The Last Long Run

Well our time here in Iraq is winding down, thus we’re facing the last of our missions. Last night we finished up our last long run up to Balaad, our farthest trip of all missions we do. I would say that it was bittersweet, but who am I kidding, it was mostly just frickin’ sweet. The way up was the standard trip (see blog entry #3 “Hollywood Ruined It”) featuring vast hours of nothing, plenty of rip-it energy drinks, and the occasional inside joke made by one of our crew members. There was talk of a legendary swimming pool on the base at Balaad where we were going, but I merely shrugged it off as a rumor, or at best, a crummy plastic and PVC pipe bowl with water in it.

After arriving at Balaad with no incidents, I showered, and passed out. We all awoke at around 4 pm local time and everyone started getting ready to go to this pool that I have heard so much about. I figure that since I had nothing else better to do, and everyone seemed so excited about it how bad could it be? So we all pile into an MRAP and drive off to go swimming in a pool in Iraq. On our way there, we ran over about 2 dozen traffic cones, 2 median strips, and nearly got pulled over by the base police. Yes folks, there are people whose sole purpose in Iraq is to give other soldiers speeding and traffic tickets while they drive on a base, and you think your local cops can be annoying. After evading the police we park the MRAP and climb out as if we were a bunch of Shriner clowns at a Christmas parade. We begin walking and then I suddenly see actual diving boards, and I don’t mean like the Salem Racquet and swim club diving boards. This is an 8, 16, and 24 foot diving platform for like, Olympic divers. I knew right then all my pre-concieved notions would be wrong.

A friendly neighborhood Ugandan security guard with a plastic AK-47 checked my ID, gave me a towel and ushered me into a locker room. I took off my running shoes and then ventured through a door. I’m still convinced it was a wormhole to America. On the other side was a huge, and I mean HUGE in ground legit swimming pool with volleyball nets down the middle, and basketball hoops on the sides. A massive 14 foot deep diving well with 8, 16, and 24 foot diving platforms. Beach music was playing, people were grilling, tanning, playing water volleyball, making fools out of themselves on the diving platforms, and I was suddenly at home. We played volleyball and basketball in the pool, me being me I lost at both, but who cares. I was at a pool in Iraq for pete’s sake, what more could I ask for? We dove, we swam, we acted like human beings, and all was well…until some jerk-bag helicopter pilot decide to buzz the pool, and remind all of us we were still in a warzone. Like all good things it had to come to an end, and we dried off, got dressed, and went on to dinner and prepping the trucks for the trip home.

Once in the staging lanes waiting to leave the base I pulled out my bagpipes to play a little bit like I always did. This time though I drew a different audience. A driver for Kellogg, Brown, and Root, the civilian company that owns and operates the supply trucks we escort, approached me and struck up a conversation, from the first word from his mouth I knew this would be good. His name was “Jim” from Dunvegan, Scotland, and used to be in a fairly famous pipe band 15 years ago. He hadn’t touched a set of pipes in years so we decided to jam a little bit, I’d play then he’d play and so on and so forth. Even though he hadn’t picked up a set of pipes in15 years I could tell that in his prime he was incredible. After he was tired out we talked shop for a bit, how we started playing, who taught us, what bands and gigs we had played in. He never dreamed he’d find a fellow piper, especially an American soldier in Iraq, and I can’t say I don’t blame him. I could tell giving him the first opportunity in years to be able to play again totally made his night, and by the end he was already talking about buying a new set and picking it up again. I can only hope that we’ll meet again under more peaceful and relaxing circumstances. After our evening swim, and bagpipe concert we said our prayer, got dressed to kill (quite literally in fact) and loaded up the trucks. Little did I know I was about to experience one of the most fascinating nights of my tour in Iraq.

