Operation Iraqi Freedom II: Recruiters Lie

2007-12-03T20:23:00.000-08:00

The end is the beginning

2005-09-25T08:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I lied again about updating. I find myself with a little unexpected downtime on this Sunday morning and decided to get the final post up.

My thanks go out to everyone that showed an iota of support during the last nine months. My close friends and family members have been an invaluable keystone during some difficult times. The near & perfect strangers that have written, sent packages and emailed me have kept my spirits buoyed and maintained my faith in humanity.

I maintain that US & Coalition forces are doing a good thing in Iraq. It's hot, dangerous, repetetive work for the best of causes. I know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that I have made a difference in this world. It is a shame that so many in this world live in the shadow of tyranny and fear. I can think of no greater honor than to aid in the liberation of the oppressed.

As I have mentioned before, this is my last post. I suppose I could continue to make updates, but it would be terribly mundane. Lost keys, Late bills and Gas Prices would be the norm. I think I spin a good yarn, but I'm afraid I'm light years away from making any of that interesting. I may keep the website up, as a marker of sorts. I may delete it. Either way, I will save all my posts.

Some of you have told me to write a damn book, already. I'm going to try. With luck, you should be able to find my name in print someday.

It's been a long road. Thanks for riding along with me.

2005-09-21T17:05:00.000-07:00

I've taken my sweet-ass time updating because almost everyone already knows I'm in Lejeune. If you have spent the last few days wondering where I've been, then I apologize.

We should be flying out of here sometime early on Friday. Of course, that date is subject to change, as always.

This is my second-to-last update, FYI. The next update won't be for a couple weeks, after I've gotten home and settled in. It should be at least 1/10 more interesting than the last two posts.

Leaving, on a jet plane.

2005-09-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

A quick, detail-free post brought to you by the USMC and OpSec. I am in Kuwait, and will be re-entering the states very, very soon. I'll throw another quick & dirty post up as soon as I have a few free minutes in Lejeune.

Company......Halt!

2005-09-01T03:37:00.000-07:00

In the past 48 hours, two very important things have happened. First, we have moved to "tent city". Tent city is transition billeting. This is where we will spend the next couple weeks waiting for a flight to Kuwait, and from Kuwait back to the states. The tents are very hot during the day and extremely crowded, but at this stage in the game, nobody cares, because....

Operations have ceased. That's right. We are DONE. Finally. The only thing we're held to that even comes close to responsibility is taking a shower every day or two. My new schedule is something like this:

0900 - Sit up in bed, look around, smirk, lay back down.
1000 - Sit up in bed, look around, smirk, get up and go take a shower.
1100 - Read a book
1130 - Go to chow, get haircut (if applicable), head to MWR
1230 - Check email, play fooseball, pool or ping pong.
1500 - Go back to tent. Take afternoon nap.
1730 - Go to evening chow, head to MWR
1800 - Play video games, watch movie, get on internet & update blog.
2200 - Go back to tent. Watch suckers lose money at poker.
2215 - "Put in some money or get the fuck out of here."
2216 - Get the fuck out of there.
2217 - Watch a movie, read a book, listen to ipod.
0000 - Sleep.

Yeah, that's a pretty good schedule, right? Of course, I've been an advocate of that schedule since February. It's good to see the higher-ups admit when they've been wrong.

As always, I will put more word up as situations develop. If you've been following me for this long, you can make it another couple weeks, right?

Pointless counting exercise

2005-08-23T19:33:00.000-07:00

Once again, I am guilty of failure to update in a timely manner. But this time, it's not wholly my fault. You see, the internet/phone center has been moved to the other side of the base, and there was a bit of a gap between when the old one went down and the new one came up. So....apologies.

In other news, my war is over. I am standing a 30-day gate guard post from 2200 - 0600. It is, to be blunt, heaven. I "work" during the cool(er) night hours and sleep with A/C when it's hot outside. The next time I leave the wire will be to come home. The thought of leaving here brings to mind the first thing my father said over the phone to me when I got back the last time: "Thank....fucking.....god."

Amen.

To celebrate, I was going to put together a top-ten list of things I will never do again. Anne wanted a top-ten list of things I was going to do when I got back. I liked my idea better. Anne gave me the steely-eyed "Honey Do" gaze from across two continents and an ocean. We're gonna meet halfway. Two top five lists of each of the abovementioned categories. So without further ado....

Top Five Things I Will Never Suffer Again:

#5 For the past seven months my eyes have been watering from the godawful smell of pert plus and sulfur intermingled. No more "eau de eww" flavored showers. No more showers with water that smells like sulfur.

#4 "Jeepers, what will I wear today? Maybe I'll wear something that really shows off my ass like the desert camoflage. Then again, I could wear something a little more conservative, such as desert camoflage. And let's not forget my newest outfit: Desert camoflage. You know, I just can't decide. No more utility uniform.

#3 "Hay guys, guys...I have a great idea. Let's all go and get in a great big line, okay? And then we'll walk about a hundred yards that way. Then we'll all turn around and come back, right? And the whole time, we'll pick up every single piece of garbage we can find. It's gonna be a lot of fun, seriously. In fact, let's just cancel everything else we had planned for the afternoon and knock ourselves out. No more police calls.

#2 I think my favorite thing about this country is the majestic, rolling hills of dirt. I really like how it turns into boggy mud when it rains, and moon dust when it's hot. Because that way it's impossible for me to find any comfort. Oh, and the cooling breezes. Yes sir, the refreshing "blast furnace" wind really helps keep the sweat out of your eyes. And the way you can just feel the grit in your teeth as you go through your day... I really feel like I'm a part of this place. No, really. It's taking over my goddamn body. No more dust.

#1 "Well hello there, my good fellow. I see that you have at least four years of formalized education from an accredited university. Allow me to offer my services for anything you may require. Would you like to inspect my weapon and/or uniform? Is my haircut within acceptable standards? I see you have a foolish and time-wasting endeavor in the formulative stages. Perhaps I could help by going somewhere far away to deliver a message with all my gear on in the heat of the afternoon? Splendid. I would hate for you to use any valuable petrol driving yourself to your destination. Good day, sir! No more officers.

Top Five List of Things I Will Be Doing Soon:

#5 Paying full-market value for goods. In a land of .99 Red bulls, $5.00 DVDs and free electricity, I will soon be paying for things at a regular price again. It's a shame, because I've gotten to really like the idea of living on less than a hundred dollars a month.

#4 Alcohol. It's not a huge deal, really, but I find that I truly miss that first sip of a cold beer at the end of a long day. Very soon, the magic goodness of Black Butte Porter will be working it's way through my liver.

#3 Not executing pets. Words can barely express my exitement about not having to turn any future pets I may own over to the police for execution. The "Animals have disease!" scare out here has just been ridiculous.

#2 Not doing a goddamn thing. "Look busy, everybody look busy so we don't get yelled at!" I can't wait to intentionally sit on my ass in full view the general public. No more scrambling to get back to the shop by 1300. No more getting up early for a few days at least.

#1 Try and use your imagination on this one. 25 year old guy coming out of the desert for the better half of the year. Yeah, this is a real toughie. If you haven't figured it out yet, move your mouse arrow to the upper right hand corner. See the X? Click it.

Boredom: Jet fuel for the fun rocket.

2005-08-07T04:01:00.000-07:00

If you have been consumed with fear that something might happen to me out here, fear not. I have been taken OFF road repair and put ON interior guard. What that means is, the next time I leave the wire of Al-Asad, it will be to get on a bird.

Another upside is that I now have a set schedule. 0600 - 1400 is guard duty. The rest of the time is my own. Unfortunatley, that time is spent in one spot. With a flak jacket on. Eight hours is a long time when you're standing around, waving in vehicles. Once again, boredom forces me to seek out new avenues of adventure and excitement.

Today, I fed birds. You could have easily mistaken me for the crazy bird lady at the park, except I was sweating a lot more than she usually does. Also, instead of throwing them some tasty bread, they were getting sodium-laden potato chips and delicious oreo cookies.

At first, the birds were like...um....birds. Keeping their distance, hopping around, you know. Acting bird-like. But gradually, the sweet, sweet goodness of soft creme filling between two chocolate cookies brought them closer to me. Soon, they were eating cookies from less than two feet away. Not a big accomplishment, really. Unless of course, you're in Iraq. Then it's hot, hot betting action with the black Corporal on guard with me. The betting on how close I could get birds to come was my idea. His contribution to interracial friendship was asking me if I thought OJ was guilty. No goddamn way I was touching that one.

Stay tuned, as I continue to charm my feathered friends and mold friendships by way of cheap processed food.

Light at the end of the tunnel.

2005-07-25T21:59:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since my last update, due in large part to the mind-numbing boredom of road repair. In case I've not yet mentioned it, road repair entails us getting up way, way too early (3 AM-ish) and driving down one of the MSRs (Main Supply Routes). Once we find blast holes/potholes in the ground, we use a jackhammer to even them out, then mix concrete by hand and pour it into the hole. We typically run through about 9,000 kg of cement each day. We get the next day off, and then go right out and do it again.

As you might imagine, it's not exactly the most exciting thing to do. Consequently, not many stories to share.

The reason for this update is to pass along a little word your way. First of all, we've been told that no more packages should be sent after August 1st. Motomail should still be fine, however. If you don't know what motomail is, don't worry about it.

Secondly, "When am I getting home?" I can't tell you exactly. What I -can- say is that I should be home sometime around labor day. Maybe a little sooner, maybe a little later. Right now, plans are in a very liquid state. Even if I had a real date to give, it would probably change by this time tomorrow.

That's really all I've got for this update, I'm afraid. I like to make my posts as interesting and fun as possible, but I realize if I go too long without posting something, people start to wonder if I'm still in one piece.

As soon as something remotely interesting happens, I'm putting it up here. Scout's honor.

The Tooth Hurts

2005-07-11T08:31:00.000-07:00

It is said that to produce great art, one must suffer for it. Until today, I thought that this only applied to the real fancy stuff. Painters and Sculptors and such. I find myself hoping that the aforementioned saying can pertain to a writer as well, because I've certainly paid my dues to the art club after sitting in the dentist chair today.

I am, to put it simply, terrified of the dentist. Every time I go to one, I find myself in a great deal of pain. Now, it could be because I only visit a dentist about once a decade, but that's beside the point. What I'm getting at here is Me + Dentist = Misfortune

A lot of people consider the dentist to be a friend, of sorts. What those people don't know is that despite the falsehoods they may have read about dentistry, it is not a way to ensure that your teeth remain in your head. Dentistry, in fact, was invented by the Germans in WWII as a means to further torture it's prisoners, extracting information and tearing apart any vestiges of sanity that said prisoners may have still possessed.

In my case, a dental checkup has to take place within 90 days of a servicemember's return home. There is no way around it. You go to the doc, they peek into your mouth, and if something is wrong, you come back in the afternoon for them to fix it. As you may have guessed, they found something to fix. But we'll get to that shortly.

This morning, I got my dental folder and headed off to the dental center. We get in a big line, take off our blouses and get our blood pressure checked. What this has to do with getting your teeth looked at I have no idea, but it must be important because you are sure as hell not sitting in the dental chair until they know your blood pressure.

After a few minutes, my name is called and I lay back in the chair. The beautiful Lieutenant Tant is attending to me this morning. I strongly suspect that this all-female lineup is a ploy to get me to act manly and not break into tears as she begins probing my mouth with that godawful metal stick. The ploy works. I don't even let out a whimper when she informs me that a filling has come loose and they'll have to replace it. I take advantage of the long silence to ask if my bottom retainer (put in my head when my braces were removed) can come out.
Chipper as ever, she replies in the affirmative.

That said, she barely allows three seconds to pass before she thrusts the needle into my mouth, injecting novocaine into the gumline near my afflicted tooth. Out comes the needle, in comes another. My understandable fear of having a needle in my mouth never even gets a chance to kick in, she moves so quickly.

After a few minutes, my mouth has gone numb and she begins drilling into my tooth. The pleasant smell of burning fills my nostrils as the drill burns into my fang. The filling material is then packed in nice and tight and we begin phase two.

Lieutenant Tant begins sawing off my lower retainer. I tell myself that despite the fearsome sounds emanating from my mouth, all the teeth down here are intact. "Just sit there, don't whine, and see if you can walk out with some dignity.", I silently muse to myself.

