A Choice to be Made

Looking back to the dimly lit basement we sat in - drinks in hand - remembering the conversation is easy. We spoke of things related to nothing, caught up on the times in such a manner as to catch up on only ourselves – we commented upon things past and present. My drink, some previously unknown beer, swirled in the chalice it came in until the choice was made. It slid past my tongue, thick with an abundance of words, and landed deep in my stomach.

The conversation drifted onward, and even in my memory the room then drenched in wood colors seems lit by a red hue as if to apply ominous and foreboding tone. As if to raise a marked flag on that spot and force my mind to recall it at whim.

The words were alive with her tone; they seemed to hint that by elevating themselves in pitch and intonation, they would ring more truth. My muscles found my head and forced it to nod in agreement; they forced it to nod an acceptance. What she was said wasn’t new to me, it had been heard before but was so to say, the camel’s back that broke my straw. My ideas, repeated, and then dashed atop one another until forced into place where their own weight was sufficient. Sufficient to crush themselves.

She said only that the freedom to do anything - that was my freedom. My choices were almost unlimited, and she hinted that they would be squandered. Again, my head found itself motioning to agree, the freedom given to myself through servitude and training did allow for seemingly unbounded freedom. Yet my desire was, and remains, unimpressed with options.

The only choice wanted then was the choice to choose, not to act. It is such still. Where as then it was not yet a battle to decide upon an act, it became a furious war of options and whims. And so it remains! A daily pondering of my future choices – an attempt to find my future perfect. Yet, no closer now than years ago, my options seem humorous and meager – finding positions to fill and goals to accomplish were never much of my persona.

The choice must eventually be made however, so the battle will rage on. The marked flag will continue to wave in my face and must eventually be answered. The time to decide will eventually run out, and my fear is that my decision will only be made when time has expired.

It is unfortunate that the words ring true – “Desire is not an occupation. – K.M.F.DM.” But thanks for the wakeup call, even though it might have only woken me up to my own lack of ambition. Perhaps a resolution for the coming year can be to plan. To start swimming, either with or against the current, but a plan to stop just floating on.

Dear Anyone...

Dear Santa or Anyone who wears a Santa suit and performs construction with a hardhat on around Iraq:

This year, for Chrimtams, we request the following in no particular order:

*84 Inch flat screen TV
*Brinner (Breakfast for dinner)
*A mission
*No more fucking cats
*Laptops that are HMMWV proof
*Non-transient housing
*Transformers that don’t burn the floor
*American plugs on American bases
*Dining Facility Guards who don’t ask for magazines
*Mud resistant boots
*Hot (or at least consistent) shower water
*Exterior lighting
*More cowbell
*24 hour pancake bar
*Bigger “Piss Bottles”
*Quicker repairs on things we willingly destroy
*Fitted sheets that fit
*A gymnasium which does not reek of feet
*Internet café’s that work on Holidays and pseudo-holidays
*A command presence with logic
*Playtime with First Sergeant
*Iraq to stop being a 9-5 job
*Siesta, every day
*Karaoke everyday to include Tuesday nights from 7-9 but to exclude Sundays from 0300-0500 and 0800-1800
*Better supplies of Fat Burning Pills – For experiments
*Bottled water labeled in English
*Furniture (to include basket weaving) classes
*A saw
*No more “two a days that should have been stopped in High School football”
*Engrish speaking team members
*Old White Man back
*Heated toilet seats
*Hard stools
*Urinal target practice, the fly style
*An overthrow of the Mayor Cell
*Medics who do not wish to see you suffer in pain
*ATMs or cash-back options
*And some goddamn Hawaiian Punch Powder!

Thanks Construction Santa, you rock! Now go order around some Pakistani looking elves!

Sincerely,
Blue, Thin Mints, VW

Merry Chrimtams!

In Balad we showed up for work one day and were handed a stack of Christmas Cards. Homemade at first glance, they turned out to be products of children. 5th graders, Sirsquatch informed us, hailing from some classroom in Maine where a relative taught.

Instantly we poured through them, laughing about every misspelled word and unidentified drawing. During the ordeal it dawned on Thin Mints and myself, that these sketches of young, impressionable children, truly demanded replies. So, after moving to Kalsu and finding acceptable desk space, we began Operation Christmas Card, soon to be renamed Operation Chrimtams. The original intent, the goal, was to repay the children who were kind enough to draw some cards for us, by drawing our own cards. What it turned out to be was nothing short of a disaster.

The first stage in Operation Chrimtams was sorting the cards received. A red card showing what seemed to be an amoeba wearing a star as a hat from Shaun, a pink and blue monstrosity featuring penciled in organs from Erica Treba, and an entire stack of dull and repetitive cards from some little girl calling herself Karly. Karly’s cards were borderline insulting. Besides having the same message for each card, they lacked any sort of originality. Karly clearly suffers from my own disease – no artistic ability. At all. Flipping through her no less than seven cards (the next highest number was four, and two after that) you notice a severe decline in quality. Card #1 has two colors, and some drawings of snowflakes. Card #7 has Solder instead of Soldier and X-Mas rather than Christmas. If I could find you Karly, I’d burn down your imitation Hallmark factory and throw a snowball in your face. The red amoeba card from Shaun? His message was awesome, and read as follows:

to someone, from shaun…
dear someone
beit the bad guys know mater what.

If I could mail a dollar and some Iraqi teeth to Shaun and have no doubt he’d get them, you better believe I would. Maybe I’d also draw him a Christmas tree with shape.

Suffice to say, we never got around to responding to all of the cards. The first challenge for myself was a lack of artistic ability – the second obviously laziness. Hannah D., who sent four cards in total, actually got two replied to. Thin Mints took a look at her version of Frosty the Snowman, pictured above, and drew his own response. It was his reply, and my counter to her Merry Chrimtams message, which re-enforced the idea that he and I were in no way going to be allowed to mail these off to children.

Hannah D., besides having a very angry looking Frosty the Snowman, also supplied us with a card exclaiming, “Merry Chrimtams”! Pondering for a minute about this newfound holiday, I replied to her letter with the following...

Merry Krimtams! To: Hannah “D.” The “D” is for Diversity!
Dear Hannah, You sent me a card which said “Merry Chrimtams”. I’m not sure what holiday that is, but I love & support it anyway. So Merry Chrimtams! Happy Qualms-Duh! Have a safe New Deer! And other such days. Much love, from Iraq! [Where diversity causes conflict!] – V.W.

It wasn’t meant to be harsh, or above their 5th grade level, but it turned out that way. So following are some more Chrimtams cards we created for the class of 5th graders.
Hannah Hodges sent a couple of cards with candy canes and ornaments, along with the note that although her card might be like two other boys, it was still true. Fair enough, so here was my response:

Neil informed us that we were his shining star, so Thin Mints informed him that stars have a very special gift when it comes to providing someone with light…

Lastly, Lauren thanked us all for our patriotic attitudes (I was fairly lost on that one) so I informed her that patriots aren’t always thanked…

Overall, chastising children for spelling errors and structurally unsound Christmas cards has been an excellent experience. I only wish that I had enough time, patience, and colored pencils to write back to all of them. Until then – thanks go out to:

Rachel, who over the course of four cards informed us how much she hated the cold and would rather be with us. Welcome to Iraq Rachel, it’s rainy and muddy here!
Ian, who appears to have addressed his card to Frosty the Snowman and drawn a rather large bomb on the inside.
Jacob Chimitt, who nicknamed himself Prez, Lil’ Chimitt, and Jake.
Ian, whose pagan altar on the front of his card was nicely coupled with a drawing of a stocking.
Jonah, who writes in all capital letters giving his card the appearance of shouting at all who read it.
Mark, who like me, admits to being “Not good at art”.
Stacey G., who drew a rainbow heart and informed us that not only are we awesome, fearless, wonderful, Army Strong (fucking marketing), but she also gives thanks for our lives. As if we’re already dead… [This other message of hers makes me laugh… “Dear Solider, every day I take a bow to you. Wondering how you can be so strong, but I know your there, and your awesome. Thank You. Love, Stacey G."]
Sidnie, whose compass shaped snowflakes and Tree filled hearts make my eyes hurt.
And to Grant S., who thanked us “four serving” our country. Four servings of country to you too Grant!
Additionally there were seven cards with no name as to who created them. One had a hotel being snowed on and a monster growling, another apologized for the marker bleeding through, and one just said “Have it.”

