I can't sleep, and that delirious jet-lag state is soon to follow.

Earlier on, The Homeboy and I decided to catch a movie to pass the time. Enormous, almost civilian movie theater, complete with a balcony. Legitimate cinematic experience. The lights go down, they show a couple previews, and then The Army or The Fates or fuck-knows-what throws another hunk of shit at me.

The National Anthem begins, and in front of the flag onscreen, the words "Shock and Awe" explode. Cue footage of paratroopers, the Twin Towers getting hit, massive bombings, some dipshit in training gear burning off rounds of blanks like he's auditioning for Black Hawk Fucking Down, a horrible montage of hooah-hooah horseshit, and these motherfuckers eat it up.

"What the FUCK is THIS?!" I vomit to no one in particular as we all stand. Some dick who's probably never set foot outside of the wire hits me on the arm. Oh, my arms are crossed. I drop them to my sides, in the lamest attempt at half-assing the position of attention as the bullshit flashes by on the big screen.

This is fucking PORNOGRAPHY for these paper-pushing desk jockey motherfuckers, and I'm ready to puke blood. They eat it up, and I can't help but wonder if any of them have buried any friends out here, and if so, how in the great cosmic fuck they can be so impressed with this sick joke. The National Anthem is one thing, but when you pin propaganda to it to impress people with immaculately clean uniforms and Never Fired M16s, shamelessly pimping out images of false-motivation and utter destruction, well...I'm sorry if I can't baaa baaaa along with the herd.

One more thing I won't miss when I'm gone, that's all it is. Fuck the video, fuck the person who slapped it together, fuck the person that thought it would be a good idea to include it just before showing National Treasure 2. Fuck 'em all, I'm going on leave. This is vented now, so it's done and I'm over it.

The first shot is for you. Line 'em up.

Finally, They Throw This Dog A Bone

2008-02-21T10:56:00.000-08:00

We fly down the roads of Nowhere, Iraq, on a no one, nothing mission. We have a mission? Hahaha, fuck right off, pal. It's all just tomfoolery and assclownery here.

I'm in one of the air guard hatches of the trail vehicle, gloriously uninformed and perfectly happy about it. Hell, maybe they DID say something about what was going on over coms and I just shrugged it off without realizing it. It's all the same anyway, right?

A ridiculous traffic jam gums up the works, and we're having none of it. Can't let these crazy revolutionaries, extremists, and commuters get too close. Standard procedure, stay the fuck away. I'm on the 240 (that beautiful belt fed fully automatic bastard of all bastards), so my friend takes advantage of the situation and sticks his rifle out the back.

CRACK!

The car stops its advance in a damn hurry.

"What the hell was that?" someone inside the truck asks. We radio up for all to hear, "This is [Truck: Pestilence And Plague], warning shot, over."

The road is lined and constipated with angry motorists, all of them very familiar with this drill. The Americans plow and shoot their way through while everyone else is held up for god knows how long. Sometimes they get brave and shoot out into traffic and zoom away, shaking their heads in moderate rebellion, head full of "Fuck off, Americans, seriously..."

Not today.

"My turn, motherfucker!" I snatch my M4 up and point it out the back. CRACK!

"God, there's another one." My ol' pal shakes his head and blasts away at a random point in the soft dirt.

It's demonic, not-all-there fun. If you go too long without firing a weapon in public places, you forget just how fun it is. I've damn near got bloodlust, I'm enjoying myself so fucking much. Any piss-poor excuse to shoot, we take it. Banging away at nothing, our own version of celebratory gunfire, like we'd just remembered that our rifles actually fire. Each trigger squeeze is a public service announcement. It's an orgy of blatant disregard for Hunter's Safety. The lead truck fires a warning now and then. We reciprocate two-fold. Someone gets too close, no problem, find an open spot of dirt and plug it. WHOOO!!!

I motion with my hand for the car to back off us, "Back the FUCK up, chump!"

As if the guy can hear me, but hey, that's escalation of force, Rules of Engagement and all that. I take aim at dirt, flip the safety off, and start to squeeze. There's NO play left in the trigger when a pedestrian's head appears in my sight.

My finger leaves the trigger so fast, you'd have thought someone shot it off, and my thumb rips the selector back to Safe. International incident averted.

That could have been REALLY bad.

CRACK!

"Pestilence and Plague, warning shot, over."

Later on, we stop to test-fire our weapons systems. The .50 cal is up. The other 240 then sounds off with a couple small bursts. In the spirit of boisterous male assholes since the beginning of time, I charge my 240 and squeeze the trigger like I'm trying to strangle the damn thing. 7.62mm automatic fury, the loudest chattering you could imagine, chewing links and spitting lead downrange. Passionate five second bursts until everyone including the LT is yelling, "Ok! It fucking WORKS!!!"

For some, love is a powerful emotion felt between two people, or a feeling of family that can't be described, or the deepest devotion to their God. For me, love is a fully automatic weapon unleashing chaos in my hands. I'll miss it.

This marks the end of combat operations for my friend and I, until we return. Soon, we're off across oceans, to uncharted territory, "where the beer flows like wine and the women flock like the seagulls of Capastrano." We'll sail seas of liquor, see sights, throw caution to the wind, no planning whatsoever, every action on a whim, no bounds, no ties.

We'll be no one. A couple of strangers with no history. No background. It isn't a clean slate, we won't HAVE a slate. Famished and ravenous, we'll wring every last drop of life that we can out of this place, suck it dry, get our money's worth. This trip is on Uncle Sam's dime. He's got his money's worth and then some out of us, so it's only fair, right?

Nothing is too strange or taboo. It will never be weird enough for me. Stop at nothing, sleep only when absolutely necessary, chew vitamins and keep moving. We're making our escape from Shawshank.

Just two strangers sticking out like sore thumbs in a sea of normal people.

Sounds great to me.

Shorter, Shorter Still

2008-02-10T05:32:00.001-08:00

I'm out and walking about, back to the same grind, the same routine, the skipping record patrol patrol pa-pa-patrol trol trol trolllllllllll. It's a nice day, perfect weather for suicide vests, they warn. Don't let 'em too close.

And there I am, climbing across the ramp while it's still lowering, the big green monster shitting another soldier out onto the streets. We walk along the road, and I start to wonder just what the fuck we're supposed to do if someone IS wearing an S-vest. You can't get the people far enough away.

What, the whole point is to not let them kill you with a point blank explosion? To just take a little less and still come out chewed up? Give me a fucking break.

I'm watching everyone. Hey dude, unzip your jacket, pat yourself down. You're already close enough to vaporize me anyway. I know there is no point in doing what I'm doing, but I do it anyway. Because I'm short now. They say this is when you get complacent? No way, not me.

A car turns onto the road towards us. I stand in the road with my rifle at the low ready, cigarette smoke burning my eyes, and I shake my head no at him. Then I gesture that he can either turn or turn the car around, but he can't keep coming this way. Some other guy shouts something to our interpreter. It's ok, I'm told. Let him come.

He pulls up to the house in front of me, his house. Where his little girl has been waving from the gate for the past few minutes. I look like the uptight asshole, but I don't care much. I'm short.

I get tired of the crowd of young boys hanging around me, chittering at me in Arabic, asking me for things. "Yalla, emshee." Go away.

I'm scanning roads and windows and rooftops and intersections and people and everything I can, even though I know that if something were to happen, the odds of me seeing it coming are very slim. The growing sense of desperation and survivalism is directly proportionate to how much time I have left. As my time elapses, my paranoia amps up exponentially, until I'll hop on that bird a shaken, sweaty, blood-shot eyed, frayed out mess, slumping my ass into the seat. Exhaling like a hurricane and then gut-laughing like a fucking madman.

I'm short but I'm not stupid.

Flight Of The Valkyries

2008-02-08T05:22:00.001-08:00

Oh-Dark-Fuck-Me-Rotten and we throw our gear on. I'd spent the previous night preparing.

"Suspect, here ya go, we're supposed to carry these," says our resident New Guy. He hands me a frag grenade, a flashbang grenade, a smoke grenade, and a star cluster thing. They've never given me grenades before.

Ah SHIT, what's this all about? Fuck, this is going to be some kind of crazy-ass hardcore mission or something isn't it? The Last Bastion Of Anti-American Bastards in a crazy Alamo fight, with every type of ordnance and dirty tactic in the book, ten foot tall desert warriors, complete devastation and total annihilation. Why the hell are they putting me back on the ground NOW? I'm SHORT! I go on leave real fuckin' soon! What kind of fucked up God would let me get hit right before leave?!

They'll set up all kinds of crazy traps and ambushes, then they'll run us down like dogs! I'm not trying to take a Hamburger Hill, I'm trying to suck down liquor and chase women with negotiable morals. What the fuck, over?

I double-check everything, and I clean my rifle and oil it. It's almost silent when I pull the charging handle back. Nice. I stick fresh batteries in my NODs. Fresh batteries in the optic sight on my rifle. Fresh batteries in the SureFire tac-light on the same rifle. Getting all ready to rock and whatnot, motivated, pseudo-high-speed type shit, Brand New Private kinda thing.

So there I am, Oh-Dark-Fuckin'-A, at the helipad. We're getting our brief and I take my NODs out and attach them to my helmet, then I flick them on to check them again.

Nothing.

I yank the helmet off and look at the NODs. Just like I figured, the battery cover had come off and was still inside the pouch on my body armor. One guy is holding my rifle for the light on it while I'm dicking with my NODs, trying to snap the cover closed (I don't have the normal one-battery slot most NODs do). I try them again.

Nothing.

At this point, I'm getting pretty damned nervous. Here we are, about to go on some big ol' super secret Army Strong mission, and my fucking nightvision doesn't work. I try different battery configurations, then I put another fresh set in, still nothing. Until I finally realize that the piece of metal on the lid that completes the circuit or facilitates the black magic or whatever, it's missing. It was in the bottom of my pouch, and we had to ghetto rig it just to get the bastard to work, but it finally did. Just in time to get on the bird and wait. And wait.

We're sitting on the benches that line both sides of the bird and I snap a picture. This sets off a chain reaction and now everyone's going through the Pre-Mission Ritual that we went through back when Iraq was still new and interesting to us. And then we waited some more.

The engine started, a damn near deafening whine, and still nothing. Then the bird started to shake, vibrate, gyrate, whatever. But nothing. The back ramp raised up, but nothing.

I kept looking at my watch, wondering when the hell we were going to actually lift off, when the rotors sped up and the ground shifted. I flipped my NODs on and looked out the open back.

A friend of mine will gladly tell you what a fag I am for thinking the following:

Through monochromatic shades of green, the helipad dropped out from underneath us, and the whole FOB followed. We leaned to the bird's left and the world tilted, bright green sky, lights glowing from here and there, and we were up and away.

Fucking breathtaking.

I stared in awe out the back, like a complete tool, as we passed clusters of houses and road and open nothingness and palm groves. Then a village panned behind us, every light like a glowing emerald. I closed the eye that looks through my NODs. Lame. I opened my nightvision eye again. Groovy.

It was almost like it wasn't even real, like no way could this be happening. This is too NOT mundane. Like there was a movie screen on the back of the bird with all sorts of crazy wind blowing in.

Then the darklights blinked a few times. Two minutes.

We continued to pass villages and desert wilderness until the bird sank down, leaning this way, then leveling, and then the ramp dropped and we poured out, the rotors whipping the shit out of the air. I took a knee once I was far enough away, but when the bird lifted off again, it still blew me over and I had to catch myself with my free hand.

And so began the mission. And it was productive.

The Downward Spiral

2008-02-02T09:14:00.000-08:00

One year ago, we were nervous and excited and apprehensive. Ready to do this. Green as snot.

We jumped through training hoops at Fort Lewis, counting down months. This epic THING looming in front of us, like it was some kind of tidal wave we were waiting to catch.

Before we knew it, they stuffed us on buses and into airplanes and flew us to the other side of the planet, jet-lagged and confused as shit, dog-tired and sick of travel, SICK of fucking waiting and stopping and going, sitting on duffel bags. Not knowing what to expect.

We spent a few weeks in Kuwait, adjusting to the heat, preparing for our next push into theater, just more waiting, all of it, more headgames. Already we were reduced to phone calls and emails, otherwise effectively cut off from the World.

And then they stuffed us all onto C-130s. Wedged in there, full kit, miserable, everyone scowling and swearing at each other for so much as adjusting in their seat. Two miserable hours of loud droning engines. You're off to war, son.

We had landed, anticlimactically, and still, we were herded like fucking animals, STILL not knowing a damn thing, and the cycle would never end. And there I was, finding myself in Baghdad, chomping at the bit to get outside the wire, to experience This Fucking War.

Barely 21 and dumber than shit, I was all sorts of optimistic, thinking we were going to do great things and kick lots of ass, GI Joe hero type shit. That we could be cool with the people, and bring the hammer down on the baddies.

Then a low rumble shakes my Stryker, and two of our guys are killed by an IED while they were dismounted. People emerged from their houses and cheered.

Every day we piled out of the trucks and into any random building, clearing house after house after god-forsaken motherfucking house, sweltering heat, sweat stinging our bloodshot eyes. Sucking down hot water and tromping up and down stairs all day. First floor clear. Second floor clear. Roof clear. Repeat and repeat and repeat, and where the FUCK are the bad guys?

There's gunfire out of nowhere, and soon it's a squad on one rooftop against the enemy on another rooftop. "Chaz" returns fire with his SAW and watches as his rounds smack into some guy's ribs. He shakes for the rest of the day.

We continue to clear every day, we fire warning shots. And a sniper kills another of our guys. My squad returned to the truck to escort the medic's Stryker back to the Green Zone. The air horn blares repeatedly, over and over again, for what must have been fifteen solid minutes as we race to the hospital.

And then we're back out in it all over again, and where's this apparent enemy? Fucking ghosts. This fucking war.

Through the boredom and the monotony and misery, we occasionally have one of our own get wounded. Sometimes minor, sometimes enough to go back to the states. Shot in the leg. Shrapnel in the ass. Shrapnel in the head or the arm. Sometimes WE get one of them.

We bust our asses in Baghdad in support of other units, tackling one of the most notorious neighborhoods in Iraq. Every Iraqi I've ever mentioned this neighborhood nods in understanding, then mentions that it is "no good". Moo zyen.

And then we move. To a more calm area, where we have our own sector. And the monotony picks up exponentially. Days and weeks bleed together in an agonizing blur.

Then a suicide bomber kills three of us.

Still no visible enemy that we can directly engage.

You go on bipolar cycles of motivation and indifference. Of caring about the people to total apathy. Wanting to wreak havoc or wanting to get back to the tent and kick back. All the while the World moves on without you. You wonder if those people back home will think you've changed.

We were green once.

Counterpoint

2008-01-31T12:43:00.001-08:00

I reclined in the driver's seat, listening to the occasional boom of a controlled detonation as we were out and about, cleaning bad shit out in some area. Y'know, good shit, throwing a wrench in the Bad Guys' plans and whatnot. Felt pretty damn good about it. I wasn't doing shit, mind you, but I was there, involved in SOMETHING other than a goddamn meeting. And I started thinking.

Yeah, I hate Iraq. I hate being here. This place is one big long shit-smear if you ask me. But let's look beyond my simple opinion and look at this whole mess for what it is.

"I hate our President."

But you elected him. One way or another.

"I hate this war and I think it's not solving anything."

But it's already well underway, with no sign of stopping. We're COMMITTED now. You can't keep debating it. Once you commit to something like this, you have to see it through. It's like everyone WANTS us to just say, "Fuck it," and quit. Throw in the towel. Oh well, we tried.

Fuck that. We leave, and this region turns to shit, and the guys we buried are in the ground for nothing. We already stepped in this turd. Our boots already have the shit on them. Why back away now? Finish the job.

Ever wonder what happened to that American Ideal? Weren't we untouchable? The new great power, standing for all sorts of righteous and good and kickass ideals? A nation of John Wayne, hard-working shit-shoveling hardasses? Guess we've lost sight in a few things.

So maybe instead of pulling out, and succumbing as a nation to Dr. Phil sensitivity, we should pull the fucking plug on the shit spraying from the TV. All those shows geared to making you stupid? What do you need it for?

Your penis is too small, and you are too fucking fat. You aren't beautiful and glamorous and you need to drive this big fuckin' car. Buy, consume, fear, spend, succumb, stop thinking. Wouldn't that be great? Lovely.

Sean Penn doesn't know a goddamn thing. Neither does Bono. Give them a nation and watch it crumble. The news flash is thus: It's an ugly world, kids. Sometimes we have to get ugly with it. Especially when we've committed ourselves to this region, for whatever reason, the reason doesn't even matter anymore, because it's US standing in that Fatal Funnel, and you gotta fight through that shit, son, or else it's your ass.

So pull the media out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Stop with the sensationalism, because that TOO has a fucking dollar sign attached to it. You bitch about this all being for oil, monetary greed and corruption, but everything you can even FATHOM has a price tag on it. Such is the folly of civilization.

Stop being lazy and cowardly. Better yourself, in whatever way. Become stronger, faster, SMARTER, more determined. Create something.

How many times do you see Americans acting like they're ASHAMED of being an American? You slap a ribbon magnet on your car, doing your part for the war effort and supporting the boys and all that, while tucking your tail in between your legs because the rest of the world doesn't like us so much, cuz we're just too aggressive.

Wait, no we aren't. We're being monitored by the media. So they can twist and edit and cut out this detail for that. To sell the big story. Prostitutes, every last one of them. You don't trust a corner-whore, why put money in the pocket of these bottom-feeders?

LET US DO OUR SHITTY, GOD-CURSED JOB. THE WAY OUT IS THROUGH.

When I was a kid, I always thought that America never submitted, never took shit from anyone. That no matter what, we rose above whatever was thrown at us. We're an incredible nation and we're afraid to admit it. I say fuck anyone who doesn't like it. I'm a goddamn American, and I am PROUD of that. Sparta doesn't have shit on us.

Take a goooood long look at the people we're up against. Are we really so bad? Fuck Bono. Fuck Green Day. Fuck all those call girls who soak up YOUR money just to badmouth you. To patronize you. Fuck 'em all.

We may have been dealt a shitty hand, but goddammit, you PLAY that shit. You play til you're out of chips. Because we weren't raised to be quitters and whiners. By showing interior weakness, you do nothing but empower the people who want us eradicated. Sorry, but your kindergarten teacher was full of shit. We CAN'T all get along. Nice try, Ghandi, but I live in the real world, and it's cold 'n' ugly, but there's plenty of good in it as well.

"But the People have a right to know."

The People also aren't going to understand it all when they aren't there in the thick of it. I don't care about spreading democracy or looting for oil or whatever the fuck we're doing. But I damned sure don't want to come home only to find in a couple years that my time was wasted here.

So, please, America, or whatever is left of you, turn off the TV. Let go of the reins. Let us do it and do it RIGHT.

Burned Out

2008-01-30T07:22:00.000-08:00

Someone pokes me in the back until I wake up and I roll over.

I fucking hate this place.

All I do is lay there, for about ten minutes or so, until I know that I can't spare another minute without being late. Late to wait. Late to be a presence on a truck for a day and come back having accomplished nothing.

Shouldn't have believed the commercials, there, stud.

The wind chills the back of your neck while you stand in the air guard hatch watching shitty cars pulled over to the side of the road as you pass. You're going to go somewhere and wait. There is absolutely no question about it. You'll probably be back sometime during dinner time.

You slap a mag in your rifle and charge a round, and you have no idea why you're even bothering. Just doing it out of habit, to appease that tiny little voice that says, "Well maybe something will happen today..."

Mud clings to your boots and sucks up gravel and it hangs on to you like bastardly little stowaways, smears your seat when you stand on it, and that uniform that you just picked up from the laundry point gets fresh mud on the legs before you even leave the wire. Your nose runs because it's cold. God help you if you keep a calendar.

You don't even bother to curse the politics and the complexities of American Presence in Mess O'Potamia. It doesn't matter and it would drive you insane anyway. Remember, you're Joe and you don't understand shit.

When I'm a good dog, they sometimes throw me a bone...

It's the same fucking routine, all the time, and where the hell is all the distress and the chaos and the ka-boooom and the Oh FUCK and the bratttbratttbratt of small arms fire, shrapnel and debris and little fires, good guys vs. bad guys. Where the fuck is this WAR I was supposed to go fight?

Meetings with local officials? Are you fucking SERIOUS?! THIS is what an entire day is devoted to? And the day after that? So that in the end, we're spending weeks and months for MEETINGS and bullshit sessions?

I am fucking SICK of your chai. I'm sick of your mandatory hospitality. I'm sick of your rugrat little bastard kids chasing my Stryker demanding footballs. Fuck, they'll beg for them when I'm out walking around. I pat my pockets, patronizing them. "Nope, no football here."