Moments later, the brace is off, and I'm a free man. I make ready to bound towards the hallway and freedom when a hand braces my shoulder. "Uh-oh.." Lt. Tant intones. "Looks like we had a cavity hiding under one of the metal bands." Because this cavity is at a more difficult angle to reach, another female joins us to assist her. Shining the light into my mouth, they begin to probe around. "Yep, yeah...uh-huh.." Lt. Tant continues, "I think we can do this one without novocaine." At this point, she looks down into my eyes, silently challenging me to disagree. I squeak out "Um..you've uh...you've done this before, have you?" To which she replies "Of course!" and with the same speed and precision demonstrated earlier with her needles. I come up with a brilliant scheme to stall her: "Is this going to hurt?" "Well," she replies "You may feel a little discomfort."

LIES.

At this point, I have two attractive females hovering over me, breasts inches from my face, while one sucks my drool up with a straw. Usually, you've got to pay double for that kind of action. Unfortunately, the same burning smell was drifting into my nose again, distracting me. Even more distracting was the sudden bolt of pain that flooded through my mouth, causing me to yelp and thrash about in the chair like a freshly landed trout.

"Hang in there, we're almost done." murmers the Lt. Easy enough to say when you're not the one in the chair. A few whimpers and squirms later, we're done. Or so I thought.

"There is some residual glue and plaque on your back teeth. I'm going to send you next door to have them cleaned, and you should be out of there in about ten minutes." she tells me brightly. "Fine, fine. I'm okay with anything that gets me away from YOU, Herr Doktor." I think.

Armed with my dental records, I move into the room adjacent to the last. I step inside for yet another surprise. I honestly don't know why my eyebrows raised, I should really be used to this kind of stuff by now. Standing in front of me is a guy loudly rapping along to the radio -- hand movements and all.

Hey, this is fantastic. I just got out of a room with Dr. Giggles and now I'm going to have my teeth cleaned by 50-Cent in the temple of Bling-Bling Hygiene.

"Gon' ride till I die....Oh, hey dawg, sup? You da guy needs his teefs cleaned?"

Apparently, this is how gangster dentists communicate. I decide to go along with it. "Yep, need to get some plaque and glue removed on my lower teeth. I just had a lower retainer removed." He informs me to take a seat, and we get going. It is soon clear that I would have had better luck using a leatherman on myself.

"Aggghh"
"Sorry dawg, that yo' gum?"
"Aaaaggggghhhh"
"Sorry dawg."

And so on. Eventually, he finally gets it all scraped off, along with a few inches of my gumline. Free to go at last, I make my way home.

The moral to all this? The hell if I know. I suspect it has something to do with military dentists and getting what you pay for. Oh, there is probably a lesson somewhere about annual checkups too, if you really want to start searching. *cough* I uh, don't want to search that deep.

Independence Day

2005-07-04T03:44:00.000-07:00

"For those who have fought for it, freedom has a flavor the protected will never know."

I first read those words on the back of a kevlar helmet in Kuwait, sometime in February of 03'. It was only two and a half years ago, but it seems like a very, very long time to me.

When I first joined the Marine Corps, it wasn't out of a sense of patriotic duty, or a desire to kill. It wasn't even for the money. I was just, well... bored. College was boring, my friend Luke had just got home from boot camp and he said the Corps was tougher than shit. Well, I thought I was pretty goddamn tough at 18. Had a couple tattoos, did some skateboarding, drank bad malt liquor at parties, shit, I could handle boot camp. Bring it on. I was bored and this looked exciting.

At precisely the 30-second mark after stepping off the bus and onto the yellow footprints, I realized that yeah, the Marine Corps was pretty tough and whatever else I may have been, tough wasn't on that list.

Well, 30 seconds down, five years, eleven months, twenty-nine days, twenty-three hours and 59:30 to go.

The next 13 weeks, which were agonizingly slow, seemed a blur in retrospect. Then I graduated, went to MCT (Marine Combat Training), and finished Engineer School. At long last, I was back home, on "active reserve" status. If anyone had told me I would be going to war in a couple years, I doubt I would have believed them. And yet, in January of 03', that is exactly what happened.

As I said earlier, I didn't have any strong sense of patriotism, but after I got back home from my first tour, I felt different. I don't know how or where the change occured exactly, just that I only noticed it after I returned to the States. Maybe it was that new flavor of freedom. But I take anything written on a Kevlar with a grain of salt. You're as likely to find true wisdom there as you are to find an ex-girlfriend's phone number & measurements. However, that saying stuck in my head as I surveyed the many wonders of a civilized society. Clean sheets, cold beverages, hot showers, washing machines, good food, I was awestruck. I imagine that this sense of wonder had less to do with "fighting" for freedom and more to do with being deprived of it.

In the months that passed after my return home, not a day went by when I didn't think "Hot damn, this is nice.", about at least one aspect of my life. Every single day. And then my dear old Uncle Sam asked me for one more favor.

As you know, I'm back "there" again. And in spite of the heat, and all the complaints I can (and often do!) make, I know I'm doing a good thing. Despite the fact that our invasion has been criticized from day one (and I wasn't 100% behind it either), the point has become moot. We're here now, and all we can do is try to fix things.

On this fourth of July, I'm a long way from home. But I can't think of any task more noble than ensuring a lasting freedom to strangers. Yeah, I sometimes wish that we could have liberated a more uh...comfortable climate, but I'm honored to have this opportunity.

Happy Independence Day.

Clearance sale on pointless stories

2005-06-22T22:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back at Al Asad, the land of milk & honey. In an amazing move that will surely go down in the tomes of history, I have been given two, count em' two days off. I realize that this is a fairly common practice back home, but it's unprecedented out here. I am a wealthy man until Saturday.

This reward is borne from our efforts in Al Qaim, where we constructed a half-dozen SWA (South-West Asia) huts, a large Shock-Trauma Center, several guard towers, and another half-dozen decks for Bedouin tents. We did a bang-up job, and now we're reaping the sweet, sweet reward.

I have a few stories, as usual. Those that have asked me for stories about OIF I were usually given my personal favorite, the tale of Sid the Scorpion and his many triumphs against the worst insects I could throw at him. Well, with all the plywood & whatnot lying about, we managed to find a lot of scorpions and other assorted beasts.

Beastwars:

The first match was Sammy the Spider (Camel Spider) Vs. Sid Vicious (Named in honor of Sid, the original champion). They were both about the same size, and the money was on Sid, naturally. As it turns out, this was a good bet. Since Sammy had no size advantage, Sid ended up holding him down with his claws, and stabbing him in the face a few times with his stinger.

Winner: Sid

A day or two later, we put Sid up against a slightly smaller scorpion, with predicable results. Sid took a hit or two, but kept his chin up and won the day.

Winner: Sid

The very day after the last battle, Sid did battle with Fluffy, another scorpion, again slightly smaller. Earlier that day, SSgt Fowler informed us that a scorpion, when surrounded by fire, would commit suicide with it's own stinger rather than suffer the flames. We all decided that the loser of this next battle would be put into the "Ring of Fire", to partake in the scorpion version of Hara-Kiri.

Unfortunately, Sid wasn't holding up so well with all this constant battle. He was slower and took several hits from Fluffy. However, Fluffy, with his considerable speed, was quick to run away at every opportunity. We had to keep pushing them together in order to keep the battle going.

Marines, as a general rule, are not known for their patience. After several rounds of "Push em' together, watch em' run away", Sgt Maus lost his patience. "C'mon, bitch, FIGHT!" he began to scream. Unfortunately, Sid had lost his stomach for battle. I imagine getting stung a few times will do that to a guy.

A chant began to emerge from the crowd. "Ring of fire! Ring of fire!".

"Fuck it, man" Sgt Maus continued, "They don't wanna fight, burn their asses."

And so the Ring of Fire was made. Using Alcohol-based hand sanitizer, A ring was made around the two of them, and set afire.

Fire will motivate anything. Both scorpions scrambled for a way out, passing through the flames, and setting themselves alight in the process. They immediately begain to thrash about. Now, most everyone agrees they were stinging themselves, but I'm not convinced. If you set me on fire, I would be doing the crazy dance too. Sure, you could say "Oh, he's punching himself! He's trying to kill himself so he doesn't have to burn to death!", but c'mon. I'm on fuckin' fire. Of course I'm flailing. I'm on fire.

Winner: Fire

Volleyball, Homoeroticism and Lobster Man.

A curious thing happens when you put a bunch of guys together for months. You start doing things you would never, ever do back home. Like rub sunscreen or lotion into another man's back. In front of the guys. Or maybe someone in your platoon comes up and says "Hey man, I got a big knot in my back. Will you rub it out? I'll rub your back for you!" And you say "Yes."

Pretty soon, you're playing team sports in nothing but a tight pair of PT shorts and shoes. Welcome to the 1st Annual Al-Anbar province Volleyball Championships. Volleyball madness first began sweeping the company about two months ago. It was a small group of die-hards that played every night. Their influence has swept over us, and now volleyball is played every night. Sadly, I have also been consumed by the fever. I call out "Five serving Seven", wearing tight shorts. I clap my hands when we make a point. I scream at teammates when they fail to properly "Set". We all get real sweaty and then give each other high-fives.

Someone help me, because I can't help myself.

I make the mistake of not applying the sweatproof sunscreen, and my back is burned horribly. Every move is extremely painful, and I forget one of the taboos of heterosexual culture. "Hey, hey...Sgt Gonzalez. Wanna do me a favor? Want to rub some lotion in on my back? He acquiesces quickly, because his back is burned too. And so of course I'll rub his back in exchange.

Help me, help me, help me. I can't stop myself.

I'm so red I am given the nickname of "Lobster Man". And hey, while we're discussing sunburns, what the hell is it that makes everyone come up and give you a big old wallop on the back whenever you scorch yourself?

Any Marine: Hey Doody! How the hell are you? *SLAP*

Doody: Aaaaaaaaggghhhh!

Any Marine: Whoa-ho-ho! A little sunburned, are we?

Doody: No kidding, mouthbreather!

Any Marine: Well, I was gonna say sorry, but now..... *SLAP*

Doody: Gaaaaaagggggghhhhhhhh!

So now my body has a little race going: Lung Cancer Vs. Skin Cancer, which one can kill Dave first? Unbeknownst to both of them, I am going to quit smoking and carry a parasol everywhere once I get home.

So that's about all the entertainment I can wring out of my little AQ trip. As always, an update will be put together soon. Apologies to anyone that was stuck worrying about me in light of the Operation Sword situation.

The soul of wit.

2005-06-19T21:08:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a short update, as the title implies.

First item of business: I'm okay. I didn't go out on this last op, as some of you have worried about. However, I -am- temporarily living out of the same base that it's being housed from. Thus, the internet/phone center had been shut down. So that's why I've been the invisible man lately. They reopened it for father's day, and so here I am.

I do happen to have some good stories to tell, once I get back to the beautiful Al-Asad Spa & Resort. Time on the interweb here is rather limited, but I promise I'll get some good stuff up once I return, okay? Okay.

2005-06-04T04:08:00.000-07:00

The Marine Corps has taught me many things. How to launder clothes by hand, for instance. How to fire a weapon accurately over long distances, how to hide myself in many kinds of environments.

In recent years, the Marine Corps has adopted manoeuvre warfare over attrition. In fact, all of my training has revolved around this manner of thinking. Stick & move, jab & weave. Take real estate as quickly as you can, and for god's sake, if you get ambushed, you regroup and attack with every ounce of force you can muster.

So yesterday, when SSgt Bates played a cruel joke on me, I knew I had to regroup and go for the throat. This is a story of treachery & public humiliation.

Yesterday saw me working with Lcpl Archdeacon (our electrician) to help finish one of the buildings we've assembled. Wiring for electricity is one of the final stages in completing a building, but it only takes a few people to do. Thus, he and I worked on wiring while everyone else went back to the barracks to rest and clean weapons.

At around 1100, we had finished what we needed to do, and turned to putting tools back into our gear locker. Putting all the tools back into the gear box is tremendously important. If we lose tools, we can't complete our mission very well. So as I was making a short sweep of the building, who should I come across but Lieutenant Fancher (Navy) using our staplegun to secure linoleum to the floor?

Well, too bad for him, I needed our tool back. Because if I left the staplegun with him, it would undoubtably be used in a triple-murder and I would be the one to hang for it. So I approach, and ask for the tool, at which point he informs me that SSgt Bates (Our acting platoon sergeant) was the one that gave it to him, and if he takes responsibility for the tool, would I let him continue to use it?

