BUSY BUSY BUSY

We are losing our minds here. It has just been dreadfully long, pain-in-the-ass missions all the time, and worse, when we're not on missions we're doing these ridiculous classes that we've already done two or three times since we've been activated and could probably teach, anyways. But thank the Lord above, we had a mission today that got cancelled (after waking up at 0630 and spending three hours briefing and prepping the trucks), so we can finally relax and get caught up, spiritually and otherwise.

Dad: I put down that Mao book after only half but will surely pick it back up soon, and in the meantime have been reading The Sum of All Fears, which I'm about a quarter into now. I'm slow reading Tom Clancy books, as they're so technically detailed and somewhat dry for fiction, but that's also one thing I appreciate about them. Maybe after I finish it I'll finally manage to read all of Red Storm Rising, which I've read halfway into at least two or three times and never finished. Oh, I finished Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, too, which took me about two days to read. He's a terribly entertaining writer...for a liberal.

The last time I got into my Gmail account was roughly three weeks ago, and the emails from Mom reminded me of some comical movie where the protagonist checks his answering machine and it's 99 messages from the same person. "Hey Roger, it's Mom...", "Hey Roger, Mom again...", "Just Mom calling to say I love you...", that kind of thing. I appreciate that you're thinking about me, Mom!

This week having been so strenuous and full of busy work, I'm rethinking the officer option again, on the negative side this time. Some day I'll come up with a specific occupation to pursue, but it will probably not be terribly soon.

I organized my room the other day (I think I may have already mentioned it), but now I've got all the stuff I've got in stacks. Like, I've got a stack of like five packages of baby wipes about a foot tall, about fifteen unopened chap sticks, two things of shampoo, four bottles of sunscreen, et cetera et cetera. It's comical.

Captain Keady (who, by the way, is I think the best officer I've ever run into...present company excluded of course, Nelson and Mike) apparently placed me on the vehicle I'm in now so I can be the convoy's radio guy, talking to the friendlies in charge of our areas of operation. For being a fresh radio operator, it's kind of like hitting the ground running, but it's been quite educational, and makes me feel important. Also, I sit in the back so I don't really have to do much and get a semi-comfortable ride, except that somehow the back seat in a humvee has less leg room than the back seat of my Camaro. Who'd have thunk it? All I can say is I want some kind of monster truck or something when I get back, something with so much leg room I have to walk to the steering wheel, and since the humvees are the smallest vehicles I've driven in the last three months, I probably will have forgotten how to handle anything smaller. My Camaro will seem like a go-cart.

I realize I'm rambling. I feel like I need to write long posts when I get a chance to post. Bah, deal with it.

Something I should mention is that I get mail quite a bit more often than I have the opportunity to check email. And I never get much in terms of news, besides the Stars and Stripes newspaper which seems more biased towards hooahs and the occasional Marine Corps Times from the PX. Hint hint. Also, I got another letter from Mr. Lowe, which I appreciated a great deal. I think he and I would get along swimmingly, because he seems to be as absurdly conservative as I am.

That's all, I give up. Remember, give war a chance.