Sick of your mangey dogs and your shitty construction, and I am DAMN sick of your police and your soldiers and your local militia. Sick of sitting in a courtyard during a meeting while your cronies and underlings surround me and ask me questions in Arabic.

"Blah blah hubba bubba bling blong," one babbles.

"Shway Arabi," I answer. Little Arabic.

"Mumbo jumbo, dae wonna wonga, kun casa Han Solo."

"....Yeah."

"U tini?!"

"Oh, yeah I get ya! Haha, right on man! I don't understand a fucking WORD you're saying! And I don't care, isn't that great? I hate you and all of your friends, with a blind passion! I really do, hahaha, oh ho HAAHAHA, isn't that a fucking TRIP?"

"Unga bunga blah blah hullabaloo etc etc etc wonk."

"Gotcha, your boy Rico Suave here, with the gelled hair, is cheating on you with that guy by the door. That's a damn shame man. In my country, one of you is bound by honor to run from that anguish by doing pitiful off-broadway productions."

They leave my friends alone, because my friends don't say shit to them. But no, I start off being a decent guy, and I regret it. Every fucking time. I've never had my ass saved by any of them. I'm missing my brother's 18th birthday and high school graduation because they don't have the balls to police their own country. What the FUCK do I have to say to them?

One of them hands me a cup of steaming hot chai. As I take it, for a brief second, I consider splashing it in his face, scalding the shit out of him. Maybe headbutting him right in the nose for good measure.

I don't see any war here. So what am I doing here?

"...for the security and the continued prosperity and..."

Don't even bother explaining, I'm not listening. I freely admit that I am Joe and I don't give a shit, and I don't see the big picture. But these Big Picture planning types don't see the little picture either. Difference is, they're in charge, and I'm not.

A kid waves and holds his hands up, "Mista! Football!"

I reach into my sleeve pocket and toss out an empty can of dip. Have a hockey puck.

If I get stop lossed and deployed again, I'm going to puke blood. Why deploy me a second time? We need to waste MORE fuckin' time out here? Nothing I have done in MONTHS has meant dick. Other than being a presence here.

"But you're here to help them stabilize and--"

Ah ah ah, hush. Maybe at one point I was bleeding-heart enough to care, but you wanna know something? Society will always find a way. We're supposed to prevent their inevitable civil war? Is that it? Why? Because the democracy we're spoonfeeding them is so much better? Give me a goddamn break.

Either we're here, bored, until that freak occurance happens where we lose someone, and have no one to strike back against, or we're back in the US, watching CNN with a case of beer and sick, sadistic gut-laughs erupting from the depths of our selfish, black little hearts.

The Trade Towers! The WMDs! Saddam! Stabilization! Foothold in the Middle East!

None of us ever cared about any of that. We all signed on to go to WARRRRRR.

To sling lead downrange, cold stares and loud bombs and dead bad guys squishing under our feet. To fuck the world with the big dick of democracy. Wreak total havoc and be hailed as heroes for it. That's what we wanted at first.

Next thing I know it, I've been here for way too long and everything is way too dull and the world is moving on without me, and I'm at the outpost talking to a friend of mine, and he says something that makes a lot of sense.

"This is all bullshit. All of it. I could understand if we were like, on our borders or beaches or harbors or something kicking ass and fighting back an invading force or something, then I would be behind this a hundred percent, but this is fuckin' BULLSHIT man."

So all those romantic notions of kicking down a door and pouring into a house with your buddies and fighting in close quarters, fighting for your fucking life and nothing else, filling that zealot bastard full of lead and letting him bleed out on the floor while you take off your helmet, light a cigarette, and strike a pose, it ain't there.

The boys who did all that serious Oh FUCK fighting, they'd be the first to tear away every romantic notion of it and expose it for the nonsensical clusterfuck it is, but for everyone else, every young Joe who's trained up for two fuckin' years to go fight it, what the hell do you expect from them? Fill their heads with all this shit about intense fighting and testing yourself in combat and all sorts of other boner-inducing cliches, then send them to be a mere PRESENCE in the aftermath of this bumblefuck and watch them scratch their heads.

And watch them get cynical, quick, fast, and in a big hurry.

Hey, don't get me wrong, I still don't want more than I can chew. I don't care if I never fire my rifle again. But if we aren't FIGHTING, then why keep us here? Let the fucking POGs patrol these areas, give us new spots to go kick ass in, or else just send us home.

"It's not that simple."

Bullshit, I say it's that simple. I'll go back to being trigger happy on a fucking X-Box, where there are no consequences, where that shit belongs. Boozing and bullshitting and shamming and romancing and being a good ol' American boy going batshit crazy gorging myself on a well-cooked Turkey, surrounded by extended family, not worrying about a damn thing. That's where I oughta be if I'm not putting my ass on the line for a real fight.

We signed up for a fight. Not to play Day Care for this god-forsaken wasteland. Every day I ask myself, "THIS is what I put my life on hold for?"

I'm going to be sick.

Exodus Vs Institutionalization

2008-01-28T10:57:00.000-08:00

I’ve been away for a long time. A really long time. Almost a year, non-stop.

A YEAR in the wastelands. A year in a place that only exists in headlines for the rest of the world. A mythical terrible place where all kinds of horrific things happen. But you know, this place isn’t so horrific to me. Nah, this is normal. All of it. Me looking the same as everyone else. All of us, wearing the exact same thing. The only caste system is the rank system. There’s no rich or poor among us, not visibly. We all have jack shit.

None of us are driving nice cars. None of us are well dressed or eating at expensive restaurants. None of us are getting into the exclusive clubs. NONE OF US ARE ON YOUR FUCKING A-LIST. None of us blow coke with the Brat Pack. Apparently we compete for headlines though.

Nah, we’re all a step above transient, and we’ve pretty much forgotten that.

We aren’t stuck in traffic like you. We aren’t wearing suits and ties. We aren’t carrying briefcases.

Mr., we deal in lead.

We barely remember what red lights look like. What the fuck is a shopping mall? QVC? WHAT? What the hell are you TALKING about?

Y'see, most of our guys have already been on leave. Most. I can't imagine what it's like for them to go home, then turn around and come back to Iraq. Pick up and do it all over again. Tearful goodbye at the airport, again. Going home for leave, seems like a masochistic cocktease to me. Dangle it right there in front of you, give you a little taste, then snatch it back, fill your nose with the shit-smell of the Raq once again. Probably over faster than a dream. And twice as faded out and dissipating with each minute.

I've been here for almost a YEAR. How does one go back to normal for such a short period of time? I won't do it. A friend and I are going far, faaaaaaaaaaar away and not looking back until we're on the bird again. [Those of you who know where I'm going, do me the favor of not mentioning it in comments or anything, not til I'm back here.]

For three weeks, it's nothing but boozing and sight-seeing, gawking and staring and soaking it in, a controlled experiment to see just how we handle civilization, with a healthy degree of insanity and recklessness. Minor consequences be damned. I'll get my R&R, you can be damned sure of it. Sensory overload in every sense of the word. Suck it dry.

I've got to pile the foreign on. Can't let myself be teased with a little normality. Normal isn't normal to me anymore. Not for now. When it's all said and done, I'll do my readjustments, and permanently. I'm not trying to switch it on and off and on again.

Hey man, I've been keeping up as best as I can with what's going on back there. Sounds like everyone's doing good. Me? Yeah I'm doing really well too. Counting days, taking it easy, you know the drill.

Oh, no, nah, I don't think I'm going to come home yet. Got too much other stuff to do. Y'know, wanted to see this other place and all. Thought I'd just get it out of the way now.

Ok, yeah, you caught me. Here's the truth then. I'm not ready to come home dude, sorry. I'm not ready to see all the old things I left behind, not for three bullshit weeks. I don't want to be on those same streets, except be looking for dudes with guns on rooftops or in windows. I don't want to cruise the main drag thinking, "Fucking Christ! This bastard is WAY too close to us! 100 meters, you dumb cocksucker! What's he trying to get lit up? That car could be loaded with explosives! What? I'm back in the World? Ha, oh man, ha ha ha, that's right. Good thing you're driving huh? FUCK DUDE, LOOK OUT MAN! DID YOU NOT SEE THAT SHIT IN THE ROAD? Oh yeah, things don't explode here. I forgot."

I guess I'm just not ready to see you guys and hear, "What's it like?" when I know at most, you want it all summed up in thirty seconds, and you'll just nod and change the subject, sorry you even asked. After all, you support the troops and not the war, even though you don't even know what that bullshit means. I mean fuck, you heard some face on TV spout that bullshit off, and you hopped right on that fucking bandwagon with the rest of them, cuz goddammit, it sounded REEEEAAAAALL good to you didn't it? You fake motherfucker.

What's my problem? Are you serious? It's not obvious to you? You got your prying, curious eyes on me, looking for that Vietnam Stare and all the Hollywood bullshit about us Fucked Up American Troops, the hidden casualties of war and all that other verbal pornography for headlines. Fuck you dude, I didn't get so much as an email from your sorry ass.

Shit man, you can keep it. You keep your Hot Topic and American Idol and Survivor. Keep your Doc Martens and Skoal Bandits. Keep your digital cable and high speed internet and your nice new car. Stay just as stupid as the rest of them.

And that's when you tell everyone that I've changed, that something's weird and I'm not the same. And I go back to Iraq.

That's the worst case scenario, anyway. I won't do it. I'm taking time off, like we're supposed to, to forget it all for a while, let loose, to be no one, to have been nowhere, to know nothing. Just an outsider with no history or background. Just for a few weeks. Then come back here and finish up.

And then come home. For good. Take the time needed to readjust, and close the book on this shit once and for all. The people back home deserve that much from me. And in time, I'll gladly reassimilate into the World.

The car, the job, the big fuckin' television. The 12 year old kid on Xbox Live claiming to have relations with my mother while he stomps me in the new Tom Clancy game. The despicable horrors of reality TV. Of traffic and pedestrian laws. Finding the last dying remnants of The American Dream. Scratching my dog's ass. Mouthing off to my dad, challenging his manhood. Re-learning how to fish. Taking the trash out. Working for minimum wage. Acting stupid with my brothers. Driving around in cars with no armor. Sunshine and happiness and a pair of sunglasses that aren't ballistic. Real breakfast, restaurants, bars, casinos, movie theaters, godawful shopping malls. Holidays.

Being one with you assholes again. Here's to you. My first drink in a foreign land of leisure is dedicated to all of you.

A New Hope

2008-01-22T09:47:00.003-08:00

Alright, before I bust another literary nut with reckless abandon and no consideration, I think I owe some of you an explanation.

I'm not a hateful rebelious little bastard 24/7. I've still got the ol' priorities straight, I still stay as sharp as I can out in sector, and I know better than to get myself in trouble with my superiors. It breaks down like this, chief:

This was a nice, heartwarming little blog all nice and generally innocent and tongue in cheek. But shit started to catch up with me. I was having nightmares about Iraq every night, not sleeping for shit. Getting stressed the hell out over stupid shit, losing my patience, damn near having anxiety/anger attacks. Heading towards a level of crazy that Pink Floyd could never fathom.

It got to the point where I said "Fuck it." I told my platoon sergeant that if he could let me stay back, and count it as an off day, I had something I needed to take care of. I didn't tell him what. Then I took my raw nerves and rabid ass to see the combat stress docs. I filled out paperwork, answered literally hundreds of questions, I threw it all out there for them. Opened the floodgates. Talked about explosions and whizzing bullets and dead bodies and losing guys, the kind of guys you wish would always be around. I straight up popped a verbal X-Lax and went to town on these guys.

They stood there, nodding, and then they gave me fucking BENADRYL as a sleep aid. I could have gone to the PX, bought some myself, and been done with the whole ordeal in a half hour. When I came back for a follow-up, they told me I have some PTSD symptoms (nothing too extreme thank god) and a strange case of depression in which I have absolutely no feelings of sadness. Granted, the questions they have you answer on paper don't leave much room for explanation, so I brushed that one off.

Here's the kicker. You know what they told me?

"Suspect, what you should do, is you should start writing about what you experience here. You'll find that it's a great outlet and it's very therapeutic."

I'm reminded of A Perfect Circle's "The Package" as I nod and nod and acknowledge and try to get them to get to the point, the end result, so I can go on about my business. Where they stop jerking me around and tell me "This is what's going to happen." I nodded my head through two hours of foreplay to find that it was all just a cocktease.

The Benadryl left me groggy and feeling like shit the next day. All that horseshit about Combat Stress Control being a great program and really helping soldiers, all the pamphlets and smiling Joes shaking hands with Majors and everyone's completely carefree, it's all just another handjob for the mind. In the picture, everyone's happy and having a great time, but where are the guys that were killed out here? Where's all that baggage that brought Joe in there?

Maybe I just wasn't sent to the right exorcist.

I finally just got fed up. I sat down at the computer one night and realized that I wasn't even being honest with myself, and as a result, I wasn't being honest with anyone who reads this. So, ladies and gentlemen, the gloves came off. I stopped pulling punches and I let it all out, full bore, Shotgun Journalism, raw and full of piss and vinegar, with a LOT of ignorance and lack of wisdom, because that's what Joe is. He's uninformed and sees only the little picture, and it's a fucked up little picture too, and he gets pissed, and he bitches and fumes.

This shit-for-brains blog became a drain, and as a routine, I'd sit down and cut open that putrid vein and bleed all the bullshit out. And you know what? Since taking off the Disney label, I haven't had ONE nightmare about Iraq. I've slept like a baby, and I haven't come even CLOSE to losing it.

The downside is, as great as I feel, you hardly ever get to see it. You get the Hate, the dump. Because if I wasn't writing about that, I wouldn't be writing at all. Nothing interesting has happened lately. So there you have it. With that said, let's move right along for your Feel-Good Moment.

I was behind the wheel of a god-knows how many ton green monster, flying down the road past districts and towns and villages, eyeballing the sides of the road, avoiding anything that might even be confused as something suspicious, checking out the people outside, looking at the rooftops, the windows, pretty much everything you can take in while traveling forty miles an hour.

We turned a corner and passed a bunch of Iraqi Army vehicles, something we normally look down on, when something dawned on me.

They had the area cordoned (blocked) off, and they were clearing an entire village. By themselves. No Americans helping them out. And it looked like they were doing it right. I was blown away. I did a double take and damn near went off the road.

It wasn't monumental, but dammit, it was SOMETHING. I felt good about that. So who knows, maybe there's still hope for this hellhole.

Suspect's Creed

2008-01-20T11:15:00.001-08:00

You won't see me kissing ass. You won't see me putting on a show bitching at other Joes to impress higher-up. You won't see me at an NCO board, because I've definitely scrapped the idea of shooting for Sergeant. That ain't me.

I won't be a Yes-Man. I won't take shit and smile about it. I will do what I can to keep myself out of trouble, generally. I won't fuck my buddies. I will always look out for my own. I will never take menial Garrison Bullshit seriously. I will do what I have to in order to scrape past said bullshit. I will take it all a day at a time.

I will hang on to my anger and my bitterness. I will not re-enlist. My deal with Uncle Sam was four years and I will do everything in my power to ensure that it stays that way. I will suffer assholes and idiots and leaders who know what's best but still piss me off. I will take it all with a grain of salt and will laugh on the inside because I know I'm being paid to endure this, and because I know that I will be out of the army in a year and a half (GODWILLING).

I will bask in my disdain for the entire experience but will not take my buddies for granted. I'll enjoy my time with the greatest band of miscreants I will ever meet, and will be thoroughly bummed out when its time to bounce out for good.

I will party hard, I will blast metal at high volume. I will keep up a steady flow of my antics, unapologetically. I will maintain my degenerate character throughout all. I will continue to walk the thin line between Overall Good Guy and Shit Bag.

I will do what makes ME proud. I will own up to my mistakes and embrace them because they will make the best memories. It'll all be over soon enough and no matter what, upon looking back I will regret not causing more chaos.

I will stick to what I feel is important and will humor the rest, in my own good humor. I will not be here forever, and will act accordingly.

But most importantly of all, I will take this strange life of mine and squeeze every last drop out of it, ravenously. It's mine and no one else's. I will not forget that. No one will break my spirit. An abrasive and defiant Fuck You, in whatever form, awaits anyone who suggests otherwise.

I will not lie down for anyone.

Wherever you are, in whatever situation you're in, maybe YOU need to throw a subtle or not-so-subtle Fuck You out there. No matter how big or small. A win is still a win. So that boss, that teacher, that neighbor, that stranger who cut you off or took your parking spot, that service provider that fucked you, that paperboy that smashed your window, that co-worker that undermined you, whoever or whatever it is that's getting you down, maybe they need a cold can of Fuck You. After all, Fuck You makes the world go round. It's the American Way, the last prevailing remnant of the Great American Dream. The people deserving your Fuck You have Fuck Yous for someone else.

I've never been without someone or something deserving this treatment. So fuck you, and fuck me, and fuck him and her and this and that and everything in between. It always feels better afterwards. Small victories are still victories.

My Friends Are Assholes

2008-01-18T00:11:00.000-08:00

"Suspect! Wake up! Wanna go to chow?"

I mumble something incoherent, along the lines of "eat shit". I drift back to sleep.

"Suspect! We gotta go man, daylight saving's time."

I groan and tell him that I don't want to. And then it's quiet in the tent. And the tent is empty. I sit up so fast my brain almost crashes into the front of my skull.

"OH SHIT!"

I'm throwing on random clothing articles, half-assing everything in a Tasmanian Devil tornado and run out the door. My watch says we have ten minutes before we roll out. For the love of God, tell me the trucks are still on the line.

They are, and no one is around. I'm still not even awake, running on auto-pilot survival instincts. Are these bastards so low that they'd all close up the trucks with them inside to fuck with me? I've got a key to the truck with my gear in it anyway.

I open the back and it's empty, and everyone's gear is still inside. About this time, the shit-faced-tired cobwebs are starting to clear out of my mind, and to no one in particular, I say,

"....It's January. JANUARY! Daylight savings time...?"

I look all around me.

"I'm gonna kill that motherfucker."

Caged/Who Is Joe?

2008-01-17T14:04:00.000-08:00

If you saw me every day, you'd never think it was me writing this. But the aggression has to go somewhere. Just thought we should get that out of the way straight off and in a hurry, since them headshrinking geniuses say that writing is thurapyootik and all that. Well shit, let's tap the vein and bleed that nasty shit on out while I'm still here then huh?

What in the fuck are we doing here? The Infantry, the fighting machine and all that rock solid hooah horseshit, reduced to common police. Fucking cute, really. I haven't kicked in a door in ages. I haven't fired a shot in anger in millenia. I'm starting to MISS Baghdad, if that makes any sense, and I'm quite sure it doesn't.

Guess I owe you an explanation then, huh? Weren't we supposed to come here to fight a war, you know, represent America and kick the shit out of some motherfuckers and call it a day? Because when I spend hours and hours sitting in a stryker while higher ups have meetings with local officials and whatnot, I get a little sick of it. As a Joe, you are not a politician, you are not a diplomat. You aren't shit. You're there for security or something.

NEWS FLASH AMERICA: THE FUCKING WAR IS OVER.

This goddamn country can't pull itself together and go figure, it's America's responsibility to rebuild and hold their hand, and that's all cute and fine, with one little exception: it's MY friends that have been getting fucked up out here. So look the other way if I come across like I don't give two shits about this country anymore. I really don't.

I'm not even going to BOTHER jumping on the bandwagon, to spout off idiotic shit about how such-and-such company profits off of the "war", because it doesn't change the fact that I do not give one liquid shit either way. You could spend all day sitting me down and explaining to me in great detail why our presence here is important and strategic to the overall benefit of America, and when your voice finally gives out, I'm only going to yawn and walk out, cursing you for wasting my time. I'm not going to listen, I have no reason to.

I DON'T CARE.

Yes, lap up the pity-party poor Joe attitude, because here's the next news flash: your average soldier doesn't give a shit about this place. I'm not alone here. If we don't have someone to fight, we don't have a purpose here. So we're jerking our dicks while the whole world watches and wonders if this place will ever unfuck itself.

"Yeah, that's it, throw in the towel, real good, man..."

Shit, that implies that there was ever a towel to THROW. I don't want to give off the impression that I want anyone else to get hurt, because I sure as shit don't. But if we aren't here, then we aren't going to get fucked up. Get it?

Catastrofuck.

We roll by a building scarred by bulletholes and part of me wishes I could be slinging lead downrange. If I'm not doing that, what am I doing here? Send some Greenpeace fucking organization down here to pass out hugs and smiles. Or let these bastards sink or swim.

If you don't get the point by now, don't worry, it's understandable. On to another point.

"Joe" is your enlisted no-one everyman. Most likely a one-time enlistee, cuz Joe gets sick of being shit on. Joe realizes he probably fucked up by enlisting, but most Joes suck it up til the army releases it's grip on their balls and lets them walk.