Before we even had left Tallil, our intelligence section had told us about a Muslim holiday called “Death of the 7th Imam” to quote Juan Diaz (see Blog Entry#2 “The Cosmic Power of Rain Turtles”) this 7th Imam was apparently “one big dick bastard” Intel had warned that during the day there would be crowds int eh thousands around our routes celebrating this martyred 7th Imam. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Islam, this 7th Imam guy was a buddy with the Umayyad dynasty, which had apparently pissed off the Abbasid Dynasty so the Abbasid Dynasty whacked him in the vicinity of the now modern day Alternate Supply Route Vernon. I tried to find if there was any other thing that would make this a big deal…but that’s it. Once group killed some guy from another, s the Iraqis have a party about it. We had been told that there should be minor civilian pedestrian and vehicular traffic through the night, but nothing major. The intel shop had once again failed.("military intelligence" is agreed upon to be one of the world's largest oxymorons)

So we’re driving down ASR Vernon at around 1:30 am (keep this time in mind through the rest of the story, 1:30 AM!!)till we get to this line of ricks blocking the street with some people milling about, we decide to cross to the other lane and keep going. I looked to my right at a group of 5 or so people walking, then I turned my head back to see thousands of people in front of me. There were people sitting by the road, walking in the road, on bikes, 25 people on top of and inside mini vans, there were Christmas lights, paintings of the 7th Imam, a bunch of Jundi music, and even, I swear to you, a karaoke machine with Iraqis singing. No bacon, no drinking, but when it comes to martyred Imams, these guys know how to party. As the crowns got thicker it started to get more interesting, the Iraqi Police helped with crowd control as I tried to not run anyone over. The gunners were yelling at people, throwing chem-lights to kids and adults who wanted to rave (unfortunately Ke$ha was not to make an appearance this time, see last blog entry). I felt like I was on national geographic, the lights, the music, the women in burquas, it was insane. Suddenly Juan Diaz hurled a chem.-light at a group of women and kids, time slowed down as the poor old woman turned to face the warm, inviting chemical orange glow, screamed, and got hit in the face with a chem.-light. She then screamed out some sort of heathen jundi curse on poor Juan as the men around her got really, really angry. It was time to go. We finally pushed through the throng of people and everyone made it out ok. I was so enthralled by the exotic display of Middle Eastern culture I didn’t realize how bad that could have gotten till after the mission was over. If Juan had hit the wrong woman, or we ran over a kid, or someone shot off a round it could have been a riot in less than 10 seconds, with thousands of Iraqis vs. 18 American soldiers, and 40 American, British, and Canadian truck drivers. Luckily we just drove through, oppressed some locals as usual, and made it home without anymore incident. My last trip through Baghdad was one I surely will never forget.

Kilts, Ke$ha, and the Best Mission Ever.

So there I was at camp Taji, Iraq getting the truck ready for the return trip, escorting a bunch of trucks back to our FOB. Missions have become routine, and we’re all getting a little tired of this job (myself included) so I took it upon myself to mix it up and make our lives a little more interesting. I dug through my rucksack to find an article of clothing that I had been saving for this very occasion. An olive green, cotton canvas kilt, it even had cargo pockets. Changing into a kilt in a combat loaded MRAP is quite a challenge, but after a minute I finally had it on. Cameras came out, laughs were had and someone actually had the nerve to ask if I was wearing it on the way back. Who brings a kilt to war and doesn’t wear it? Not this guy. We load up, and move out. I was suddenly really scared after realizing I going into combat with a kilt on, how embarrassing would it be to get wounded or killed in a kilt?

After leaving the gate and getting the mission jitters out of the way I was suddenly on cloud nine. This was probably the most comfortable I’ve been the entire deployment, like seriously guys I would highly, HIGHLY recommend it next time you’re on a 9 hour road trip. www.utilikilts.com check it out. Seriously. So we drove all night till our MRAP is low on fuel, and we needed to “Splash” which means we take our 5 gallon fuel cans lashed to the MRAP and pour them into the tank while we’re pulled on the side of the road, in Indian country. This was usually my favorite part of these missions, for 15 minutes I got to feel like I’m actually an infantryman rather than a truck driver. I got to walk around, outside, pull security with my rifle, it’s really pretty cool. SO the truck rolls to a stop, I opened my door and leaped on onto the road with my kilt on, this scene needed one thing to go from epic, to legendary status and that was 9.5 inches of cold American steel affixed onto my rifle’s muzzle. To complete the ensemble I drew and fixed my bayonet, and menacingly stared at the passing Iraqi drivers, who had absolutely no idea what was going on, and why an American kid was wearing a skirt, and pointing a rifle with a knife on it at them. After the truck was re-fueled, some facebook pictures were taken, and enough Iraqis were oppressed with a Gaelic vengance, we loaded up and drove on.