So Merry Chrimtams, have it!

Death By Power Point

“So what’s the, what’s their-”
“Chaos!”
I personally love it when briefers answer questions before they’re asked. It establishes the appearance of topical knowledge, understanding, and above all not giving a damn about the question or who asks it.

The class, if you can call it that; was held in Kuwait inside our Company’s tent, a beer festival sized monstrosity housing all of the males. Eventually, for reasons termed “military necessity”, it also housed three females, though even a quick glance into their tent yielded tens of unused cots. Necessity indeed.

In the midst of the class, whose topic revolved somewhere near 2 year old intelligence reports surrounding extremist groups, I glanced towards the cot of our company commander. He was lying flat on his back, eyes shut and chest rising rhythmically. Clearly, asleep. I snapped a photo too grainy without flash and turned back towards the slide show amidst glares from the presenter.

“Do you have a question?” I have no nickname for him, all of them would be too explicit and long winded, so instead I’ll call him by the third person Arabic name he references himself as constantly – Sharif.
“Nope. I’m good.” I smiled a smile which said, You’re a prick, but I’ll pay attention because you outrank me.

I glanced at Thin Mints as my camera was handed off to Sirsquatch, who took a photo of us pretending to care. The pretend was genuine, as Sharif had bored half of the unfortunate group of students into a daze. Looking around the room the faces in the crowd offered a myriad of expressions. They said stop! Bored. Where am I?

Absent minded regarding the drivel I was exposed to, yet still somehow awake, I zoned out to such a degree that I came back into focus with a mechanical pencil digging a shallow trench in some cut I had received. It’s only when you’ve started to dig into your own skin that you are truly, no longer paying attention.

Generality 4

General So-And-So, with his magic bullet point briefings. Trust in your leadership, in your training. And now this: trust in your battle buddies.

It’s a concept we’ve been battered with since basic training, a sort of cross between safety in numbers and cover your ass. Or in this case, cover someone else’s ass. But trusting your battle buddy, it’s something I agree with whole heartedly.

For the most part those “battle buddies” we end up with are by choice. They’re the friends you make through work, the wingmen and women you go out to bars with, the acquaintances you know but don’t really hang out with, and the confidants you come to collect. The battle buddy, my guess is it was designed for battle specifically, someone you can trust on during a fire fight to watch your back, make sure you’re not alone, and in dire circumstances, get you some help. It was an oversight by your peers; a sort of watchman you watched.

And while the concept still applies easily to wartime operations, stateside it is much more than that. You bring a battle buddy to go speak to your chain of command as a sort of witness just incase. You bring one to the bars to make sure you don’t get too drunk and to look out for you against others (or yourself at times). You train with them, live with them, and become entirely trusting of them, even when you don’t know them.

In the convoy down to Kalsu, the thought of this popped into my head because I was a gunner on our HMMWV. I was covering the left sector of fire, and it didn’t even cross my mind to look behind me during the over 2 hour drive because I knew my “battle buddy” had me covered. In the case of something happening it would have been entirely too easy for someone to pull out a gun and shoot me, but they didn’t and I attribute that to the “teeth” our convoy showed.

Regardless, the third point of General So-And-So was valid. But it makes it extremely hard to follow when your chain of command rips the people you’ve trained with and come to trust out of your team. It is hard to say, “Yes. Old White Man may be an asshole at times, but like everyone else on Team 3 I trust him with my life” and then for zero reason have him removed.

This happened a day or two before our convoy to Kalsu. He was one of our main drivers, and was replaced (if you can call it that) with The Scream, a Korean with little English ability, zero confidence, and zero trust in our eyes. I wouldn’t give the Scream a weapon if we were about to be overrun. I certainly don’t trust the Scream’s driving ability. He is more off the road than on the road, and in this I am not exaggerating in the slightest. Convoying behind him to Kalsu and the dust was so heavy in my face I wondered for a moment if I would ever again get clean air.

So Old White Man, who I trusted, whose trust I feel I gained – was removed without due cause from our team. He was removed and placed on a team in Mosul because one of their soldiers, Troll, became pregnant and is no longer combatable. I’ve asked and pondered why him, why Old White Man and I’ve gotten no good answers. He was our number one resource at media exploitation. The Scream cannot be understood well enough to converse with. The Scream has no abilities in any area, period. Old White Man was part of our team, and he is already and will continue to be missed terribly.

As for The Scream, I will in no way ever trust him. He will never be on this team. He will never be my battle buddy.

Thin Mints

A knock on the door and there stood Thin Mints. Child-like grin on his face, Army Shirt with woolen cap on his head. And of course, striped blue underwear and flip flops. Blue had been in the middle of asking me a question, but I still shouted to the knocked on door, “Come in!”

No one ever heard me when I shouted at doors, as if the paper-thin walls stopped their audio translucency at the metal door. Really, why re-enforce a doorway if the roof and walls were made of Paper Mache. Regardless, I still bellowed at every knock and noise. I’d vary between a demand of “Who is it!?” to the simple “Come in” to the ever-pointless, “Just a sec!” I mean, with no one hearing what I shouted, why did I bother?

But Thin Mints opened the door as was his ways, and stood there cherub smile tainted with mischief on his face, cigarette in hand. “Hey buddy!” Thin Mints beamed at me.

“Hey Buddy! What’s up?” I replied, cigarette-less and lying in bed, my rhetorical question going unanswered.
“Why are you only wearing underwear?” It seemed as good a question as any I suppose.
“Yeah it’s fucking cold out,” he shivered.
“So anyway, what time do you think I should get up if I have to be up at 0445?” Blue continued to ask, ignoring Thin Mints in his undergarments.
Thin Mints took the opportunity to respond – “0445!”
“I said I have to be ready at 0445, so when should I get up?” Blue asked again.
“Four forty five. Did I stutter? God,” Thin Mints replied bitterly, finishing his smoke and coming inside.

Call Sign

Sirsquatch told us that we needed to create a call sign for ourselves. Create some sort of identifier for us to use when we were on the radio. Watch any movie about war; everyone has a little cute call sign. Devil3. Firefly6. Whatever1.

So we sat and thought, and Old White Man called it best. “Klepto. It has to be Klepto.” Short for the obvious kleptomaniac, the term is so fitting it’s ridiculous. Nothing is safe within the grasp of our team, sticky fingers forever. Anything and everything is fair game for us, if it looks tempting look again, and it won’t be there anymore.

But Sirsquatch didn’t agree. “The infantry guys will make fun of us for that.”

The infantry guys will make fun of us for being M.I., I muttered to Blue, who agreed. But the decision was made up by Sirsquatch; there would be no usage of the name Klepto as a call sign. He instead decided upon something lame, something I can’t even remember. Blue then thought of a better one – Spades.

Sirsquatch, Thin Mints, everyone was in agreement. Spades would work. Until Sirsquatch fucked it up, deciding it was too long to say, and made it simply Spade. Spade defeated the entire point of using Spades, without plurality it was a singular word, the Ace of Spade if you will. We chose Spades because we play Spades, because it’s what we’re doing when we’re not doing what we’re told. It’s the way we kill time and the way we bond. Stress relief, team building, all of those bullshit human resources terms which don’t truly apply but can if you work at it. Spades. The game. Not Spade, a gardening tool, or worse yet, spayed the act of neutering female animals. Arg.

So later that night, sitting around eating dismal dinner, a better name, a much better name came to me. It embodied everything that we are and can be. Every nuance of the word applies, and I told the table what I’d come up with.