Well heck. That sounded reasonable enough. Sounded like a very reasonable request to me. Sure thing, sir. Sure thing. You go ahead and use the tool, but don't stab me in the back, okay? Okay? You wouldn't do that, would you sir? Not me, right? You wouldn't do that to me?

OH YES HE WOULD

So off I went, blissfully unaware that my afternoon was about to suck. I went to the chow hall, devoured a meal, went back to the barracks, pulled out the trusty ipod, and settled in for a short nap. Not five minutes later, I wake up to find a large chunk of my ass missing, courtesy of Sgt. Maus.

"What the fuck, Doody? Tell me why I got fuckin' Staff NCO's bitching me out for unsecured tools? Huh?"

Oops. Looks like the Lt. screwed me over. Never trust an officer.

"Uh, Sgt Maus, the El-tee (Short for Lieutenant) said that SSgt Bates gave him the tool. I figured that if he gave it to him, and didn't say anything to me, he didn't need it back with the rest of the tools."

"Good, Doody. I'm glad you're the new guy in charge of tool accountability! I'm glad you know so much about our shit that you think it's okay to just loan it the fuck out to whoever!"

Then he storms away, leaving me to wonder what the hell just took place. Sure, maybe I did the wrong thing, but I didn't rate getting bitched out like that, right?

That's when Sgt Gonzales comes in and adds to my confusion. He spits out "Doody! You gonna write an essay! You gonna write an essay about not being a fucking idiot!" and then disappears into the room that Sgt Maus went into. By now, I'm trying like hell to figure out what exactly is taking place. I could have sworn I saw the faintest hint of a smile on Sgt G's face, but it didn't seem like a good idea to try calling his bluff.

About an hour later, SSgt Bates comes in and shoots me an ice-cold glare, then storms off into the room holding Sgt Maus & Sgt G. "Just let me know when you figure out what punishment you want for Doody, Staff Sergeant!" rings out from Sgt Maus, and I decide I'm going to suck it up and just apologize already.

So there I stand at the door, waiting. Finally, he comes out and I make my big pitch: "Staff Sergeant, I apologize for not securing the tool. I incorrectly assumed that it would be okay to leave the tool with the Lieutenant. What can I do to make this right, Staff Sergeant?"

He glares at me, and starts to walk out of the room. Then he stops. And his shoulders start to shake. He turns around and I see that he's silently laughing. I know I've been had. Oh yes, everybody is laughing now. They got Doody! Got him good! Hardy-fuckin'-har.

I was ambushed. Caught with my pants down. Now it's time for the counterattack.

Starting about a half-second after everyone started laughing, I had my eyes open for a means of revenge. I considered the old standbys: Cutting boot laces, stealing a hat, turning chevrons upside down, but I decided to wait. Fortune rewards the patient.

Walking past the worksite on my way to this very internet center, I came across my opportunity. Staff Sergeant Bates' notebook.

I stared at it a few additional moments, expecting it to slowly shimmer away like a mirage. I took a step closer. Then another. I put out my hand and touched it. And then, just as the inkling of a plan began to form in my mind, a cold smile spread across my face.

Any amateur can steal something and give it back later. I decided that I was going to fill this book with all kinds of crazy shit, and then return it during our nightly meeting, so that everyone could see what I had done.

The beginning was simple: "Pee-Wee Herman + Staff Sergeant Bates = True Love!" This was followed with several hearts bearing the name Pee-Wee, along with several lines of "Staff Sergeant Herman" in cursive.

I knew more was needed, so I decided to get a touch more creative. I started cutting out photographs of men from Maxim Magazine. Men in Under Armor ads, Men in cologne ads, it didn't matter. Were they shirtless? Then I cut it out. I placed these pictures throughout his notebook. As I flipped through it, I noticed that the entries were according to date. So I decided to add a few additional journal entries. The following is what I wrote, as best as I can remember:

6/1/05 --

1500-- Saw a gorgeous, shirtless Iraqi Boy today. Just looking at him made my pants tight with painful arousal. I rubbed sunscreen all over his back, and traded him a candy bar for a lock of his hair. OMG, SO HOT.

(And there, in his journal, was a lock of hair that I cut from my own head. I considered the hair to be the master stroke.)

1900-- Remember to make appointment for "combat stress massage". Pay lots of attention to my nipples (the word "nipples" heavily underlined.)

Once my work with his notebook was complete, all that was left was the painful wait until our 2000 meeting. I was not disappointed. When the time came, I sat dutifully through until the end of the meeting, at which time I asked for everyone's attention.

"Everybody" I began "Today I made a mistake. A big mistake, as most of you already know. I failed to maintain accountability of gear. But Marines, I don't want you to think that this is only a problem that PFCs and Lance Corporals face. (at this point, I paused for effect and gave Staff Sergeant Bates a huge grin) Indeed, even Staff NCOs can fall victim to complacency." And with a flourish, I produced SSgt's notebook. "I been lookin' for that!" screamed SSgt Bates.

But it wasn't time for him to get it back, not just yet.

"Marines, I know that I have many failings, chief among them is curiosity. As I brought the book over to the meeting tonight, I wondered to myself, 'What does a Staff Sergeant write about in one of these things?' I am ashamed, Devildogs. I'm ashamed that I didn't have the strength to keep the book shut. I looked. I looked in his book! But I couldn't believe what I saw. I just couldn't.... I mean....well....maybe you all should see this."

And just as I knew they would, everyone crowded around. I opened the book and let them see. Suddenly, the sound of laughter filled the room. Staff Sergeant Bates knew I had him, but there was nothing left for him to do but let me finish my hand.

"Most disturbing, most disturbing of all, everyone" I continued, "are the journal entries. Allow me to read them." And so I did, making sure to point out the lock of hair to everyone. The howling only increased in laughter.

At this point, I knew that one of two things was going to happen. A: Staff Sergeant Bates would take it like a champ and shake my hand, or B: Staff Sergeant Bates was going to cut my balls off. My second gamble of the day paid off. He (much to his credit) laughed as I returned his notebook. Whew.

The lesson of the story is not to play practical jokes on those more devious than yourself. As I took the liberty of reminding him after the meeting "Hey, I whipped this up in an hour. Imagine would I could have done if I let things stew for a few days?"

Stop! Hammertime.

2005-05-30T21:16:00.000-07:00

I've been up at AQ for a while now, doing pretty much exactly what I expected: Working my ass off. A typical day starts with a 0500 reveille, and we are on the job site & working until around 1730 - 1800. Bear in mind, this is manual labor, something my cushy ass is mostly unfamiliar with. On Saturday of last week, we were expecting our 1st Sgt and C.O. to arrive and inspect our work. At that time, we were about 50% complete on our objectives; right on schedule. In anticipation of the visit, we scurried about, cleaning weapons, tidying the work site, getting haircuts, etc.

Brief sidebar for comedy: I may have neglected to mention this before, but our company is known as "The Anvil". This name was given to our company by our leadership during OIF I. Apparently, the irony of naming their company after an object that is beaten on all day escaped the brass.

Anyhow, There I was.... sitting in our building, shirt off, getting my hair cut in anticipation of the visit. We're all cracking wise, having a good old time, and I joke about shaving a big "R" in my chest for Major Riddell, my all time favorite-guy and personal hero. This has the anticipated effect of laughter, causing another Marine to remark: Yeah, you could shave your chest to look like an anvil!

I will be truly shocked if any of you can't guess what happened next. But for the slower readers out there: Yeah, I did it. I shaved an anvil into my chest hair. It's the most goddamn ridiculous thing ever. It was done entirely tongue-in-cheek, A way for me be obnoxious and still untouchable. There is also video of this incident. I probably won't be able to make it available until I get home, but it WILL become available.

Okay, sidebar over now.

As I said before, we were waiting on the CO and the 1st Sgt. But they were late. Really late. Finally we get the word to pack up and head back to our building. A few minutes after we assemble ourselves, Warrent Officer Young comes in and tells us why the convoy is late, citing an IED attack. Then he delivers an even more sobering piece of news: 1stSgt Barnhill is dead.

The 1stSgt is the only KIA, but three other Marines were seriously injured. One was our C.O., taking shrapnel through the legs. Another was Lcpl Crabtree, taking shrapnel to his face and extremities. Current word is that he is in the hospital, in danger of losing an eye. The other injured Marine, Lcpl Skelly (and I may have spelled that wrong, he's a new join in a different platoon) took shrapnel to the legs as well.

Losing good guys is tough, but it seems a little tougher when it's a member of your leadership. Don't get me wrong, I think the lowest private's life is worth just as much as a general's. But your immediate leadership gives your unit it's "profile". They also directly influence your daily life, unlike little guys such as myself.

It's no secret that I disliked 1stSgt Barnhill. The guy had a bad habit of berating Marines over inconsequential events, and I couldn't stand it. But this is just too much. My understanding is that the shrapnel that killed him struck his head; hopefully he never even knew what happened. My greatest sympathies go out to his family. He was a Husband, Father and Brother. Regardless of my personal dislike, he was an outstanding Marine that I respected.

I am both infuriated and terrified that despite our best measures, things like this still happen. You can be in top shape, a dead-shot with any weapon and smarter than anyone else in your unit, but you're in just as much risk as anyone. 1stSgt Barnhill came closer to achieving invulerability than anyone I've ever met. An already huge man, he had the added training of MCMAP (Marine Corps Martial Arts Program) Black Belt, to contribute to his bad-assness. I keep expecting to suddenly hear him scream at someone, or bust into our rooms late at night, out of breath, yelling "Flaks and kevlars on! We got incoming!". I know it's never going to happen again and inexplicably, I miss it.

In other news, we've been tasked with other missions while we're up here at AQ. We're viewed as manna from heaven by these guys, so we're going to loiter about a while longer and continue to help them out.

Unfortunatly for you, this means fewer & less detailed posts. The lines for internet here are a bit longer, and I only have 20 minute stabs. I'll do what I can, as you're seeing here, but it's hard to throw something detailed and smooth in such a short period of time.

More scoop soon.

2005-05-20T07:51:00.000-07:00

Alas, there is nothing of interest to report, nor will there be for awhile. I am on a construction mission somewhere. Obviously, since it has internet, it cannot be that bad. But I loathe construction with every fiber of my being. I hate hammering nails, I hate sawing boards, I hate putting roofs together.

Could be worse, right? I know. I am just bitching, as I have a quota to fill. I will try and put in an update soon, but I have no idea what the hell I am going to write about, since every day for the next couple of weeks will be exactly the same. I will think of something.

P.S. If my writing on this post seems wooden, there is a reason. The apostrophe key is broken on this machine. Heh.

Operation Matador

2005-05-16T17:44:00.000-07:00

Where am I? Am I okay? Am I participating in all the fighting going on right now?

These are a few of the questions I found waiting for me via email two days ago, upon my return from what's being called "The biggest operation since Fallujah". I apologize for keeping mum about it, but we're not given much choice. Bottom line, I'm okay. We did some good work out there. Saw a lot of things. So many things that I wanted to put in a little more effort than usual on this post and try to establish a rough timeline of events. A "war story" if you will.

Friday, May 6

The word is passed to all of us that an offensive mission is about to take place in the Al-Anbar Province. A unit in Al Qaim has an Engineer shortfall on their T/O (Table of Organization), and they need eight Marines down there ASAP. I am put in charge of a team and told what gear needs to be drawn. (Mine detectors, Muzzle-mounted flashlights for M16s, NVGs, etc.) Additionally, we are told our helo ride for AQ leaves the next morning. We all draw gear, clean weapons and wait.

Saturday, May 7

We get out to AQ late in the day because of a delay on the helicopter. This will set the precedent for most rides during the next week. We finally arrive on deck, and arrange billeting with the grunts we're going to go forward with. My team is attached to 3/5, Lima Co. We are given a short brief, explaining that we will be searching for mines and weapon caches. We all get pretty excited about that.

Shortly after the brief, we get the word that reville is going at 0200, and we step off at 0300. This too, will be a precedent for the coming week.

Too goddamn early, Sunday, May 8

Usually, when you wake up at Two in the morning, it's because your teenage daughter just tried to sneak back in, or you have to piss, or a burglar is rifling through your DVD collection. Usually you're drowsy. I wake up fully alert at the assigned reville time and make final checks on my gear before moving to the staging area.