That alone made it the best mission ever but it actually got better. “how is this possible?” you may ask, I myself wondered the same thing until the dance party unfolded.

On the horizon we saw this huge black cloud of smoke. We had no idea what it’s deal was, but as we got closer we could see flames, like A LOT of flames. It turned out a fuel tanker had wrecked and caught on fire in the middle of the road and now we had to go around it. My gunner could feel the heat from it even though we were pretty far away. On the other side of the wreck traffic was stacked up for quite some time. It was 8 am, we hadn’t slept in a long time, we were bored, and then our favorite pop artist, Ke$ha, came on the iPod. We looked to truck one and saw their gunner, Juan Diaz (see “the cosmic power of rain turtles” post) breaking it down in the turret like he was at Radford University on a Saturday night. There was only one thing we could do, and that’s dance our faces off. We made total fools out of ourselves as we were passing the Iraqi traffic. We danced like there was no tomorrow, for a brief moment we were at a Frat party in Blacksburg, Harrisonburg, or Charlottesville, not covered in Kevlar in a desert. As my gunner was doing "the reject" in the turret, we started to notice something we never saw coming. The people in their cars were dancing too, every car we passed; the passengers started dancing in their cars as they were stuck in traffic. The rest of the convoy said that when they passed the cars, even after we were a half mile ahead they were still dancing, which then made our crews dance, until there was one big mile long dance party on the Iraqi highway. Ke$ha, if you’re somehow reading this, know that for a brief moment, your music stopped a war, and started a party.

"FALL IN!"

Since the Iraq war is now a rather low intensity conflict, with very little actual war happening, the Army, rather than leave the country, feels the need to find things for it’s soldiers to do instead of the usual sitting around and doing nothing, making lady GaGa music videos, and going to the gym 12 hours a day. To occupy time the Army occasionally does training to keep it’s soldiers in shape and proficient at their jobs. Since we’re a light infantry unit, our main job is (supposed to be) shooting things, and walking places. Since it’s too hot to walk, and let’s face it, no one really wants to do that, the command decided that we were due for a range day here at Tallil. The wonderful thing about the desert is that nothing lives there. Southern Iraq basically looks exactly like the deserts in the movies, flat, dry, hot, and lifeless, except there’s the occasional random berm or road to nowhere. Well the command felt the need to verify that outside the gate was in fact a wide open desert with no one living in it so we could go shoot. This meant that a “leader’s recon” of the site had to take place. Now usually the term “Leaders Recon” is used to denote the hours before an attack where a small group of the leadership sneaks up closer to the objective to see what exactly they’re attacking. So when I was told that my truck was being chose for a “leader’s recon” I was expecting that we’d be thrown into an attack soon, in reality I was driving 20 minutes outside the gate into Indian country to make sure that the desert is in fact flat, lifeless, and hot. Why was my truck picked? Well to quote a confidential source “yeah, we picked your truck because you guys are dependable, and won’t tell the CO to go screw himself.”

That’s right ladies and gentlemen, the reward for being a dependable, good soldier in the army is getting put of crummy details.

So we all load up in 3 trucks to go make sure the desert is flat and lifeless. We drive for like 20-25 minutes till we’re definitely in the middle of nowhere, at a stretch of desert with a few random berms, a narrow road that appears to go to nowhere and no targets whatsoever. The CO said we were on the range, and told all officers and NCOs to get out and meet on him while the junior enlisted pull security to make sure they don’t get jumped, sniped, mortared, etc. What unfolded looked like a scene from a terrible war movie. We had 1 captain, 2 lieutenants, 1 first sergeant, 2 staff sergeants, and 3 sergeants all huddled in a mass about the size of a practice target on a mortar range, silhouetted against the skyline on top of a berm looking like a shooting gallery for a sniper. My driver and I, while pulling security to make sure that nothing happened to our fearless band of leaders realized pulling security was boring and then opted to turn our leader’s recon into a facebook picture photo shoot. In our defense we still remained vigilant while taking pictures, and always left someone up in the machine gun turret. After a few minutes of modeling my new bayonet, and the leadership discussing how the range would work we piled back in the trucks and headed back to base.