“Ruthless. It’s what we are, it’s how we act towards ourselves and others, and it’s us.”

And we are ruthless. Ruthless - like when Old White Man rags on 68 for no reason and 68 threatens to stab him. Ruthless – like when I instinctively slapped Thin Mints full speed for knocking a drink out of my hand. Ruthless – like when our team mocked a fellow soldier so much that within hours of arriving in Kuwait we had him moving across the tent to get away from us. Ruthless – like when a suicidal soldier was suggested to be on our team, and Tyrone told our commander that she would be torn apart by us.

Sometimes we go too far though. Sometimes people get pushed too hard, and in the wrong direction by far. Like when Old White Man told 68 he’d dig up his grandmothers’ cremated ashes and stab her in the face. Like when 68 kicked Old White Man in the crotch.

But what can I say. We’re ruthless after all.

Absent

I haven’t been writing much lately. Why, I’m sure I could come up with hundreds of reasons. Let’s just say I’ve come down with two awesome ear infections, a sore throat tantamount to strep, and with the recent addition of two missing team members, I’ve had my time well spoken for.

We’re rolling out of here, out of Balad. Further south. The logic is there somewhere, but it’s far lost by the time is slips down to the lower level man. Trickle down theory at its worst, an ideology designed for pragmatic use in goods and tangible acquisition, never in theory or message dissemination. Fucking Generality two all over again.

Rumor is, we’re not stopping at our next locale, Kalsu. There is no Iraqi city in that region, simple an American establishment located near Al Eskandariat or something like that. I’m in the midst of packing, a bag worth one month of goods. Most of what I’m taking I can do without; you learn to adjust to one outfit lasting a week when you no longer have social norms to tangle with. Among the “monthly” allocation of space is some clothes, both clean and dirty, a rugby ball, more sets of protective eyewear than I can count, and 15 decks of cards. The cards thing is kind of an obsession now; we’ve unofficially made carrying a deck of cards a requirement for every member of our team. Spades, it happens a lot.

Blindside is playing on my computer now. Great band. Memories float heavy in my mind when I hear their songs, as the lyrics suggest, it’s like a joy of déjà-vu. Déjà-vu, what a perfect term for the Army. Everything I do here, everything, is déjà-vu.

Anyway. We leave soon, and the estimate of our tenure at Kalsu ranges from a season to a month. Nothing like temporary duty in a year long deployment. But as Malthus said, why worry about the long run, in the long run everyone is dead. I’ll be sitting high in my turret for our 4 hour convoy south. I’m excited. Excited to go to step M of this alphabet soup of a plan. Excited to see something not encased in chain link and concrete. Excited to do my job.

Excited to go, that nomadic blood coursing through me demands it. Grab your things and go. Drive, run, walk, escape. How doesn’t matter and it never has, it’s the way I was raised and the way I’ll live. But until the choices are my own, I’ll follow the orders I’m given. And for now, they say move south. South, away from what little of the war I was guessing was left. South, away from the cold.

Inanity 2

They have an armed guard, letting them into their complex?

“This makes me feel really unprotected…” he muttered as we approached the gate, sliding the truck around the jersey barriers and pulling out our IDs. When we actually entered the compound…Wow. It was as if we took where we lived, got rid of all the mud and puddles, smoothed out the rocks and polished them, added a certain level of attractive people, tripled the female populace, took away the weapons, and tossed in a certain level of doubt that we were even in Iraq. The amenities the Air Force had was a slap in the face.

Where we have to walk over half a mile to get to the shop with basic necessities, they had one ten feet away. They had a barber shop, a private gym, a tailor. We had mud, and some bathrooms.

And then we found the H6 Rec Center. It was the cherry on top. Outside it was clean looking, a well manicured basketball court beckoning all to play. Smiling, clean people playing sports. Even the sun was brighter. Inside was an answer to a question I’d never thought to ask – “What does the Air Force really have that I don’t?”

Bean bag tossing. It was simple. The Air Force (Chair Force? Air Farce?) deploys with bean bags. And they toss them. A good 10 meters, laughing while they do it. Helping cute girls learn how to toss. And fear and shame possessed me then.

I cannot say for certain, but I think off in the distance of the large open building was some shuffleboard and a massage parlor. Even a room specifically designed for smashing dreams. Dreams and cake, your choice Airman Person. The dreams are of soldiers, who wish they were taken care of better by the Army. The cakes, those are their too. Smash away!

You got to be kidding me, I was dumbfounded. The worst part was when, a moderately cute girl walked past Tyrone and I, saw our uniforms, saw our weapons, saw our obvious look of not belonging, and gave us a smile that said it all. It said, “I’m sorry. Have some pity. Some cute pity. And deal with it! Hahaha!”

It was a pretty expressive smile.

He and I looked at each other, looked around, and decided that the best plan was to come back for salsa night and start some shit. I suggested stabbing a few people, on principle alone, but his plan was more elaborate.

“I’m going to lock and load and start shooting.” It’s the beauty of being forced to carry ammunition and a weapon all the time. You start wondering how anyone can rightly fuck with you. You see the MPs and wonder are they scared of pulling me over now? They should be, I would be. Knowing, not fearing, but knowing that the person you’re about to confront has a weapon on one arm, and has within reach of the other enough rounds to put down a whole boat full of folks.

Destructive plan in hand, Tyrone and I escaped the compound for the time being and headed to the airstrip.

Mortaritaville

To say that arriving at an airport which nicknames itself Mortaritaville is disconcerting is an understatement. It is in no way reassuring.

You get off the plane in Iraq, and your first thought is, “Wow, they have trees here. Maybe I should have looked at a map, or some type of fact sheet about this country.” You are shuffled into a small bus which takes you across the tarmac, full body armor on, and the question only then begins to nag at you, “Why are we the only ones in armor?” The bus driver, the baggage clerks, even the pilots are wearing uniforms, but a soft cap is the only protection from bombs and bullets. And beans, to reference an old saying.

The flight out of Kuwait is in some giant belly of a plane, the way a normal commercial aircraft might look if every single expense budget was cut, the floor was ripped out, the cargo was stacked towering above you ahead of time by your own hands, and the seats had been stolen from a real plane. Windows? They traded those for green paint. Everything smelled of gun lubricate and sweat. Everything smelled of an aircraft hangar.

Climbing to some strange unknown altitude and having no view of the outside it’s easy to forget you are actually flying, perhaps this is some giant submarine to transverse the sand and rock and burrow into Iraq; a transnational digging machine. Vaguely reminiscent of the late 1990s mall rides in which you sit down, movie screen in front of you, doors closed, vehicle rocking, and experience some sad journey into some body part of cavern that no one in their right mind would go to anyway. The only pleasant variation I’ve seen is in the Heineken brewing factory, where you journey as a bottle into someone’s mouth. Ahh, consumption.

But you arrive, and are ferried to a waiting room where a video plays for you. It goes as such…
“Welcome to Balad”, the voice-over says, as you see a sign mocking Margaritaville with Mortaritaville instead. “Last year we had over 900 mortars.” Quick math in my head suggests over 3 a days, and wonders when they will start. “In case of the alarm [alarm sounds] do the following…”

At this point I’d stopped paying attention and thought, wow these are bad actors. And who the hell is going to hear an incoming alarm and lay down in the road for 2 minutes? Or worse, as the actors were portrayed, who will sit and play cards outside ignoring it? Why is this airman picking up unexploded ordinance? Who the hell decided to name the loudspeaker the “Giant Voice in the Sky”?

The whole video confused me at first; making me wonder what the procedure to react to mortars was when you were driving, which wasn’t covered. Or what to do if you didn’t have your body armor and helmet readily available? Where to go if you don’t see a bunker after your 2 minute nap?

Let’s just say I had a lot of doubt regarding not only the proper techniques to handling an attack, but also the ability to act and direct on behalf of the Air Force. I’m not sure which vexed me more.

