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.