Joe does what he has to in order to get by. Joe gets bitched at, and Joe does a LOT of bitching. Most importantly, Joe doesn't know shit. And a lot of leaders like it that way. Cuz after all, Joe is a moron. If you don't believe me, just think of what my superiors would think if they pulled this menopausal little page of mine up right now. Sip of coffee and a sigh. "What a fucking dipshit."

That's me. I'm Joe. Short-Timin' Joe.

Joe is the one who gets fucked into doing details. Joe cleans toilets. Joe used to burn shit. Joe should be NOT heard, and only seen when appropriate, and when Joe is seen, Joe better be all prettied up and be ready for the dog and pony show. Don't like it? Tough fuckin' luck, Joe. You signed a contract. You MIGHT get your balls back when we say so. Maybe.

Joe is no angel. If all Joes could completely suck it up all Jesus'-Other-Cheek style, the brass would be pretty damn pleased. But that isn't the case, not with short-sighted prison-raped Joe.

Joe thrives on rumors, and Joe spreads them faster than the clap. Joe blows his money on booze and strippers and cars he can barely handle. Joe thinks he's a fucking rock star.

Most importantly, Joe is ALWAYS going to bitch. Sure, he'll do what he's told, but he'll be damned if he won't have some words to mutter about it. Joe's a green-collar worker. Lower than civilian. He doesn't belong with the sophisticated officer types, not really even with the relaxed Almost Joe officer types. Once in a while, Joe becomes a non-commissioned officer, but then he really ceases to be a Joe. Lot of times, the Joe is beaten out of him and he gets with the program. I don't have a name for these guys.

I'm JOE, remember?

Joe gets a big kick out of bashing in doors and breaking shit. Doesn't matter how nice and friendly Joe is, when it's time for mayhem, Joe is all aboard. After all, Joe just wants a piece of the action, that shoot-em-up Come Git Sum, Hollywood type shit that's been stuffed down his throat since he was a foot tall.

I sat in silence in the TOC last week for about 45 minutes. Then I casually turned to the NCO next to me.

"Know what I need to do? I need to get a BIG box of G.I. Joes, the old three inch ones, and a big spool of 550 cord. Tie all their hands behind their backs and lynch every last one of them, hang the string from the poles going across, so that when the commander walks in, first thing he sees is a dangling sea of strung-up GI Joes, hundreds of 'em. Like that kid's garden in the movie 'The Cure'."

Oh yeah, Joe's got a weird sense of humor, too.

Back To The Front

2008-01-15T15:44:00.001-08:00

It's damn near 3 AM and not even a care-package ravaging mouse is stirring in this tent, the one that reeks of dirty socks and sweaty nuts. No, everyone else is thoroughly racked the fuck out, dreaming and snoring, pressing the Next Chapter button on this great DVD. Except me.

Yeah, that laptop glow is coming from my little hooch, my shoddily constructed cave. No desire to sleep cuz I've got no desire for anything that tomorrow holds. Works like this, chief: if it isn't R&R leave or a REDEPLOYMENT TO THE STATES, then I couldn't give one rainbow colored shit about it.

It's so quiet I can hear God laugh at Iraq's expense. I could put a large dent in one of my many unread books. Or watch a few movies. I could do ANYTHING right now. When all these other fuckers are passed out, wet-dreaming about their Jettas waiting for them, I own the night. No distractions. I could cure cancer and map out the human genome.

But most importantly, I can do a whole lot of NOTHING. Just sit back and enjoy the fact that I'm not doing shit. Savor it. Breathe it in. Cuz I got sick of sitting in front of that fucking radio, and I hollered out:

"Ey, Doc! How much longer til I can go back out?"

"Well you can have your medic change your bandage out once a day and you should be fine, there's no infe..."

My attention span lasts me just long enough to hear what I need to hear. So tomorrow, I go back to the old routine, driving a truck or standing out of a hatch or pouring out when the ramp drops. Walking through brown streets with kids screaming shit I'm not paying attention to while the adults hang around shops and courtyards and spend entire days smoking cigarettes and bullshitting and watching us crazy SuperPolice run around like a barrel of monkeys trying to fuck a football.

Yeah, that's the one, back to the machine, the broken record, the horseshit sandwich bite after bite and mmm mmmmm godawful. But for now? Now I'm chilling on my bed, devoid of any responsibility and too burned out to even pretend to have a political outlook on this charade.

And soon I'll put the computer down and roll over, possum defense style under the blankets and slam the ol' eyelids shut. Think and dream about any old regular thing.

Waiting in line at the grocery store, staring at a waitresses' rack, cold beer, hot steak, moving vehicles without armor, people too self absorbed to blow themselves up or put their idea of God before anything else, waiting at stop lights, being overcharged for everything, cussing up a storm every time I fill up my tank, relishing the anxiety and hatred that fills me from head to toe when I spend more than five minutes in a shopping mall.

Paying full price for DVDs, wearing whatever the fuck I want to, never making another excuse, having a 12 year old on Xbox Live call me a pussy and remind me constantly that he fucks my mother, cheering on the losing team, wracking my brain trying to get this babe to forgive me for being a dipshit, having the luxury of sweating the small things.

Going on about life as if I was NEVER EVEN HERE. Some'll tell me that that isn't possible. Whatever, it's my dream, kindly fuck off and I'll see you in the morning.

You stay CLASSY, America!

The Fobbitt

2008-01-15T02:38:00.000-08:00

How long was it? A week? A week and a half? When that bastardly little scab was picked off and disregarded. Must've only been a couple days afterward when the scab was replaced by a swelling redness, right on the front of my upper leg.

Oh well.

So then how long was it before it started to hurt just climbing up the front of the Stryker? I can't remember, but at some point, I thought, "Damn, this is probably infected or something. I should get it looked at."

The Aid Station always has that sterile bandage smell. I walked in, signed up, and dropped my pants.

"Oh yeah, we're gonna have to cut that and drain it."

"You're gonna hate us man."

I leaned back and grabbed my camera, when they started sticking me with lidocaine. "Pinch and a burn" they called it. Jab jab jab, fill em up with the numbness.

Then the doc started cutting, and I didn't feel a damn thing of course, thanks to the miracle of modern medicine. So I sat up and watched him slice a fucking trench in my leg and squeeze all kinds of delicious infectious waste out of my putrid sore.

They packed the hole full of gauze and wrote up a profile for me. A "profile" is a piece of paper that says you can't do this or that because the doc says so. It's an excuse you fold up and keep in your pocket to get out of work. The profile stated that I needed to come back once a day to have the gauze changed out, and it requested that they "please make him a Fobbitt for a while" about one week.

Now, where I come from, if you're on profile, you are automatically a "shitbag" and a sorry excuse for a soldier, and you receive (arguably) punitive shifts in the company TOC (think headquarters or something) where you sit in front of the radios for eight hours and do all you can to not chew through your own wrists.

Before starting my first TOC shift, I went to the aid station to have the gauze changed out. My leg had been pretty sore ever since the lidocaine wore off, making it feel like someone was holding a cigarette up to the leg.

"Ok man, now you're REALLY going to hate me," one of the medics told me. He ripped the gauze out good and fast, and I wondered why I was supposed to ha--

"FUCK!!! HOLY FUCKING FUCK!!!!! JESUS!!!!"

I looked down and stared at a gaping open hole in my leg, and the pus covered gauze dangling from doc's hand. This shit fucking HURT.

He threw the gauze out and grabbed new materials, and a long Q-tip.

"All right man, sit on your hands and look away."

"What? Why--GGGRRRRRRHHNNNNnnnnnn.....!!!!!"

Raw exposed nerve endings surrounding the wound, screaming and protesting, because doc here is using a Q-tip to forcefully pack a string of gauze into my leg. I've never been in so much pain that I was actually SWEATING before.

My body temperature fluctuated, eyesight blurred up, cold sweats, hollow feeling in the pit of the stomach. All signs pointing to the fact that I am a little bitch.

Dig after dig and horrible sweep after bastardly sweep, he finally finished up. I felt like I had just been thoroughly raped by a wooly mammoth. They cracked jokes, and I didn't even bother to acknowledge them. I was in a whole new state of Feeling Sorry For Myself.

"Ok, see you same time tomorrow!"

I groaned. They laughed as I walked out.

I've been doing this every day for almost a week now.

[EDIT: DID YOU KNOW....

If you go to google.com and type "soldier blog pissed off bullshit fuck" in the search field and click "I'm Feeling Lucky", you will be immediately directed to this page?

THE MOAR YOU KNOW....]

The Rock

2008-01-08T08:02:00.000-08:00

Hello readers. As the song loads, I'd like to give you a moment to adjust your ass, as it's about to be rocked off, with a sonic volume of awesome.

Unless your internet is as slow as mine (or you have your sound off), it's probably too late. Enjoy.

The reason I bring this up, is that I feel that you all deserve the same caring treatment that anyone riding in a Stryker with me receives. iPods, etc are a must in any Stryker. And more importantly, media players loaded with fuckin' METAL.

Metal that reaches through the speakers and whips your pansy ass into a puddle of goo, attacks you with sheer masculine animosity, and melts the face off of your bitch-ass friends, especially the hip-hop enthusiast types.

We got one of our old medics back, and he's on the truck for the first time. I'm driving, and I feel it's my job to brief him.

"Heya, sergeant. I just wanted to let you know, your face is about to be rocked off, and your ears are going to receive a merciless ass-kicking courtesy of old school Metallica."

He laughs. Good man.

On that note, I would like to include a short letter that I would like to extend to Metallica:

Dearest Metallicats,

In eager anticipation for your new album, I would like to point out a few things I expect from you, with the hopes that it gets you further pumped to thoroughly rock out.

Y'see, being pretty much the Godfathers of modern metal, it is your sworn duty to fix the state of affairs that our music industry is in, and breathe some life into GOOD metal, because Slipknot can't do it ALL on their own, and besides, you need to remind all them bands that you are the dominant one. It's like living in a primitive culture of gorillas, and that's why you must use your guitars and whatnot to beat those sad bitches into a pile of shit. And rock the entire time you do it.

I expect you to bitch slap me with sonic fury, and never once apologize when you neatly package my candy ass and hand it to me. I expect my balls to be stomped, figuratively, and for my mother to cry because you're kicking too much ass.

You will know when you have succeeded when the faces have been wiped off of Mount Rushmore and replaced with visages of you guys growling at people. Even better if there's a sculpture of a giant fist crushing some dweeb for sucking too badly.

Let's put it this way, if your new album has to be packaged with a pack of Depends because it's so unbelievably shit-your-pants-awesome, I will be most pleased. I require major hearing loss, a numb feeling in parts of my body, and whiplash from banging my fucking head until my eyeballs bleed.

I want an album that makes poodles explode when you play it. An album that makes bands like Nickelback give up and go back to pumping gas. An album that gives Courtney Love a sex change. A colossal wall of sound that is equivalent to the carnage one might witness when an army of cougars, wolverines, grizzly bears, pissed off pandas on PCP, cracked out steroid squirrels and ten foot tall gorillas is let loose versus a room full of Backstreet groupies.

This album should be so devastatingly awesome that when we blare it in the Stryker and drop ramp to step out into sector, children run in complete terror, the elderly crawl away in abject fear, and Ali Baba realizes that his music is complete shit, and comes over to the dark side where us kickass American types rock out. This of course will upset the "war profiteers" or whatever, but fuck them if they can't rock.

Please put me in a coma with your thrashing badassery.

Thank you. Your Pal,

The Usual Suspect

I think it's a pretty damn good letter personally. But good metal is very important for an infantryman. You have to get up early, something I respond to by blaring ear-bleed music much to the dismay of some. You have to drive off road, something that just isn't the same without thrashing chaos stabbing it's way out of the speakers. If you have to run around with a gun in your hands, you better have METAL reverberating in your skull, not some bullshit rap song about gold chains and women of questionable morals.

Metal is about being pissed off and aggressive, something we are very familiar with. Rap doesn't make you want to kick in doors and smash things in abandoned houses (something that is unnecessary to the uninitiated and those of rank above E4, who just don't understand that things NEED to be broken. In fact, back in Baghdad, that was how my squad leader kept track of me.

"Suspect! Where are you?"

*SHATTER*

"Oh, OK!")

Kids, I just can't stress enough how important metal is to your development as a human being. If you don't get a ten billion megawatt charge and an ear to ear grin/scowl from ass-bashing music at high volume, you might not have a soul. Or you may have an excessively high estrogen count, in which case I refer you to www.moby.com.

You want us to win the War On TERRRRRORRRRR? Then crank up some crazy insane metal and let us out of our cages. Or else learn to be more diplomatic, whichever. Regardless, metal is the path to all things awesome.

If this post left you feeling all sorts of motivated to rock out, please scroll down to the bottom of the playlist and listen to some Slipknot, to make sure that your punk ass can handle true mayhem.

Thank you.

The Idealist

2008-01-06T07:54:00.002-08:00

Some media types were out and about today, drawing in the big bucks, chasing that elusive story, wearing their EXTREME GEAR WITH ALL THE POUCHES AND POCKETS, catering to every cliche I'd ever seen or heard of. So you can bet I was sure to steer clear of them. 'Specially with all the brass around doing their interviews and whatnot. 'Specially considering I was in the middle of an experiment (seeing how long I could go without shaving before anyone said anything to me), not to mention having NOT bothered to put on a clean uniform. It was a miracle I even brushed my teeth in the morning.

I half expected someone to pull me aside and tell me specifically not to open my mouth, but wait a second, how arrogant am I? WHO THE HELL WANTS TO TALK TO A SPECIALIST?! Hahahaha....

So as I wandered about, doing my hiding thing, ToySoldier approached me. I went off on a tirade about the journalists, since it's trendy and whatnot for us soldier types to look at them in disdain (and why not?). He studies me for a few seconds.

"You're burned out, aren't you?" he asks.

"Depends on your definition of burned out."

"You haven't even been on leave yet."

I think for a second. "Ok yeah, it's probably a safe conjecture then. I just might be burned out. Why do you ask?"

He laughs and says, "I read your last few entries."

"Yyyyyep. 'At'll do it."

I figured people would get annoyed and tell me to quit my bitching, but surprisingly, a lot of people like to hear the Curmudgeon it seems. And that's good, cuz since I took the gloves off to write, I've slept like a baby.

Out in sector, kids are crowding and playing by a long stretch of concertina wire (somewhat like razor wire, less sharp but will snag you up in a hurry). They reach their hands out for soccer balls, and a realization hits me:

Gunfire and explosions, concertina wire, foreigners in huge machines with Sci-Fi pulp comic equipment, it's all NORMAL to these kids. They've never known anything else. Their world is a landfill, in EVERY sense of the word. All of it, just an enormous brown mess, slopped together, the dirt to match the buildings. You have to look at the sky just to be reminded that there is more color in the world.

This "Cradle of Civilization" is enough to break anyone's spirit if you let it bore into you long enough. And maybe we're just going through the motions. That idealist in me, the one that's taken such a beating the past three years, the one that landed me in these boots and this ridiculous pixelated GameBoy graphics uniform, it starts to wonder what the hell I was thinking.

You see, this idealist in me enlisted to come to Iraq, because that's the ultimate support for troops, right? This idealist thought that we great Freedom Spreading Americans would be able to help out here. Odds are, we probably do, and it's just too hard to see most of the time. All I know is that I personally don't feel like I helped shit. All the duck noises I make at little kids to get a giggle out of them, all the handshaking and the "Salaam alaykum" and "Shukran" I can muster, it really doesn't measure up to what a woman said to us, back in Baghdad during the first half of our deployment. She was in a rough place, and gave us a lot of information, but we couldn't do anything in return.

We get ready to leave and she hugs a friend of mine. We walk outside, The Idealist is shaking his head, and I ask my friend, "What did she say to you?"

He clears his throat, "She said, 'Atleast you make me smile one more time before I die.' "

Yeah, but you also don't know what, if ANYTHING happened after you left. Regardless, you do what YOU can, most of this isn't even up to you.

All I know is that this is probably the only life these little kids are going to know. And still they smile and wave and ask for soccer balls. They're like this bizarre contrast to what this country represents to me these days. Hearts and minds, it's all about the kids, right? The generation we CAN win? Is that it? Kids tend to be innocent. Haven't been corrupted yet. Haven't gotten ugly.

So I blast my trucker horn four or five times, startling this four-foot-tall-mob and they all run away, out of my sight. Better that way. This is all way more bitter and difficult to swallow than this Idealist ever thought it would be.

Just pull security.

CIB

2008-01-04T08:14:00.000-08:00

CIB. Noun. The Combat Infantryman Badge. This little doohickey here:

This little award is given to infantryman when they are proven by TEDIOUSLY WRITTEN SWORN STATEMENTS to have been engaged in combat, and maneuvered and strangled somebody and cut someone's balls off with a bayonet, and a slew of other requirements. In earlier OIF rotations, CIB was a blanket award, so you could get it without actually being in a firefight.

It's different now, with the requirements tightened up. I've been put in for it atleast once, and I know for sure that it's been kicked back once. Now, wouldn't ones first reaction to being denied this over-glorified piece of plastic be a little upset?

"ZOMG! MY CIB! I NEED IT OR ELSE AMERICA WON'T UDNERSTADN MY SACREFICE LOLZ!"

The majority of the US population has no idea what the CIB is, nor do they care. Until reading this post, my immediate family had no idea what the damn thing was.

Let's just break this bad bitch down right now, and rip the "glory" and all that horseshit away from this joke of an award. Get some rubber gloves and a plastic hairnet.

The CIB is hyped up the entire time you're in the army. They make it sound like a rite of passage, getting your combat badge, your proof that you are an honest to God hardass American, shitting bullets at the enemy and forcing an Democratic Moneyshot onto the face of any random Third World Country, in sprays of automatic fire.

Hurray! The CIB makes you look like a badass, a REAL soldier, it shows you've DONE THINGS!

Yes, on the surface it's all pretty and wonderful. But here's the truth about the CIB. A handful of my friends got theirs by getting killed. CIB or the non-infantry version, the Combat Action Badge. Either way, get killed by a stranger in someone else's country, and there's your glorious fucking medal. Lot of good it did you huh? Wear it proudly, son.

Well what if it isn't YOU getting killed? Then it's some other poor sucker on the receiving end. You're getting your pat on the back and your handjob for being a stone cold hardass John Wayne Motherfucker, and someone else isn't going home for dinner, ever. Spare me the semantics about whether or not the said sucker deserved it or not, because that's beyond the point.

To summon the Satanic Avatar of the CIB, shit has to hit the fan, and someone is very likely to die. Now who still wants their badge? I won't wear mine. In fact, now I understand why some grizzled vet types wear their EIB instead of CIB. The Expert Infantryman Badge looks the same, minus the wreath around it. And minus the body count. You earn the EIB by busting your ass, three days of trials. Fuck up more than once, and sorry, we'll see you next year. But more importantly, you won't get it posthumously.

"But Suspect, the CIB is a good thing, especially if you're looking to make a career out of the army."

Well I'm NOT. I never thought of the army as a career, not for a minute, not even in the beginning. I knew from the start that this was four years ON LOAN to my Uncle Sam, the guy with all the problems.

Furthermore, I do not need to involve myself in horse and pony shows where my character is judged based on whether or not I've got a Motherfuckers Got Killed Badge. Pretentious horseshit, and you can fuck right off with that.

If my CIB goes through, it'll go straight to a storage trunk. Or a trash can. Or to the first sad-sap New Guy who asks me about Iraq or combat or any of those erection inducing death machine components. I'll pin the motherfucker to his face and congratulate him, point to his buddy, and tell him "McCormick over here is dead for the rest of the day. Put him on a stretcher and carry him to his barracks room. Enjoy your CIB."

I find it so pitiful and disgusting that the CIB is looked at in such high esteem, now that I've thought about what lurks underneath the surface. Completely pathetic.

Thanks for your life, son! Here's a medal! Bright N Shiny! We'll have it engraved on your tombstone, for all those civilians to look at! You know, the ones who'll say, "What the fuck is that rifle with the shit wrapped around it? Looks dumb."

Let someone try to interfere with me going home, THEN I'll get that CIB hands down. Just a by-product though. Safety, security, going home. S'all I care about.

CIB is just a still frame from a snuff film. That's what I really think.

Fuccitol

2008-01-02T01:02:00.000-08:00

Let's not beat around the bush with this one and get straight down to brass tacks.

Here you are, deployed, young, dumb, and ugly. You've got to get to a point where you just say "Fuck it, fuck it all, I honestly could not give a shit less." And dammit, I maintain that THAT'S the answer we're looking for. Security and ETS date, for everything else, there's Fuccitol.