It wasn’t until a few days later that mortar #1 arrived. The alarm sounded, and of all the places to go, Tyrone went to the portable bathroom to pee. The rest of us walked into a building, where we were yelled at for being inside until the sergeant yelling was informed that we had gone in to escape the eminent death surrounding us. Thirty seconds later we were cleared to exit, and found zero chaos. Zero mortar dust, lingering. Zero anything really.

But we did find Tyrone, using hand sanitizer and feeling relieved.

Inanity 1

The mission was to jump in a vehicle. Ride shotgun. Direct the driver to the passenger arrival zone of the air strip. Grab a couple of fellow soldiers and their gear and drive off. Off to the other side of the air strip. Drop the soldiers and the gear off and get out of there. On a base this size, you’d think it’d take 20 minutes. It took 3 hours.

I thought the day was over, my class on computer forensics had ended, everyone was sitting around pointlessly, and I was itching to go to the gym. The gym and some salsa dancing later. I was already sitting in the van waiting for a driver to jump in so that we could drive off and begin the night. But G-Money came to the heavy sliding door and told me it wasn’t to be, I was to help out Tyrone in picking up some soldiers.

So I jumped in shotgun and wondered, why am I needed when I’m not driving, not in charge, and not necessary? But Tyrone wanted to check out the lost H6 Rec center, a fabled entertainment plaza thought to belong to the Air Force, thought to be super-standard, thought to contain the legendary salsa night on Wednesdays. The salsa night which gathered tens of people to dance and enjoy themselves. Tyrone needed my help finding it.

Our first stop included missing a turn, ending up at a dead end, and debating if the truck would make it through a chain link fence. Fixing that error, we went to the Red something or other. Directly next to the flight line, and in view of the airport, but with a few minutes to still spare on the flight arrival.

We walked in, and asked for directions. On the wall was a poster of some Communications Battalion, two shots of them in formation and then a “G.I. Joe” action figure package of each of them, complete with nicknames and crudely drawn pastel faces. The clerk at the desk gave us some directions, drawing a map on a post-it note and pointing us back in the direction we came.

Tyrone and I jumped in the truck, nearly backing over an anti-tank device, and turned it around. But when we got to the entrance to the Air Force compound we were mystified.

A Letter Home

A message, courtesy in part by Thin Mints:

Dear Mom,

Today was awful. I bought a new video game but I didn’t have a chance to play it – I was too busy eating Popeye’s chicken and Pizza Hut pizza. We didn’t get a chance to rest today because after work we went and tried out swing dancing. And smores. They made us smores and a fire. It was horrible. The free bottled waters are starting to get to me. War is hell.

P.S. – Send more soccer balls.

Vanity

Breathing and stretching in the seated position, mirrors plentiful, I noticed my shirt. Grey, Army printed on the front in moderately reflective materials, long sleeve. Yoga wasn’t supposed to be about my physique, but catching my reflection in the glass, muscles taunt and exposed, and the thought popped into my mind, Damn I’m good looking.

The synapses jump in my mind and link back to other times I’ve caught myself gazing at myself. It isn’t that I’m vain I used to say, it’s just, I never knew how attractive I am. Then reality slaps me in the face and laughs, what the hell am I doing? I know exactly when all of this started too.

It isn’t that I’m 100% satisfied with my appearance. If I’m not smiling I look almost like a henchman, a grimace of a neutral face glaring out at the world; exaggerated widows peak easily displayed with a short military haircut. And then there’s the midsection – the bane of all I know. And to those who are pleased with their abdominals, I hope metabolism gets you later on. I’m talking stalks you for a few years, and then methodically kills you and your family. Yeah, metabolism’s got my back.

But I’ve been noticing myself, to use a slightly perverse term, since I started becoming confident. The confidence allowed for more embarrassing situations, which in turn allowed for personal improvement. Hence the gym and working out, the bigger confidence, and eventually the ability to do the absurd (or what I’d thought was absurd) and join in step aerobics and yoga classes.

This is what I’ve been doing here in Balad with my free time. Today was supposed to be with Thin Mints and Old White Man, but it was early and I didn’t even feel like getting up. With only false motivation, how am I supposed to rouse someone out of what I pictured to be a perfect slumber? Besides, I had a hard enough time focusing on the movements with myself to look after. Or at.

Incoming Alarms: 1
Gatling Gun Return Fire: 2
(I'll explain this later)

Generality 3

I’m sitting here in Balad, 0730 in the morning, and I’m typing. I didn’t go to physical training, I didn’t have to. I got up to go for a run, but I went and peed instead. Then I took a shower. This’ll be the future for a month or so.

Being in Balad as an MFT isn’t bad. Assuming this would be our final destination (it obviously isn’t) we would crack open our Quad Cons (1/4th of a Container, think a big metal rectangle of a box on a train) and grab our stuff, set it up. But since we’re here…Doing who knows what, we’re leaving our locks on and ignoring the boxes of prizes we shipped here. I’m looking forward to opening the Quad Con and claiming my Magic 8 Ball and Claw Hammer. But that’s me.

Until then we sit and attend useless briefings. We work out a lot. We eat. We do laundry. We participate in pointless events, albeit interesting.

I’ve asked leading questions regarding why we’re here countless times. The answer is that no one really knows. We’re waiting on orders to go to our next place. Or we’re here to learn what we’re doing from an MFT which returns to the U.S. in a few days. Neither inspires much trust in the leadership. And wasn’t that the second point of General So-and-So’s speech?

Trust in your leadership. The words bounced across the gymnasium walls and floor, filling the dead space with the message we’d all heard two days before. And it made so much sense for a brief second. Then reality came swooping in to remind us that we were being held under lock and key in a gym basketball court because we weren’t trusted to be on our own. As if the months prior to deployment we hadn’t had several chances to escape. As if we didn’t truly realize that yes, we were deploying.

But trust our leadership? The same leadership who had informed us multiple times that they didn’t know where we were going to in Iraq? Who placed zero trust in us? Who yelled with piercing tone for no reasons? Who contradicted themselves?

The flaws in leadership are so encompassing that it’s hard to remember we are even being led. I’m not talking about a lower level either; I’m speaking middle and upper echelon of influence. People who truly have no clue what they’re doing are running the show. It’s the blind and crippled leading the able. Yossarian would understand. The way our leadership treated us, we might as well not exist. Machines could follow the complexities of orders and creative statements which no one else seemed to understand, but not any rational human. When you're told by one individual to do something so stupid that you can't help but laugh, isn't it time to change those in charge? Trade them in for better models? Hell, even something newer would be better, any change at all is welcome because its deviant of poor leadership.

But listening to General So-and-So, I decided that no thanks. I'm alright when it comes my leadership. I place more trust in their inabilities, in their poor decisions. Maybe thats what he meant – trust in them to screw you over. Blindly.

Until that change though, I'll keep waiting for my Magic 8 Ball. At least it has answers.

Iraq vs Kuwait: In a battle to the death

So like I said, I’m in Iraq. And let me tell you, it rocks. Well, not really.

I live in what I’ve heard referenced to as a Chu. Is that spelled right? I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know what a Chu is supposed to be, or how it should be spelled. What I would call this, is a section of a trailer home. A trailer home entrapped in jersey barriers. The same barricades which engulf everything else on this post. It makes for the question, am I going home, or to the bank? At times, I can’t tell.

My walls consist of real wood paneling, maybe particle board, covered by fake wood paneling wallpaper. The redundancy is confusing, but I figure the wallpaper is used as some sort of bizarre lacquer, to stop me from warping the particle board with moisture or something. As if I’m going to sit here and mist water at the walls when I’m board.

The room seems to be about 15 feet by 15 feet, and three of these rooms sit in a single “trailer home”. We all have doors. And roommates. The guy on the far end smells like mildew, I can tell when he opens his door. The girls in the middle are officers and seem, for lack of a better word, slutty. Across the way there is a girl ripped on anti-depressants rooming with a girl whose only words to me occurred when she darted out of the doorway for a minute, looked up and informed me of her desire to vomit. I almost asked if she’d been eating her roommate’s pills.