A few days later the actual range day kicked off. The whole company loaded up into our trucks and we all convoyed out there to the middle of the desert. Now there’s a few things that you don’t do in a war zone, bunching together, silhouetting yourself, standing at attention, and saluting. The reason for this is that big bunches of people get attacked with artillery and mortars, people who are silhouetted against the sky get shot, people standing at attention have zero situational awareness, and if you salute someone, you’re basically telling any sniper that “Hey Mr. Sniper, this guy is an officer, if you shoot him in the face, we won’t have anyone in charge.” So where was I? oh yeah, so we get out of the trucks, stand around, wait for instructions on how this range will work until we hear the two words no soldier should ever hear when he’s outside the wire, in full battle gear, in a combat zone.

“Alright guys, FALL IN!”

Wait…what? Like seriously? We’re really doing this? I mean, this company has done a lot of really dumb, and silly things, but have a formation in a warzone? Like for realz guys? So like soldiers, we all form up into our squads and sections, and then go to attention. Eyes forward, chest out, standing tall. The CO comes up, the 1st Sergeant salutes, the CO salutes back, they call up people to get promoted. They promote some guys, more saluting, more standing at attention, more being in a big block of people in the open, then after we finish getting talked at, we finally fall out and start the range day. I seriously stood in a formation, not only in a combat zone, but outside the wire, in a place where people want to kill you. I mean, we all honestly deserved getting blown up for being that stupid. Though someone else brought up another point, if this country is at the point we can stand in a formation, salute each other, and in general, be idiots outside our protected bases, why do we even need to be here anymore? Just food for thought.

“Uh…I’m gonna get out of the turret”

The Iraq war has changed many things about the army especially equipment. The Improvised explosive device or IED has been the #1 killer of Americans since the war began. To combat this threat the Army has tried fielding numerous modifications to existing vehicles and new vehicles period to protect its expensive night vision goggles, weapons, radios, oh yeah, and soldiers if possible. Soldiers are cheap, but those Infrared laser sights? Outrageously expensive. So one vehicle expressly designed to protect the army’s sensitive items and it’s crew is the MAXX PRO Mine resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) truck. The MAXX-PRO is basically a dump truck chassis with like 30,000 lbs of extra armor strapped onto it. Being 13 feet tall, and 13 feet wide, with a majority of it’s weight being in the top 2/3rds of the vehicle. This idiotic distribution of weight caused for a very unstable vehicle, especially if it’s not on an American quality highway. Iraq tends to lack those, especially after we blew the bejeezus out of this country. The MAXX-PRO has an alarming tendency to rollover, generally killing it’s crew. In fact, there’s been months in Iraq more guys have died in MRAP accidents than actual combat. To try to nullify rollover casualties the army began a series of training on how to react to vehicle rollover, even using an MRAP mock up that uses hydraulics, sort of like a carnival ride (of doom) to physically rollover and force the crew to react.

So there I was balls deep in a mission, driving on COB Adder to the gate to leave for a road trip full of oppressing the locals, energy drink consumption, and iPod jam sessions. The main road was under construction so the convoy was forced to drive on a temporary dirt road beside the pavement. Now there was a rather soft shoulder and deep ditch to my right. The classic MRAP rollover scenario was about to unfold, almost. So we’re driving about 3 mph (the army isn’t big on getting places in a timely manner, hence why we’ve been at war for 9 years.) Suddenly the truck began to list to the right side and I could tell something was afoot. Before I realized that the shoulder of the road was crumbling under the 52,000 pounds of truck sitting on it, we were at at least a 30 degree angle (30 degrees is the threshold for rollover in these trucks.) After tilting to the right we slid into the ditch. We stopped moving at teetered at that angle for a few seconds, I looked at Sgt H, my truck commander who calmly said “take it slow” I heard my gunner Matt who said “Uh…I’m gonna get down from the turret” to which I replied “yeah…you should probably do that” he calmly got down and laid in the floor holding onto whatever he could, including our company 1st Sergeant who sat there in stone cold silence. We were all remarkably calm, then our Convoy Commander started flipping out over the Radio net, yelling “ALL STOP ALL STOP TRUCK 2 YOU’RE ABOUT TO ROLL!!!! (insert string of expletives here)” I inched the wheel to the right, and let the truck slide into the ditch, righting itself to a normal position. We all looked at each other and started laughing hysterically, realizing we should probably all be dead. A few words of thanks were exchanged between us and God, the only thing that probably kept us alive, we backed out of the ditch and drove on.

