Hookin' and Jabbin'

Four Left

2010-02-08T18:02:00.002-06:00

The space shuttle Endeavor lifted off this morning at 4:14 am ET, marking the last night liftoff off the space shuttle program. Four launches remain for the space shuttles: March 18th, May 14th, July 29th, and September 16th. The earliest projections for future manned U.S. space missions after September 16th started in 2015 with the Constellation Program, which President Obama canceled last week by way of exclusion from his 2011 budget. Minus Constellation, any domestic space missions by NASA astronauts in the next decade are left to hitching rides on private spacecraft, which only caught up to 1960s standards in 2004. At that, even private spacecraft are confined to low-orbital space and will likely remain so for at least another decade.

When will NASA again be capable of not just entering low-orbit space but leaving Earth's orbit for the moon and beyond? A 2020 prediction would be optimistic at best, and anything closer to 2030 is more likely. Some insiders are saying that a lack of direction on NASA's part is at fault for the agency's paltry advances over the last thirty years, that deciding on the Moon or Mars (or wherever) as a primary destination could have jump-started more consistent progress for NASA and the U.S. as a whole. But the president has already set the destination and the tempo: maybe Mars, eventually.

In the meantime, NASA's focus has shifted. President Obama's budget actually includes $6 billion increases for NASA over the next five years, but when viewed closely, the goal is shifted from exploration to environmental monitoring. This is terrific, if imminent global meltdown theories are valid. But the Truth of these theories (and the trustworthiness of their authors) are subject to quite a lot of partisanship and opportunism, indeed too much to be trusted. And frankly, if imminent, inevitable catastrophe is upon us, we had better get ready to leave this rock for another, and we're many decades away from even establishing an extraterrestrial colony.

Space exploration is a bountiful endeavor, something that rides the cutting edge of human progress. When space exploration falls back, so does that progress.

2008-07-05T12:10:00.003-05:00

Well, don't I feel like the jackass. I didn't bother to leave you folks a post here on Independence Day to fill you with love of country and appreciation for our bountiful gifts, but that's not to suggest I wasn't feeling it. Especially when I saw this picture. This was the first thing I saw when I woke up yesterday (courtesy of wwtdd.com), and damned if it didn't fill me with 4th of July spirit right off the bat. Bob and I agree: we're not big on people wearing flags, but Jessica Simpson is sort of our nation's prize hotty, so this time we'll let it slide. Next time, though, she'll have to take it off. I'll even forgive the peace sign, because I know she's probably spent about as much time in Iraq as I have, entertaining the troops in a way only a girl of her looks and charm could.

Rather than spending my Independence Day posting here, I went with Bob down to our coworker Jimmy's house in Vienna. We discharged a multitude of firearms throughout the day, including my first two revolvers and Bob's cherry Browning pump shotgun, we drank beer, ate grilled meat and drank home-brewed wine. Then we went to Harrah's casino in Metropolis (home of Superman!) and I lost $23 while trying to win back $3. This just speaks to my fear of growing much stupider since high school. Anyways, short of watching fireworks and military parades (or sticking it to the terrorists like I was doing a few years ago on the Fourth), this was about the most American behavior I could hope for.

If you couldn't tell, Independence Day is my favorite holiday by leaps and bounds (though scantily-clad women make a strong argument for Halloween as second place). In all seriousness, I hope you all had a meaningful and inspiring Fourth, and I wish I could've been around to spend it with you.

2008-05-26T10:54:00.005-05:00

On April 29, 1866, at Woodlawn Cemetery in Carbondale, Illinois, Gen. John A. Logan spoke in an event that likely originated his idea for a holiday commemorating the fallen soldiers of the Union, which he later proclaimed in his capacity as commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic. May 30th, 1866 was the first Decoration Day, which came to be called Memorial Day in 1882.

142 years later, I stood in Woodlawn Cemetery in pouring rain with fifty-some other people who saw this commemoration as more important than their comfort. Across the country, millions of others are doing the same. 4,082 Americans have died while fighting in Iraq, and 29,978 have been wounded. These gallant men and women
are the salt of the earth, brave souls who regardless of politics have advanced the cause of freedom at the highest possible expenses to themselves. An estimated 1.3 million uniformed Americans have given their lives in service to their country since its creation, and today we renew our pledge never to forget. The highest honor we can give them is to remember what they died for and why. God bless America and keep our servicemen safe.

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." - John Stuart Mill

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - Thomas Jefferson

2008-04-21T03:37:00.001-05:00

Jeeze, Facebook, you don't have to be so harsh about it.

2008-03-10T14:14:00.005-05:00

Living, breathing Bible

I've heard of the concept of a "living, breathing" Constitution. Now, it seems the Bible lives and breathes just the same.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/03/10/eavatican110.xml
I wish I had the primary source of this article, so I wasn't at risk of misunderstanding the language used in these new "mortal sins" ("genetic modification, carrying out experiments on humans, polluting the environment, causing social injustice, causing poverty, becoming obscenely wealthy and taking drugs").