But it’s a bed, in a room with a door and a lock, so it beats out Kuwait.

The food is, as everywhere in the military, repetitive, but what can you expect a mass feeding frenzy to be? It isn’t bad though, and the dining facility has certain perks to it which I’ve boiled down into two categories: Flash, and Dazzle. I made both of those up as I finished the sentence, so they of course have no meaning in any sense. But the food varies enough for me to be entertained; lately I’ve been eyeballing the Panini grill with zeal, so I think all of my lunches will consist of a sandwich.

The gym is suitable to my needs, and there is free water everywhere. Even on street corners, you see palates of water sitting around, unloved. So when I see them I smile, and grab one, and hope that the water appreciates my momentarily undivided attention. I enjoy staying hydrated, as it beats out dehydration and death, so I’m not above free water.

Kuwait has rocks and sand, which this part of Iraq also has, but Iraq seems augmented with trees and plants and even grass in some parts. The grass is a little suspicious though, as it seems to grow near fences and gymnasiums, and I don’t trust it.

In general, Iraq isn’t bad at all. But then again, I’ve only been here 3 days and I haven’t left the base, nor have I really done any work. So there is a good chance I’m missing out on the shittier side.

And since I’ll be here maybe a month or two, and won’t do any work in that time, and won’t leave the base until I get to the next place…Iraq won’t be so bad for a bit. Until then, I’m going to go mist some water at the walls.

Memories

I put on this dusty and dirty uniform every day, and I can’t remember why I do it anymore. In the 4 years and 12 days I’ve been a service member so much about myself has changed. So much about everything has changed.

I can’t recall why I first joined, and when I’m asked about it I come up with whatever reasons happens to sit front row in my mind. To pay off student loans, or because if I didn’t I wouldn’t ever forgive myself usually come out of my mouth, but I can’t ever be certain they’re the truth. There are absolute truths revolving around my decision which I am aware of, but they’re so minor as to be negligible in my decision. For a while I joked about just using the military as another way to avoid making any real decisions for a few more years, but the longer I’m here I can’t help but to wonder if that isn’t the truth. College was 4 years of not thinking about the future, and the Army will be at least 5 more of that.

I still play the game though. I don’t complain about my remaining tenure, I smirk at the foolish commands of those surrounding me, and I count my days remaining one by one. I count them until such time as I have to finally decide to do something else.

I’ve never been so…embittered by something I love. The military is an amazing organization, capable of superb thing. Sadly, it is managed into the ground and crippled by itself. I have the potential to change it, to fix that which is wrong, but in order to rise to a position of change I would have to lose sight of the lower level idiocy which runs rampant. And that’s the problem, with those capable of change so removed from that which needs change, there can be no correction of wrong so to speak. So my dilemma becomes, do I try to change that which I think won’t be changeable, or do I walk away from my greatest indecision?

I’ve got 576 days to figure that out. A long time, unless you’ve been counting since 1000 plus. And I have been.

Like I said, I’ve changed. Happy Thanksgiving.

Equality

The only place in the military I’ve seen which allows for true separation of rank is in sports. In sports, you can’t bitch at me because you outrank me. You can only bitch at me when I break a rule, or am beating you so badly that you are crying. And perhaps that’s what makes certain sporting events in the Army so fun – it is at last an equal playing field.

When you’re enlisted, and junior enlisted at that, you take a lot of shit from those above you in rank. When for reasons too complex to explain your company is top heavier than Dolly Parton, the shit that “rolls downhill” can be monumental. In certain situations, it can be enraging. Other times, it can be enjoyable.

Blue and I were in ammunition detail at an M161 range back in July. Our job was to take every round of ammunition out of the boxes, and put a specified amount into every magazine, and then label the magazine. Later, when firers were ready to qualify with their weapon we handed out the ammunition. It is a very simple task, but the day as a whole was made much more complex by the clever intervention of a number of senior enlisted individuals. It went as such:

“You two! You need to go over to the range briefing so that you can go fire on your weapons!” said one E72.
As we walked out of the ammunition shack and towards the bleachers where we had been directed, we were stopped again.
“You two! Where are you going?” said another E7.
“We’re going over to the bleachers to get a range briefing,” we replied.
“Good, go over to those bleachers” the E7 reiterated.
As we walked on we were stopped by not one, not two, but three individuals in a pack.
“Hey! Where are you going?!” demanded the E83, with nods of approval from the two E7s next to her.
“We’re going to the bleachers to get a range brief…” we muttered, our enthusiasm wavering.
“Well, hurry up!” she scolded us.
As we approached the bleachers, totaling less than 100 meters of walking, a final E7 corralled us. “Where are you two going?” he pondered.
“To be honest at this point I don’t know” I laughed, while Blue politely informed the E7 of our destination.
“Well, that’s no longer going on, so head back to the ammo shack.”
“…Okay?” Our confusion regarding the issue was obvious, but no notification of it’s registry in the mind of the E7 was given. We pivoted and retraced our steps, only to be harassed again.
“Where are you two going?” demanded the E8 again.
Informing her of our now futile journey, she directed us back to whence we came, and into the waiting stance of a final E7.
“Where are you two going?” Déjà vu, I thought, is this all a joke?
“Back to ammo detail, there isn’t a range briefing going on.”
“Of course there isn’t, get back to work,” he said as he turned and walked away from us, chiding our behavior as dogs are smacked for digging to fetch a bone.

Our laughter was palpable, but it only served to cloud the lesson learned. If you’re really that top heavy, you’re bound to fall as an organization without organizational skills. And hard. Almost as hard as the officers playing rugby dealt with a well placed shove that toppled them.
“My bad, sir. Your ball.”
-----------------------------------------
1) The M16, for reference is a hand held, shoulder fired, magazine fed, air-cooled, gas powered, 5.56 mm semi-automatic or three round burst assault rifle. The M stands for model, and 16 is the 16th attempt at an assault rifle. An assault rifle differs from a carbine (see the M4 Carbine) in that it is a longer weapon.
2) An E7 in the Army is a Sergeant First Class, the E signifying enlisted and the 7 being the pay grade, the 7th highest on the enlisted scale.
3) An E8 is a First Sergeant, or Master Sergeant. A First Sergeant (1SG) is an E8 in a command position, usually the “right hand” to a Company Commander (Captain traditionally). A Master Sergeant is an E8 in a non-command position.

Arrival

I'm in Iraq, and I'm having trouble using USB devices on these computers. Blast! I'll figure something out though. Until then, just think happy thoughts. Like the fact that the base I'm on is nicknamed "Mortaritaville". I found this out in a slide show when I first arrived here.

Strange welcoming packet.

Generality 2

Before anything else, you must trust in your training! The words haunted and taunted us. They forced us to question what exactly was going on. They shone the light of reality into our eyes and brought back a simple concept we’d forgotten. In other words, having a general, even a low level Brigadier General tell you to trust in your training really served to remind you just how little training you had, and just how little you actually trusted in it.

“So…If we’re supposed to trust in our training, why are they forcing us to re-train everything while we’re here?” The words rang true, and the problems pointed out in the question were glaring. But Blue, Old White Man, Thin Mints, and Sausage Fingers bringing to light the idiocy of the situation did nothing to alleviate the overwhelming sense of rehashed repetition. Kuwait, for my unit at least, is filled with what seems at the lower level as last minute shotgun fixes – load up everything that one day might be needed, and blast everyone in the face with it all at once.

So, following this method (cynical me would say, “I’m sure it is a time tested Army standard”) we were stuck sitting through briefing after briefing coupled with mostly impractical training exercises while other companies were doing what they were supposed to do in Kuwait – acclimating themselves to the environment and relaxing before a year in Iraq. But this is a double standard we’ve gotten used to. You walk around with weapon in hand long enough back home and you’ll constantly see everyone else relaxing. But we’re the exception to the rule; we’re what happens when those in charge were formerly in charge of brand new soldiers.