When we stopped at a FOB for dinner like all soldiers do, stories were exchanged over the table. Apparently we were the calmest people in the whole convoy during the incident. Most of the guys thought we were totally going to buy the farm, Luckily thanks to a higher power, our truck crew and our fearless First Sergeant lived to “fight” another day.

Of course this would happen to me.

So before we left Camp Shelby, Mississippi for Iraq our “Leadership” decided that we could go on a 4 day pass. After 2 months of dealing with the idiocy of Camp Shelby a nice dose of normal civilian life was more than inviting. Unlike a few of my companions who opted to go to New Orleans and rack up a 12,000 dollar tab of debauchery, I decided to save money, stay out of trouble and just go home. Overall it was probably the best 4 days I could have had. I did everything I had set out to do. I got to visit VMI, I got to dress up and go out with my friends, spend some one on one time with my closest friends, and of course quality time with the family, including one last Sunday service at Church of the Holy Spirit.
Before the service started I went up to our Pastor, Quigg Lawrence, to say hey, and he was talking to another guy. Once Quigg saw me he introduced me to the man we has talking to. It turned out that he had been in the first Iraq war, Operation Desert Storm. After discussing the finer points of living in this miserable country, and fighting the heathen savages of Babylon we went our separate ways for the service.
At the end of the service, after the Holy Communion and before the benediction and passing the peace (it’s an Anglican thing) Quigg motioned me to come to the front of the sanctuary by the altar to be prayed over before I set off for vacation, erm, I mean “battle” in Iraq. He asked anyone close to me to come up and pray with us and to my surprise the man I had met before the service came up and grabbed the mike to pray over me. I was truly touched at this gesture of a fellow soldier, who merely an hour ago I never knew, imploring the almighty to protect me in combat. At the conclusion of the prayer pastor Quigg gave the benediction and we began to depart the sanctuary. On my way out my new friend gave me a business card and told me to drop him a line once I arrived in Iraq, he’d love to hear how things are going over there. I put the card in my pocket shook his hand and told him I’d see him in January.
Once I arrived at the car I told my family how nice the guy was, and how he even gave me his card so I could drop him an E-mail so he could keep in touch. I took the card out of my pocket and finally read it.

Family Choice.
Funerals & Cremations
www.familychoicefunerals.com

Name
Phone
E-mail
Business address.

I Heart Irony.

Hollywood Ruined it.

Americans have always had a fondness for movies. Every year billions of dollars get spent and made in the film business. Like every American kid I grew up watching Tom Hanks save Private Ryan, Mel Gibson lay waste to the English (twice in fact), Robert Duval conducting air assault missions on Viet Cong villages to the operatic sound of “Ride of the Valkyries.” I saw Ewan MacGregor, Eric Bana, and numerous other stars storm the city of Mogadishu, and a cast of no names fight the Nazis from Normandy, to Holland, to Bastogne, and finally Germany. Just like many girls, who’s standard for men has been put hopelessly high by Disney and Nicholas Sparks, my expectations for my first combat mission were about on the level of Omaha Beach…well maybe not that insane, but I at least though I’d see someone shoot at something.

All I saw was trash, mud shacks, and an amazingly sucky country.

War is boring. Not like a weekend in Salem with nothing going on boring, more like “oh my gosh if no one shoots at us soon I’m going to lose my mind” boring. The fact that we do these convoys all through the night doesn’t help the situation. If you want to experience Iraq, go put on a bicycle helmet get in the biggest, heaviest, most awkward vehicle you can find, drive from Roanoke, to Harrisonburg, to Philidelphia, Pa all through the night. Sleep half the day, then the next night drive back. Welcome to my job.