After we sit around for an hour or two, the vehicles start to show up. Sgt Lee's team gets an armored humvee. My team gets an Amtrac, short for "amphibious tractor". It's a tracked vehicle made of aluminum. It's main mission is taking troops to shore from a naval vessel while under fire. The aluminum, light enough to give it buoyancy, isn't the most protective of armor, bBut it'll stop small arms fire easily enough. I realize that very few readers have ever had the luxury of riding in one of these, so I'll give a short synopsis of what riding in one is like. Imagine an EZ-Bake oven with guns. As the sun rises, so does the temperature inside our track. We're sitting there with flak & kevlar on, sweating our asses off. It's 0800. Gonna get a lot worse before it gets better.

The smell of unwashed Marines permeates the inside, but we get an occasional break from the BO as diesel fumes waft through. My hate for Sgt Lee grows with each passing minute. Unlike a humvee, being on the move does not provide a cooling breeze.

After what seems like an eternity, we arrive on the outskirts of town and set up a blocking position. As my gaming buddies know, a blocking position is not necessarily involved in a direct fight. Essentially, you set up a perimeter, send in some grunts, and see if you manage to scare anyone your way. Sometimes you get some. Usually you don't.

After a few minutes of sitting there, rounds begin to impact in our general direction. Apparently, we aren't welcome. Go figure. The "rooks" (Short for rookie. Slang for guys on their first tour) get very excited about this. They search earnestly for targets to engage, but I know they're well out of range for an M16, and I sit down inside the amtrac to drink water and try to catch a nap. We spend all of the morning at our position, and in the early afternoon, we move to a new position, roughly 200 meters from the city.

I'm thinking to myself "Now this looks mighty promising." I get atop the vehicle and start scanning rooftops, windows and doorways with my ACOG (advanced combat optical gunsight). More rounds zing our way, just as wild and inaccurate as before. At this point, I'm starting to get a little pissed off. I don't like insurgents. I don't like people shooting at me, and I really don't like not knowing where they are. I keep scanning, but noone makes themselves available for me.

After several hours, the city has been cleared, and night is approaching. We need to find a place to get some rest. The Amtracks, Tanks and Humvees move into the city, and we find a school. Schools are great places to make an outpost from. Many rooms, all interconnected, and usually a wall or fence of some kind along the perimeter. We move into the school and find ourselves a room. After I get my gear off, I realize I'm hungry and almost out of water. Everyone else is in the same state, so I go outside to find our supply truck. Looking around, I see Marines everywhere, weapons bristling. On the rooftop, peering out of Amtracs, perched atop tanks.

Without warning, the SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon) on the roof opens up. Someone got caught doing something they shouldn't. Pretty soon, snipers begin opening up. From the looks of things, we've pissed off a few people.

Several squads are assembled and sent out on foot patrol to deal with them. My team and I continue to stand by in the school; This is a pure infantry mission, Engineers aren't needed. Soon word comes out over the net about a fortified position. An insurgent has dug a fighting hole in his living room, and is opening up with a machine gun sporting armor-piercing rounds. One Marine is shot in the throat and killed. As the Marines close to engage, two men wearing suicide vests rush them and are shot.

About this time, it's decided that enough is enough and an airstrike is called in on the house. A few minutes later, a 500 lb bomb drops and obliterates a house.

Whoops. Wrong house.

My team and I are still sitting in a dark classroom, looking at textbooks from the early 70's when an enormous blast blows out several of the school's windows. I look at the team, and think "Oh, fucking cheers. They have RPGs they want to play with." Then another blast sounds. And I realize: That's not an RPG. That's the main gun on an M1 Abrams tank.

Then I start to think "How fucking cool is it to have weapons that sound like you're being attacked when YOU'RE the ones attacking?" I would hate to be on the receiving end of that gun. A total of four High-Explosive rounds are sent into the building. All is quiet again, and we all curl up on the floor for some sleep.

Monday, May 9

reveille sounds at 0600 and we once again pack up our gear, load it onto the track and set out hunting. We drive across the open desert for an hour, until we come across another town. Once again, we set up on the outskirts for another blocking mission. This time, we spend the entire day at this position. In front of us is a huge city. Behind us are a couple buildings. We decide to clear the houses and try to relax somewhere a bit cooler.

The first house contains shorn sheep wool and other agricultural tools. It smells of animal, and we decide we've been smelling animal all day in the track. We move to the other house and find that someone certainly lives here; there are shoes in the entryway. Weapons come up, safeties come off. Even though the risk is minimal, we want to ensure it's safe here. We move through the house slowly, clearing rooms. Cabrerra and Garrett clear the roof, and now we only have one locked room to go.

We stand to the side of the door & knock. "Hello?" "Marhaba?" No answer. We decide to kick the door down. After several solid kicks, the lock shatters and the door bursts open. Before me is a parent's bedroom just like any other back home. Granted, the furniture is a bit more dilapidated and the bed's mattress in need of replacement, but it's obviously someone's home.

Still, there are a lot of places you can hide a mine, or an RPK, or plastique explosive. So we search slowly & methodically, squeezing the pockets of decades-old suits in the closet, lifting the mattress & re-tucking the blankets. We don't want them to know their privacy was invaded. I feel guilty, as if I was going through my own parents bedroom. As an apology to the home owners, we tuck a $5.00 bill under a hairbrush on the nightstand. Hopefully they can get the lock replaced without too much trouble.

Our consciences assuaged, we remove our gear & take naps. We are awakened in the early evening & told to reload our tracks. We move out of the city and set up a perimeter in the open desert for the night. This is when I meet Ali, the explosive-sniffing dog. Ali is the biggest German Shepherd I have ever seen in my life, weighing in, according to his handler, at about 125lbs. I play tug of war and fetch with him. He is tremendously strong & fast, and his eyes are full of aggression moderated by his handler. He will prove to be extremely useful at finding weapons caches.

After setting up the firewatch, we tuck in again, this time getting up at 0300 for another exciting day.

Tuesday, May 10

The now common routine of loading gear onto bodies and packs onto tracks is completed, and we return to the exact position we had yesterday. Unfortunately, we still haven't got a mission, and we're annoyed by this. So we do what any bored jarhead does, we get some sleep. We move over to the houses we had yesterday and re-clear them. (Once you leave a building, you have to re-clear it if you want to enter.) What I see inside saddens me, and is a harbinger of events to come.

The house is trashed. MRE wrappers everywhere. The care we took to leave things undisturbed is of no consequence to the last occupants. The closet with clothes is open, the contents strewn about. The mattress is flipped over, and someone has X'ed it with their Ka-Bar to check the inside. The entire house is completely, 100% fucked. And the icing on the cake is the missing $5. I feel horrible. I can't imagine what my reaction would be if I came home one day to a scene like this. Call the police? These people have no police. Even if they did, they have no phones to call on. I don't want to rest here anymore. I'm afraid the people that own this place will return, and I'll have to look them in the eye.

We return to the amtracks and discuss the precice level of fucked-up one must reach to do that to someone's house. Then we are tasked with a mission and put it out of our heads. We need to sweep a road for mines so the armor can be brought up.

We grab our gear and move down to the road. It's about a 200 meter, 2-lane road. Sweeping this road takes about 3 hours, and we find nothing. No news is good news, but we desperately want to find something that will validate our place here. We return to our Track and set in for the night again. No sooner than we have everything unpacked than we are told to re-pack our shit and move to 1st Platoon's POS. We're going to be attached to them tomorrow.

Of course, the timing couldn't have been better, but we ignore the inconvenience. Fuck it, we're gonna go do some work at last. We move down about 300 meters to the house and drop our shit. I sit down and relax, working off my boots, when I smell something incredible: A home-cooked meal.

I take a sip out of my camelbak, because I'm obviously hallucinating and need to hydrate. But the smell is undeniable. I get up and explore my way to the kitchen, where two Marines are cooking chicken and frying potatoes. This is amazing. Real food. I get that pang of guilt again, but the Marines in the kitchen put me at ease. They rented the house and everything in it for $20. That will more than cover the food and inconvenience of having a platoon in your house.

I don't want to wait for the food to finish cooking, so I help myself to a few stalks of green onions. Delicious & crisp, I devour them in just a few minutes. By this time, the food is almost done, and we've found several loaves of local bread. We dip the bread into the chicken grease and eat it. Divine. I've never had a better meal in my life. I'm unshaven, unshowered, with greasy hair and skin, and I'm in heaven. It's now 2300, and reville is 0300 again, but I can't tear myself away from the food until my belly is full. Content, I make my way to the mat I have laid out as a mattress, and drift quickly off to sleep.

I wake up sometime in the night, having to piss fiercly, and make my way outside to the trench. Relieving myself, I go back into the room and lie down, thinking that it feels as though a lot more than four hours have gone by. This suspicion is confirmed when I am woken up at 0600. Command gave us a break today. Whee.

Wednesday, May 11

First platoon is given the mission of searching houses on the west side of the road we'll be travelling down. My team will sweep the road itself, clearing the way again for tanks and other vehicles. We're told that the methodical sweeping pattern we are using is, frankly, too slow. We're asked to search visually, sweeping the 14 over areas that we consider suspicious. I think this is a fine idea, and off we go.

We make much better time now. Finding mines is a job best suited for devious minds. If I'm devious, I know where I would plant mines, and thus stand a better chance of anticipating where they would put mines. Our intelligence says the mines have been put down very recently -- just in the past two or three days. Thus, I'm looking for fairly obvious things. Moist soil by the roadside, depressions or raises in the road, areas with "too much" camoflage, etc. Even areas carefully camoflaged will have inconsistencies. For instance, if you place rocks over the mine and scatter dirt atop them, the dirt will still lack the compactness that you will find occuring naturally. So if I pull out stones and no impression is left, something has recently disturbed that area of soil. Maybe a mine, maybe just a kid with a toy shovel & bucket. The only way to know is to sweep with a 14, or probe with a knife & hands.

We probe until chow, finding nothing. Military intelligence is rarely reliable, and we head inside to an Iraqi Family's house to eat chow & take a break. This family is still inside. Or, to be more accurate, outside in the garden, while Marines rest in the various rooms & stand watch on the roof. There is certainly tension in the air.

The way I see things, if I'm in someone's house, then I'm a guest. And guests introduce themselves. I go out to the garden and look at the family. A couple grown men, several women, and a whole batch of kids, ranging in age from infant to 16 or so. Everyone is avoiding my eyes except the youngest children. They stare at me with innocent curiosity. I kneel down, making eye contact, and softly say "Marhaba" (Hello). The effect is tremendous. The entire family looks over at me, and says "Hello!" In my mind, all the cultural classes I've taken regarding Iraqis flashes by. Don't use your left hand. Don't stare at women. Show respect by placing your hand over your heart.

Naturally, I fuck it up. But they don't care. I'm trying, and they recognize it. The kids smile shyly, and I sit down a few feet away. I don't want to crowd them, but I don't want to stand there, lording down on them either. I reflect on the contents of my pocket, trying to think of a small gift I might present. The letter from my girlfriend won't do. I doubt they need rifle cleaning gear. But I do have smokes. And out here, people smoke like it's their fuckin' job. I pull out my Marbs and offer one to who I assume is the head of the household. Smiling, he takes one and I light it for him. Then I take out one of mine and and light that too. Diplomacy through carcinogens. Fantastic stuff.

So we sit there, smoking our cigarettes, and we try to breach the formidable barrier of language. I ask him his name, he tells me it is Saoul (at least, that's how it sounded). He points at me and raises his eyebrows. I give him my name in Arabic, "Da-oud" (Again, this is phonetic). Grandpa smiles and chatters quickly to the others. Turns out, we've got the same name. That calls for a cigarette!

By this time, the children are no longer shy or afraid. They approach me, studying my features and gear. I try to teach a kid of about eight "Paper, Rock, Scissors." It's a lot harder than it sounds. I grab paper from my pocket and a rock from the garden. I pantomime scissors with my hands and try to demonstrate. It's going way over his head. I get another Marine to play with me, and finally they understand. Several rounds of PRS ensue, and damn it all if the kid didn't whup my ass.

The fun ends way too soon, and it's time to move. I never even ate my MRE. I pull it out of my pack and offer it to them, but they shake their heads and insist I keep it. I point at myself, then at their house, pantomimed sleeping, and said "Shu-krahn" (thank you). They say what I believe means "You're welcome", and I leave them. I hope desperately that the Muj did not see us using their house. If they did, the family will almost certainly be killed.

Once outside, we reload the amtracks and press forward a kilometer or two, and dismount again, making preperations to sweep the road. It's my turn to use the PSS14 (mine detector), so I strap in, boot it up, and being sweeping.