I'll tell ya, this whole army shindig, it's been great, really, but the truth is that we're done. Dooooone. Really, we just don't give a shit and we aren't thrilled by playing war these days. Like always, it's just time. That's all it is, and then we're out of here, back to the states to act like ravenous beasts without a shred of decency or self control. Unapologetically.

When you find yourself shooting at stray cats and dogs in your outpost with a paintball gun (y'know, to keep them from getting into the trash, not because it's FUN or anything....) there's a moment of relief. It's when you realize that you're doing nothing but fucking off, acting like a kid and cackling like a banshee while a yellow-spattered cat sprints for the gate. There's plenty of reasons NOT to laugh in a place like this.

But fuck that and fuck anyone who thinks it's even remotely weird or unprofessional that I'll gladly embrace this logical madness of just letting go. Safety out in sector, that's the ONLY thing one should worry about. The rest is all assclownery and blowing off steam and not giving a good goddamn who's looking. Cuz I'll tell you what, when my time comes to bounce out of this clusterfucking bullshit parade, I'll be grinning from ear to ear with my middle fingers extended, and I'll take that GI Bill, ah thankyou verymuch. Did my time, put in my four years, wonk wonk, and that's it, now I take MY life off of hold. You're welcome, America, whoever or whatever you are, for whatever it is I supposedly did, and have a lovely day. Never ask another thing of me again. Here are my taxes. Blow some shit up for me.

We leave here, and it's all partying and getting stupid, doing re-deployment paperwork and screening and other such peepshows, while we laugh in the face of it all, not giving one flying fuck about any part of the process, not about ANYTHING except for catching up on the things we missed out on.

The smart guys that only signed up for three years will come back, go on leave, come back, and outprocess. Other people, the re-enlisting types, the Odd Ones, will move to other units, other duty stations. Leaving behind those few of us, the ones with a little less than a year to stick out until we're done. That few of us that couldn't care less about anything, the few that will laugh at the new guys, patronize their questions, belittle their drinking abilities, dare them to do stupid things that will get them in trouble.

We'll be that group of Seniors that didn't graduate with their class. The Mad Ones. It'll be a miracle if we leave this Show with the same rank. I'm supposed to remain a Specialist for a year after being in Iraq? HAHAHAHAHAAHAH!!!!! GOOD FUCKING LUCK!!!

"Oh, cool, you thinking of going to the NCO board?"

FUUUUUUUUUUCK NOOOOOOO! Hahahahaha, you must've lost your mind. I don't want any responsibility, I don't want to be accountable for any new Joes, or any old ones. At best, I'll play along with the Charade for those months, just to get by, just to make it easy, but it's all going to be one long joke to me. I'll be gutlaughing for a year, at the audacity of it all, returning from Iraq and back to the pretentiousness of ordinary life, KNOWINGLY doing it, embracing every hypocrisy I can, being that average lowest common denominator no one average Joe, not giving a damn about anything, because I'm NOT in Iraq and there are bountiful amounts of alcohol for me to consume and real women everywhere you look (you won't realize this, but trust me).

They'll all shake their heads and wish I was still in Iraq, still a respectable young man, and not the outlandish, frighteningly indifferent, socially reckless smirking curmudgeon that'll return. Sheer lunacy, madness, sucking LIFE dry. The complete opposite of Fear and Loathing. Hungry for everything, burning with insane desire, and invulnerable to the everyday bullshit.

If it doesn't explode or travel a thousand feet per second, there's no reason to worry about it. I can't even hear you yelling at me for taking my sweet time in your fast lane, and I don't care anyway. After being in "control" (read: subjegated) in one world, this old world I might have come from at one point is in for a surprise when I seize it by the throat and shake it for all it's worth.

So you know what? You want to pile on seemingly meaningless missions, fruitless patrols, anything you want, by all means, please do. Because I'm just smoking and smiling and soaking up the misery, like a sponge, like I need it to breathe. I'll take it all in and savor it, like sucking on anything bitter you can get your hands on, just to make the sugar taste that much sweeter later on.

I don't care about the direction of this country. I have no power over it beyond simple SuperSoldier-to-Iraqi civilian interaction, so fuck it, anything I have no control over, I have no time to worry about. Couldn't give a damn less. It's all Britney Spears and Paris Hilton news to me. It may kick in my gag reflex, but I won't give it a second thought. Cuz I've got a cynical optimism and a big bottle of Fuccitol and I Just. Don't. Care.

Cuz if you seriously want to know, this is what happened:

I hit the bottom, rock fucking bottom, and I realized that it wasn't bad at all. Very underrated. Bullshit doesn't take fruit at the bottom too well, and there's no room for excess baggage. When you have nowhere to go but up, how can you NOT smile? A wide, cynical, diabolical plotting smile, like a convict who just had an epiphany, the perfect escape plan. In the end, that's all that this is anyway.

Rock bottom and not a single weight on my shoulders. They can't touch me. So tap the keg and start counting down the months and keep the Holy men on speed dial.

300

2007-12-31T12:40:00.000-08:00

I take my benedryl sometime in the later afternoon, early evening and lay down. This is supposed to help with the whole sleep thing, and as a result, curb my anxiety.

We're out there yet again, and this time, Iraq doesn't bear any semblence to home. We're on foot, and everything has an orange tint to it, hot, moist sand and trash fires. From underneath a bridge, a crowd of people dissipates as we approach. One of them bends down and lights a cloth hanging out of a bottle of Jack Daniels.

In the back of my mind, I wonder if JD can even burn.

"Molotov cocktail!"

He throws it as we scatter and it smashes next to a rusted out car and explodes in alcohol flames. Everyone rushes to put any small fires on themselves out. The Thrower turns tail and runs under the bridge.

"Where the fuck is my M4?!"

This time, all of us don't have our weapons. Atleast we've got our gear. I see my M4 laying on the ground and I snatch it up. The center is on fire and I blow on it like an idiot, until I'm light headed and I slap the remaining embers off.

And then I run under the bridge. The Boss calls back, "Wait for First Sergeant before we do actions on the objective!"

Really, do fuck off. That would be great.

I see The Thrower and a friend with body armor sneaking along a ledge with chain link fence on it, like a downward ramp leading into a warehouse or parking garage. And I think to myself, "This is it. We've got positive identification for once, there's no jerking our dicks about this one."

So I put my little red dot on the center of The Thrower's face and squeeze the trigger. The round impacts in the side of his temple and behind his ski mask, his eyes go dark, and his body goes limp. His friend clutches him with one arm and hangs on to the fence with the other.

I put the dot on his fat curly-haired head and squeeze.

Nothing.

No hand wakes me up. It's just me, in bed at 11:00 at night, through a haze of benedryl. And now I'm up for the night. These dreams aren't even terrifying, they're just haunting in a strange sense. And then they're gone, leaving me to count down the hours, or the months.

And that neighbor of mine fucks with his plastic drawers again, and the sounds echo in the quiet of the tent and that hungover sensitivity drives me halfway insane and for a second, I offhandedly consider picking up those plastic drawers and throwing them outside, like they're the one little thing precluding me from getting some really great sleep.

But he's done and I forgive his drawers now that they've shut the hell up and now there's nothing but the sound of helicopters somewhere, and that's ambient noise as far as I'm concerned. It's the outgoing artillery that constitutes as "severe disruption".

Now, however, it's time to stop mashing the keyboard, waste some time on Al Gore's Horrible Invention and then try to sleep again. I figure it's 50/50, I either dream about Iraq or about weed. Explain THAT one to your pharmacist.

2007-12-30T07:02:00.000-08:00

One post away from 300 between the old site and the new one. Figured the machine would have ground me up by now. In any case, here's a little something to sum up the general feel of a certain group of us.

[wtf mate? i cant clik it lolz. http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5283/1455/1600/SF-FTAbw.jpg That's where I stole it.]

American Short-Timer hasn't written in a long time. Guess this one's for you pal. We've got it covered now.

It Never Stops (Neither Of These Terrible Things)

2007-12-29T03:56:00.000-08:00

I pressed the PUBLISH POST button and sat back, pleased with myself and filled with anticipation for the mixed reactions my last post would get. And I breathe a sigh of relief, because until then, I'd felt like I had written myself into a corner, and because of who reads this, I have to watch what I talk about. Like a cornered animal, I lashed out with the best I had, pushed the envelop that was pushing me. This would be interesting, I knew, and I went to bed.

My hometown has merged with Iraq. The two have been melded and usurped and twisted and raped together into a dispicable mess.

Our outpost, more of a safehouse than anything else, has been moved. It's no longer across the street from the bombed out, looted, dilapidated Blockbuster. This isn't even the same building that IS across from that sad Blockbuster. It's an Iraqi house, empty and barren like they always are.

I'm at this former safehouse with some girl, God knows who, and two of my younger brothers. Iraqis mill about in the streets. Some, in the house. We bullshit in broken languages, and then one comes in and warns us that some al Qaeda dicks caught wind that we were here, and were on the way.

I don't have body armor or any gear in this one either. And this time, I don't even have a weapon. I yell at this unknown female to grab one of the brothers and get him out and I grab the other one by the back of the neck and practically throw him through the door. He doesn't appreciate this, but I really don't care at this point. She gets both of them out of dodge, who knows where. I walk casually down the street a few blocks to the new safehouse.

This one is also Iraqi, yellow-beige in color, dead bushes growing around it, but instead of a courtyard wall it's primarily an iron fence with shit growing against the gate. Trash and mud everywhere. The color is the same monochromatic lifeless, bleak sandy hue of the most forsaken place I can ever fathom. I shoot the shit with the guy on gate guard.

"You know man, you should probably come inside or something before someone picks you off." Some of my friends are actually quite bright.

I walk inside, and this place is huge, but it's packed with soldiers. Females even. It's like someone crammed the entire FOB into this one large building. The ones I don't know, the ones in the clean uniforms, they ask me to smuggle them some DVDs next time I go out. Most of my friends are working, pulling guard. One of them decides to be an amiable wise-ass and ask when the hell I'm going to pull guard.

I leave. I don't know why I leave. The sense that I really don't belong there, that my presence itself, though appreciated by them, is obscenely pretentious.

And now it's dark out and I'm on the rooftop of that old safehouse again, with nothing but an ACU patterned GoreTex jacket. No weapon. I lay as flat as I can, there are no walls on this roof. Just rubble, and rocks. Instead of the sand color, this roof is concrete, gravelly. For once my uniform is actual camouflage.

I watch from atop while men with their faces covered come out of the woodwork and the locals bend to their will, rather than being shot on the spot. They all tote AK-47s and wear the checkered cloth headresses wrapped on their heads and over their faces. And they go to work, preparing to screw with the collective I belong to. And of course, I'm unarmed.

Except a pen. I pull out my pen and start writing on pieces of rock. I just keep writing everything I see. I observe and gather all the intel I can, and I keep on writing, to pass these on to the guys if I ever get the chance.

Someone shakes me awake. I go to work, with the people who give me shit about being "paranoid", the ones who tell me to stop cluttering the fucking net, while they proceed to talk about bullshit and make idiotic remarks. This is a privelege that I for some reason, do not have.

Each time the radio beeps I become that much more livid. The medic tolerates my bitching because he's a good-natured guy. I fume and cuss and scream a little, shake my head a lot. And then I key my mic.

"Hey, [Stryker behind my truck], when you pass this blue truck here, watch the driver. He's straight up observing our trucks like he's doing an inventory or something."

The radio beeps.

".....Ok..." comes the smartass reply.

So I'm the idiot. Everyone's complacent, because fuck it, it can't happen to THEM. And you know what, odds are, it probably won't, God willing. So why can't I get with the program, say "Fuck it" and join the discussion about college football? Why the hell won't I stop giving a shit about my job, and about learning about this place?

Because you're an idiot and an embarassment to Joes, army-wide. Your job is to pull security and be stupid and ignorant. You don't need to know anything, 'cept when they expect you to know the name is this route or that route, despite the exasperated sighs and Fuck Yous you get when you ask a question.

Nobody along the road waves, they mean-mug us as we drive by. I stare at each and every vehicle pulled over on the side of the road, and I picture what it would look like if one of them was packed with explosives. Would look like a whole lot of nothing to me, that's what it would look like.

At the large FOB we're stopped at, this supposedly GREAT PX for electronics and whatnot turns out to be another bland understocked joke. The books and magazines are all the throwbacks that anyone even pseudo-intellectual would mentally associate with cellophane-wrapped logs of dogshit.

"Stay stupid America, stay docile and stupid..." I say to no one in particular. This PX is civilized and unfulfilling at the same time. The same small generic PX everywhere you go, stocked with crap. NO-XPLODE and MESOTECH and a billion bodybuilding supplements, hemmerhoid cream, an abundancy of "nasal decongestents" (these are also stimulants. Pseudoephedrine is one of the three key ingredients to methamphetamine) though there's no conspiracy here, I'm just pissy.

"Where the fuck are the pills and supplements that keep you from fucking choking somebody?"

I settle on a bottle of B12 vitamins. Says it promotes healthy blood cells or some shit. That's got to be good for you. Better than nothing.

It isn't even that crowded and I still want to flip the fuck out. I don't want any of these assholes around me, never you mind the fact that they're pissed off homesick servicemembers just like me. My pulse quickens and blood boils and I grab Stephen King's "Danse Macabre" (I don't see a tab to underline books) and something else.

Yes, by the grace of God an idea strikes me and my epiphany affords me an opportunity for innocent vengeance that will not only blow off a little steam and make me laugh, but SHOULDN'T land me in much, if ANY trouble.

And if it does, so be it. I've said before that I'll either leave this place medicated or as a Private.

With that, it's time to prepare my dumbass stunt and whittle away the hours until it's time for more Iraqmares and another day of horseshit.

Unhungover

2007-12-28T02:46:00.000-08:00

This same fucking bed. Same cramped little cubicle I've built for myself. My head rests against the shelf "cubby" of my neighbor. He has one of those plastic sets of drawers as well, right next to my head. And he's always opening and closing it. All the fucking time. You know how when you're hung over, you're really sensitive to sound? Maybe I'm dehydrated.

Either way, I'm going to kill that motherfucker.

These shitty floors bend and balk under footsteps. So when people walk past my pitiful little area of operations, my neighbor's shitty wooden shelf "cubby" wobbles and hits the back of my head. I'm going to kill those motherfuckers too.

Mission's cancelled, and you'd think you'd be excited about that. But that wears off as soon as you look around and find that you don't have a fucking thing to do. Nothing but time. Time lets you think too much. Time lets your buddies' wives forsake their moral fortitude. It shoves ugly little bastard thoughts in your head, like what you COULD be doing instead of this, were you only in a civilized location, and not the "Cradle of Civilization."

"MISTA!!! MISTA!!! FOOTBALL!! YOU GIVE!!!!"

The kids chase the Strykers down, they're coming in droves. We made the mistake of handing a couple out. Word travels faster than bullets in this fucking place. It was like Dawn of the Dead, with the superfast sprinting zombies, except instead, they were little bastards. Loud, obnoxious, demanding little fucks, always holding their hands up as you pass by and demanding shit. Always wanting handouts.

My friend takes an A&W root beer (he hates them) and shakes it violently.

"Why you doing that?" I ask him.

"I'm saving it. For that ONE little fucker, the ONE kid that just REALLY pisses me off someday. He's gonna be like 'Mista! FOOTBALL!', and he'll be more of a little dick than the rest, and I'm just going to rear back and chuck this fucking soda at him and its going to explode. In fact, I hope it soaks his little dickface friends, too," he explains, having carefully thought this out.

We're out there again, and three dogs are feasting on one dead dog. The Boss grabs a paintball gun, and in the rear left air guard hatch, I grab the other one. We let loose a barrage. And this is the most fun I'll have until my friend gets a giant summer sausage in the mail. It's labeled "Big N Meaty".

Big N Meaty comes with me for a little walk to another friend's little section of the tent. He's playing Xbox 360 with headphones on, and he's not hurting anything. Completely innocent. So in the spirit of the way this world works, I choose him. I bounce Big N Meaty off of his forehead like I'm endowed with a cellophane-sealed donkey dick. I then flop it on the table, making a loud thud. And when the cock jokes begin to get old, I punt it across the tent and it smacks the far wall. You can take our freedom and our sanity and our spare time and ability to function with normal human beings, but dick jokes are something we'll always have.

So I ask myself, "If this is Purgatory, what am I paying for today?"

[EDIT: I'm trying to get into Heaven, thanks.]

Shameless Plugs

2007-12-27T09:48:00.000-08:00

I still haven't been smart enough to try to get myself revenue by letting people advertise on this bitchfest of a website, but there's a couple of things I'd like to promote, nay, recommend.

I just found out that one of my reader's son is in my company, and also blogs. And I was pretty shocked when he came back from leave and asked exactly when my dogtags fell in the toilet. So without further babble, please check out ToySoldier's False Motivation, conveniently found in my links. He's good people. And he also spent Christmas day vomiting more violently than most do on their 21st birthday. So in terms of feeling sorry for oneself, that punkass has me beat.

Next up, Doonesbury's "The Sandbox" (excellent collaborative milblog website) has just published the first volume of "The Sandbox" in print. David was cool enough to send me a copy, and there's a lot of good reading in there. I'm HTML retarded, so you may have to employ your google skills, but this one should be very easy to find until I manage to put actual links up.

And hey, while we're on the subject of fucking incredible books about Iraq, there's a shamefully undermarketed book written by Staff Sergeant David Bellavia called "House To House: An Epic Memoir Of War". This is all the description that should be necessary to let you know that you need to read this. You ready?

The book is about his experiences in Fallujah. You know, when Fallujah was the epicenter of chaos, insanity, and gunpowder? The only warning I can give you is that you NEED a lot of spare time with this one, because you aren't putting it down. And you'll finish it within two days, even if you're in Iraq "fighting turrism". I cannot stress enough how badly this book needs to be read. The first chapter chokeslams anything I've ever written, and the rest of the book goes on to firmly ensure that "Black Hawk Down" is left looking like a squirt gun fight.

That aside, play Call Of Duty 4, watch "Weeds", and do me a favor and recon In-N-Out burger because I hear that place is fucking phenomenal.

That's all I got, homies. Peace.

[EDIT: House To House be David Bellavia

The Sandbox!

WHOOOOO!]

Happy Hollowdays

2007-12-25T07:48:00.000-08:00

...I walk into the next room, squeezing my eyes shut for a second, trying to clear my vision. I'm not even sweating that badly. But I keep losing my balance.

I take another step and my shoulder slides against the wall and it's like I'm moving through quicksand. Have I been drugged?

I step on a weak spot and the floorboards give in (floor boards? Where am I?). I crash through the floor and land hard on an emergency escape ladder. And here I am in an inner-city mix, part American, part Iraqi. There's trash everywhere but there's air conditioners in the windows and brick buildings but all the interiors are like wooden shanties.

I can't stand back up. I'm not even hurt, but I can't even stand up. Everything is moving in super slow motion, everything is a smeared visual blur.

"Get the fuck up, man, Christ..."

So this pal of mine grabs my wrist and yanks me up. I fall back through a doorway and knock some woman's TV stand over. I'm on the ground again, and just outside the door I fell into, shit hits the fan, RIGHT OUT THERE but it's sounds washed out, a million miles away. It's like everything is underwater, without the water.

The chaos outside intensifies as my debilitation continues to creep over me. I roll onto my side and drag my rifle to the ready, and it weighs a hundred pounds.

And the charging handle is missing.

"Suspect? Time to get up! Merry Christmas! Santa came!"

My friend dives on me. Up to that point I was able to hide my waking state. Then the skinny fucker impacts on me and his knee comes dangerously close to smashing my balls.

"Gotta be ready in a half hour," he says.

Fuck it.

I rub my eyes and stare blankly at my walled off little cubicle of a living space. Don the uniform, throw on the battle gear, walk to the truck. Routine. Just another day, right?

The truck blows down the road and the wind whips our faces, those of us standing out of the hatches. I rest a hand on the 240Bravo while I watch the cars skim by. I briefly wonder what each person is thinking. I make sure no one comes too close to the end of our convoy. I take a picture.

We return from our initial stop and stand by. Christmas is to be held at our outpost. Sitting in the truck, pissing away the minutes, I listen to the radio traffic.

Bad shit, possible bad shit, and violence against civilians. Merry Christmas.

We pull into the outpost and everyone is there, and everyone is in great spirits. They're throwing footballs around and we drop off a feast and everyone digs in. I didn't bother.

Everyone is making the best of it and being positive, and I wander aimlessly around the sea of gravel wishing I didn't have to be part of it. I have no interest in making the best of it. I want to miss it and not even realize it was there. That whole plan, about not acknowledging the holidays this year? It doesn't work when it's shoved into your face.