So you question the decisions of those in charge of you when they question your intelligence and ability to retain the simplest of information. And then, when in all their brilliance they force you to repeat what you’ve already done, what you’ve spent countless hours going over, then its back to business as usual. And these aren’t tasks which you become more proficient at with practice; these are simple classes on Iraqi culture, or how to clear a room. The former is useful, but not in a repetitive sense, and the latter is useful only if you repeat it in the hundreds of times, not once by listening to someone tell it to you.

But knowing that everything you do is being done over, and everything you did should have been done already...It destroys your confidence in your training. General So-and-So, Point 1 and our training is moot. And sadly, so is our trust in it now.

The food isn’t bad, it’s just…Bad

I just vomited a little in my mouth. Just a little, enough to recall that I’d tossed raw spinach onto my plate during dinner. For most of the day I thought it was Thanksgiving, which I suppose is a true testament to my timelessness here. After speaking to a few people and getting final confirmation from my mother (who, should one ever become necessary, would make an amazing human calendar), I concluded that no, Thanksgiving does not fall on the third Thursday of the month as someone had falsely informed me, and that at least would explain the bland meals tonight.

But anyway, back to the reason I was tasting bile. Dinner consisted of corned beef and macaroni and cheese, but it isn’t the food selection which has anything to really do with why it wasn’t all that pleasing. I even added a salad consisting of the aforementioned spinach and some colored bell peppers for sweetness (Delicious!) but the food here is different. All of it, despite how cleverly or creatively prepared, contains some demonic micro organism which is fully intent on raising hell on my stomach 24/7.

I noticed this plague a few days after arriving. I was able to stave off the early stages of what can only be called perpetual upset stomach, and instead ate liberally in the dining facilities. It was only later, when I succumbed to soft, chewy, chilled chocolate chip cookies that I started to notice the battle occurring in my gut. As if the foods devoured in Kuwait, and aboard aircrafts inbound to this region, was violent in nature towards non-middle eastern preparation.

War!! War in the Middle East! But not the one you’ll read bout in the papers, no, this is the one everyone who arrives here feels personally. The war of intestines with new and potentially painful bacteria which can be found on local plant life; but mostly which can be found on the salad bar in the dining facility. I thought it was only me until someone else told me that yes, when he first deployed it was a two to three week experience of annoying bathroom trips and chances to read more urinal graffiti.

Hence the addition of spinach to an otherwise uneventful meal. Spinach and bread. Anything to sop up the stomach acid and clot my intestines. Somewhat like the first aid training the other day, except my malady is internal, and will be fixed with smart food choices rather than a bandage. So bring it on, mystery virus. I can play this game three meals a day. And sometimes during snack time, for when I’m bored.

Generality

The General spoke with clarity and conviction, but lacked a certain level of sincerity. Perhaps it was due to him, this man I’d never seen before, trying to portray an aura of familiarity and friendship with everyone forced to listen to his drivel. Perhaps my disbelief in his legitimacy stemmed from an intangible hunch I’d gotten. Or perhaps I just hate listening to diatribes by anyone who isn’t comedic in nature.

This was a few hours before we boarded the plane to Maine, and eventually Kuwait. My battalion, roughly 200 soldiers, sitting on the hard top indoor basketball court at the Texas gymnasium we were trapped in. All of us sitting around lazily and then in walks this commander. This Army suit reeking of clout.

His speech wasn’t a total shock to me though. General So-and-So, introduced by my commander as someone who could often be found conducting PT with us. Really? I’ve never seen him before. Especially not exercising with us “soldiers”. In fact, I’ve never even heard of someone seeing him before. What crap.

But on came the general, and on came his speech. It was a four point assessment of things we should rely on in Iraq. On things we need to follow, tidbits of advice just waiting for us to recall them so that everyone involved can be triumphant. So he started to speak on the subject of trust, and I had heard it two days prior.

“Check it out, I know exactly what he’s going to say.”“No way! How?” The interest was evident in Thin Mints voice, and I knew it.

The first of his four points, it didn’t make much sense. Thinking back upon it now, his four points were all crazy.

Guard This!

I’m on guard duty again. This time from the hours of almost asleep to whenever. I feel as if I’ve been living in one really long week. The sense of vacation and surprise at every new play I’m thrown into has not yet worn off. I’m smiling writing this and laughing to myself. I’m enjoying myself greatly here so far.

Sure, my bed is terrible and leaves me feeling crippled in the daytime. Yeah, so what if I am constantly awoken during the night to roving soldiers with bright headlamps looking for some misplaced equipment or loud snoring officers? I wake early and stay up late, and I do it knowing that whatever else happens I have my friends here. This team, this number 3, it is the epitome of camaraderie and unity in my army experience. I’m nearly the newest member but time and time again I’m mistaken for someone who has been here from the start. Our level of comfort and integration is high enough to confuse anyone into thinking that.

I’ve been on guard for half an hour of my two total. I’m yawning and struggling to stay awake. At least we’re playing rugby at 6 am tomorrow. Back to point though. I enjoy going to sleep in my too small sleeping bag on top of dirty cot. I like waking up to shouting and bright lights. I look forward to sitting around in dull classes with droning speakers presenting disinteresting topics. I like the repetitive food (yeah, I’ve been here a week and I see patterns already) and the battle with sand and cleanliness I face when I walk to take a shower. I smirk at having to carry my unloaded weapon with me everywhere. I giggle at the idea of a 2 day range where I’m the acting Combat Life Saver and yet my certification has expired 2 years ago. And I grin knowing that 2 hours after returning from the range I have a 3 days field exercise ahead of me.

But perhaps I enjoy it all because I know that in a week, I will be on my way to Iraq; so I can finally start this madness.

That’s right, I said rugby. It’s for physical training.

Clarity. Or, a cipher.

Just to clarify a few things I realize might make no sense…First off, if I post ten or so things in a single day, it’s only because I didn’t get a chance the other days to post them. Something tells me that this won’t be put up for a while, considering the ranges and field exercises I have going on. My guess is 5 days before this message gets out. Anyway, I have little to no time (plus it costs money to use the internet) to be able to get onto the computers, so I just type on my laptop until then.

Also, I’ve never considered my writing any good. Most of the time I can’t stand to read it, so I just type and never look back. This often leads to awful errors in thought process; I get lost in my own rants and leave out critical junctions in direction and tone at times. Other times I’ll blow off whole sentences for just a few words. Grammar is something I can only spell, and as my good friend Chrisi once told me, “You type like you speak, and I can read your sentences the exact way you say them.” I have no, no sense of where a comma belongs so I just put them in my natural pauses. Which can be problematic I suppose. Whatever. But the point is, I don’t like my writing. So if you don’t either, too bad. This is as good as I’ll get. I’m not trying to win awards or make people lust after my style (“ill flow” was what I wanted to write). I’m just conveying thoughts in a semi-random manner, to give a generalized idea of what my year in Iraq is and will be like, and one day was like.

Take the sentence I last wrote, it makes little sense to me at the end and I wrote it. I need some lessons or something. Lastly, I often quote movies or books and take sayings and phrases from them, so certain things (“Sorry Mom, Sorry God”, Chuck Palahniuk) are just things I like to say. So rock and roll. Deal with it.

The Art of War

Pressure in my stomach is so hard it feels like I’m going to tear my flesh apart in some horrid and gruesome violent act. My hands and fingers shake while I try to put my boots on so that I can shamble off to the bathroom. Desperation hits me when I realize that I need a ‘Battle Buddy”, someone to keep me company while I walk around the base, even to just use the bathroom. I can’t find the top to my jacket and for a second I contemplate urinating in an empty bottle on the floor. All this, because I needed to stay awake.

One of the last methods of forcing oneself to remain awake these days is to chug water like it’s going out of style. I don’t drink coffee and couldn’t find tea earlier, so for me it’s water. It just so happens that earlier today, tonight really, since I’m sitting around guarding inanimate objects in the early hours of the morning, I had a few extremely boring classes. Lectures really, though lectures usually involve some sense of interest on the part of the listener. But what I was forced to sit through today was dry enough to put me to sleep – it didn’t help that I’ve been lying uncomfortably every night in a tent full of 40 others.