It's about 15 minutes later that I hear the explosion. They aren't particularly unusual in a hostile area. We had been finding caches semi-regularly, and the word would be passed that a controlled detonation was going to take place. There was no word passed about this particular explosion, however. We all stand there hoping against hope that someone fucked up, that someone forgot to mention another explosion. I stare in the direction of the blast. Then I see it: An enormous column of flame and smoke.

I know what it is before the word even comes over the radio: Someone hit a mine. I stand there in a daze and then the nausea comes. I fucked up. I fucked up in the worst way because I'm not dead, other Marines are. A voice in my head starts talking to me. "You are an insufferable shit. You were so anxious to get the sweep done and get out of the sun, and now look what has happened. Go on, Dave. Go on inside the nice cool house up ahead. You've done plenty today."

Then more explosions start. The C4, MK19 rounds, and various other types of ammunition stored on the track have begun to cook off from the heat. About ten Marines got out of the track, the rest are burning inside. I wish more than anything that they are unconcious from the blast. I want to sit down and cry. The platoon Sergeant comes over to me. "It's okay, man. It's okay. You guys didn't sweep that area, we drove past it."

I'm so relieved to hear it that I don't even question the statement's veracity. We are calmly told to get into a building, occupy the rooftop, and begin searching for triggermen. Military-age persons with weapons or binoculars are to be shot on sight. Persons will cellular phones are to be observed. So up we go to the roof, and we spend several hours there searching for targets. None appear.

The occupants of the house have been seperated. Men in one room, women & children on the other. The psyops guys think that the men know something, and they begin interrogating them in a bedroom. The women & children are under guard by a single Marine. As his time for relief approaches, I volunteer to take his place and am sent down.

I enter the room to see about 15 women & children inside. The women range in age from late teens to an elderly woman. The children range from infant to ten year olds. I inform the Marine standing post that I'm his relief, and he moves to another room to begin eating an MRE.

The women are afraid and the children are feeding off of this. Every Marine that walks through the entryway glares at them in cold fury. I smile and wave at one of the younger ones, and he starts to cry. I feel like a monster. I can only imagine what I must look like to these scared people. Decked out in full combat gear, holding a loaded assault rifle. One more face in a string of tormentors. I'm angry, all right, but not at them. I'm angry that I'm standing here with a weapon, essentially holding them hostage. It's not honorable. It's not right. If I had the luxury of choking up, I probably would have.

I take a knee a respectful distance from the children and reach into my cargo pocket. I've been saving my MRE candy for kids. I have M&Ms and Jolly Ranchers in my pocket. I pull them out slowly. It's a well known fact that the driving force in every child's life is to consume candy, regardless of circumstance. I take a Jolly Rancher and slide it to the kid looking friendliest at the moment. He picks it up, puts it in his mouth, and does the crazy candy-dance we all did as children. Now the curiosity of the other children is piqued, and I shake M&Ms into outstreched hands, distributing as evenly as I can. Now we've got almost a dozen kids in pure candy ecstacy.

A Marine is attracted by the commotion and puts his head inside. "What the fuck are you doing? He spat out. Don't smile at these pieces of shit." With that, he disappears back into the further recesses of the house. And like magic, the work I just put in is undone by a single sentence. No more candy dancing. No more giggles or smiles. Stonefaced, eyes cast downward, utterly silent. One of the younger children grabs a dish of water and drinks it all down. Now there is no more for anyone else. I reach out my hand and beckon for the dish, but noone will hand it to me. So I slowly walk into the group.

The kids are absolutely flapping. They haven't been this close to a Marine before. It's unexpected and therefore scary. I lean down to retrieve the water dish, and lock eyes with a strikingly beautiful young woman. The look she is giving me is one of barely controlled fear. I softly whisper "It's okay, I just want to give you water." Knowing full well she can't understand but hoping the words will have a soothing effect. They don't. Retrieving my camelbak mouthpiece, I refill the water dish and set it back down on the tile next to her. She relaxes just a touch, and I return to my previous position in the room.

We are then told to get ready, the casualties incurred earlier are being loaded onto a helicopter, and after the medical helos leave,we will return to our tracks and beat feet away to another school. The entire ride, two thoughts duel for control: "Please don't let us run over a mine" and "Men burned to death today, you may have played the starring role, and you're worried about your own hide?"

We get to another school and set up bivouac. Once again, We remove our gear and begin exploring. Garrett is in one room, I am in a room adjacent. Suddenly I hear him scream, then start to laugh. I enter the room, he explains. While exploring, he opened up a cardboard box, and a cat jumped out. We laugh together, relieved to have something else on our minds, if only for a moment.

"I wonder what the hell that cat was doing in there, anyway?" Garrett says. "Probably kittens." I reply, and stride over to the box to confirm my suspicions. Sure enough, a single kitten is inside, about 4 weeks old. It's cowering in the corner of the box, and I reach down to pick it up. As the kitten mewls pitifully, I pick it up and hold it to my chest, gently petting it and speaking softly. It's pure therapy, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to take care of something helpless: It keeps my mind off the deaths.

Then the other Marines come in. I turned away, hiding the kitten. I know kittens well; I know Marines better. If they find out about the kitten, It's odds of survivability drop to about 50%. I return to the room I got it from, petting and whispering to it, and return it to the box. Garrett wants to know if that's a good idea. "The mother has probably abandoned it, you know." But, as I said before, I know cats. "Naw, that momma is going to sneak in here tonight while we all sleep and move her baby. Watch."

Sure enough, when I got up in the morning, the box was empty.

Thursday, May 12

With the arrival of morning comes a surprise. We're not doing shit until the afternoon. The KIA & WIA casualties suffered so far have come almost exclusively from 2nd Platoon. They have suffered 60% casualties, and have been rendered combat ineffective. The remaining members of 2nd are flown out to a quieter locale, and the remainder of the company must new be reorganized. Thus, time off while they sort this out.

I spend my time sleeping blissfully and eating, Thinking about happy things. Anne. Coming Home. A shower at the end of the mission. Bad karaoke night at my Dad's Bar.

Around 1400, we get our word. We are now attached to Weapons Platoon and we will ride in their track from now on. Move your shit & get ready, we're going back to the city in an hour.

We get loaded up and move out. One of the Marines on the track turns to me and says "I just want to tell you, man, you might see some fucked up shit today. Make sure you're ready." Of course, this is a rather cryptic statement, and I ask what he means by it. "We're fucking done trying to win hearts and minds" he says "Now we're going to kill hearts and minds." "Yeah" his buddy pipes up "Two in the heart, one in the mind."

I've heard this talk before, and I pretty much ignore it. But as we get out of the vehicles and begin searching houses & clearning roads, it becomes plain that they weren't kidding. Marines are screaming at Iraqis to sit down and shut up, as if screaming will make their words intelligible to these people. "Imshee! Imshee!" (Go!) is shouted at children that approach. The tension is extremely high.

As we round a lazy 90-degree turn, shots come in at us. Nobody takes cover. Someone spots the house they shot from, and bullets riddle the walls, kicking up dust as they tear through. Nobody is worried about civilians anymore. Nobody cares. I peer through my ACOG, searching again for a target, finding nothing. We begin to move again.

I enter the courtyard of a house that is being searched. The women & children sit at one end of the yard, the men at the other. A Marine is staring vehemently at the men in the yard. They range in ages from 12 to early 20's. The adolescents, cocky as all adolescents are, smirk at the Marine standing in front of them. I watch the transformation from anger to complete rage occur in just a few seconds. "You think this is pretty funny, do you? You think this is pretty fucking funny? Huh? You think so?" I watch him point the rifle at the kid's head. Still smirking. The unmistakable "click" of a safety being released. Still smirking. The Marine's jaw is clenched tight, hissing through his teeth, finger now directly on the trigger.

I know I should do something. I know I should say "Come on, man. Fuck these kids. Let's go." But I don't. I take the cowards way out. I turn and walk back onto the street.

100 meters down the road a different reception is taking place. A man is smiling with his father & son, waving and smiling at us. I return the gesture, and he ducks inside. "Odd." I think to myself, and then he reappears with several large pieces of flatbread. I remember the bread I ate a few nights ago and gladly accept a piece. He hands the rest out to my squad, and now we're all happy. It's been a few hours since I ate, and I'm wolfing this bread down. "Shukrahn, shukrahn." I say, placing my hand over my heart and bowing slightly. My hearty thanks earns me another gift. He calls something over to his wife in the garden. She picks several robust tomatoes and presents them to me. By now, I'm trying to juggle a large piece of bread, a rifle and an armful of tomatoes. "Hey, hey, somebody take some of these fuckin' tomatoes, man. I can't hold all of em." A Marine comes over and takes the tomatoes. "You need somebody to hold these, man? Here." And that said, he thrusts the tomatoes into the Iraqi man's arms and walks away. Several tomatoes fall to the dirt-encrusted rocks and break open, oozing juice and seeds into the road.

He and I stare at each other for a few moments. I want to apologize and I don't know how. I want to find a way to tell him "I'm sorry so many of us are angry at you. I'm not angry. I know it's not your fault." I can't do that though. So I continue to look into his eyes, willing him to understand. Bending over, I pick up one of the split tomatoes from the rocks. I rub the sizeable hole of the tomato off on my sleeve and bite down. "Shukrahn" I whisper. I think he understands. I reach out and squeeze his shoulder. "Shukrahn". He gives a faint smile and a nod. Then the column begins to move again, and we finish our roadsweep without further incident.

Our bivouac site for the evening is a 3-story house, full of marble floors and elegant lights. The owner is a "businessman". Smuggler. He has TV, and we watch some Arabic music videos. Eventually, we drift off to sleep.

Friday, May 13

This is scheduled to be an easy day. We only have a few houses and roads to clear before we're ready to leave. Unfortunately for Engineers, we're the only ones authorized to clear a road, so we worked our asses off for the entire day. We started with Weapons Platoon, and cleared the roads in their small sector. Once again, the roadway is clear. I'm starting to doubt the intelligence that has been reporting mines everywhere in this area. I've already managed to forget the tragedy of Wednesday, and have begun to slip into complacency. The problem is, you don't realize you're doing it. The fact of the matter is, after a few days in 100+ temperatures, in full gear, sweeping kilometer after kilometer & not finding anything, it's easy to slip.

We walk back to the COC and are re-tasked to clear more roadways for 2nd Platoon. Fantastic. Out we go again to sweep. We report to the house that 2nd platoon is using for a FOB (Forward Operating Base) The HMFIC (Head Mother-Fucker In Charge) says "You're the engineers, right? "Yes, Sir" we reply in unison. "Been working your asses off today?" Again the chorus "Yes, Sir". "Well sit down, take off your shit, get some chow, and try to relax. We step off at 1600."

Sweetness and light, a break at last. We scoff down our chow and smoke cigarettes, basking in the comfort of doing nothing. All of a sudden, we hear a cry of "Hoooooooooly sheeeeeeeeeit!"
Curiosity is a powerful force, and I go to the yard to investigate. What happend is this: One particular Marine, wanting to be as respectful as possible under the circumstances, decided to dig a piss trench in the yard. That way, we wouldn't all go tromping through the man's bathrooms. But midway through the trench, he finds an AK47 and lots of ammo. This time, an intervention on behalf of the Iraqi never even crosses my mind. Just wasn't his lucky day.

1600 rolls around and we step out to sweep some more. We only have about a kilometer to go, but the last 500 meters or so lead up into the cliffs with lots of winding. LAR (Light Armored Reconnaissance) is atop the cliff, so we're not worried about an ambush. Once again, we begin sweeping the road. But this time, we have some help. A pair of CEB (Combat Engineer Battalion) engineers are with us. They also have a mine detector, though it's an older model. We decide to split up the road. We'll take the right, they take the left. And up we go. We get up to the top in a reasonable amount of time, and the CEB Marines are right behind us. About 100 meters from the top, they stop and begin digging. This isn't unusual, as we frequently dig & probe into the ground if something seems suspicious. What is unusual is when they get up and run like hell screaming "IED! IED!"

Well, well. Pay dirt at last.

EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) is summoned to detonate the IED (Improvised explosive device). They get out their little robot, it places the charges, they drive it back, and BOOM, it's gone. We all start thinking "Y'know, maybe we should sweep again, just to be sure." and so we head, sweeping a second time. CEB finds another IED. It is also blown in the same fashion as the previous one.