So I bullshit with a few people, impatiently wander, trying to kill the time. I'm not even feeling sorry for myself. This isn't a pity party. It's just a sleight against a family tradition that I kept for 21 years.

No, I'm not going to eat your food.
No, I'm not going to gather in the festivities.

Don't get me wrong, they did a good job making do. It just wasn't for me.

I climbed into my truck and zoned out, thought about the people I SHOULD be with. I wasn't angry, I wasn't depressed. I was just there, and I was just waiting the festivity out. Because these guys definitely deserve it. I just chose to participate as less as possible. I'll celebrate MINE when I get home.

There's egg nog in my glass and I've probably drank a quart of it already, but who gives a shit? We're devouring turkey and everyone's talking, the TV is on for the kids in the living room, the house is completely packed with family and friends. The card games come next. It all goes on late into the night and some come and some go and finally the night ends and I stay up, and my little brother kicks my ass at Madden. Defeated, I too go to bed.

The younger ones wake everyone up at some ungodly hour ready to tear presents open. Everyone throws on sweatpants and the nearest shirt or a robe, anything, and they slowly coalesce into the living room. Our eyes are all puffy and half closed and our vocal cords still haven't stretched out enough to talk in anything more than guttural mumbles but the kids are alive and clawing through paper and spazzing out and the parents are smiling through their morning haze. Cameras flash and the carpet becomes covered with wrapping paper.

They watch me open mine, and they seem a little unsure since I never ask for anything, they never know what to get. But I open it up for the cameras and I'm completely satisfied each time.

They could wrap up empty boxes and I'd still be happy as a pig in shit because I'm at home.

The Purgatorium

2007-12-19T08:04:00.000-08:00

A routine trip to the motor pool, only supposed to last an hour or so ("Should be a quick fix, no biggie.") becomes an all day event when you find out that this truck you're driving is scheduled for full servicing.

Why not? Gotta do it sometime.

Or maybe it wasn't the truck. Maybe it was the patrol, or the police call, or the tower guard, or it was any number of menial tasks and numb moments, whatever it was, maybe you found yourself in a situation like this:

You light that cigarette, you know, the one you're going to give up when you go home, but for now there's no reason to. Take a drag, and you look at nothing. You can even turn around to do this. Drop your hand to your side and exhale. Your eyes scan your surroundings. It's all tan and barren and you've seen it a million times before. And there are the same people you see every day.

One is pissed off, likely about some task they have to do. A couple more are smoking and joking. But everyone's doing the same thing: ignoring the magnitude, the realization of exactly where we are and what we're doing.

That's right. That's you standing on a sea of gravel (keeps that moon dust down, y'know) looking at barriers and baskets filled with dirt. CONEX sheds and MILVAN containers, villages of CHUs (those little trailers MOST soldiers in Iraq live in....not your tent). A humvee rolls by and it doesn't mean anything.

That guy's bringing back a to-go plate from the chow hall. This guy's going to the gym. The phones. The internet cafe. This one's going to watch a movie. They're all going to ignore the open panorama that whispers thunderously loud "iiiiirrrraaaaaaaaq".

You choose not to see the palm trees on the side of the broken road as you roll out the gate. The kids jump up and down and demand soccer balls. The women make bread. The men stand in their gates and talk to each other. Groups congregate in front of shops. They all slide past you. You in your air guard hatch, in your multimilliondollar Stryker.

You in your $17,000 worth of equipment on you. You in your burned-out-tastebuds ether-and-xanax stupor of indifference brought on by endless repetition. You who has no idea where the world is going. You who probably never thinks about it anyway.

You who woke up for another nameless day, kneel down and jerk your bootlaces to tie them. One of them comes out right in your hand.

You who look at it with a vague feeling almost resembling confusion.

You who tucks the remaining lace in your boot anyway.

You who never uses the phones because you hate how you can never find anything worthwhile to say and neither can they. We who ALL know that the phone can never compare to being with this person. The phone that can almost never prompt the random and hilarious conversations that spring up on fishing trips. At red lights. Over the third beer and second game of pool.

You who wishes you had a better way to comfort the people you miss, other than hoping that your own absence becomes routine. You who miss graduations and 18th birthdays and anniversaries and the birth of children (possibly even your own), your kid's first step or first word or first fistfight.

You who doesn't know how The Sopranos finally ended. You who doesn't know if the Buffalo Bills even call themselves a team anymore. You who with a grudge, hopes they don't. You who will also never forgive the Dallas Cowboys.

That bored Iraq winter sun starts to set and splatters pink and orange across the clouds and everyone is milling back and forth from the chow hall. Everyone is getting through another day. Most people aren't counting. Everyone's in limbo. Everyone seems fine. Maybe everyone is a little bit numb. Maybe everyone's a LOT of bit tired.

Maybe everyone only vaguely remembers what it's like to drive a normal car. To STOP at a red light. To think that careening over the median to get through traffic is an unspeakable act. To think less of that guy dumping your french fries in a box. To smell the sweet decaying funk of commercialism in a shopping mall.

So what is it that you're doing out here? It can't technically be called "shutting down". You aren't giving up, aren't even feeling sorry for yourself most of the time. You're still keeping your eyes open and watching your corner.

Maybe you're just hibernating for a bit. And maybe you're wondering how you're going to make the transition back from Suspect to Ryan. Or what it'll be like to never tell anyone about this place.

The sun is all the way down and here and there are the fireflies of cherry tip cigarette embers doing slow arcs upward, glowing bright, fading slightly, and dropping back down again. Gravel crunches under foot and tire. For most, the day is pretty much over and it's time to embrace that sweet nothingness for as many hours as your schedule and your mind will allow you. Because tomorrow, it all happens again.

And for the most part, this isn't bad. Life in the Purgatorium is usually devoid of strong emotion. Life in the Purgatorium is a sentence of time, a test of luck and personal fortitude. It's counting down days or cigarettes or bottles of gatorade. It's wading through the echoes of a media frenzied war. It's little surprises here and there, not always good, but usually things you get accustomed to.

Life in the Purgatorium is not thinking too much. That's why the bootleg DVD sales are so high. That's why the gym is so full. That's why the MWR is always in use. Life in the Purgatorium is distracting yourself so that you can continue your dream-state trek through things that make no sense.

life in the Purgatorium is only partially asking yourself what you got yourself into, and never trying to answer that question for yourself. Life in the Purgatorium is looking forward to the things you left behind, the simple little things. It's continuing to breathe and getting yourself through the lifeless day after lifeless day.

It's doing your time.

And everyone closes their eyes and everyone lingers in that stage just before sleep, and just before they nod off, all things considered, everyone is doing just fine.

And all the while, The Purgatorium patiently and methodically feeds all of these anemic pseudo-emotions. It's only time.

The New State Of The Suspect Address

2007-12-18T03:10:00.000-08:00

I go to the shoddy movie theater to see some MP girl play her guitar and sing. And she's good, really good. But they plugged in a Christmas tree, off to the side of the stage, and it's a complete distraction.

I shift in my seat and furrow my eyebrows in slight confusion. What's the sense in this? Poor excuse for concert lights, and besides, WHAT is a Christmas Tree doing here anyway? Oh wait, it's December? Well GOLLLL-LLLLY!!! Who'da thunk it? I mean, ya coulda fooled me, bub, what with the absence of snow on the ground, with everything looking exactly the same as it always does, except not with the thermostat set to "Kenya". You shittin me, Powers That Be? You telling me that it's that Holiday Season again?

Nah, I don't buy it. There's people running around out there with suicide vests hiding weapons and planting bombs and shaking our hands and terrorizing their neighbors and threatening everyone all to create their ideal of what the country should be, and there's no snow. No one's wearing those hideous sweaters or wrapping expensive shit to give to each other.

Can't be, cuz here I am, at [X location] conducting [X mission] just last [X date] and I'm being called a Bleeding Heart for treating the locals with respect, because you see, this was the situation:

[Entry deleted, as per what may fall under OPSEC restrictions. When in doubt, cut that shit out, right?]

So yeah, it is kind of strange, I know, but the truth is that I'm actually a pretty compassionate person and I treat people the way I'd want to be treated. I just like to see a semblance of humanity now and then, and when you can cross a cultural barrier and connect with people even briefly, it's quite cool, and who knows, MAYBE these little things help us out, even if only a little. So yeah, I'll be the bleeding heart. For the common people? Yeah. I'll act the way I was raised.

But hold on, Powers That Be, you didn't completely sidetrack me here, I still wanna know: What gives? This is the month of all things Holy as well as Commercial? I'm standing out of the hatch as we drive by, and I'm waving to these kids, but they don't look like THEY'RE getting ready for Christmas.

Sorry bud, I don't buy it. I didn't acknowledge that last birthday, why would I acknowledge this poor attempt at celebrating a holiday that's all about being with your family? Sorry, but your fake plastic tree isn't going to make us feel like we're not in a war torn country a million miles away. For those who still want to acknowledge their holidays, I say go for it. But me personally? Just another day.

"What'd you do for your birthday?"

"Patrolled."

"What did you do on Thanksgiving?"

"Tower guard."

"Did you get bombed on New Years?"

"Bombed as in drunk or bombed as in shit exploded?"

Ok ok, you get it now. I'm not going to acknowledge the army's attempt at making the holidays seem....EXISTENT. So you ask yourself, "Damn man, you all right?"

The answer is a resounding yes. I'm still in this limbo and I've got my health. I've accepted everything that's happened so far and I accept that this is not the war I thought I signed up for. I've come to an understanding with The Force that's orchestrating these chicken-clusterfuck. Just slide on. You keep things simple for me, I keep things simple too, keep on trucking all Happy Go Lucky-like. Not too much to ask for.

They say violence is down XX% thanks to the Troop Surge. That's us, we're The Surge. We boarded planes and poured into all orifices of this country and impregnated it with a little more "order" and the Bad Guys don't have as much room to breathe and the "ball" is in their "court" and I'm still in limbo.

Keep it simple, and I will too: Take a knee, pull security, drink water, drive on. Scan the road, scan the rooftops, scan the windows, scan the alleys, scan it all. Bustling Third World life. And after all, why not? It's just time.

The absolute TRUTH, if you must know it, is that we're preparing for a secret operation, large scale. Our whole brigade, in fact. Very hush hush. Y'see, in a handful of months, a rather BIG handful of months, we're going to get all of our shit together, and stealthily board planes. We're invading the United States. Taking Fort Lewis first.

I've outlined a plan with my hand-picked squad. Our first objective is to secure a patrol base in the new barracks, simple. Immediately afterwards, we leave a security element in place and we mount up and drive to our next objective. Dismount at the Class 6 liquor store for a supply run. A MAJOR one.

We'll then return to said patrol base and secure it with loud music to frighten away lesser enemies, and we'll consume copious amounts of liquor to fortify our own courage, should anyone attack us. It shall be a triumphant and intoxicated last stand before we're expected to function in this strange new world.

Possible reconnassaince locations include Fox's Gentlemen's Club, depending on morale. More to follow.

The Monetary Disparity

2007-12-13T04:18:00.000-08:00

I deliver unto you exhibit D in the case of Suspect, The Deeply Disturbed And Highly Twisted Mislead Youth.

I was walking back from our GLORIOUS chow hall with a friend, you may recall him as being the one who was showered with cinderblocks in the Exploding Roof Debacle. He said that he should've gotten a job with KBR instead of the army. This opened the conversation window to our pay versus everyone else's.

Oh yes, we mentioned the journalists, the construction workers, the awesome lady at our movie theater. And then I brought up entertainers.

Y'know the type. Actors, performance artists *cough, bile dribble*, professional athletes. All paid to do things they loved and to be worshipped, and paid but GOOD. So I figure, if we aren't going to be paid as lavishly as these dicks, then perhaps things should be a little more interesting.

Channel surfing

"...catches the ball at the 20, makes his way to the 30, the 40, BOOM!!! IED and that's a fumble ladies and gentlemen!"

click.

"Jethro driving the Brawny Paper Towel car, number 57, takes the lead, this could be a great finish--BOOOOOOM! VBIED!"

Or not.

The Sick Twisted Truth

2007-12-07T22:46:00.000-08:00

I was standing in one of the air guard hatches when we got a call that there was some trouble not too far away. The driver punched the gas, followed a few twists and turns of roads, when my view down a sidestreet opens up.

Two males with AK-47s are firing on the Iraqi Army. The taller of the males takes three rounds to the chest while advancing, and still manages to stagger forward, both of them out of few.

The truck pulls forward, giving me a look down the entire street. It's crowded and these two gun nuts have their backs to me. The vehicle isn't even stopped, but for once, I've got a fucking shot and a legitimate reason to shoot.

So I start firing, not even the well aimed shots we're trained to take. Put the red dot on the guy, and squeeze squeeze squeeze, death-dealing lead ejaculations courtesy of NATO. Firing like a madman, missing half the time, shooting a little too close to civilians.

Hey, this is what we came here for right?

Wrong. It was at this point that I woke up. In my bed. Not fighting the guys we're supposed to fight.

Of course not, it isn't that kind of war anymore. You missed the boat, kid. This is the slow simmering aftermath, the dying kicks of roadkill.

On the way here to post this and check email and whatnot, thinking about all of this, I decided to be a little more honest with myself. A conversation with one of my superiors just a few minutes ago went like this:

"Morning Sir. I had a dream that we lit some people up last night."

"Lit up as in...Holiday Cheer type (I'm paraphrasing and brutally distorting what he said, but my memory and attention span is shot thanks to television)?"

"No, I mean I got to shoot the enemy for once. Y'see, it's kind of a conundrum I guess, I'm a decent, moral person, but I want to commit what you could probably call 'Legal Murder'."

"Suspect...Do you need to see combat stress?"

"No, sir, it's not like that. It's just...y'know, wanna kill the baaaaad guys, 'stead of us just getting the brunt of this, FIGHT a war a little, I don't mean like wanton slaugh--"

"You'd probably make a great case for someone [I have annihilated another paraphrase, but his sense of humor is difficult to portray through text alone]."

At this point, he went about his business, knowing better than wasting the time listening to a near-endless Suspect Tirade about the moral yin yang of loving puppies and brutally and violently destroying and annihilating our sworn invisible enemies.

But hey, I guess if I talked to the right people, I could get some crazy meds right?

Or just...never get a civilian job?

It's very simple though. Those who sign up to GO to WAR go because they WANT to kill the enemy. This is safe and socially acceptable. I've never had homicidal thoughts about normal people, not even some of these celebrities I keep hearing about. But the objective of war, in all its fucked up UNglory, is to kill each other, usually for causes and reasons that have little to do with you.

Our enemy thinks that we're completely evil etc etc etc and we....well we think that they're psychotic overzealous assholes. And well, if I'm going to be in a warzone and lose friends out here, I really don't think it's too much to ask to just kill a few of these guys. Fair is fair, right? Not like they've never tried to kill me personally.

I can even say its for my country, that's the BEAUTY of it. It's morally and socially justifiable. This type of killing is A-OK, and worthy of a slice of good ol' American Pie.

Come on, I don't bash the war, I don't bash the President, I don't bash my chain of command, I just float on with whatever I have to do. But are we really just here to be a presence? Thought in "war", you were s'posed to kill the enemy. Not shake his hand.

In other news, when I watched "Death Proof" (from the double feature "Grindhouse") I was disappointed when Rose McGowan's character was killed, because she was really sweet, witty, and cute. There's the balance.

Monautomaton

2007-12-04T04:01:00.000-08:00

The repeating cycle of day and day and indistinguishable day has resumed. We could have been here for days or for decades and we still wouldn't really be sure. Just doing our time, floating like a leaf down the sewage tributary that broke off of the River of Life. Think about this: if you were knee deep in shit long enough, would you get used to it, accept it as commonplace?

"Suspect, HORN!"

I yank the chain on the air horn to get the attention of the woman that stepped into the street as we fly towards her at 40 miles an hour. The day before, that chain was broken and I had to rig up a new one. Good thing, too. Otherwise we would probably be picking pieces of that woman out of the BirdCage. Disaster averted, and the odds of me being prescribed crazy drugs upon return are reduced a little.

"Hey, I think [lead vehicle] just hit a--"

"Yeah, we hit it too."

"Hit what?"

"Dog."

"Oh."

That's right, I'm driving again, aren't I? Simple enough, really. Keep one eye on the truck in front of you, listen for instructions, scan the road, windows and rooftops, drift this way, that way, slow down, speed up, hit the horn. Drop ramp. I'm on autopilot again.

The Memorial Service Part Three

2007-11-28T08:20:00.000-08:00

Ultimate Sacrifice. They said it. I didn't mind.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to tell the difference.

The Tao of Willie Nelson.

Lessons you learn in this place.

It all seems to come together and for one brief moment now and then, it puts your head halfway where it needs to be.

The speakers did a great job, I had no anger, none of that. The first volley of shots made us all jump. Just like always. Roll call was a kick to the gut. The final salute was excrutiating.

I knelt at my buddy's boot, looked at his dogtag, said, "I love you man. We'll see you when we get there."

Drive on.

The CO, the First Sergeant, platoon members and NCOs, the Sergeant Major. Handshake, hug, encouraging words. The Seargeant Major told me to keep my head up and in the game.

I told him we've got this.

It's just time, and a crazy situation, fucked up war, fucked up country, fucked up time, but that's how it is. No sense in trying to fight it. Just do your job, watch your corner, pull security, drink water, drive on.

We got this.

The Wake-Up Call

2007-11-26T18:30:00.000-08:00

It's taken me a while to write about this. Never had the time, never had the will to do so. I spent Thanksgiving in a guard tower, doing a lot of thinking.

"Suspect, what are you thankful for?"

I drew a blank. Let me back up.

We lost three guys. I'm sparing the specifics and the backgrounds and the things that make you go, "Oh man...that's so fucked...that's terrible man."

This place, this new area of operations was almost like a vacation for us. Only a few wounds now and then, nothing too major for the most part. Then the fates backhanded us, hard.

That's all I've got to say about that for now, maybe forever.

I sat in that tower, staring at the lifeless dirt and shitty brick buildings of our area of operations and let my mind run loose. There was no controlling it at this point anyway.

I thought about my friend, who was one of the three we lost. I thought about him a lot. A lot of these thoughts made me laugh. That's the kind of guy he was. I thought about how unreal it all is. I thought about how little sense it makes.

I thought about all the huge and tiny factors involved in this conflict and how illogical and base and Typical of Mankind it all is. I thought about a lot of things. Hours of nothing but time to kill, dusty space to stare at.

I wrote about a previous memorial service. I fumed, angrily, ignorantly, with reckless abandon. I wrote shit that I didn't necessarily believe, in that confused and mixed up way people get when these things happen. I thought about that phrase "Ultimate sacrifice" and how we're going to hear it again.

Well so be it. I guess I can wrap my head around what people mean when they say it. Sure, no one is raising their hand and saying, "Sir, I'm not doing anything Wednesday, I'll take the hit. Beats having to eat this chow!" [Laugh track].

But it is an 'ultimate sacrifice', even if we don't realize it.

This was a heavy hit for all of us. Some guys are seriously fucked up about it. But I guess the mentality I'm clinging to is that these things happen and it's too late to change it, and there isn't a lot we can do. Just do our jobs. It sounds almost submissive, but whatever. Drive on, it's all you really can do.

The Porcelain Jaws of Thievery

2007-11-16T07:46:00.000-08:00

Not everything that happens here is in any way related to political events, right and wrong, courage and bravery, boredom and depravity, bootleg DVDs and mp3 players. There's also those occasional bizarre experiences that you promise yourself you'll never tell another soul.

If THIS doesn't knock me off of the pedestal some put me on, then I guess I give up.

A while ago, I woke up as normal, and somewhere in the course of the morning ritual, I noticed that my dogtags were not on the chain around my neck. I figured it snapped as I rolled over in the night, something that happens way too often and results in constantly shrinking chains.

I found one tag and tossed it back on the chain and called it good. I doubt they even USE the things anymore. We went about our action packed Blockbuster movie ultra violent glory filled day where we took Hamburger Hill and whipped Jerry's ass in Normandy, and then we completed the Human Genome Project.

As I was getting ready for bed, I stopped in the latrine and visited my sacred Go-To stall. I'm a creature of habit (not OCD in the least, but I fall into idiosyncratic routines) and I tend to use the same John. I closed the door to the stall and turned around, catching a glimpse of something silver in the bottom of the toilet, almost completely out of view.

I leaned over a bit to get a better look and realized that it was a dogtag. This caused me to laugh, imagining some poor schmuck's misfortune of having their ID tag splash into the shitter with a tiny PLIP. I mean, that's GOTTA suck, right?

Curiosity kicks my ass and I have to try to find out whose it is, so that I can laugh at them and tell them how bad they suck at life.

I make out a few familiar numbers of the social security number.

[Wow, what a strange coincidence...] I think. I lean a little more, crouching down.