To ease the boredom we found things to do. We shot pen flares at each other, and hit our own vehicle with star cluster rounds from our m203 grenade launcher, threw things at the Iraqi police checkpoint, threw phosphorescent chemlight juice at each other and the vehicles. We answered life’s most challenging questions such as “who is hotter, Jessica Alba, or Jessica Biel?” I heard there may have been a hood-surfing incident but that is just rumor and speculation. A certain gunner almost got a phone number from a local national while we were blocking traffic from going on a one lane bridge…too bad it was a male local national. I may or may not have seen a gun truck attempt to play chicken with an Iraqi tractor trailer. Your tax dollars at work.

The Counter IED training they gave us at Camp Shelby was a joke. EVERYTHING out there looks like an IED (improvised explosive device, basically a roadside bomb that has been the #1 killer of soldiers in Iraq.) The whole country is covered in trash, the roads are full of potholes, not to mention it’s dark so you can’t see anything more than 10 meters or so off the road. Saying I wasn’t ever nervous or scared would be a lie, there were a few mad sketch neighborhoods we drove through… luckily it was around 2 am, so you’d have to be one dedicated heathen savage to sit that long and wait to shoot at or blow up a convoy.

So thus begins the longest 10 months of my life. The most frustrating part is that these missions interrupt my workout schedule, they ALWAYS fall on salsa dancing night at the club, and I don’t get internet while we’re away from our base, but as they say, war is hell.

The Cosmic Power of Rain Turtles

For starters, this is my first post from actual Iraq. That ma make this sounds more exciting and dangerous. but in reality I feel like I'm in a sandy version of Salem, Va

Weather is an aspect of military life that can sap the soul from soldiers, and sink the morale of men. In particular, rain and other precipitation is an especially hated weather phenomenon. Being wet, especially in conjunction with being cold not only makes you miserable, but can and will kill you. As an infantry unit, we spend a majority of our lives outside in the elements walking, waiting, walking some more, waiting again, shooting something, then walking back. Soldiers are also a very superstitious bunch. Bad juju, karma, voodoo, and just plain luck is very real to some soldiers and has a powerful effect on the rifleman’s psyche. Since both weather and superstition play a large role in the life of a soldier, their intersection of course is a very touchy subject.

The practice of drawing “Rain Turtles” is reputed to have been started by the Navajo Indians. The Navajo lived in a desert, thus water was hard to come by. When the rivers, streams and wells were dried up they would resort to magic and superstition to bring the rain. Thus the practice of drawing a “rain turtle” began. In order for the juju voodoo to work correctly one must draw the rain turtle, then spit in it to bring on the rain. Kneeling and bowing to the rain turtle while saying magic words is optional and highly encouraged, but it is largely METT-TC dependent. The amount of rain is beyond the artist’s control.

Every unit has that one crazy guy, the one dude who is totally off the wall nuts. That guy in C Company is Juan Diaz (this name is not his actual name, it’s a nickname derived from a mix-up of social security numbers that is still being cleared up, while rather hilarious, is another story for another day.) Juan has come into the habit of drawing rain turtles every now and them to ratchet up the suck factor of our training and operations. Now, most educated people would assume that ancient Indian magic carries no weight in this bright new scientific world we live in. If only they were correct. Without fail every time Juan has drawn his rain turtle and spat in it, rain has come. The quantity varies from a light sprinkle to “oh my God I’m about to drown standing up in this field.”

