Just so you know

Just so you know,
you outrank me today
because you have been in the Army for longer than I have.
And that's cool,
because there are things you know,
that I don't know.
But I'm not going to be this rank for long.
And pretty soon, I'm going to run into you again.
And we'll be the same rank.
And you'll be confused.
And pretty soon after that, I'm going to run into you again.
And I'll be a higher rank than you.
And you'll get mad.
And think "Boy, he must suck dick a lot to get promoted fast!".
But you're just lying to yourself.
Because I'm not a political person.
I don't fucking like you, I don't like your fucking boss, and I'm not going
to play stupid politics.
So, when I get promoted, it's all fucking talent and accomplishment.
I get promoted when I am so fucking amazing that they can't ignore me.
So lie to yourself.
I don't mind.
Because you are a fucking amateur.
I did things before I joined the Army
that were far harder
than anything you have ever done
or ever will do.
When I joined, you would say:
"Hah, I've been deployed"
You don't say that any longer: I've done that.
When I joined, you would say:
"Hah, I've been in combat"
You don't say that any longer: I've done that.
When I joined, you would say:
"Hah, I've been blown up"
You don't say that any longer: I've done that.
I've known it all along, but you'll come to know it too:
I'm made of harder stuff than you are,
and I'm made of harder stuff than you can even imagine.
And when I joined, I had just gone through some of the worst shit
I have ever heard of, and I was sucking pretty bad.
But I've had a little bit of time to recover.
And I'm feeling a lot more like the old me.
And I'm feeling a lot more like I can take on anything
that anyone can throw at me.
So, bring it on,
because next time we meet, you'll be working for me,
if you're good enough.

My health this year

After over twenty years of my diet being very very screwed up, with massive intakes of sugar on a daily basis, after the last year of controlled diet and exercise I have completely cut out soda, completely cut out candy, completely cut out sweets. I've dropped about ten pounds, give or take, and what I have is a LOT more muscles and tendons and veins and a LOT less soft white marshmallow.
And my PT test has gone up around 60 points.

I still use a lot of caffeine, because I work 12 hour shifts without any days off ever, and the caffeine helps me focus, but I get it in pill form now, so I'm not consuming tons of sugar and crap with it. Seemed like the best compromise, focusing on the solvable problem of sugar without touching the other problem of caffeine until later.

Know what I hate? Stupid stupid people.

Know what I hate? Stupid stupid people.
People who say "oh, yeah, you got a good pt test. but you are old, so you are scored differently"
Yes, asshole, except I score higher than you do on the young person scale too.
Or "Oh, you have lots of promotion points, but its because you went to college"
Yes, asshole, why don't you try it? Since I did it while I worked, I guess you can too.
Or "Well, I don't know how you would be as a leader if we promoted you"
Well, asshole, why don't you ask the three soldiers who have been calling me their leader for the better part of the past year?
Asshole.
Yes, I am better than you. I am better than you, on every scale except the "who's fattest" contest. You couldn't beat me in a fucking "eat doughnut" competition. I'll play your game, because I have to, but we both know it: I am better than your fat, lazy, ass, and always will be.
Have a nice day!

SCORE!

SCORE!!!!
Just git a present from my departing Australian Battle Major.
Hmmm....how to describe it. It's a giant map of this area of Afghanistan. It's printed on a cloth fabric, like money is, so it is rip resistant. The edges of it have pictures of local flora and fauna. It can be used as a shelter, a map, all sorts of different uses. It has phrases in local dialects. It is what pilots take in their helicopters so if they crash in the mountains they can use it to survive.
TOTALLY AWESOME THING TO HANG ON MY FUCKING WALL!
GO ME!

Todays conversation

So, if I stay more than 365 days in Afghanistan, Congress says I am supposed to get extra money. That money isn't budgeted in, so they can't have anyone get it without having a big stink. So, they asked if I wanted to sign a voluntary waiver saying I would stay more than 365 days w/o being paid anything extra. Since I am paid monthly, and this would involve coming home late in september instead of early, I wouldn't get any extra pay, or any extra promotion incentives (because it is still in the same calender month). So.....I could stay here, for an extra three weeks, and get nothing for it at all. Basically because I am very good at my job, I would be punished by working an extra three weeks for free, while everyone else goes home on time. Should I mention, I have been in Afghanistran for 22 of the last 30 months already?
Yeah, no.