I see CHR-NO-DENOM.

[Isn't that what MY dogtags say? That's really weird...]

Denial is saving my sanity at this point, but my bastard brain HAS to know. I'm torn in two directions. I want to know, and I KNOW I don't want to know. This is like fighting the irresistible urge to scratch a huge mosquito bite after staring at it for ten minutes and enduring it. Or worse.

I see letters that start to spell my name.

"Oh dude, no, no fucking way...NO...WAY."

I had forgotten about the broken chain until this horrible, despicable, merciless epiphany. It dawned on me like nuclear fallout.

"GOD, NO!!! WHY?!!"

I clutch the one tag still hanging around my neck, like I was seeking comfort or something. Some kind of assurance that I was wrong, and I had all my ducks in a row.

[No way, guy. Your dogtag is in the shitter. You suck, a LOT.]

"GOD!! How the hell?!"

[How many people do you think SHIT on your dogtag?]

I want my evil side of my conscience to shut the hell up. I want to let the dogtag go and forget all about it, to write it off as a loss. I nearly finalize this decision when the Asshole In Me speaks up again.

[What, you just gonna leave it there? With your SOCIAL stamped on it?]

"FUUUUUCK!!!!"

I inspect the bowl. Do I risk identity theft, or do I reach into a fucking TOILET?

The toilet, for once, is immaculately clean. No shit streaks or anything, and this is one of those low-fill toilets. It's like God Himself gave me that one bit of leeway, just to get me to reach in there.

[Hahahaha, people take some NASTY dookers in there. Got a shoulder-length rubber glove?]

The mental tetherball is way too much for me, and like Ewan MacGregor diving for opium suppositories in the movie "Trainspotting", I say fuck it and go for it. I snatch my dogtag up, immediately filled with shame, self loathing, and bafflement as to how in the hell something like this could happen to such a good person like me.

And then I think about some of the unspeakable things I've done with complete disregard for others. I laugh about it.

Then I remember that I just had my hand in a toilet. I turn around and crash through the stall to the sink and begin scrubbing myself like a rape victim. I practically incinerate my dog tag in hot water and scrub it again. Then I wash myself yet again. I curse my recruiter, I curse everyone responsible for the Iraq war, I curse myself, I curse the cheap design of the chain we use, I curse that goddamn toilet, I curse God for not coming up with a more creative response to the human need to excrete waste.

And then I throw my dogtag into a storage box and forget completely about it. I'm ashamed of myself for reliving this story. I hope you laugh long and hard, damn you.

The Voice Of God

2007-11-10T08:17:00.000-08:00

A fierce and angry, soul snatching claw wraps around my ankle and jerks at my sleeping bag. I look over my shoulder with perma-sealed sleep eyes and my headphones fall halfway off of my head.

"Wake up, CO needs one vehicle crew to be ready to roll in 20 minutes."

I look at the clock on my computer. The math doesn't add up, because wakeup was supposed to be 0630, but it was clearly two in the morning. No, something about this doesn't add up at all.

I put my uniform on in a stupor, wondering what the hell the deal was. Today's mission was supposed to be another routine borefest, but not in the small hours of the morning. Bullshit.

Out at the trucks, we sucked down tiny cans of RipIt, the Army's outsourced energy fuel since RedBull is made by liberal Nazis or something. We waited to leave, rubbing the hibernation sickness out of our eyes.

Standing out of the air guard hatch, flying down the road in the middle of the night with my NODs (the nightvision shit, remember?) on, the whole world has this bizarre surreal feeling to it. The street lights in the distance along with all the other ambient light create strange glows, and the scenery is all hues of green passing by at 40 miles an hour.

We reach our destination and the ramp drops. I pile out and throw the sling over my shoulder, then I start scanning for that boogeyman that isn't even there. We begin our walk to our target. Nightvision in one eye, dim street lights and shadows in the other. Speakers on top of buildings crackle and begin to play.

It's a man alone singing in Arabic. The singing comes in starts and stops, in bursts. The pause...then the next line or verse. It's that haunting Middle Eastern style, the blatantly religious one man choir. Call to Prayer? Or Call to Arms?

My shadow follows me along the walls of courtyards, from the corner of my eye I can see my reflection, all that gear, the rifle, the helmet, and the nightvision optic jutting out. I'm carrying a loadout worth more than my entire enlistment bonus.

The voice starts and stops and we go about our friendly American-style wakeup procedures. Five Star Hotel in nature.

They have some interesting music that creates an odd mood. But then again, so do we.

It was mid afternoon and I was slouching in the back of one of our trucks. We had rigged up speakers and a subwoofer, and I brought my laptop to plug in so we could have some music on another long and boring day. Until a surprise command of "Dismount" slaps me out of my stupor.

"The Mark Has Been Made" by Nine Inch Nails (the most commonly repeated song in the film "Man On Fire") is playing as the ramp lowers. Just as the song gets cold and ugly and the drums kick in to deliver that ragged badass moment, we step off of the truck. An old man with the headdress and all is sitting twenty feet away from us, staring. Kids were running around in the field, and now all their eyes were fixed on us. Wonder what kind of moment they had.

The Rollover

2007-11-06T02:35:00.000-08:00

Once again, I found myself behind the wheel of one of the big green monsters, larger mission, plenty of US flags running around. I wasn't even remotely tired the night before, so I didn't bother to go to sleep. Figured I'd get plenty of sleep in during the mission. How's that for American work ethic?

We puttered along for two solid hours before we finally stopped. I reclined and slept as was planned, except for when I had to move the truck or drop the ramp or cure cancer. Before long (quite a few more hours), it was time for us to leave. Feeling rested, I put the truck in gear and prepared to follow our convoy out of the area.

The thing is, to EXIT this particular area, we had to drive over a narrow strip of land with a deep ditch on both sides of it. No problem, right? Handled it just fine coming in. Truck after truck crossed it without incident. Then comes my turn, the last vehicle to cross. We get about halfway across when the ground on the right side starts giving out. The truck leans to the right. Thing is, you get used to Strykers leaning this way and that, so for that first second or so, it seemed normal. You know, until it kept on leaning. This is my thought process versus what came out of my mouth.

Thought: We are clearly about to roll over, and this is going to be bad. My vehicle commander is probably going to be ejected from his hatch and crushed to death and it will be all my fault for being an idiot and a shitty driver. This is really bad.

Spoken: FUCK!!! FUCK!!! FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!!!! FU---Oompf!........fuck...fuck. Ow, god......fuck.

The Stryker was on its right side, wedged in the canal, so that it didn't roll completely over. Instead it was suspended in this bizarre angle. But enough about that, let's talk about ME.

All my weight was on my right side (see also: Arm) pinned against the wall, which was at that point more or less the new floor. My head was stuffed up against the roof of the hatch, also trying out a new floor position. I couldn't reach the lever to recline my seat to climb out through the back (see also: really old post about the underwater rollover training we did. Then read: OBSOLETE). I couldn't get my hatch open for the life of me. I triple checked to make sure it wasn't locked.

"SUSPECT!! ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?!"

"FUCK!"

"Are you hurt?"

"Nah, I think I'm fine. FUCK!!!"

"Can you get out?"

"TRYING THAT IDEA OUT RIGHT NOW, SERGEANT! LOOKED BETTER ON PAPER."

Well, my vehicle commander seems to be doing just fine.

All right, douchebag, calm down. Breathe. Good thing you aren't claustrophobic huh? HAHAHAHA. Dumbass. Now get yourself out and meet your shame like a good little idiot.

I clawed around, tried to shift weight, tried to place my feet somewhere besides IN THE AIR. No such luck. I didn't think to press the button to lower the seat platform (technically RAISE it at this point), and it probably wouldn't have worked anyway since pretty much every system we had went down. Through my periscopes, I could see people coming down into the ditch to gawk and/or help. No luck getting the hatch open.

And now people are yelling random things to me. Fuck them, I need to focus on getting out. What a shitty day.

I finally managed to recline the seat a slight amount. The funny thing about trying to get out was that I still had my body armor on, and you wouldn't believe me if I told you, but it's actually a BITCH to move around in an enclosed space with all that shit on. But take my word for it.

I immediately gave up trying to climb out in the state I was in. So I ripped my helmet off (it was rotated sideways over my face anyway) and threw it to the mangled wreckage that was the back of the truck. From that one glance backwards that I took, it became apparent to me that Shiva the Destroyer stopped by the completely fuck this vehicle's world up. Nothing was in place. It had a very doomed feeling about it.

As a result, I elected to tear my body armor off and throw it, too.

I crawled through the obscenely narrow space and fell on my ass against one wall, tangling up in cords and hoses and gear and fuck-knows-what. Grabbed my M4, tossed it out the vehicle commander's hatch to whoever the hell was out there. My shotgun received the same treatment. Neither were loaded. Next came the body armor. I strapped the helmet back on, tossed out my knee pads and any other gear of mine (or anyone else's) that I could find, and then I half climbed/half fell out of the hatch, dusted myself off, and put my gear back on. Slapped a magazine into the battered, run over M4 (that's right, I still got it) and climbed up the ditch where I learned to say, "Yeah, I'm fine" as a new "hello, good to see you too."

I pulled security while we tried to decide on the best approach to get the truck out of the ditch. [God, we should be halfway to the FOB by now...]

One Stryker hooks up it's winch and pulls for dear life. Nothing. The sun starts to set. I pull out my night vision and set it up, very pissed off at myself and more or less feeling like the most incapable, bumbling idiot ever passed along by Uncle Sam's nonchalant number-crunching ass.

Eventually, it took a wrecker and two Strykers to pull the monster out. And one of the Strykers that was pulling was damaged in the process. Messed up a differential or something.

[We would have been already fueled up, and done with....EVERYTHING...by now. Great.]

We gathered up all the spilled debris and all other manner of assorted bullshit and eventually made it the hell out of there.

I spent the next two days in the motor pool repairing that fucking truck.

Other than that, I'm doing pretty good.

Hats Off to the Infantry...

2007-10-16T22:09:00.000-07:00

Ryan, I hope you don't mind me posting this...I read it and thought of you. Like we talked about before, I don't care if you think it's dumb when people tell you thanks because after all, you're "just doing your job"...you guys still put up with a lot. While I know this particular unit is from Maryland, it still reminded me of you. It's from http://www.democratherald.com/dhblogs/patrick_lair/?p=4.

Hats Off to the Infantry
by Patrick Lair

As our unit is only made up of about 20 members, we are usually thrown in with larger units for training purposes.

We recently had the opportunity to train with an infantry battalion from Maryland for a couple days. The experience just reinforced my respect for our riflemen.

This battalion is made up of several hundred guys from all walks of life, ranging from teenagers to men in their mid 50’s. Some are fresh recruits and some have been to Iraq or Afghanistan multiple times. One even served as a machine gunner in Vietnam.

Anyone unfamiliar with infantrymen is likely to find them gruff and rude at first blush.

When gathered in a training environment, they are not polite in most regards. They are often loud, aggressive, proud and vulgar.

This is forgivable, though, once you understand the nature of their job.

Infantrymen are treated like dirt most of the time, with the understanding that grinding labor under austere conditions makes a person lean and mean.

However, they are the backbone of the Army, keeping up skills which every other soldier aspires to replicate. And at the end of the day, they are good-humored, good-natured people, the kind you want to accompany you on a convoy.

These Maryland guys have spent the hot summer in tents, waking early in the morning and training till late at night most days. They are expected to carry heavy loads on their backs, fire the heck out of their weapons all day and then scrub them clean that night.

They are required to maintain their own vehicles, mount and dismount heavy crew-serve weapons each day, master emergency first-aid techniques and a host of other combat-related skills.

On the battlefield, they are the first ones to take a blast from the enemy. Instead of dropping into the fetal position, as human nature inclines us to do, their job is to grab their weapons and regain fire superiority.

As public affairs, I’ve become accustomed to scribbling notes and staring into camera monitors all day. So I always felt a few steps behind these guys during our training.

At one point, as we convoyed in humvees through a rubble strewn range, our trainers announced that the guy in front of me had just been hit with an IED (for training purposes).

We sped another 500 meters into a safe area, aligned the vehicles into a protective “wagon wheel” formation and prepared to call for an air evacuation.

Before I could get to the guy in front of me, the medic from another vehicle had already rushed to our position and taken charge of the situation.

Taking orders from the medic, we fanned out our weapons to secure the area, treated the soldier for fictional wounds, placed him on a litter and carried him to a waiting helicopter.

It was all done to textbook standards, according to our trainers. And it was accomplished at combat speed in the sweltering heat, thanks to the hard-driving mentality of these guys.

Not all of them, however, live just to soldier.

One specialist said he was in the middle of his final semester of college, with plans to leave the Guard and marry his fiance this summer, when he learned he would be taking a slight detour to the Middle East.

He was mobilized one month before graduation and whisked away from his bride-to-be for more than a year.

Just another example of American service members sucking it up and completing the mission.

At the end of the exercise, my unit climbed into air-conditioned vans headed for an office where we could throw together a DVD of all the video and photos we’d captured to give to the unit.

The infantry guys gathered their carbon-crusted weapons, loaded into steaming humvees and headed back to tent city to conduct a little weapons maintenance before returning for a night fire operation.

Although my job has a lot more cushion, and some of them probably envied the heck out of me, I couldn’t help envying them a little, too.

Part of me wants to drop the camera and all the politics to just focus on running and gunning, like these guys.

I’m glad somebody does it, and I’m comforted to know that there are people like them who’ll step up and carry the heavy load at times for the rest of us.

-------------------------------------------------

"they are not polite in most regards. They are often loud, aggressive, proud and vulgar...[but] at the end of the day, they are good-humored, good-natured people, the kind you want to accompany you on a convoy."

That's you in a nutshell Doughboy... :)

Mob Scene

2007-10-12T05:10:00.000-07:00

There are few situations as fragile, volatile, and nerve-wracking as being an enforcer of sorts at a food drop. Hordes of hungry people can get ugly fast.

At first, they lined up, the way they were supposed to, and everything went just fine. We'd help them carry the massive bags of flour out of the gate to where they had been waiting. These bags are ginormous. It was emasculating for me to be struggling with them, and watching frail old women pack them onto their shoulders and shuffle away. The fact that I also wear 75 pounds of gear might help offset this.

I felt good about the mission. We're bringing FOOD to HUNGRY people? But it makes so much SENSE! Wow, so I'm NOT here for nothing? Who'da thunkit.

Before, I didn't have any idea that these people were so hungry. We just never heard about it, not at the low level I operate on (which is absolutely minimal knowledge. On any given day, I will have absolutely no clue what the mission entails, partially because I'm oblivious and should be tested for ADD). The situation in some places here is so sensitive and difficult, it's just mindblowing. I mean FUCK, this is NOT the United States, let me put it that way. It's Everything Gone Wrong. It's the scenario you pray and plead and beg never manifests itself in your home.

Because you know there isn't enough food for everyone out there, and the crowd is growing.

The lines got longer and longer, and people stopped using them. They'd all seem to think that they could be exceptions and wouldn't have to wait like everyone else. They'd come up to you in droves and start talking to you and motioning with their hands, trying to reason with you despite the fact that you know only three phrases. Your shoulders already hurt, by the way.

This is the part where you look around and yell over the crowd for the interpreter, who is busy listening to everyone else's sob stories and trying to help.

"Dude! Come on man, get over here!"

He listens and then shouts over the mob to me, "She say, 'Please, I am poor, we need everything. My husband, he killed by insurgents'..." Et cetera. We were hearing the same story from everyone. I didn't like it, but you have to be firm with these people.

"Look at those lines! Every one of them is hungry and poor, just like you! And every one of them has lost someone! You're all in this together! The only way you're getting food is if you wait in line like everyone else!"

An Iraqi soldier drops his weapon and it discharges. People move away, and like the dumbass I am, I run toward it, thumb on my safety, til I realize what the deal is.

At one point, we had to close the gates and wait inside until they finally agreed to wait in lines and you know...follow basic order. Kindergarten stuff. Except in Kindergarten, you usually aren't starving.

Before long, they're getting unruly again. The same sob story from everyone. And it's not like they're making it up either. Stories like that are very plausible in this country. So how the hell do you balance being The Good Guy with Not Getting Swallowed In A Crowd Of Zombies? You can't win them all, can't be the sweetheart all the time. The crowd of women keep pushing forward, disregarding the simple rules we set out. My skinny ass storms to the front of their group.

"WE AREN'T FUCKING SAYING IT FOR OUR GODDAMN HEALTH!!! BACK THE FUCK UP, SIT THE FUCK DOWN!!! RIGHT NOW!!!!" I raise my hand and force my open palm down, motioning for them to sit. And then I scream at them with as much Feigned Manliness as I can muster.

I'd feel like a badass for setting them straight with my thunderous voice and whatnot, but the truth is that I was armed. That was really the only negotiating tool I had that mattered. But for the purposes of this harrowing story, I'll make myself out to be the man's man. So yes, my sheer masculine roars sent the crowd into timid obedience (and not the presence of .50 cal machine guns or anything).

I was constantly moving back and forth our lines. It felt like the beginning of the Boston Massacre. My interpreter kept getting swarmed by pleading, demanding people, and he's more of a bleeding heart sucker than I am, so he was solidly swamped.

"Tell them all the same thing: We WANT to help them, we care a LOT, but the only way we can do this is if they wait in line."

"They say same thing, all of them. 'I am poor, I am hungry, I have nothing, my brother or my father or my husband, he killed before one year...'"

I shook my head, what else could we do? "I know man. You're doing just fine. Just keep telling them to get in line."

And then the food ran out.

They wouldn't seem to believe us. We'd tell them, "Maku" (it means "nothing" or "no more" or something like that) and they'd just start pleading with us. Like we were going to hold our hands out and materialize bags of food for them. There wasn't shit we could do. Except get aggressive.

We busted our asses trying to disperse the crowds, making sure to stay close together, and get back to our trucks to get the hell out of there. It was probably the most intense mission I've done, mainly because the tension is always there, right in front of you. Not like one of those sudden situations, this one was obviously delicate and could go sour with frightening ease.

On the other hand, it WAS kinda cool to take charge and scream at people. Even though you speak completely different languages. It doesn't matter what you say. One dude started screaming something like, "I LISTEN TO COUNTRY MUSIC AND BUDWEISER IS THE BEST FUCKING BEER EVER BREWED! NOW GET BACK!!!"

The worst part was that we all knew that there was enough food to go around if they all helped each other out. You know, if the people who had gotten the bags and whatnot had gotten together with the people of their community and just had a massive pot luck, it could have been so much easier. But it's like they have no communal bonds.

I'm an insufferable idealist, but fuck... Look out for your brother. We're in this together.

Munchkin Land

2007-10-08T03:24:00.000-07:00

Oh yes, the same old repetitive song and dance, how I love it. Drive one day, walk around with the radio the next. I swear I'm just along for the ride, truth be told.

The kids today all swarmed me. It's pretty much the only somewhat interesting thing about going out anymore, and even that gets old quick. Hordes of kids poking and prodding me, yanking on my gear, competing for my attention, all wanting to high five and handshake and facemake and babble to me in Arabic. I use this time to practice my Japanese.

"Mista! Shismeck! (What's your name?)"

"Batman."

They repeat it to themselves like they're trying to word out, getting a taste for it. Like feeling a new car or something. That's right, I'm Batman.

They'd crowd around me, asking for candy or soccer balls, overwhelming me with little-kid-chaos, and I was for the most part cool with it. "That's right, little children, swarm! Swarm around me as I take a knee here. Hopefully no one will shoot me now."

To me, it's all the same faces, the same streets, same everything. Meet new people but they're still the same. See new houses but still, you've already been there. Post the same post I did last time because it's all one huge deja vu, repetitive and surreal.

Someday the dream will end.

Yes, I'll wake up in my bed in Montana someday and just lay there. I'll lay there and ponder, until I start to question whether I was ever in the army or not. Because one day, I'll leave this place, and it'll be almost like I was never here. That alternate life discontinued, the original life taken off hold, off the back burner, put back in the driver's seat with a new perspective. Enjoy it. The clean country, advanced civilization, taking things for granted, the good life, a house on Easy Street. Complaining about little shit. Why not?

Perspective is easy to lose out here, I gotta tell ya. All them fancy ideals and beliefs and all that delicious horseshit we swallowed by the shovelfull just doesn't cut the mustard some days, and all the wasted time, the countless hours spent waiting at an outpost or sitting in a truck or walking around a neighborhood that'll be completely quiet and peaceful and bad-guy free until you leave and someone gets murdered, it all just seems like a big messy nothing. A paradox of bullshit.

That's why you have to have something, ANYTHING to keep you into it. The politics of it don't make sense? You said it pal. So what then? Your recruiter lied? Hahaha, you too huh? Failed operation, repeat of Vietnam? You really think that? You being a liberal, boy? So you lost the taste for all of this, and that's the bottom line?