By now, we're starting to feel pissed off an embarassed. These guys come out of nowhere and start finding everything, thus stealing our credit. We keep searching. Garrett is using the mine detector, I'm standing next to him as an aide, and Guererro and Cabrerra are probing with Ka-Bars. The metal detector spikes. This isn't unusual, as there is a lot of metal anywhere you go. What you need to pay attention to is the shape of the metal halo you're examining. This one happens to be in the shape of an artillery round.

"Ro-Ro" (Guererro's nickname) I call out, c'mere and have a peek at this." Dutifully, he trots over and begins probing. "Whoa, this ground is soft" he says ominously. I instruct him to be careful and keep going. He begins wiping dust away with his fingertips. Suddenly, I see bright blue peeking up out of the dirt. "Move back! Move back! That's a pressure plate!" We all move away and EOD comes out yet again to blow it up.

We have finally redeemed ourselves, and morale skyrockets. There is no doubt in any of our minds that we saved lives today. We continue sweeping downward, hoping to tie the score, but nothing more is found. Even so, nobody wants to travel that road without a very in-depth search. By now, it's 2200, and we return to our COC. This is the only time we've spent two nights in a row anywhere, and I happily return to my mattress. Reville is 0300, we move at 0400, but then again, that's expected.

Saturday, May 14

The trucks are again loaded up and we roll back to AQ. Nothing of any serious interest happens during the trip, and we arrive around 2030 to a heroes welcome. They even kept the chow hall open late for us. Awesome.

Sunday, May 15 and Monday, May 16

We spent these two days waiting for a helicopter to take us back home. Finally it arrived and we touched down last night around 1700. Imagine my surprise at the amount of mail waiting for me. SIX PACKAGES. I was so excited, I tore them open like a kid at christmas. Books, Instant Coffee, DVDs, Pogey bait, and so on. I wish I had been a little smarter about opening packages so I could thank according to what I got, but I didn't so I can't. A HUGE thank you to everyone for that support. I didn't think my return home could be any better than a hot shower & some clean clothes, but I am happily proven wrong. I appreciate it more than words can entail.

And once again, I hope noone was too very worried about me. I didn't tell Anne or anyone else in my Family, both for opsec AND I don't want them to worry needlessly. However, Anne, Smart cookie that she is, figured it out by piecing together my Area of Operations, where the fighting was going on, and my sudden lack of communication. Something tells me if I ever forget a birthday or anniversary and I decide to make something up, it better be pretty damn airtight.

I'm also sorry for the not-very jovial mood this post has taken. I wish I knew a way to joke about some of that stuff, but I can't find one yet. I'm not moping, feeling sorry for myself. I'm not trying to wax poetic with any of this either. But I can't shake the taste in my mouth that some of those events left.

I think that's about enough writing for one day. More scoop very soon.

Advice for prospective comedians

2005-04-30T03:47:00.000-07:00

One of the very first things a person learns when they meet me is my name. Dave Doody. And almost every time, almost without fail, they will laugh. And hey, who can blame them? Doody is a pretty funny last name. I can understand that. So laugh away, ladies and gentlemen. By now, I'm used to it, I assure you. A little giggling is A-OK in my book.

But there is something else that people do that simply has got to stop. They try to make jokes. "Doody? As in Howdy-Doody? Whoa-ho-ho-ho! I bet you get that a lot!" Or "Like Doodypants, right? Ha!" and the big military favorite: "Boy, I bet YOU sure got messed with in boot camp! Private Doody!"

So I've got advice for you prospective comedians out there. A little "joke formula", if you will. If you can think of something funny to say about a person's name, profession, horrible physical defect, etc. within five seconds, it's probably been done to death already. Going against my advice anyway means that you are little more than a catfish in the great aquarium of humor, mindlessly feasting on the waste of others and being content to do so. If that's your choice, fine. But don't get butt-hurt when I look at you like a pair of testicles just started growing out of your forehead.

My real animosity is reserved for anyone who makes one of the aforementioned, weak-ass jokes while I am in uniform. You have no excuse. It's right there on my shirt. You've got plenty of time to come up with something a little more than creative than "Is Doody on duty? Ready to do his duty?" It wasn't funny twenty years ago when my Dad was in the military, and I speak with firsthand knowledge when I say the joke isn't aging gracefully.

Of course, Officers & Staff NCOs are exempt from all of this. "Yes sir, that's a good one, sir! Never even heard it before, sir! Very clever indeed! Quite the play on words!" I just haven't the heart to tell them that in spite of all the college and the shiny little rank insignia, they still ain't got it.

This post has been brought to you by Marines For More Creative Insults, and a dipshit captain in front of the PX. Sir, if you're reading this, I just want to say thank you for inspiring this weeks post. Your ability to inspire is exceeded only by your rapier-like wit.

Now I am become Death, Destroyer of Musca Domestica

2005-04-23T05:58:00.000-07:00

Of all the things I dislike (and the list is long), there is one that rises head and shoulders above all others: The fly.

I find it's almost as if these bothersome creatures were created for the sole purpose of driving me insane. Now that it's hot out, they are everywhere. They are in my bedroom at night. There are in the port-a-shitters when I'm trying to accomplish an "urgent mission". They are on my meatloaf in the chowhall and they are FUCKING MULTIPLYING.

Most Marines swat at them with a hand, or their cover (hat). Some have even gone far enough to purchase flyswatters. None of them have taken the time & energy to learn how to capture them for torture. Except me.

My tools are as diabolical as they are simple: Half empty water bottles. A leatherman. A lighter. Anthills. Bleach and other cleaning solutions. Fly Tape. Superglue. Hand-washing gel (flammable!). And whatever other sinister methods my hideous, depraved mind manages to conjure up.

Capturing one of the enemy is not simple, but through discipline & refinement, I have borne forth such a method: Flies see & react to movement, so I approach with care. The most common mistake is to try bringing your hand down atop them, but when a fly flies, it goes off to the side, easily dodging a hand. So then, what to do? Come in from the side.

That's right. From the side. Almost like clapping my hands. CLAPPING FOR DEATH. By cupping my hands and bringing them in very, very slowly, I can get within inches of a fly on either side. Then, it's a simple matter to bring them together swiftly while still cupped. Since hands are (relatively) soft, the fly isn't crushed, just trapped.

Then the fun begins.

I may choose to drown them in the water. I may choose to slowly tear their heads from their bodies with my leatherman. Or singe their wings with my lighter & leave them on the ground, letting them slowly bake to death in the sun. My options are many. My amusement is great.

You may ask yourself "What the hell is wrong with that man?" If you're asking, you've never had a fly come up from between your legs whilst taking a shit, only to land on your lips.

Oh, and you may be interested to note that as I typed this, one more fly joined the ranks of the fallen as it crawled across my arm.

I expect a commission on this, UnderArmor.

2005-04-18T01:41:00.000-07:00

This last week has probably been the most eventful to date. In addition to my 5-day AQ (Al Qaim) run, I just got back last night from a 3-day mission at TQ (Taqqadam Airbase). The mission, while not exactly exciting, still falls under the class of "fucking cool". I was one of four Marines sent to pick up two brand-new uparmored humvees.

To a Marine, anything brand-new is always cause for excitement. Be it a new rifle, pack, or in this case, car. I mean, they had the new-car smell & everything. On top of all that, these humvees have some additional features not included in the regular package. Allow me to list them.

BULLETPROOF EVERYTHING: The cab is one big, armored box. 3/4 inch armor covers everything but the windows & windshield. 2" and 3" bulletproof glass is present in place of said windows & windshield.
COMMS: Each vehicle has four headsets that allow inter-vehicle communication. So the guy on top of the humvee with the .50, MK19 or M240G can talk to the driver. Or the A-Driver. Or any combination thereof. Best feature of all: If you pair the headsets up with a radio, everyone can hear radio traffic on that freq. Brennan alone will understand what I mean when I say it's exactly like Ventrilo.
REAR WINCH: Yep. Doesn't matter how stuck you get it, your pal can pull you out. Power slides and monster jumps are now authorized.
SWEET JESUS WE HAVE AIR CONDITIONING: By far the most popular feature. When we did the four-hour drive home last night, I actually got cold.
BLUE FORCE TRACKER: Through the technical wizardry of GPS, commanders can keep track of any vehicle's location that has a BFT. This means Airstrikes and other forms of support can be coordinated very, very quickly. It also has the added benenfit of cutting down on fratricide, since you can check YOUR BFT to see if those vehicles a few miles away are friendly or not.

So just in case you didn't pick up on my enthusiasm, these hummers are amazing.

And as long as I'm tooting the gear-queer trumpet, I want to take a moment to say that I would gladly send my firstborn child to work the coal mines, in exchange for five underarmor shirts. Ever since the heat started picking up around here, guys have been buying them. I kept saying "$20 for an undershirt? You're smoking dope, kiddo." But one of my buddies talked me into buying one, saying that if I wasn't happy with it, he would give me $20.

So what could I do? I bought one. What does it feel like? It feels like the first time I had sex. It feels like a million fairies massaging my back everytime the wind blows. It feels like I was lost in the Sahara and I suddenly found a slurpee oasis. I have to say, they're worth every penny. And the underarmor underwear? Sweetness and light, I don't know how it's possible, but those feel even better.

I've seen & done a lot of things, but I never thought I would see the day that undergarments turned my world upside down.

2005-04-14T22:45:00.000-07:00

It's been a crazy week so far. The mission I went out on was to clear mines for 1st Recon on the way to an unmentionable (They're still conducting missions, so opsec still applies) AO. Once we arrived at our destination, we got to wait around a few days for a convoy to show up. Unfortunately, the convoy was late because they found about a dozen mines on the way up to us. Yeah. A dozen. Getting a little hairier out there.

So when they finally arrived about 12 hours behind schedule, everyone decided it would be a good idea to get a night of sleep, then head out in the morning. Little did I know, they really wanted to push the definition of "Morning". So despite waking up at 0530, hauling our gear down and making other preparations to leave, we didn't roll out until around 1130.

With so many mines found the day before, someone had a brilliant idea to drive not on the road, but instead to go along in the dirt. If you would like to know what it's like to drive in Iraq's dirt atop 7-ton vehicles, you can do a little mockup in your very own at home. Open about 20 bags of flour in your living room, set up several box fans and turn them on high. Voila. Driving along in the dirt not only allows your weapons to get so clogged up they'll never fire, it also sends up a rooster tail along the column that blinds you and lets everybody know exactly where a big American Convoy is.

But wait, there's more.

After getting about 30 miles from Al Asad, the decision was made to return to the road. At last, we get a chance to get some dust out of our eyes, off our cammies, out of our weapons. We're pretty much on the home stretch, when I hear the unmistakeable sound of an explosion about a mile ahead (Our convoys are stretched out a very long way, to keep deaths to a minimum should a mine/ied go off). Immediately, everyone halts and puts weapons outboard, establishing security while our convoy commander tries to find out what the hell just happened. About a minute later, the word comes out that the explosion was an IED, and it hit our other Engineer Vehicle.

While the minutes ticked by and we all waited to find out if everyone was okay, I got a pretty sour taste in my mouth. First I was relieved: I almost rode in that vehicle. Then I felt disgusted for even thinking that. Then a low-grade panic started to set in as I thought about everybody I knew on the 7-ton. The fact that the report hadn't come over the radio wasn't helping things any. I imagine the churning in my stomach was similar to what a mother feels when she suddenly realizes she doesn't know where her kid is.

Finally, after what seemed like years, the word gets out: Everyone is okay. No deaths, no injuries. In fact, the IED didn't even detonate near the vehicle, but about 200m away. So much for accurate intel.

When we got back late that night, I took a few moments before I left to quietly look at everybody while they offloaded the vehicle. Can't say I was thanking god, but I felt something. Divine intervention or just plain luck, I guess. I didn't like the feeling I had on that 7-ton. The feeling that despite all the training, all the airpower, the superior marksmanship, the bodyarmor.... It all came down to some clown that didn't time his bomb right.

But, we're all here safe. Ultimately, that's what matters, I suppose.

The green wienie cometh

2005-04-09T00:33:00.000-07:00

In the dark corners of the Marine Corps hides a terrible being. Long and sleek, olive drab in color, it feeds on the happiness of enlisted men. Only the saltiest, bravest of men dare to speak it's name: GREEN WIENIE.

Late last night, it sensed a good deal of happiness coming from a particular Lance Corporal. Creepingly, stealthily, it makes it's way out out of the home created from the misery of others. It watches in silence as this Marine eats chow, listens to music, posts on the internet. As the Green Wienie hovers in silence, he reads the following words: "I waited four days for something interesting to happen".