Is your life perfect?

Is your life perfect?
Do you have a wonderful wife, a fulfilling job where you make a ton of money?
Did you graduate college, and were a straight A student?
Do you have great kids, and they are big, and beautiful, and smart?
You don't drink, or smoke, or do drugs?
And you have perfect skin, and perfect hair and perfect teeth?
Your dog even shits in the toilet, and you go to church every Sunday?
You know how to use apostrophe's correctly, and allways know whether the i or the e comes first?
If this the case, feel free to criticize my wife and my family, and how we choose to live.
Granted, I will probably not listen, but maybe you have something interesting to say.
If not, kindly go fix your own life, we are doing just fine without your stupid feedback.

A typical phone call home:

Get to the phone.
Some days this means go sign in, get a number, wait in line thirty minutes, name called out, go to phone. Some days its easier. Some days it is not as easy.
Dial thirty-three numbers.
Busy.
Dial thirty three numbers.
Get ex. Ex is still at work, not at home. Get number son is at. Remind ex that today is other sons birthday, perhaps son could call him and wish him happy birthday?
Ex asks if when I call, and no-one picks up, could I call back, because sometimes the phone is in the other room, and they don't pick up in time, and son is sad when he misses my call. I agree.
Hang up.
Dial thirty three numbers.
Get answering machine.
Tell answering machine date and time and ask that son call other son, who has birthday today.
Hang up.
Dial thirty three numbers. Voicemail, called ex’s number by accident. FML.
Hang up.
Dial thirty three numbers.
Call does not go through.
Dial thirty three numbers.
Call does not go through.
Dial thirty three numbers.
“This card is currently in use”
Hang up, pick up phone, hang up, pick up phone, hang up.
Pick up phone. Dial thirty three numbers.
Third ring, wife picks up.
Talk to her for a minute. Talk to the boy for a couple minutes.
Wish him happy birthday.
Talk to the wife for a couple minutes.
Wife asks the daughters if they want to say 'hi' to daddy.
They say "no". Odds are, as soon as she hangs up, they will change their minds and scream for an hour.
She won't be able to call me if that happens, she'll have to wait for the next time I call.
Talk for a minute.
Get disconnected.
Hang up. Pick up phone.
Dial thirty three numbers, busy signal.
Hang up.

Pride, a first draft

I've been thinking about this one. I think I may write an extended note about it. See, each unit has certain key things that you have to have. For the 82nd, its graduating airborne school. For tenth mountain, it is combat patch and CIB. I s...uspect it may be air assault for 101st. I know it is ranger school for ranger bat. If you don't have this, you really aren't a member of the group. You don't have the right to an opinion, and you are basically an E-1. The interesting thing is this: with a combat patch and CIB, someone has spent at least a year deployed, seen combat, and come back. So, the people who have it probably deserve to be respected, and the people who don't probably deserve to listen. For airborne school, its a 2 week school, being macho and tough. It shows you are brave enough to jump out of a plane, but says nothing about what you know. For air assault, replace 2 weeks with 10 days and plane with helicopter. So where our respected elders are combat veterans, the respected elders at 82nd and 101 are 19 year olds who got out of basic last month.
Thats my best guess, and why I asked about air assault: if Jay doesn't have it, he may get a lot of social stigmata because of it. Just my thoughts for the day.