Well fuckin A, Suspect, that just isn't good enough. You're still here [YOU SIGNED A CONTRACT, JOE, NOW EAT IT!], so you should make the best of your time and try to do something. Well what then?

"Cover the story." Simple enough, right? Let them mad little piss and vinegar keystrokes of yours flurry until yet another barely comprehensible rant is slapped onto the web, because there isn't really anything else constructive to do. You're here to survive and forget about it all right? Well people are reading, for who knows how many reasons. So cover the story, pal.

Yeah, I can do that. Seems simple enough. But there's just one problem. It's so boring and monotonous most of the time? Guess I have to make things interesting however I can huh?

Sidenote [obligatory action scene]

"Hey, any of your guys wanna blow this?" an EOD (explosive ordnance disposal) guy asks. My team leader from firefighting looks to me.

"Butters? Wanna set it off?"

I took off for the EOD truck quick fast and in a hurry. Like hell am I going to waste another day. I've got to do SOMETHING, right? Well this'll do it. I haven't blown anything up in two months now.

"All right, ya take this wire and plug it into that yellow deal, press that button to charge it, then this button to blow it," explains an EOD guy of obvious Southern origin.

Little yellow detonator rests in my hand and I rip my gloves off, hang the Oakley eye protection on my vest, and crawl to the back of the truck to watch out the window. They call up the countdown on the radio and I hold the little button to charge it. A light slowly illuminates.

"Fire in the hole, fire in the hole, fire in the hole."

I press the tiny little button. A minute amount of pressure, and explosives in the house 70 meters away explode. I can visibly see the shock wave travel across the sand in wild ripples. In movies, there are awesome fireballs. In reality, every speck of dust you never knew was there is kicked up and it swells and dissipates in the wind, but not in any quick fashion. BOOM! and then dust obscuring everything. Makes for some confusing aftermath.

"...Cool. Thanks guys," I say.

"No problem. Now, they're calling up for you. They want you on the truck behind us."

And so I walk a few dozen feet down the road to one of our Strykers. Groups of people stand in their gates from every direction, staring at the spectacle, and at me. For a moment, I wonder if they think or know that I set off those charges. Then the ramp drops and I pile in. Who cares, right? It was kind of cool.

[Resume monotony.]

Stryker Sandwich

2007-10-01T05:37:00.000-07:00

It was yet another boring horrible mind numbing monotonous nauseating suckfest of a day, repetitive and relentless with more than a dash of dull. I was sitting in the back of the Stryker, looking at my assault pack holding my radio with a complete and absolute disdain that would melt the face off of any average Hot Topic goth wannabe. Being that we were undermanned, I was the only one actually sitting down. I contemplated standing in the unoccupied air guard hatch, my friend was in the other. After a careful bout of deliberation (a solid three seconds), I decided that no, I would not follow that course of action. I was going to be walking around with that radio on my back all day long, and to be honest, I'm a whiney little baby.

So I slouched on the bench while my ass went steadily numb, and I hooked my hand through one of the straps hanging from the ceiling. It held my wrist like an untightened noose. We slowed or stopped or something, and all this dust started pouring through the hatches.

"Wow, that's a lot of dust," I thought, and I was immediately thrown in the direction of the front of the truck.

I stopped, pondered. Felt like I had ALMOST maybe been close to pulling a muscle in my arm, nothing more. So what the hell was that? Did we get blown up? Was I so disoriented that my mind processed the dust BEFORE it could grasp the impact or explosion or whatever the hell that was? Can't be, because it wasn't quite like that when we got blown up on top of that house... so what then?

A second impact buried my face in my assault pack again. I now knew that it was obvious that motor vehicles of some sort were striking us. But come on, our own trucks? That can't be.

My friend is writhing around inside the truck, apparently in pain. I don't know, I guess it hurts when a massive military vehicle rear ends you doing 30-40 miles an hour. But that's probably just hearsay. Everyone's yelling at each other, shouting, "Is everyone all right?" and all that other AllState commercial gibberish. I decide that perhaps I should stand up in the hatch, since my compadre is banged up, and I don't feel like being yelled at.

"Whoa, don't drop the ramp," I told the driver. "Our ass end is like... on TOP of their truck."

What had happened was we were about to cross over a median to the other side of the road, but a seperate convoy was oncoming, so we stopped on the median to let them pass. This was also a dusty area, and kicked up a brownout. The other two trucks didn't see us stop, so the second nails us, and the third manages to slow down before smashing the second up.

A friend of mine from one of the other trucks cut his forehead pretty deep and had to be checked out for concussion and whatnot, but he's fine now, munching on percocet and watching Spongebob or something. The other guy is doing well too, just a bit stiff.

The cages on the trucks took a pretty severe beating, but it was amazing how little damage the Strykers actually took. So uh...thanks for the tax dollars. They seem to be keeping my ass quite safe.

Careful What You Wish For, Dick (Part Two)

2007-09-17T06:17:00.000-07:00

I'd been itching to get back on the ground for some time. Always driving, the same places over and over again. The same routine. Gear up, open the truck, wait, drive, wait, drive, fuel it up, close it down, sleep. Wake up. Repeat. Gargle, swish, and spit. The Groundhog Day Effect in near-lethal doses.

During these mind-numbing excursions, I'd find myself responding to radio traffic, generally serving no real purpose.

And then the company commander says, "Who is that? Is that Suspect? Wow, he's really clear over the radio. Think I'll make him my new RTO."

An RTO is the radio guy. That's the job my buddy was doing when he was killed by the sniper. I wasn't thrilled with the idea, but it became a long running joke. Well, it DID until I was told one day that on our next mission, I was RTO, no joke. I grabbed a marker and left a note for my platoon sergeant on the dry erase board under the notice.

"I hate you with all of my being. Love, Suspect."

Being an RTO is somewhat like being on the ground normally, except you carry a backpack with an amazingly heavy radio, considering the bastard's small size. The funny thing is that you actually don't do much, yet some seem to think that it's always best to target the radio guy. Bile flavored irony, really.

Our boys are doing their thing, setting up, moving out, pounding the ground, being ARMY STRONG and whatnot, and I'm following The Boss around. My helmet is fucked up and I can't seem to get my nightvision to seat right, let alone focus. Two minutes into the walk, I begin to sweat like a call girl in church.

It wasn't all that long before I hear that there's someone hiding in the taller grass just off of the road we're standing on. He's by one of our vehicles and appears gives off that whole IED Trigger Man vibe. Over the radio, I hear them saying that this meets Rules of Engagement criteria, blah blah bliggety bloo.

I tell The Boss that this target can be engaged. I'm looking around for this guy, because I'd certainly love to take a few shots at some prick trying to blow people up. I really do frown on that type of behavior. I can't see him anywhere, but he's got to be RIGHT BY us, right?

An Apache flies overhead, and at first, it looks like it dropped a flair into the field. That is, til the "flare" explodes with an authoritative BANG! Oh, that's where the guy is.

A couple of minutes pass by, and then one of our guys on one of our trucks announces that there's someone who appears to be armed carrying or dragging something. He's told to engage with the 240. Cuts the guy down, and another guy runs back into the house.

I ask The Boss if he thinks the Apache had any idea how close we were. 100, 150 meters max. Cool huh?

We laid down, trying to avoid being silhouetted by vehicle lights until the sun came up. I chilled, watched the stars through night vision (they didn't do much, the stars I mean. Bummer). Once the sun came up, we heard what sounded like either wild animals in extreme distress, or women completely freaking out.

The family had found the bodies.

We made rounds around the area, cleared a few houses, talked to a few people, took a seat for a while in front of one house (my back was one pissed off motherfucker, and gladly announced it to me in a constant dull fatiguing ache). I handed out Pringles and candy and Gatorade to little kids who fought over it. Fought over who got to high-five me first. Hearts and minds, right? Yeah.

We returned to the house of the guys that were killed. Why be outside hiding in the grass at 3 AM? Unless you were trying to pull something?

The entire family were herded into two rooms, neither of which I bothered to enter. I watched chickens in the courtyard and did my best to ignore sobbing and shouting and the most eerie prayers I'd ever heard. They had retrieved the bodies and brought them out back, placed them on sleeping mats and covered them with sheets. The guy who had been hit with the 7.62mm looked like he was only asleep. They cleaned him up immaculately, must have put new clothes on him. I didn't see the other one. Out of courtesy, those of us who weren't directly involved in conversing with the family faced outwards, pretended like we were pulling security, or posing for some bullshit army brochure, a myspace picture, whatever. Come on, you all know we were imagining being somewhere else anyway. It's what we always do. Between that and the curiosity of how bad the other guy got it, that was pretty much it.

A car tried to flee the scene of a different house. Warning shot. Warning shot. Warning warning warning shot shot shot. Then everyone in the area opened up. The car stopped and two males got out. I couldn't make much out from the rooftop I was standing on, but as soon as the driver put his hands up, a grenade from an M203 grenade launcher exploded at the front of the car. From where I was, it looked like a direct hit. All I thought was, "Damn. Too little too late. That sucks."

Turns out, neither were wounded.

Is this my life? Nah, this is the Twilight Zone or something. An alternate life while the rest of the world moves on. Still killing time, that's my mission.

Oh, and to you, the reader: I'd tell it better if I had the time. Seems like every time I have something truly interesting to talk about, I don't have the time to do it justice. I'm working on that though.

Til next time. You do your thing, I'll be doing mine. Driving a big green monstrosity through Third World Escape From New York, with 2 foot tall naked toddlers standing in front of their gates while their older siblings wave and demand handouts.

Is this my life?

The Barrens

2007-09-10T08:18:00.000-07:00

I've been doing the same, day in, day out. Just recently, I've managed to atleast get out of the driver's seat.

Flying down a "road" going thirty miles an hour (by road, we mean tire tracks in the moon dust that serves as this weird planet's surface), dust kicking up and attacking our faces, goggles or not, we wave like madmen at the local kids.

They hold their hands out, demanding something. Soccer balls? Food? Weapons of Intermediate Destruction? Who cares, just play dumb. We don't have anything good, dammit, WE ATE IT ALL, MAN! JUST KEEP WAVING! Don't take your eyes off of them until we're in the clear! I've heard these monsters will eat the flesh right off of your bones when you aren't looking!

No, it isn't quite that bad, atleast not yet. The repetition is killing me, so I've got to pepper this story with outlandish lies and exaggerations. Sadly, I've got nothing. I was excited just to be behind a 240Bravo again (you know, that big belt fed 7.62mm fully automatic weapon that every kid wants for Christmas? Yeah, that). I loaded the rounds as we exited the FOB, slammed the cover down...and that was the extent of the thrill. Nothing to shoot at, never even a possible threat, barely any SUSPICION, even by the standards of paranoia.

Dear GOD, put me back in the fucking seat! Atleast then I can recline and do nothing, rather than stand in the hatch while we park for a couple thousand hours. Honestly, I do nothing these days. Nothing. No free time, no action, no bragging rights, not even any real COMPLAINING rights. You might as well stop reading right here and now.

Oh, sorry about that, my mind wandered and I decided that picking at my fingernails would be more interesting. You get where I'm going with this? I'll keep you Earthlings posted as to the non-happenings on Planet Fukkaal.

Montana Slim out.

Guess What?

2007-08-29T10:37:00.000-07:00

Limited internet time, busy schedule, and one lazy soldier, albeit safe and sound, in one piece, and full of piss and vinegar. Doing well, doing nothing, doing little things in repetitive Groundhog Day monotonous hamster wheels. Just killing time, like Buzzell said.

Update coming soon. Groovy.

Reverse Evolution

2007-08-15T03:57:00.000-07:00

Have you ever taken a moment to ponder the wonders of the opposable thumb? It allows you to grasp things, like beer bottles, and to clutch the bottle opener as well. It serves many many functions and is an integral part of our daily lives.

I am currently down by one. No no, relax, it isn't severed. I was attempting to stuff my LT's gear into a space that was clearly too small for this massively gypsy-packed monstrosity. I kicked it, I punched it, I pushed on it. And just when it seemed that I wasn't even pushing all that hard, I heard a sound and felt a feeling. This sound was very much like a wet SNAP.

My thumb bent completely backwards, and for a brief second, I thought of my younger brother, who has a double jointed thumb. Instinctively, I yanked this warped hand of mine back, and the mangled digit snapped back into place. It was over before I could fully process it. I stared at my hand in disbelief.

"Sir, did that shit just seriously happen?!"

"Yes."

"Did you HEAR that?"

"Yes."

"What in the...AAAACK! Oh, WOW, FUCK! GAAAAAH!!!!"

"Why don't you try putting that gear over there instead?"

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!"

The First Sergeant comes around as I hop off of the truck and lock the back in the most gimped of manners.

"What's wrong, Troop?" he asks.

"I dislocated my thumb First Sergeant. I ain't EVER seen anything like THAT before, that was way outta left field! You shoulda heard the sound it made!" At this point, I paused and contemplated the prospect of throwing up. Instead I went to the aid station, in complete shock.

"How'd you do this?"

"Dealing with LT's gear and it just snapped. It was pretty nasty. I damn near threw up. It was awesome."

"I'll bet. Get some ice and go to the TMC for X-Rays."

No broken bones, they didn't really tell me much about the results or what was wrong, but I assume it's just sprained. It's insane how it just happened to land right back in the joint. Got a brace looking splint on it, and immediately I knew the Jackoff jokes were going to flood out in torrents. I mean, come on. It's ME.

Knocking On Doors

2007-08-09T06:46:00.000-07:00

It's still dark out and one eye sees dimly with whatever moonlight there is. No power in this neighborhood, and that's the norm. The other eye sees with the NODs, the night vision, in shades of green with skewed depth perception. Nearly a dozen of you walking down the streets. Heel-toe, heel-toe. Quietly as possible. Don't kick rocks or trash. Speak in rare hushed whispers and hand signals.

The gate is locked. This isn't your standard American style gate on a flimsy chain link fence. The walls are five to six feet high and the gate is cheap metal, but it's still solid. There is no reaching through, and this one is locked. Breaching it would make way too much noise.

"Psst! Suspect! Up and over!"

I hand my M4 to a buddy and step on the plate on someone else's back as they get down on their hands and knees and hoist myself over, silently as possible. Honestly, we should just start packing ladders. Sometimes I land on pottery and plants. Other times soft ground. My knee pad scrapes the wall and I wince in a rush of Awww Shit. I grab my M4 from whoever is holding it over the side and scan real quickly as I shuffle to the gate and open it from the inside.

Can't imagine what it must be like for the people inside.

I peek through an opening of the curtains in the window to the living room. No furniture, just a couple blankets and mats laid out. Couple people sleeping on the floor. How did they not hear us? Every noise we make seems apocalyptically loud to me.

We've got the two front sides of the house surrounded, a Joe covering every corner, both doors. One tries to knock quietly, a physical oxymoron, to get the attention of the occupants while not announcing our presence to the neighborhood. Someone else starts tapping on glass.

Nothing, no movement. After a few more attempts, it's decided that we're wasting time and are staying in one place too long. We break in. Sometimes it's the shatter of glass, other times it's a door being kicked off of it's hinges, splintering the wood and scaring the hell out of everyone inside.

If that doesn't do it, cyborg-looking American death-dealing soldiers from some future era called The New Millenium charging in with obscenely bright spotlights mounted on their rifles rushing through the house, clearing it room by room, well that'll do it.

Just imagine being woken in the middle of the night to that. I laugh and shake my head when I think about it. We wouldn't stand for that.

They hand their AK over and make us tea.

Hey Man! What's It Like?

2007-08-08T04:24:00.000-07:00

That's right, fella, sorry about that, I know I've been putting you off for a while with half-assed answers and, "Ah it's ok"s. So maybe we should work on this. But first:

I've been talking to friends of mine that have already gone on leave. They say it's weird, that they catch themselves scanning when out in public, little things like that. And that their friends, obviously searching and digging for some sign of the cliche battle-weary soldier archetype, say things like, "Something's wrong, you seem different." Anyone's going to expect that.

They ask what it's like, act all interested and whatnot. When you finally tell them, it isn't long before they've had their fill, and don't really care. Back to whatever bullshit there was before.

Not me. Sorry everyone, but I won't be taking my flight in that direction. I'm going thousands of miles from anyone who knows me or anything about me, with the exception of one battle buddy. A couple weeks of completely not giving a shit (and not being punished for it), of boozing and sleeping when I want, of chasing the local women around, sight-seeing and ooh ahhing. Walking through streets that don't explode. Doing whatever the hell we want to. A million miles away. I'll come HOME when it's all said and done, when I'm not getting on a plane to come right back to this putrid sphincter.

So for those of you I won't be visiting, let's just get that "What's it like" out of the way.

Open bay tents, thirty or so guys per. Wooden floors, metal wall lockers, bunk beds. Woodland camo style ponchos strung up to section off micro-living spaces. Walk out the door.

Dirt, dust. It isn't so much sand here as it was Kuwait. It's that no-color wasted earth looking powder that's dry and covered with gravel in some vain attempt in keeping it out of the sky and out of our noses. There has never been any "sand" in my ass. Walls and walls of concrete barriers, maybe twenty feet high surrounding every little pod of tents. Gravel gravel gravel, constantina wire, waist high barriers along the sides of roads, tan humvees, white trailer housing units for the lucky ones, more barriers, endless tan dirt sea, CONEX sheds, green trees along some of the perimeter between one section of the FOB and the others. There are those shallow man-made lakes of Saddam's. Couple of his palaces, but not in my immediate area. Only time I glimpse those is when I walk back to the tent via what I call the "Funeral Route" from the chapel. Less people walk on it.

Hop into your truck and head on out the wire. Mazes of barriers and long stretches with high walls and wire strung along the tops, major potholes and dust dust dust. It's green along the main route once you get to it, you know, on the sides, and there are palm trees.

As far as the city, and the sections of it that I've been to, well take your typical urban city, minus any building taller than three stories. Sprawled out, everything tan, Mos Eisley Spaceport of Tattooine. Highways are highways, that's no different. Still bridges and overpasses, sometimes with the guardrails destroyed. A mosque as you curl around an onramp with weak fence along it, higher and higher over the ground and god forbid if your turn isn't sharp enough and you lose control and POW, off you go.

Get off of those major roads and into the neighborhoods. Still all that beige, flat houses with stairwell access to the rooftops. Maybe clothes on the line up top, maybe not. Virtually every house has a six foot high wall all around the yard, creating a courtyard of sorts. I don't ever think I've seen carpet on the floors. All tile or concrete. Most houses are really sparse, the people may be squatting on someone else's abandoned home, and maybe that someone else just split and left the country or the neighborhood, or maybe they're dead. Who knows.

People hang around on the sidewalks, atleast until I wave them off. The less observing us the better, right? The kids are shameless little monsters who don't beg, but demand money and chocolate and soccer balls. I hold my hand out and tell them sure, you can give me money. They fight, they really beat the piss out of each other too.

And now some battle buddy wants me to walk the long mile to the chow hall. Interrupted again.

Fuck it, ask questions if you care.

Visuals

2007-08-05T02:04:00.000-07:00

If you wanted to know what Baghdad looks like, watch the movie "Man On Fire". Towards the end, you see the neighborhood that "The Voice" lives in. Take that, and suck all of the color out of it. Keep the extended families living together.

This is an IP acting more or less like a complete weirdo.

Hello, door. Meet boot.

Clearing a room.

Found this while searching a house.

Dismount.

Suspect driving.

Shock And Purge

2007-08-03T11:25:00.000-07:00

We had found something that we think belonged to one of the soldiers who were kidnapped earlier this year. So we're busting the right people.

My boys found more caches and a hearty Hell Yeah to that.

My friend found a dead guy. Hands tied behind his back, head cut off of course, belly down in the weeds.

"Roight! From the soize o'these maggots," he pointed, doing his best Crocodile Hunter impression. "I'd say he's only been dead a coupl'a days. Otherwoise the maggots would be FLOIES! HAHAHAHAHA!"

Iraqi security forces were called up to take care of the body. They were putting it in a bag when one of them started dry heaving at aggressive volumes. My buddy ol' pal starts to snicker until his laughter erupts. The Iraqi throws his end of the bag down.

"No! Not funny! NOT funny!"

My friend nods his head ad continues to laugh. The interpreter whirls around and yaks up an MRE.

On the way back to the FOB, I follow the EOD truck, and a gap opens of course. The big green monstrosity can't keep up as well as lighter vehicles, but my foot pins the limp-dick accelerator to the floor anyway. They pass through a checkpoint (U.S. military doesn't have to stop, because we are Greek Gods, we are rock stars, and no one tells us no head on, they need bombs and anonymity for that) that consists of concrete barriers atleast twenty feet high on one side and a rickety shack on the other. It's very narrow and two Iraqi Policemen are sitting down outside the shack, relaxing, making good money, being more or less worthless leeches in this punch-drunk attempt to save this country (country...? or is it a whole other planet? Calendars no longer apply and I've forgotten what it's like to see Lindsey Lohan's name in the tabloids, amen), when I come speeding towards this narrow passage at excessive speeds.