This is a grievous personal insult to the Green Wienie, and so he sets his terrible sights on our beloved Company Commander, poisoning his mind, and makes him decide to move Marines from one room to another, confusing the entire company, causing havoc & discontent in the wake of this order. Satisfied that it's work here is done, the Green Wienie returns to his watchpost, where he is seeking, always seeking, the beginnings of happiness or comfort.

The Green Wienie is always watching. It will never sleep, nor tire, nor hear your cries for mercy.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. "There is no such thing as a Green Wienie." But there is, my friend. There is.

At least, that's the only thing that makes any sense. Because if it wasn't the Green Wienie that made the Major decide that everyone should do a perverse version of musical chairs, then I don't know what did. It took me two hours to pack up last night and another two to unpack everything into my room this morning. What's done is done, but the worst part is my new roommates. I've got two full-grown shitbirds in there with me, and if they make it to the end of this thing without me shooting them, it'll be nothing short of a miracle. Must......control...fist......of...death.......

But enough whining. I've still got it better than a lot of other guys, so I'll be glad for what I've got.

In other, more interesting news, I've got a mission coming up...uh..."soon." So there won't be an update for "a little while." Once it's all over, I'll tell ya who I was with & what we were doing. Hopefully it doesn't violate opsec (that's operational security) to say that it's a fucking cool mission, because I'm going to say it: This is a fucking cool mission. Haha! Fiddle-dee-dee! I said it!

Clearly, I'm losing my mind, so I'll go ahead and finish this off. As always, more word to follow.

Lifestyles of the Enlisted & Stupid.

2005-04-08T04:29:00.000-07:00

I waited four days for something interesting to happen that I could post about, and still I have nothing of serious interest to report. So I thought I would go over some of the funnier stuff that's happened since I got here, that I haven't been able to post about since the internet center was down.

Misfire the Dog:

I adopted a cute little puppy only a few weeks old on one of my convoys, and named her Misfire. She lived outside in one of the gardens by our barracks, and probably would have spent the rest of the deployment with us, were it not for one small problem she had: Crying out when left alone.

Unfortunately, when the Staff & Officers found out, they freaked out. "Get rid of that thing, it'll give you diseases!" They know this because of the many well-documented cases of Bubonic Plague, Syphillis, and Alzheimer's Disease that have been spread far & wide throughout the world because of lost dogs. So we (I) gave her a bath and cleaned her up. Not good enough. Eventually, someone made a phone call and tried to get the MPs to come out here, pick her up, and have her put to sleep. So I snuck her out and got her to another unit on base. A unit, I might add, that does not have goose-stepping, devil-worshipping, baby-eating staff & officers.

Antiqueing:

First made popular in colleges across America, "Antiqueing" is done by taking a handful of baby powder, and throwing it onto the face of your sleeping buddy. Antiqueing is the new teabagging. Unfortunately, this gag results in serious cases of one-upmanship, and a simple prank usually escalates into a room full of grown men wearing little more than underwear, flinging baby powder into each other's faces.

"The horror, the horror."

Taser Fun:

Somehow, a Taser has made it's way out here into the hands of jarheads. Oh, I'm sure you can envision how it all started: *Zap* "Oooh, my arm!". *Zap* "Aggh, my foot!" But for me, the most surprising thing about all of this is how quickly a $100 dollar pot was put together for someone to zap their "taint". For five seconds. On full power.

For the less cultured, the "taint" is the small space between your testicles and your asshole. Since, as the reasoning goes "'taint yer ass, an' 'taint yer balls!". As I'm sure you figured out the second I mentioned testicles, it's pretty sensitive. I'm not really sure how I can describe the sound that comes out of a grown man's mouth by about halfway through the first second. Some kind of bizzare cross between a wookie, elephant, and six year old girl. In any case, it ain't pretty.

Temporary Tattoos:

The Mervine family sent me a small packet of temporary tattoos. Since I already have so many for myself, I decided that we all needed to "ink up" the new guys. So now we've got a bunch of guys with butterflies on their asses, unicorns on their chest, cupid firing arrows on their arms...it's pretty good. I decided to get in on the fun and put a pair of lips on my pelvis. Classy. That's me.

Snakes:

It's getting hotter & the vipers are coming out again. A lot of people are freaked out by them, and rightly so. After all, they're venemous and can kill you. But what a lot of people don't know, is that you can turn a snake into a great gag, once you take off it's head. Once that's gone, there are any number of things you can do with it. Place it's body in the port-a-john, fling it onto a buddy, the possibilities are endless, really. Unfortunately, it does start going bad after a few hours, prompting another hunt to keep the gag fresh.

And uh.. I think I've covered all the interesting/funny stuff. As soon as something interesting happens, I'll be sure to inform everyone.

Ferris Bueller's Month Off

2005-04-04T05:12:00.000-07:00

First thing first. I haven't updated in ages because the internet center here has been down. Due to a catastrophic fuckup in the Army, who is taking over this airbase, They decided after the last troop rotation that "Aw hell, we don't need to staff no darn interweb center." So be on the lookout for my next in-depth report: "United States Army -- Intentionally lazy, or just plain stupid?" I've already sent the manuscript to Newsweek. I should be a bona-fide published author soon.

Now for the other important thing: Packages. Holy shit, you guys are amazing. I am the unchallenged "Mail Whore" of 1st Platoon. I have gotten packages from a lot of people, and unfortunately, I lost the list I was keeping to thank individuals. Here are the people I remember: Luke T., Bug Girl, Rebecca, Mlynn, Renata, and more that I can't remember. I shall have myself flogged mercilessly for this transgression. There are two people though, that deserve special mention. One is my girlfriend Anne. Anne has sent so much mail that the US Post office is suffering from severe nasal passage inflammation all up & down the line. The culprit is, of course, heavy perfume. The other thanks goes out not to one person, but an entire family, The Mervines', of New Hampshire. While not quite as much mail has been recieved from them as from Anne, I've gotten confused about which family I'm supposed to go home to this fall. A huge thanks to everyone for all the mail, again. It does wonders for morale.

For those worried about me poking mines with a stick, I present news that may give you cause to shit your pants: I'm considering applying for EOD work. Speakee engrish? That means I'll be doing a more specialized branch of demolitions. Instead of just mines, I would also deal with IEDs and whatnot. The decision isn't final, but I'm considering it. The upside is an immediate promotion and a huge reenlistment bonus. The downside is a 3 year reenlistment, 8 months of school in Florida, and possibly turning myself into pink mist. Back on the upside: if I ever make a terrible mistake, I'll never know it and will be immediately transformed into a messy pinata. And yeah, I AM filled with candy. We both know you were thinking it. Heh.

More updates soon, now that the Army has finally un-fucked themselves.

Sky Rockets in Flight

2005-02-24T07:16:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm in Al-Asad, Iraq now. My sense of wonder is in full tune right about now. Not only am I living in a barracks with showers (thank you, former Iraqi Army), but we have a bitchin' chow hall, px, computer center, etc. Essentially, I've fallen through some kind of black hole and ended up in bizzaro-land.
As far as my job goes, I'm on an OCD team (Obstacle Clearing & Demolition). In a nutshell, I go out and poke at suspicious holes in the ground with a stick, looking for mines. Sounds dangerous, but since the insurgents are using AT mines (That's Anti-Tank), it's fairly safe. Those kind of mines usually require over 400 pounds of pressure. Don't want to waste all that HE on a little foot soldier. So I poke a stick in the ground until I feel a clunk, then another Marine comes over with some c4 and we blow it up. Memories in the making.

Finding a way to update this thing has been difficult. We've been attacked with rockets twice this week. Each time we get attacked, all phones and computers are secured. Don't worry too much, The insurgents, in keeping with arab tradition, aren't hitting shit. We also have about twice as many troops as we need now, since we're in the middle of a rotation. that means all the lines are twice as long as they usually are. Once they leave in a few days, I should be able to update more regularly.

I wish I could say what my next mission is going to be, but we all know & love opsec around here. Once it's complete, I'll be sure & letcha know what it was.

Anyhow, gotta roll to chow and hit the PX so i can buy myself some coffee. More updates soon, with luck.

Fuck you, Desert Internet.

2005-02-16T03:48:00.001-08:00

You know, I just typed up a nice, long post all about my events these past few days, and then internet explorer took a shit on me. I haven't got time to retype it either, because I have a formation in a half-hour. So the short version is thus: I'm here alive, I'm going to Al Asad from Camp Victory tonight, and I'll try and find another computer from there.

And seriously, Desert Internet, fuck you.

That Old, Familiar Feeling

2005-02-16T03:48:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm waiting on some whirlybirds here in Camp Victory, an Army base inside Kuwait. And I have to say, I feel like Alice gone down the rabbit hole. The army has fucking Baskin Robbins out here. And Pizza hut. And Hardees. And goddamned plush stuffed animals and WOODEN SHIPS in their PX. This is so weird, I'm looking forward to getting out to a FOB (Forward Operating Base).

And on the other hand, it feels like I never left. The wind, the dirt, the Bedouin Tents, the witful and deep graffiti in the shitters, it all came back in a split second. You will all be pleased to note that my readjustment time seems to be about zero. This is mostly due to the fact that there isn't a goddamn thing for miles around to adjust TO. Ah, vast desert expanses, how i have missed thee. No camel spiders, scorpions, or lizards have come around yet, I suspect Sid the Scorpion, after I so benevolently granted him his freedom a couple years ago, went and warned all his creepy-crawly little pals about me. So fuck you, Sid. I have seven months to find you. Insurgents? IEDs? I don't give tuppence about them. No, my search is for a traitorous little insect.

To answer a few questions from when I posted my address: Sending alcohol probably isn't a good idea. It's too hard to enjoy it when you're worried about being busted for it. If you're hellbent on giving me booze, you can buy me a drink when I get back.

Now about that porn: I'm pretty sure my DVD player is regional. I bought it in the states & all that. But as I've said before; Someone, somewhere, can use just about anything you send me. I'll bet there is a Marine out there somewhere with an international DVD player, just dying for german scat porn. So go ahead and send it. I'll find him, make the DVD a generous gift, and extort the ever-loving Sammy Hagar out of him when the time suits me.

If I can get online anytime soon at Al Asad, I'll be sure and post what I've got going on. Until then, my search for Sid continues.

No Blood for Oil. Plasma for Petrol is fine.

2005-02-13T10:52:00.000-08:00

Well, the day I've been waiting for is finally here. Our boots should be on the ground in time for Valentine's Day. Crazy to think that I've been out here for almost a month already. The next seven should fly right on by.

A few other things I thought of that people can send:
UnderArmor Green Tshirts (large) (the ones for hot weather)
ExOfficio Boxer Briefs (large)
Coolmax or Ultimax socks

Uh, that's about all I can really think of at the moment. Most of what needs to be said has been said already. My shit is packed, my weapons are clean. Time to fire up the stereo & get the party started. This may be my last post, if the gouge I've heard about internet access in Iraq was off. Hopefully I'll be able to keep updating. Got my fingers crossed.

A special thanks again to everyone that I've been talking to for the last few weeks. It's good to have so many people I can count on.

"Jonathan Swift's Irish Mystery Meat"

2005-02-09T13:44:00.000-08:00

At long last, my overseas address is available. Here it is:

Lcpl Doody, D.P.
8th ESB (Fwd) Alpha Co., 1st Platoon
Unit 73682
FPO/AE 09509-3682

You can send pretty much anything you think I'll like to that address, with a few exceptions I'll note below. A big favorite is DVDs. We have a whole mess of portable DVD players within the platoon, and they are a great way to zone out for awhile. My personal favorite thing to get are books. Thrillers & mysteries, mainly. We got a box of harlequin romance novels last time, and I must admit, after a few months alone, they get your motor running. If you know what I mean.

If you want to send food, make sure it's non-perishable. The heat over there will destroy perishables. Someone tried sending us some girl scout cookies last time, but when it got to us, all we had was girl scout soup. Hard candy triumphs in the desert environment.

Aside from that, you can let the following help guide you on what to send: "If I was going on a really boring, shitty camping trip, what would I want?"

On the No-No list we have most of what you would expect: No alcohol, firearms, ammunition, drugs, etc. etc. They say that pornography isn't allowed, but it's physically impossible for me to type words that say you can't send it. Aside from their obvious uses, Tobacco and Pornography are the desert equivalent of gold ingots. Anything from a Blackhawk Helicopter to bricks of pure cocaine can be yours if you've got enough cigarettes or XXX money shots to pay for it.