So I had my few classes, and to keep myself awake I drank a lot of water. A lot. I’d love to say it helped, but it didn’t really. Instead I just managed to build up enough urine in my bladder to pop a button on my pants and force me to run to the bathroom every couple hours while I tried to sleep. But its fine, since hitting up the wondrous portable bathrooms affords me the opportunity to read graffiti from the past few years.

Really, urinal graffiti is the only distinguishing characteristic of Kuwait thus far. With every tent, and every structure looking exactly the same, the only method left for showing direction is natural landmarks. So in a place where everything is flat, well, there is no way to give direction. When we first arrived here the welcome party-if they could be called that-informed us that when we are lost on this post, walk towards the water tower and fix it from there. What I didn’t know was that the water tower looks nothing like a water tower and most likely has no water.

But as long as I take a left at “If you are reading this then welcome to the biggest mistake of your life” and keep going past the crudely drawn bent-over woman with uneven breasts I’ll be okay. Because if I hit “Penis is awesome!” then I’ve gone too far. I mean really, its right next to “I was stop lossed and can’t see my family and I’m going to kill myself”. You can find anything here easily; all you need to do is look in the toilet.

Heirarchy of Slaves

Oddly enough, today we found Barter Town. You know that lovable place where Master Blaster and Tina Turner run a commune? Master Blaster, like I used to team up with my friend Zak and stomp around California; he on my back, smashing people out of our way. Well, Barter Town buried deep inside the nothingness of Kuwait. Right next to some camels and some sand.

The camels, they hate life and want to die I think. Even with thirty semi-automatic weapons shooting at the rate of 3100 ft per second in their direction, they were not deterred in their quest to end their lives. Time and time again herds of wild camels ran onto the firing line for the M4, M9, and M249 range held today. And time and time again, we stopped the range so that someone could go push them away gently with a car.

It doesn’t sound gentle, but all I saw were two insect like antennas shooting around behind a wall of sand. Then, with a bit of squinting, we saw camels all over! I’d say with ease the camels had us outnumbered, and if my guess on their nonchalant view towards life was correct, then we would have one hell of a fight on our hands if they tried anything.

The camels played nice, and on the return to Camp Buehring the bus missed the turn – forcing us into an off road adventure to make it up. Kuwait appears to be a giant road. One big road country. Or at least drivable land, the roads which are not paved (almost all I’ve seen) are only slightly smoother and lower than the fields of sand. But while correcting the error the bus sped past a shanty town which can only, truly be described as Barter Town.

And wouldn’t you know it? Master Blaster runs barter town. Always has. Always will.

Welcome To...Armyzone?

“This place sucks! Kuwait is fucking worthless! The only thing here that doesn’t suck is that concrete.”
“Old White Man's right and that only doesn’t suck because it’s American concrete painted by American hands with American paint.”
“No Thin Mints, the concrete sucks too because they were here painting when they could have been fighting in Iraq and we wouldn’t have to be here too.”
“This place sucks!”

Breakfast time. Waiting on line, bitching about nothing really. Kuwait so far, it’s flat sand, every direction shows more military tents sprawled out to hold the maximum number of soldiers all getting ready to return to the U.S., or to head off to Iraq. We’re part of the latter, waiting our turn to get the hell out of here and somewhere else. Kuwait, it’s boring. Boring everywhere. On every part that I’ve seen.

Kind of like Old White Man on our pit stop in Leipzig, remarking on how all of Germany is a single room, with signs in English and super expensive sodas. Perception, its reality. And so far Kuwait is a prison planet, like a world engulfed in beach sand sans the ocean smell, and the ocean. You can stand in one spot and spin, and the highest elevation you will see is a berm of sand shoved into place by a bulldozer. This is as close as I’ve ever guessed desolation to be. I think Mad Max lived here.

Shoots and Salutes.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you lately Alpha! Less than 5 hours in country and you’re already losing sensitive items! You’re not showing up on time for formation! And now you’re standing around in formation talking and having fun! This isn’t the Alpha I know!”

Seriously? Do the members of my chain of command actually think before they speak sometimes?

Old White Man exclaimed rather gleefully, “Hurray! No more fun for our Company!” He wasn’t the only one echoing those sentiments, and I was exceptionally guilty of wondering just what our 1SG was thinking when she said that our company, having fun, was something bad.

But the truth is, we did lose something valuable, and a couple people failed to show up. But who imagined that showing up on Camp Buehring in the middle of nowhere, Kuwait, would also mean that we had formations every few minutes for what seemed like no reason. Although we were in a war zone, which to be honest I never thought of Kuwait as, we were also in a salute zone. The possibilities were endless.

Shoot. Salute. Dodge the enemy. Greet an officer. Stand at attention while returning fire. It’s all wonderful in the strange way the military has of contradicting itself. While I’ve gotten used to the insanity of following orders after four years in, I’m still taken back when something as stupid as saluting in a “war zone” is deemed necessary.

You’re an officer? Got it, I can see your rank. I’ll call you sir or ma’am, no problem, but grow the fuck up. Stop trying to compensate for never being a part of your troops. If you’re worth it, we’ll respect you. And if you’re not, being a prick won’t fix it.

As far as fun goes though, we still laugh and joke. How can we not? We’re at war…Sir.

Kuwait - Awaits!

So we left on Monday. Locked ourselves down into a gymnasium and waited for more directions. We got briefings from Generals, bagged lunches from support groups, and directions from leaders. What we didn’t get though, was any idea when we were leaving, or even what route we were taking. Not until we stepped on the plane was it made aware that we were traveling to Bangor, Maine, a town up until then I had never heard of.

From what I was able to see, Bangor consists of one street, and it runs between the Hotel and the Airport, which are connected by a walkway. There is one police car, and it sits unused next to the sign reading “BAT STOP”. Thankfully, the bat stop is cordoned off with police tape and no bats are present. The population is several tens of people, each of whom wishes great success of a safe return to all of the soldiers deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan.

For the most part, the thankful peoples of Bangor are elderly, and enjoy offering free cupcakes and cell phone usage to everyone who walks by. One elderly gentleman, who from my seated perspective as an integral part of a Spades game loomed close to ten feet tall, asked if it would be acceptable for him to take my picture. I thought, “Sure! I have no idea why but this seems interesting!” and told him as much. Off he snapped, and then he handed me a business card with the following web address written on it: http://www.ourstopinmaine.smugmug.com/ and a giant “Thank You!” places on the front. The back in formed me that if I wanted to see me, and others I suppose, I needed to click on the date and time I landed in Bangor. So if you want to see absolutely nothing of the town and what I can only imagine is a horrible collection of headshots (Nothing Chad Reinhart would ever be compared to), then go ahead and click on it and find the November 10, 2008 folder at around 11 pm.

Then again, the whole day blurred together, so who knows when or what it was.

Jibba Jabba

Today consisted of cleaning and eating, enjoying the last few graces of society before I have no access to them. Not that cleaning is really a grace, but it is necessary for me to deploy (more than one person asked, “So if your room isn’t clean…You can’t deploy?”). Later on I ventured with Jibba Jabba, a female signal collector on my team to a burger joint. Our last meal, as she suggested. We sat around and laughed, talked about nothing of importance and it was fun.
It was on the ride back that she surprised me.

“You know, I’m surprised you aren’t a serial killer by now.”
Okay…Why do you say that?
“Well, you know. You’re you.”
…
“Hey you better not be thinking about killing me now!”
Me? Never. Let’s go drive down a dark alley.

Last night out. A Saturday.

Waking up as I did left me really no choices but to push the envelope and keep drinking. A few hands of spades on the lawn of a friends house and I was set to go out again. Or eat. Instead of either of those I helped drop someone off at the barracks.