They see that I'm not slowing down and they leap up and out of what they thought might be harms way, and I jerk the wheel a little to further feed the illusion that they were going to be hit. I was in control of the situation the entire time, and I found it very humorous. I could hear my own voice laughing in the earphones of my headset.

Did I seriously do that? Regardless of the likelihood that they were just two more corrupt, murderous thieves abusing their position, did I seriously pull an asshole stunt like that?

Are we high? On what? Are we becoming intoxicated with the What The Hells and Oh My Gods and Here We Go Agains, the Holy Fuckin Shits and the Come The Fuck Ons that now and then, all signs point to You Have A Screw Loose, Guy?

No, not quite. Not me. I'm guilt tripping myself because a couple of uniformed guys moved as a precaution, and the look of indignation on one man's face because he had to move so suddenly struck me as comical.

The dogs had chewed meat off of the dead man's limbs, just like the guy face down in the road. Always face down. It's the only fate for men to meet out here. That guy was probably the one who tipped us off about the caches. We feel accomplished because we're bringing down a lot of weapons, and there's a fresh dead guy and a much older skull elsewhere, probably won't ever receive a mention. 'Specially if that cat HAD tipped us off, and was consequently butchered by the Ever Determined "bad guys", the guys that this bizarre world picked for the other team.

On an Iraqi Policeman's cell phone, just a picture, belly down, hands bound, head severed. Middle of the road. Face down in Iraq. Hidden in brush. Face down in Iraq. A stewing situation in this part of the world, so volatile that all it takes is the Green Light Withdrawal on our part and KABLAMMO, motherfuckers! Lights on and watch the very fabric of existence in this region split and tear. Chaos and carnage and RED MUD. Explosions and gunfire and limbless scowling survivors that get maybe a week or so before they're finished off or die of infection. Beheadings, shootings, bombings, stabbings, carbombings, space shuttle hijackings, water poisoning, fire of Allah, the wrath of Shiva, Mike Ditka in a bad mood, pandemonium, nothing but sheer aggression and slaughter here on the NEW AGE GRIDIRON where both end zones are blowing up and so is every hash mark on the field and there is no artificial turf.

Just red mud.

The Usual Suspect or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb

2007-08-02T05:22:00.000-07:00

Reclined inside the bowels of the green monster with white painted walls (to reflect light one would guess), black rubber pressed against the ears and cheeks, forcing out irritated beads of sweat.

Beep.

"Uhh...roger," EVERYONE says Roger first thing in every transmission over the net, even if they're about to respond with a negative answer. I don't get it. "This is [random call sign] uhh...we had to eh...'engage' an animal that was charging the squad..."

One of my eyes flicks open. What in the green piss?

Beep.

"Why all the shooting? Can't hit it?"

Beep.

"Uhhh....Roger, it's a cow, not going down so easy."

Take a moment to ponder the humor. I'll allow it.

Ok then. No, cows are not sacred to Iraqis. Those are the Hindus I believe. The owner was found and compensated in monetary form, and in all actuality, probably ripped us off, considering the malnourished condition of the poor excuse for a bovine now not so much different from a wedge of swiss cheese.

And now down to business, to deliver to you, the enraptured reader, the quick and dirty. It's been a great couple of days. Why you ask? Because we've been finding cache after cache, explosives, rifles, chemicals, munitions of all shapes and sizes, you name it. We've blown up so many of these caches, EOD ran out of explosives and had to use all of ours. We've taken so much shit out of the hands of these crazy zealots, its unreal. By we, I mean they.

I relax in my seat and read until it's time to leave.

The AC had gone out in the Stryker and it was an incredibly hot day. Given my tendency to disregard social norms, it wasn't long before I undid my belt and yanked my pants down to my ankles, Bill Clinton style. I relaxed in my shorts like I ran the Oval Office. And why the hell not?

CAUTION! TROUSERS MUST BE PULLED UP AROUND HIPS AND PROPERLY SECURED PRIOR TO DISENGAGING THE PARKING BRAKE.

Whatever works.

Inertia

2007-07-30T11:14:00.000-07:00

I was at the PX today when I heard an explosion, one that was quite obviously a mortar. After it impacted, some automated voice over speakers announced, "Incoming. Incoming." No shit. People scrambled and looked for the concrete bunkers that are few and far between. Meanwhile, I sat almost motionless, completely expressionless, on the bench waiting for the bus. People spazzing out in that self-preservation mode. Apparently they haven't learned this little bit of wisdom (and don't lecture me, I'm using the term loosely and with more than a hint of irony): If you hear the explosion, odds are you're just fine. If you feel it too, might want to think about relocating. The thing about explosions is there IS no before, during, and after. You go straight from ordinary boring what-the-hell-ever STRAIGHT to aftermath. There is no DURING.

And just so you don't get the idea that I'm some unshakable battle-tested war hero, while an explosion won't mean much to me, a powerline that suddenly bursts into sparks in the intersection in front of me will send me into Condition Red, check your pants later. The feeling of a bucket of icewater being splashed in your face, guts squirming, blood shooting through veins like mercury, all over nothing. Sounds pretty assbackwards if you ask me.

The moon outside is an ugly fucker. Scowling. He looks particularly displeased with the denizens of Iraq and that damn CCR song wedges its way into my thought process. I shrug it off though, we'll be done eventually.

A VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) Post sends me care packages now and then. In this one, I got a small handmade card with no name on it, just a drawing of flowers and a colorful sky, the colored pencil politely announcing the elementary school work.

Dear Soldier,
Thank you for protecting our country!
Hopefully I'll be able to do that to!
I'm am very proud of you!
Keep up the good work!

Go to college, kid.

Random assumed images of some classroom with kids' art taped along the walls and a sea of ten year olds with construction paper and scissors with colored plastic handles pop into this weird head of mine. The image people have back home is so different from what it really is here.

It's not like this is Vietnam. Watching Platoon or Black Hawk Down isn't going to give you an inkling of what it's like here. It's indescribable, but I'm going to nail it one of these days. When I'm fully awake and alert and motivated, when my muse grabs me by the balls and throws me facefirst into my keyboard. Remind me sometime.

My books are starting to trickle through the mail system, and perfect timing. This evening alone I've torn three quarters of the way through Hunter S Thompson's Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream.

(Audible THUMP outside) Hmm...incoming or outgoing? By the time you hear it, its over anyway.

We've taken care of business in the area we've been operating in most of this time. Grabbed it by the throat and wrestled it to the ground, spit in its face and rubbed it in the dirt, crushing it into submission. The normal locals, the decent, GOOD people seem to feel quite all right about the state of the area. Hell, apparently our scouts even got the sniper that killed our friend.

That's right, this is the REALITY of things. Forget the romantic idea of how things should have gone down. How I, vowing revenge, should have by stroke of idiot luck been clearing houses routinely, and upon walking up a set of stairs, caught sight of some asshole looking out a window with a Draganov rifle. How that alone should have been all the justification necessary to raise the ol' M4 and put a bullet in each kidney and then go to work on him with a KA-BAR and a Leatherman. And an assortment of wires that can be found in any Iraqi household could double as tourniquet material. Yeah, that would be the Hollywood way to go, wouldn't it? All that rage and all that hate, going nowhere with it, and the scouts brought the guy in. Hell, there probably won't even be enough evidence to prosecute the guy. Or maybe there will be. Where's he going to go, Abu Ghraib? With like-minded people? Probably won't even be sodomized.

Fucked up, I know.

All there is to do is the same song and dance I'm preaching with every post: to just do my job and do what little I can do, and let the days become the weeks and the months. I had an appointment with the combat stress people, when was it, today? Or yesterday? Either way, I didn't bother going. There isn't really much that they can do that I'm not doing anyway, except try to give me drugs.

The way out is through.

Horseshit Sandwich

2007-07-26T00:57:00.001-07:00

I'm still being prostituted from vehicle to vehicle, and every time they put me on a new one, I keep finding all kinds of things wrong with it. I swear I see the maintenance guys more than I see my own platoon.

We pull back into the FOB after yet another mission (and yes, I hit things with the stryker, mainly barriers), and we stopped to eat chow. I'm pulling the truck in to the makeshift parking lot and as I take my final turn, the fucking steering wheel comes off in my hands. This shit only happens in cartoons. I bring the truck to a stop and I just stare at the black ring in my hands. I flip it over, astonished and pissed off, inspecting the back. Finally, I stuffed it back onto the column, the way it had probably been for god knows how long, and no one did anything about it.

After eating, I pulled into the maintenance motor pool, parked the truck, and stood up on top with the steering wheel held up in my hand, shaking it for the guys to see.

Oh, and here's an interesting note for you, a nice little nugget of simmered rage brought to you in full by good ol' Suspect here. You all know what the USO is, right? COURSE YA DO!

Dave Attell is making a stop here to entertain us trooply types. That's pretty cool if you ask me, and I'd love to see the show. I mean think about it, the guy is an unabashed alcoholic. He'd fit right in with this crowd.

Now I've seen plenty of USO videos, and there's always that serious moment when the performers look at everyone in the crowd and thank them for what they're doing, and how they risk their lives everyday. And that's probably what good ol' Dave is going to do. I'll have to find out from someone. Because those of us who are risking our lives everyday AREN'T GOING TO BE AT THE SHOW BECAUSE WE'RE GOING TO BE TOO BUSY RISKING OUR LIVES! But I hope the clerks clap loudly for us. Laugh hard. Feel loved.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not dogging on other military jobs, they're all important and I wouldn't try to downplay anyone (I try to avoid using the POG word because its kind of a prick thing to say), but it's pretty much the truth. Those of us that DO go out and get shot at, blown up, shit on, relieved two hours late, those of us that piss in bottles, we're not around for these fun little events. We're either on mission, eating/doing maintenance, or getting a little sleep before it's time to go do it all again. So these shows that are put on in order to raise our morale, lower our stress level, make us feel better, take the edge off, well looks like they're going to the soldiers who chill in the AC.

And you now what? I don't fuckin blame em. They chose the smart job. This kind of the thing just comes with the territory of being a grunt, so be it.

Fucking BUMMER huh?

Fuel

2007-07-22T21:58:00.002-07:00

No idea how long, but there I am in that driver's seat all over again. Same seat, different vehicle. For god's sake, they almost didn't let me dispatch it because I'm not even licensed to drive that variant. Like it matters. It's all the same once you're sitting there next to the engine, simmering the sweat out of your pores. Doesn't matter much at all.

Yes, there's optimism to be found here though. All I have to do is drive. And once we're set, all I have to do is sleep. I recline the seat, bury my feet underneath the pedals and stretch my legs, prop my head up against my assault pack. I monitor two different radio nets, and the voices overlap and hypnotize me and before I know it, I'm asleep. Conversations spoken from behind me, somewhere in the truck, voices in the headphones, plays into the weird half dreams I have in my weird half sleep.

Someone reports up that there are guys digging. It's after curfew. There is an AK. And a pistol. Someone gets permission to engage.

BOOM. A group of five guys gets their world rocked. The apocalypse descends on them and a 240bravo opens up with automatic 7.62mm fury. Some manage to run or limp away. One tries to climb under a fence. He's cut apart with machine gun fire.

One of my friends dismounts with a few other guys. They find blood trails. Scouring fields, night vision burning green migraine fury into their eyes, his eyes dart from one spatter to another. He keeps walking until he trips over something. That something is a fresh corpse.

My other friend, the one still with the dismount squad I was assigned to until recently, is charged to help with the dirty work. He searches the mottled lifeless bodies. Missing sandals. Blood. Broken bones. A result of the sheer carnage that anyone with an automatic weapon can unleash at any time.

"Suspect, move forward a bit. One of the other vehicles needs to get through to get some body bags from the MEV (medic stryker)."

This friend of mine from the squad I was yanked from ends up grabbing a wheelbarrow. Tossing pieces into the black rubber bags.

Our company has killed people before, but for some reason, this one just seemed so much darker. The cleanup. Hell, even from the first radio transmission when they were sited, there was this undertone of something sinister about the whole thing. I mean come on, no one is innocent here. Nothing is black and white. It's all just different shades and hues of What The Hell. "So it goes..."

It's the same drill, I drive, following our convoy wherever we have to go to do whatever we have to do. I usually keep the radio off when driving, so that I can only hear the internal communication, so I can hear any instructions I need to.

"Ah man..."

"....Shit."

I flick the radio on just in time to hear, "No casualties, just blew some tires. Continuing movement."

The vehicle I had been riding in as a dismount was hit with an IED. I guess it was better hearing it after we already knew that everyone was fine. Close calls are better than bad news I guess. We continued on to our objective, I got the vehicle emplaced, and I went to sleep until it was time to leave. I can get used to this. My own little vacation, in a way.

Regarding the five or however many the final count was that were killed when they were caught trying to screw us, it's weird to think about. They wanted us dead, but they didn't know any of us. Probably didn't want to. To them, they were doing the right thing. And we did our right thing. Nothing is black and white. I'm not sympathizing. It's just the reality of it. Five more stories ended the other night. In the end, that's the only thing that's certain. Not who was in the right, not exactly why things happened, no, the only certainty is that the book closed on five people. "So it goes..."

The Honest Self Evaluation

2007-07-20T10:17:00.000-07:00

Apparently this needs to be addressed. Some people don't read between the lines and take my cynicism and sarcasm for what it is. Some take things I write only for face value.

Here's the deal:

I am perfectly fine. I'm ok, I'm not going batshit crazy. I'll continue to purposefully over-exaggerate my aggressions. That's what I do. Sometimes shit here really catches up with me. Most of the time I'm fine. Sometimes I don't sleep well, other times I sleep just fine.

I almost never remember my dreams.

I've had to wake myself up from a couple of them. A few times I've noticed that in dreams, I don't have any body armor or anything like that on. Just the uniform. And also, at crucial moments, I can't get to my rifle, or get it up fast enough.

I don't like sudden loud noises. Go figure. I don't like crowded areas. I definitely don't like people fucking with my free time. I don't like stupid shit affecting my Get-My-Head-Straight time.

I'm compassionate and disillusioned at the same time. I'm aware that I can't help most things I see, but I still want to. I do the little things because that's all I CAN do.

Sometimes I'm on the verge of completely freaking out. When I spend an hour at the PX looking for ONE book worth reading amongst shelves of grocery store quality cliche tomes of dogshit, my blood boils. Because it should NOT be such an arduous task to find something to stimulate the brain.

Sometimes I have to get away from everyone. More so than I used to. Its not that I'm an asshole and don't want any part of them, its that I NEED time to myself.

I do and always WILL do my job to the best of my ability. And every step of the way, I will joke about it, I will shine a light on the bullshit I see. I will say what I want to get a raised eyebrow and a laugh out of a lieutenant.

And I'm doing everything I can to make sure that I'm perfectly fine once this is all over. I don't want to bring baggage home with me. I went to the combat stress people and had a talk with them. I have an appointment in a few days. I told them that I won't take sleeping pills or anything that will fuck with my ability to work. I may end up on some anti-anxiety medication. So be it.

One thing that won't change is that I'm going to use this site to vent and crack jokes and share what's going on. I'm going to say some fucked up things sometimes, things I probably don't even mean. That's what real people do.

I'm a survivor, it's what I do. I keep on trucking. I will drag myself through this deployment kicking and screaming. But if you're looking for someone who doesn't fume over shit he has to go through, you're reading the wrong prose, pal.

This isn't flag waving. It isn't beaming with pride for our leadership. It isn't HOOOOOOAAAHHHH army reading. This is someone who doesn't fit the ideal bill of SOLDIER, but is here doing it anyway.

And while we're cleaning the closet out, let me say something else. I am completely dissatisfied with my writing. I don't think it's up to par, I think I can do way better, but most of the time I'm too tired or too fucked up in general to do a good job. And that aggravates me. So maybe you, the reader, has improvements to look forward to.

That aside, a few more things.

I will endlessly joke about how I'm going to be OUTTA this bitch (the army) when my date is up. Its true, I'm not staying in. What's implied and not said aloud is that I'm fulfilling my commitment willingly. I'm still going to do what I swore I would do. But when it's over, I'm GONE. I put my life on hold.

I didn't enlist for myself. I did it because your sons were coming here anyway, regardless of what my opinions are.

So expect me to continue mission as always, with smartass commentary the entire way. It's who I am. Expect it to go on until the end. Until the day you reach that final post and say to yourself, "Aw man, what now?"

And you follow the link on the last line to TheUnlikelyFratboy.

2007-07-20T02:15:00.000-07:00

Suspect built the wall.

A rickety temporary haven constructed of selected indifference, disinterest in socialization, and refusal to take part in the situation when not required to. Also used is a bunk bed, two wall lockers, and a camouflaged poncho hung up to segregate him from the rest of the world.

Suspect took a seat from within the comfort of The Wall and began fervently ordering books online, not slowing down as the subtotal climbed past the one hundred dollar mark. He blocked out the sounds of his comrades talking and playing video games and replaced them with noise courtesy of Nine Inch Nails.

Suspect brings The Wall with him when he steps outside to smoke. Leaving open a narrow window for basic communication, he can enjoy vacationing in his head while still being able to provide simple and altogether unsatisfactory answers.

Suspect has the majority of a day off and plans to maximize that. Suspect is behind his wall of comfort and indifference, sitting in a proverbial lounge chair with proverbial blinders and ear plugs. Piss off, world.

State of the Suspect Address 2.0

2007-07-19T10:29:00.000-07:00

"Suspect, you look like a bag of ass today."

"Damn, you look really tired, man."

"You all right?"

"Heard your outburst in the tent. You all right man?"

Personally, in retrospect, I liked the outburst. I thought it was masterfully wordsmithed and profanely articulated. The scenario was thus:

I'd been informed that in the very near future, I would be taken from my current squad and put in the driver's seat of a different vehicle. Which is a bummer of course. Pile on sleep deprivation, endless mission cycles, the inability to use superhuman powers to cure the disease that is the state of this country, and a slew of other boo-hoos.

"Hey Suspect, Sgt Supply Dude needs you to go to the TOC and fill out a paper with all your uniform sizes."

This, my dear friends, is the straw that shattered the camel's back and forced its internal organs outward in fecal sprays of rage. Allow me to utilize my caps lock feature.

"WHAT THE FUCK? YOU GOTTA BE SHITTING ME! THE SAME GODDAMN SHEET WE FILL OUT EVERY FUCKING MONTH SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME, AND THEY WANT IT DONE AGAIN?! EAT THE PEANUTS OUT OF MY SHIT! GEE, WHAT ARE THE FUCKING ODDS OF MY UNIFORM SIZE MAGICALLY CHANGING, DESPITE ALL PREVIOUS FUCKING TRENDS?! I'M NOT OPRAH FUCKING WINFREY, IT'S THE SAME GODDAMN ANSWERS THAT IT WAS TWO WEEKS AGO, TWO MONTHS AGO, TWO GODDAMN YEARS AGO! FUCK THAT, I'M NOT GOING DOWN THERE. FUCK THAT AND FUCK YOU. No, no, don't say anything, don't respond, shut up, fuck you. Ah ah! Shut up, fuck you."

I ended up going down and filling the paper out anyway.

A couple hours ago, I was at the motor pool PMCSing the stryker I'll be driving. There's a rifle range not too far away, and the first shot I heard made me jump. I found it very ironic. I can be out in sector, somewhere in the city, and hear gunfire and not even blink, not really even care. But on the FOB, completely different story. It was driving me crazy, had me all sorts of uptight.

Before you finish reading, let me just warn you that yes, this will only be yet another mediocre post. I'm completely ok with that too.

I have come to a realization or two. For one, I have achieved my goal as far as rank goes. I made Specialist earlier this year. Cool. I'm not going to stay in, so there's no point in me trying to get promoted to Sergeant. So being that this is a temporary gig for me, why take the menial parts so seriously?

"As long as the repercussions of my actions don't negatively affect me after I Echo-Tango-Suitcase on out of here, then it's totally worth it." -Me.

For those unfortunate souls out there who don't know, it's very liberating to honestly be able to say, "Yeah, I really don't give a shit at all." Wait til we get back to the states. Just wait and see me then. God help the new soldiers that meet me. Pray they don't take after me.

Now, this all may sound like a pretty bogus enterprise, and altogether foolish, but honestly, that's ok with me. It's not that I intend to cause trouble or anything stupid like that, I just no longer agree to play along completely. I will give these guys stories.

Because when it's all said and done, that's really all that matters.