Now that we've covered my two favorite subjects, Nose candy & porn, I'm on to a more serious note. I found out on Sunday that my Grandfather is in the hospital with pnemonia. After having my emergency leave request denied, I sent him an email that should be with him by now. Just in case the words I'm typing out here reach you Grandad, I want you to know that I love you, and you've been in my thoughts constantly in the last few days.

That's all for the moment. I will do my damndest to put in one final update before I leave for Iraq. Then I will do my damndest once again to find a way to keep this thing updated while I'm over there.

If you're gonna be dumb then you gotta be tough

2005-02-04T14:59:00.000-08:00

Ah, Friday at long last. Apologies for the lack of recent updates, but we've been pretty busy this last week, and when I finally stagger on over to the internet center, there is a long line waiting to use it. Sorry kiddos, but Dave's stinky balls take priority. No time to wait in line when you've got swamp crotch.

So what exactly have I been doing with my time? This week I finally got some good trigger time on the golf (my machine gun). In fact, I'm the best machine-gunner in the company, according to the hit totals that I ran up on my targets. This will almost certainly result in word spreading far & wide across Iraq against the legendary Lcpl Doody and his amazing machine gun skills. When rebels or bandits see a convoy I am riding in, they will quiver in terror and make messes in their pants.

Okay, probably not. But it really was a good opportunity to get some serious training in. Now I'm hoping for more of it.

We also practiced some riot control techniques and learned more hand-to-hand. They taught us the knockout judo-chop from the bond flicks. I'm here to tell you that it's no shit. I barely got tapped and it stunned me. I'll demonstrate on Andy shortly after I get home. My family gets some peace & quiet, Andy gets a nap. We all win.

Thursday was a nice hump. I have lots of blisters and raw spots. Just looking at them makes me crave pork rinds and steak.

But by far the best news of the week is that Anne is flying out late tonight, and should be arriving on deck between 10:00 and 12:00. I can't elaborate on all my planned activities with her, since this is a family website, but it'll be nice to talk to her without checking how many service bars I've got on my phone.

With that said, I think I'm going to play some video games now. Then I will drink beer, go to sleep, PT in the morning, and meet up with Anne. A good weekend.

Deep-fried hopes in the grease of reality.

2005-01-27T16:34:00.000-08:00

Just returned from a three-day excursion to the field where we learned all about the M249, M240, MK19, and M2. None of that makes any sense to 90% of you, and that's okay. All are different weapon systems that will be employed by us before too long. Somehow, despite a great deal of learning material available, practical application, and even a live-fire excercise, we managed to get almost nothing out of it, thanks to idiot politics between active-duty & reserve Marines.

But the good news is that we probably have a whole extra month to work on those deficiencies, since our earlier flight seems to have been canked for reasons unknown. I figure it's more money in the bank, but it's taking a toll on a lot of the Marines in the company. When it will be sorted out is anyone's guess, but I'm doing what I can to roll with the punches & be happy for what I've got. Namely, good chow, a nice rack, a cellphone, and evenings (generally) to do what I like with.

Speaking of evenings, I'm exhausted, so I think I'm going to go back to my hooch, drink a beer, have a smoke, shower, and go on some rack ops. I could and probably should type out some more, but I'm pretty goddamn frazzled. We're supposed to have this weekend off, so I'll go into a long, drawn out speech sometime then. More gouge soon.

Amore: Not just sea creatures

2005-01-21T15:47:00.000-08:00

In the evenings, I try and make at least one phone call a night. I figure, hey, I'm in garrison, I can do this shit, right?

Anyway, I was on the phone with Anne the other night, talking mushy (as Marines days from deployment are known to do), when she twisted my arm. You see, she's been reading this webpage and wants me to talk about her, and how great she is. And that got me to thinking: Wouldn't it be nice if I did that for everyone that has made an impact in my life?

Now, in the interest of brevity and keeping people's feelings from being hurt, I'm only putting two types of people down here: The ones I am immediately related to, and the ones I'm making sweet, sweet love to (imaginary or factual). So without further ado, here I go. And no, these aren't listed in any order of importance.

Brennan: The first name that popped into my head, for obvious reasons. When the balloon first went up in 2003, he helped me without any hesitation. Power of attorney, Will, Moving all my junk, Bills, he did it all. Now, he's doing it for a second time. I've thanked him before and will do so again, but I don't think he will ever be able to fathom the gratitude I felt when the lives & finanaces of other Marines were going to hell and I was able to stay focused on the mission at hand. He's one of the only Non-Marines I would trust with my life in a second. He's that good, and I love him (you're going to be reading that a lot) in a way that few people can know.

Dad: It took me a long time to get right with this side of my family. When I finally swallowed my pride and did the right thing, he was the first to give me a hug & welcome me back. Re-entering a (dinner table talk aside) normal family has been a big change from what I was used to, but it's been a good one. Dad, thanks for being there for me. The last two years have been great. I love you.

Andy: For telling everyone I'm a "War Hero" at every opportunity imaginable. You're stranger than year-old meatloaf, but I love you anyway. Take it easy on the ladies, tiger.

Kim: We don't share a drop of blood between the two of us, but that hasn't ever stopped you from treating me like a son. I know I haven't always been the easiest person to get along with, and I appreciate your understanding. Heck, I love you too, ya crazy old battleaxe. But that still isn't an excuse to send that goddamn movie to me. I mean it.

Anne: Ah, the grand finale. I don't know what I could say to you that I haven't said in some capacity already. I spend well over a year away, meet up with you for some dinner, and fall head over heels all over again. I wouldn't have blamed you for a second if you refused to take me seriously. I never thought I would be at a loss for words for describing the way I feel about you, but I think the essence is carried well by saying: "I love you."

Salma Hayek, Milla Jojovich & Allyson Hannigan : I'm sorry what we had couldn't work out, it wasn't you, it was me. I'm still not over a certain Air Force babe, okay? Stop calling me.

A special aside to Lcpl Hart: I'm going to bring a grenade home from theatre & make you eat it.

Not checkers but chess

2005-01-18T08:50:00.000-08:00

Yesterday & today have been full of briefs. Everything from the law of land warfare (again) to IED (bomb) detection & convoy security operations. Our training schedule is fairly rigid, but still manageable. We'll be in the classroom for the rest of the week, and will begin field training first thing next week. Most of it will entail convoy operations.

I'm torn between the need to keep everyone in the loop, and the need to keep you from worrying too much. I've been considering both sides of the coin for the last couple days, especially as I get specific details about what exactly our mission will be and our area of operations. I don't want to put up the tough guy facade, saying things like "Yeah man, we're in the shit now." But the fact of the matter is, this is going to be pretty dangerous. The mission we are being tasked with is very different from my first go-around, but I decided last night that you guys have a right to know what is going to be happening. At least, the stuff I can tell you

I could put down paragraph after paragraph about how this isn't me trying to sound tough, or play the hero. But I think that those of you that know me are already aware of this. I don't want to sound like a whining reservist fuck, either. "But, but, but...I only joined for the college money!" I don't mind saying it: I'm a little scared. But to be percieved as a whiner? Fuck that.

And now, in the spirit of uplifting news, I know when I'm leaving. I can't say when, exactly, but it'll be before Valentine's Day. That means Valentine's will be spent in the desert. That means I get another Desert Valentine. It's going to be Cpl. Munson. I will cut up an MRE poundcake in the shape of a heart, and pledge my undying, eternal love for him until we DEROS. Sometime during the seven month deployment, I hope to consumate our love, utilizing apple jelly from an MRE as lubricant and chemlights in place of candles. It will most likely take place inside a bunker, but I will make reservations in the back of a 7-ton truck if time permits. Gosh. He's so hunky.

Three quick things before I take off:

#1 Kim, sorry I haven't been able to give you much info. It looks like we should get done fairly early tonight. If we do, I promise a phone call is coming your way this evening with some details.

#2 In addition to Kim, there are a lot of people I haven't emailed or called on the phone for awhile. I apologize, I really do, but there is a lot of shit to get done and a lot of deployment left. Except for immediate family members, don't count on hearing from me much. I wish it didn't have to be that way, but I have to keep my head in the game as much as possible. I'll make up for it when I get home.

#3 Waffles are delicious.

That's about all the useful gouge I have to pass for the time being. More later.

2005-01-15T11:53:00.000-08:00

Camp Lejeune at last. The last time I was here was back in 99', for engineer school. Since it's winter, we don't have to deal with any of the brutal humidity just yet.

In other news, the Corps has made history by actually giving us useful gear for deployment. 3 liter camelbak daypacks, three point slings, sunglasses, and some more goodies slated to head down our way in the next week. I'm completely flabbergasted. Nothing like this has ever happened in the last six years. Welcomed, with open arms, by active duty Marines, then given ace gear.

If you doubt that the apocalypse is nigh, The first horseman just saddled up.

I can't say how long we'll be here for two reasons. #1 is because they told me I can't. #2 is because it makes me sound extremely mysterious & important. "That's right baby, I could tell you when I'm coming back, but I won't. Because it's classified."

Further updates soon. And this time, I say it with certainty.

Headed East Tonight

2005-01-12T22:50:00.000-08:00

As I type this, over a hundred seabags sit on the quarterdeck, along with packs and a motley assortment of weapons. I've been given the distinctive honor of carrying the M240 Golf Machine Gun for our platoon. Well, some would call it an honor. I'm calling it a huge, heavy bitch.

If everything goes the way I've been told it's going to go, I will be able to continue updating everyone fairly regularly. If things go the way experience shows me, I might not be making any updates for awhile yet.

Still no overseas address yet. We have one for Lejeune, but I don't see any reason to give it out for two reasons. 1. Getting care packages while you're still stateside is weak sauce. You can still buy anything you need; and 2. We won't be there for very long and my MOLLE and seabag are already quite full, thank you. Lil' debbie snack cakes will only hinder me.

More word as it arrives my way..

I am the walrus.

2005-01-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

Still in Eugene and not scheduled to punch out for another day or two. Looking forward to becoming a first-class gear whore when we touch down in Lejeune. New (and lighter!) kevlars, neck-gators, 3 point slings, and more.

More word when available.

Training in Eugene

2005-01-07T17:09:00.000-08:00

Arrived at the Eugene HTC this morning for an assortment of fun & games including, but not limited to, the following: Gear inspection, Commander's Brief, PT, and a new platoon.

More to come when time allows, we expect to punch out for Lejeune sometime early next week.

My Snafu is Fubar

2005-01-05T20:32:00.000-08:00

Today we got a few details of when & where we are going. We're not allowed to reveal specifics, but the long & short of things is that we will be operating in the vicinity of the Sunni triangle, conducting engineer operations in direct support of the MEU. We're leaving Portland to marry up with another unit in southern Oregon on Friday morning, and scheduled to be in Iraq in late Jan/early Feb.

We're going through all kinds of tremendously exciting briefings, such as "Law of land combat", "Reservist Rights", and "Code of Conduct." No word yet on how to deal with being stuck around hundreds of smelly, oversexed 20 somethings in a country that you can't take porn to. While I can think of an option or two off the top of my head, none will be appealing until a few months into the deployment, when such thoughts begin to truly ripen.

I'll continue to keep everyone updated as I get word passed to me. Still no address, Alas, but soon.

(Todd A: Word, amigo. Glad someone got ahold of you, I either lost your email or never had it.)

2004-12-31T08:13:00.000-08:00

Okay, okay, I'm a liar. I'm posting and I'm still in the Oregon hotel. Shut up.

I've gotten quite a few requests for my address, both verbal & written. The sad, sad truth is that I don't have one yet. I probably won't for at least a few more weeks. Once I get it, however, I will post it, along with a short list of things that will be useful to me and my fellow jarheads.

And we're off...

2004-12-30T17:49:00.000-08:00

From what I gather, internet access will be semi-frequent over in the sandbox. Since mail usually takes several weeks to reach the states, this will be an easy way for friends & family to keep abreast of what's going on during my deployment. Ideally, I can save myself the writer's cramp of writing out a bunch of letters, while sparing my poor brother the hassle of typing up & emailing out said letters.

Since I'm currently still in the states and living out of a hotel, I don't see much point of updating it until I'm at -least- in california to start my training. Look forward to more frequent updates once I'm overseas. If possible, that is.