The 82nd is the only Airborne unit. You can be Airborne qualified, but they are the only unit that way. And they are trained from the day they get to the unit that ONLY THEY ARE REAL SOLDIERS, BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE WAS TOO AFRAID TO GO AIRB...ORNE. Actually, Airborne is an Army school, and for the rest of us, most of us do not get the opportunity to go, just as I don't get to go to SERE school or culinary school. The same indoctrination program is given to the 101st, because of AIR ASSAULT! They are taught that they are the ULTIMATE KILLING MACHINES because of some shit they did three months after joining the Army.
At Drum, there are standards of excellence that we wear. The CIB, the Combat Patch, the EIB, the Ranger Tab. But they require AT LEAST one year to get one. Some may take three or four years. And anything you did in basic? DONT TELL US. WE DO NOT CARE WHAT YOU DID IN BASIC. Basic = kindergarten. You get to Drum, you learn EVERYTHING you have done so far was easy, so be quiet and learn for a year or two before you start mouthing off. The guys at the 101st and 82nd get taught YOU ARE THE ULTIMATE KILLING MACHINE, BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE IN THE ARMY, BECAUSE OF YOUR TWO WEEK/TEN DAY SCHOOL. ALL OTHERS ARE COWARDS WHO STILL SUCK AT THEIR MOTHERS TIT.
So, that's my analysis of why those two units are the way they are.
Yes, at Drum, after being there for four years, earning my combat patch and my CIB, and working on the other two, I am pretty cocky. I've also done a few things, and I know when to be humble.

Is there a benefit to enlisting in the Army? Just something I wrote in response to someone saying there wasn't.

See, I have to disagree. Enlisting does -lots- of people good. It does good for the person who now has a steady job. A steady job in a field where you are trained, continually. Where you are pushed to better yourself, continually. Where you are taught to strive to accomplish more and achieve more. A steady job that provides full medical, full dental, all your clothes, all your food, where you live, that provides for your education. Where you go out into the worst parts of the world, where terrible things happen, where Red Cross and International Aid are never seen. Places where they can -not- be seen, because they would just be killed. And you provide security, which allows for rebuilding.
If it is good to help people when there is a disaster, if it is morally just to help people in Japan and Haiti and New Orleans, why do we not help people when the disaster occurs in a dangerous place? Well we do. We send people to help them who are not afraid of being shot at. And when the place has been quieted down, then we provide the aid they so desperately need.
Your vision of what the military does is narrow, shallow, and not very accurate. Imagine: take the Red Cross. Take the Peace Corps. Take the Police Department. Merge them. Now give them armor so they don't get shot, and weapons, to keep people from shooting at them. That is about 50% of todays military. Th other 50% more actively provide security and safety for that group, but there is NO OTHER GROUP IN THE WORLD who provides the service we do. NO ONE can provide aid in a country where there is shooting, where there are mass executions, where there are "night letters" and bombs. It is military or abandonment. And I, for one, am not willing to abandon the poor, desperate people, just because it's a little dangerous where they live.

I know

I know that I exist because you imagine me.
I am tall because you believe I am tall,
and I am clean because you watch me
with your clean glance.
Your thought makes me intelligent,
......and in your tenderness,
I am simple and kind.
But if you forget me
I will be dead and nobody will know it.
They will see that my flesh lives
but that will be another man - dark, clumsy, bad-
the one that inhabits it.- Angel Gonzalez.

Progress

So, I was thinking how amazingly open minded our country was.
Think about our presidents name.
It's like we had elected Adolph Moussellini president in 1948.
JFK almost didn't get elected because of his chosen religion.
Today, some people couldn't even tell you the difference between a Prostant and a Catholic.
Yet we managed to see beyond this mans name and his race, see past stories about his religion and his birth, and saw fit to elect him to lead us.
What'll we have in twenty years?
A Chinese Lesbian Hermaphrodite worshipper of Ra?
More power to us, if s/he's the best (wo)man for the job!

Children.

If you really loved your children, you would set a bad example for them to rebel against.
Tell them how you dropped out of high school, how much fun it is to do drugs, leave cigarette butts all over and half empty cans of beer on the stove.
Talk loudly, use the word "Aint" and "Y'all" a lot, make sweeping generalizations.
Tell them you don't have a job, and are a "dancer".
Tell them "SKOOL AINT NEVER DONE NUFFINK FOR ME!!".
That way, they can rebel against you, get an education and a job, and thank you later.
When they are thirty or so I'd recommend telling them the truth.