Nothing about the night was noteworthy, nothing worth writing about, except the strange Jaeger bomb moment at a bar. Six of us deploying, lined up in a single rank, being forced to do pushups after drinking. And the prize for doing so? A Jaeger bomb at the bottom, one we drank with hands and feet on the ground. Body held parallel.

Patriotism in no way questioned. Alcoholism though…

Sorry Mom, Sorry God.

Electric madness hums inside my skull while I try and push the pillow down over my face. A small cut on the inside of my cheek keeps my tongue occupied while I struggle to remember what exactly is going on. This is my Saturday morning, waking up more intoxicated than most people get during the night. A strange sentence taunts me, floating around my thoughts like jellyfish in the ocean, jumbled words. Say what? And who? Fuck, why is this fire alarm still going off?

I woke up to the sound of the alarm, at first I thought my own slumber had caused it, some inane reasoning to a bleating bell – the sound of hatred personified in alert mode. I’m chugging water like a champion runner right now in my pitiful attempt to regain sobriety long enough to write down what I need to. What am I writing about though…Shit.

The aforementioned couple, Mark and Sharron, they had to wait an extra day for plane parts or plane ability or something. The music I’m blasting right now, it’s loud enough for the cops to come, but it isn’t nearly loud enough to shut out that horrible hum of electric which has been cycling through my mind since about 0900 this morning. I’m not sure who set off the fire alarm, but we’ve had enough in the barracks for me to know that the correct response isn’t to leave your room and go stand outside. It’s to tape your alarm shut so that it won’t sound off and to try and sleep through it. Fifteen minutes after the first angry yell of the machine you can hear sirens. Twenty minutes after it begins, it’s over. But it’s the longest twenty minutes you’ll ever have as a drunkard, suffering random pitched abuse from an inanimate member of society who for some reason this morning hates you. Back to point though.

This is the most “army” I can ever really get. Lying in bed, borderline suffocating myself to ignore the warning of impeding doom – a sacrifice for sleep. Waking up intoxicated because, well, we are a drinking society. And if you doubt that, just travel to any army town. Everyone there can attest to our rowdiness, our alcoholism. Our party lifestyle. Joining the army was, for me, a simple choice because it was an extension of college. Another way to delay making a life decision? Absolutely. But wasn’t it also a choice to attend what can easily be marketed as the biggest party school on the planet? You’re fucking right it was.

And I’d love to say that I was the only one this weekend who for whatever reason was out partying like a rock star. But I’m not alone in this. We all do it, every night. Some more than others, but go, find a military base, and smash through the walls of a house Kool-Aid style and see for yourself. We’re drinking, consistently, because the daytime is such a bore or pain or bitch that the nighttime has to be interesting. I mean, if your every day was spent training and training and doing nothing which seemed important, than wouldn’t your every night have to be wonderful for you to keep going on?

And they are wonderful in a way. You might be shit during the day, but you can be the shit during the night. And that’s the beauty of the military. Anything you do, anyone you are, you’re just like everyone else in your lifestyle. You can run to the military liquor store and see Colonels and Privates alike buying 40’s of Old E if you look hard enough. I’d say you could see Generals stocking up on MD 20/20, but they have aids to run and get it for them. Still though, a drink is a drink.

Chaos! Sort of...Ish.

To be honest, I have no idea how the Army is supposed to function. I’ve seen it scramble and try to work for 4 years now, and I’m still left in awe that anything is ever accomplished. My experience with mega-corporations is limited, but I imagine it is the same method of establishment which feeds the military machine. That is to say, I assume corporations are given vague tasks and objectives to meet, and then directives flow down towards those on the bottom. What astounds me, however, is two fold.

First, how do those in charge disseminate directives to their subordinates without missing parts? On the Army side, a General can demand more intelligence from X country or behest that whatever region of war-torn-istan be captured. But often times the bottom line is left missing not only parts of the puzzle but whole sections of necessary supplies.

I bring this up because the past few months, in training for what is now only a matter of T – 4 days away, I have noticed very little…Well, training. I arrived at this unit after the massive train-up that we were given: classes, field exercises, on the job instruction – most of them I missed out on. That isn’t to say that I am untrained, on the contrary, I feel that I have just as much training as I will need to keep me level with my peers. My teammates have gone through any number of courses surrounding the ideas of computer forensics, data input, and document manipulation, weapons qualification, and some tactical maneuvers. They in turn instructed me in what I need to know to “get me up to speed”.

It is the more military ideals which I feel lacking on. What happens if our convoy takes fire from the left and I am the gunner with my weapon pointed to the right? If an IED explodes and our vehicle is disabled, what do we do with it? Questions like these I am hoping will be answered while I am spending two weeks in Kuwait for climate acclimatization and extra training.

Additionally, things are often discovered as broken or missing at the last minute. A couple of my hours today were spent hanging out with Mark and Sharron, a married couple who are both deploying with my unit. They were supposed to leave yesterday at 1 pm, but are currently sitting in a building not too far from my barracks. The reason is simple: their plane was broken. Yeah, broken. Like JFK or BWI airports announcing that a flight is delayed or canceled. But this isn’t getting fixed anytime soon. They might be stuck here for two more days, which to me makes little sense. Shouldn’t someone, somewhere have thought about a broken plane contingency? I know JFK and BWI do: they either fix it or fuck the flight. This is a one way trip for a while though, so fucking the flight might be out of the question.

Second, it seems that a corporate directive is fairly known to the line worker; be it producing X number of widgets or acquiring the Johnson account, while military objectives at the higher level are kept almost hidden. Quite frankly, I have no idea what the purpose of the on going conflict is. Are we hoping to eliminate some fortified regime, or are we hoping to capture and manipulate a country, or are we looking for a strategic foothold which can be used in the next round of unknown quests?

Do you know the purpose of your organization? I know mine. At least, I think I do. Its something along the lines of defending the country - to get into the specifics of it I’d have to look up the oath I said when first joining. Something something, foreign and domestic, something. But more disturbing is how I have no idea what the goals of the organization I work in (the Nations largest, if I’m not mistaken) happen to be. Again, I’m fairly sure it deals with stomping down upon the terrorism flame, but really I have no clue what our ultimate prize may be.

I mean, the Army has values (7 of them!) and other fun HR type slogans, but all of that propaganda was lost on me in basic training. I missed out on the true indoctrination by keeping the voice in the back of my head saying, hey, look around, does this really make sense?

And it didn’t. And it still doesn’t. I just hope that maybe by the time I’m deployed something will come into clarity enough for me to snap my fingers and cleverly exclaim, “Bingo!”

Or not. But at least when I'm out of the Army I can go make some bitchin' widgets.

An Explanation of Sorts

A knife sits wedged into the desk at which I type. Uniforms, clean and dirty, hang haphazardly throughout the room as if waiting for guidance. As of today, I have less than 600 days left. As of today, I have less than a week to go. In a week I hit my 4 year mark. It’s all just numbers I know, but its always been this way.

This isn’t anything more than me writing down my thoughts. My memories. My current events, and with some work my future. This is simply a story I happen to be sober enough to tell. The story won’t always be mine, and even now before it starts I’m not sure it will ever be mine.

This is the story of a relatively new concept. Of a group of people. We are men and we are women. We are juvenile and mature, single and married and engaged and divorced. We are experienced, and we are brand new. We are models of our kind, and we are examples to be set. We are educated and wise, violent and criminal. We are strong and weak and big and small. We are parents and children alike. We are White and Black and Latino and Asian. We are nervous and excited and bored. We are rational, and we are insane. We are many things, but most importantly we are a team. We are Team 3, a Multiple Functions Team from an Intelligence section of the Army. And we are going to Iraq.

Our mission, at the concept, is to conduct Site Exploitation. In layman’s terms we raid houses along with a combat unit and gather evidence against insurgents. In training, we are superb. In actuality, we are untested.

We roll out on in less than a week. I get out of the service in 598 days. Rock and roll. Deal with it.

-VW