Soon after the first time Juan ruined our day at Camp Shelby in Mississippi, an earthquake occurred in Haiti causing much hardship for the beleaguered island nation. At the time we never realized the possibility of a connection. A week later Juan drew another rain turtle, spat in it, and brought a downpour while we were spending 18 hours on a machine gun range. 3 days later, there was an earthquake in Chile. We realized the Haiti quake came soon after the first Camp Shelby rain turtle, just like this one. We shrugged it off as coincidence. A third turtle was drawn a few days later and rain came a few hours after the saliva hit the turtle. A few days later there was an earthquake in Turkey. The assumption of coincidence was over. Juan had clearly made a deal with the angered spirits of the ancient Navajo, and now possessed powers to control weather and catastrophe. We then began to investigate. Juan had drawn numerous rain turtles at Ft. Pickett during our long weekend drills in the field; those only caused rain locally and no global catastrophe. We figured that since Camp Shelby is clearly a cursed place (no like seriously…have you been there? I think we tried to trade it for Mogadishu with Somalia, but their reply was “the Mog for Shelby? oh HELL no!!!”) Due to its cursed nature Camp Shelby was clearly the culprit for the increased power of this Indian voodoo. We were confident in this hypothesis until we arrived in Kuwait. One day at a range we drew a rain turtle and 6 of us spat in it to see if the Indian juju would work in a foreign desert. It started to sprinkle.

In the Kuwaiti desert.

No seriously.

We made it rain in the desert.

6 days later. Earthquake in the Philippines.

The practice of drawing rain turtles to taunt the Navajo spirits has been banned by C Company. Juan Diaz apologizes for any hardship he and his Indian juju may have caused citizens of the world

Happy Birthday Sir!

Camp Shelby is a place that drives the mind mad, and saps the soul of all happiness and motivation. It’s probably the worst place imaginable to prepare for combat against merciless heathen savages due to the depression, madness, and frustration it causes. Luckily, at the end of our 2 months of “training” the command found it in their black hearts to allow us off post for a few hours a night to go out on the town. What we thought was our last full night at Camp Shelby a number of us decided to have one steak dinner at Logan’s Roadhouse. We jauntily strolled to the battalion command post to sign out for our night on the town. As soon as I finished penning my signature I could feel the night would be chock full of shenanigans, tom foolery, and faith based japery on a grand scale. For starters, the people waiting on the bus with us were absolutely sloshed, which is totally against regulations, but provided us with some entertainment while we waited for the bus that ended up being 45 minutes late, almost forcing us to commandeer (violently if necessary, nothing was taking this steak away from us) a van. In the nick of time our transport arrived before any abuse of taxpayer funded government property could take place. Oh well, maybe next time. Our driver seemed to be recently retired form formula one racing. In case you were not aware, school buses can in fact take turns at 70 mph. He ran red lights, almost rolled us over, and possibly challenged a group of local yokels to a drag race down Main Street. Emerging from the bus with a renewed sense of our mortality, we realized we were in the wrong place. He dropped us off at Wal-Mart, and we weren’t really sure where we were. One of the groups member’s and a Don in the E-4 mafia (see last post) harassed a local about our location, once we were sure of our whereabouts we continued on.
We saw the Logan’s sign, and we began our trek down a busy stretch of Hattiesburg. After jaywalking in front of a cop we arrived at our sought after destination. Once inside, the games began. Usually soldiers are capable of acting like normal human being in small groups, but once you pass that threshold we become a band of raucous, cantankerous, obnoxious heathens. This Threshold exists at about 6 people. We had 10. Do. The. Math.
The main event began when a certain E-4 (go figure) and an unnamed sergeant decided it was our platoon leader’s birthday (we’ll call him “LT Marky Mark”), and this birthday needed to be celebrated before we went off to fight the heathen savages of Babylon. Now I’m usually not one for hassling the Hoff, but embarrassing the High Chancellor (his given title) in front of the whole restaurant was something I couldn’t, in good conscience, turn down. So I did the deed. I told our waiter, pointed out LT Marky Mark and he promised to make the lieutenant’s big day a memorable one.
We got our food after a while, and soon I could see the Logan’s staff massing for their assault on LT Marky Mark’s dignity. The asked him to come with them, to the center of the dining area, stand on a chair, and they game a whole speech about LT Marky mark, and how it was his birthday. They asked him to sing and dance, unfortunately it was turned down, we offered to sing and dance for him, but the staff was not so keen on the idea. They made the whole place cheer him and congratulate him on making it to 28. Needless to say Marky Mark was thoroughly embarrassed, and as he walked back to our table in shame. We all then proposed to toast to the LT’s successful year, and wished him luck in making it to see 29. His real birthday is in July.
The large table in front of us then ‘accidentally’ let it slip that it was someone’s 16th birthday. Game. Frickin. On. Emily, the poor girl was forced to suffer the entire restaurant, meaning mostly us, wishing here the happiest of birthdays in song, with the kitchen staff even offering birthday spanking? (yeah, junk started to get a little weird…) we tried to volunteer the LT for the spanking, but he threatened my life, and since the company needs a piper we decided, after much deliberation, that sacrificing bagpipes for the LT getting spanked by a 350 lb black man was not worth it. The poor girl rejected the kitchen staff’s offer and agreed to a round of singing happy birthday, the boys from company C were all happy to oblige. The events of the night ended when we called our company van to come pick us up, a waitress came up and asked us to give a small piece of folded paper to Sgt H. Inside was a phone number from “Venus” with a winking smiley face.
We faced certain doom on a crazed bus ride, harassed the local population, broke local laws in front of Hattiesburg’s finest, embarrassed our platoon leader, gave a girl a memorable sweet 16, interrupted just about everyone’s meal, and a lucky sergeant got some digits. I declared the night a resounding success, as we all happily walked back to our barracks, content with our last night in civilization.

The E-4 mafia strikes again..

For those of you who have been in the military, I have no doubt you’re well aware of the existence of a group of junior enlisted men, with the rank of Specialist, Corporal, Senior Airman, or petty officer 3rd class that roll around at least 4 deep and call themselves the “E-4 Mafia.” This group, though looking small, dumb, and inexperienced in fact wields great power in the units of the American military. It is capable of causing unit, branch, and even national incidents, ending jobs, and changing army policy. C company’s E-4 mafia is one of the more coherent, organized, and intelligent as far as E-4 mafias go. We’ve brought to the attention of our superiors numerous problems before, such as NCO’s abusing their rank, poor decisions on the part of our leadership, and lately, fixing supply issues by causing a national incident.

For the past year or two the US Army has been issuing a set of body armor called the IOTV (improved outer tactical vest) to its soldiers. It is far better all around than the older set, the IBA (Interceptor Body Armor.) All troops deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan have been getting issued the IOTV, until C Co. came to get our armor issued. When everyone was getting sized and issued their armor, numerous members of the company were informed that anyone wearing a large vest would not get their armor right away due to it being out of stock, they would be shipped in a few weeks. Luckily I wear a medium vest, so I was good to go. Numerous E-4’s in the unit…not so lucky. These men nodded and begrudgingly accepted the older, heavier, less effective IBA to wear while training for the next few weeks.

A few weeks went by. No vests. People began to ask questions that were graciously answered with “they’ll get here before you leave Shelby”. When our time at Shelby was coming to a close, again people asked about their vests, this time the answer was “you’ll get them in Kuwait” this was sketchy, and mildly concerning seeing “Kuwait” is basically a black hole that consumes all supplies in it’s vast depots and CONEX containers getting buried in the epic sandstorms (seen the mummy? Yeah. That junk actually happens.) We all began to worry, then, 2 weeks before our departure from Shelby finally someone asked when the vests would get in. They weren’t coming; the guys with the IBAs had to deal with it. The next day we saw a group of soldiers from the Brigade Support Battalion (cooks, mechanics, clerks, etc) wearing IOTVs, they would never leave the wire, never be shot at or blown up like us, yet they still got the new armor, and not all our guys did. That tore it.

There are a few things all soldiers going to war deserve, once is leadership he can trust to get the job done and bring him home alive. This cannot really be controlled, because dirt bags graduate OCS, ROTC, BNCOC, and every other army course every day. The second is no soldier should deploy with substandard equipment, this can be helped. The E-4 mafia sprung into action. Phone calls were made to local delegates from the Virginia House of Delegates, letters were written to senators, congressmen, and the governor. The next day Phil got a text from his mom. General Newman, the guy in charge of all Virginia National Guard forces, had personally called his parents to tell them their son would have the finest armor they could buy well before we entered a warzone. We didn’t even call General Newman. The governor must have gone to his office and asked what the heck was going on.

The vests arrived 48 hours later.

I Love democracy.