So many thoughts bug me about this that I don't know where to start. I guess my first problem with it is that it seems to be encoding modern political fads into the eternal moral standards of the Church. Like I said, this is just like someone reinterpreting the Constitution to mean something that fits their political purposes. It goes without saying that the Church ought to be above this kind of nonsense.

The doctrine of the Church ought to be eternal, absolute, and self-evident. What is absolute about saying that pollution is a mortal sin? Is my soul going to suffer eternal death because the lightbulbs I use aren't energy star compliant? How about using drugs? Am I to stop drinking soda and start refusing penicillin, or is it only illegal drugs that I cannot use? Illegal in what country? How wealthy can I become before it is considered obscene? Shall I cut myself off before reaching the highest tax bracket, or shall I not have any savings at all? To me, the chief virtue of the church is that its moral standards are absolute. It provides a moral foundation, a system of deciding if something is right or wrong, a bedrock of unquestionable morality. With these behaviors now considered to be mortal sins, it should be pretty important to know if I am at risk of eternal damnation, for which there doesn't seem to be any standard.

The "sins of yesteryear" - sloth, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, wrath and pride - have a "rather individualistic dimension", he told the Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper.
The new seven deadly, or mortal, sins are designed to make worshippers realise that their vices have an effect on others as well.
"The sins of today have a social resonance as well as an individual one," said Mgr Girotti. "In effect, it is more important than ever to pay attention to your sins."

So far as I'm concerned, this means that the nature of my entire relationship with God must have changed. I had considered it to be a personal one, in which He cherishes me individually and favors my personal relationship with Him, but now the Church seems to be telling me that He kind of just likes us all as a whole. Evidently not only am I to meet a minimum standard of not being bad, but I actually have to be really, really good, or I'm going straight to hell. And, so far as I can tell, all in the pursuit of political correctness. I wonder how many years it will be before the Church stipulates that to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, I have to eat organic foods and always defer my moral judgments to the United Nations.

2008-03-09T23:19:00.002-05:00

New title banner today, and I tinkered with the size of the main body, but it was not how I'm used to tinkering with those settings, so let me know if it looks really goofy. The biggest problem I could see with it would be that it would edge out the profile and links and what have you on the right side of the screen.

Marines in Fallujah

2008-01-28T18:38:00.000-06:00

Today I went to Fox News' website to find out when the State of the Union Address would air. While there, I caught this article about the troop levels in Fallujah having decreased from 3,000 at the end of 2006 to around 250 today. It's gone down 90% since I was there. I can't even imagine that massive base having only two or so companies on it. The point is, evidently things are pretty much cleaned up in Fallujah, and the Iraqi Police are nearly ready to take over (or whatever you want to call it...I wouldn't trust those bastards with a butter knife).

I mentioned this to my friend Karnolt, who was my best bud there, in an email after talking to him tonight. His response was "Wow, I'm very proud to say that I served in [Iraq] out of Camp Fallujah and it is practically a success." I hadn't even thought of it like that, I'd just thought it was an interesting news item. But indeed, the impending success of the Fallujah Marines' mission is in part my own success, and my efforts there helped to make this happen. And that feels pretty damn good.

"Taxes are easy to explain"

2008-01-28T18:30:00.000-06:00

[editor's note: I got this from a friend from Fallujah on myspace.]

Ten men go out for beer. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7. The eighth would pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. He said, "Since you are all such good customers, I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80."

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men -- the paying customers?

How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share"? They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay!

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings). The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings). The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings). The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings). The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings). The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!"

"That's true!!"shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!" The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up any more. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

[editor's note: Friendlier? I don't know about that. But it's still a useful analogy.]

Al Gore updates climate change

2008-01-24T12:46:00.000-06:00

Drudge has a news article about Al Gore revealing today that the impending doom of climate change will be significantly worse than earlier predictions. Read the article, it's almost humorous. He goes on to state that within five years the North Polar ice caps may melt entirely during the summer months. I like this news for two reasons: first, it allows us to prove much sooner that he's full of shit when the polar caps don't melt within five years (even the most horrific of "scientific" predictions don't have the polar caps melting for something like another hundred years). Second, it shows how much Al Gore knows the global warming scare is in his hands (and, logically, how unscientific -- read: "bologne" -- it is). Without even trying to cite demonstrable evidence, he ups the ante based on his word alone. After all, he's a "Nobel prize winner", even if it is a Peace Prize, so we should believe him. Clearly, he was underwhelmed with the obviously weak language of the IPCC report and feels a need to reestablish his mandate, so he makes a blatantly unsupported claim which ought to scare those idiots back in line. What an asshole.

Political education at University of Delaware

2008-01-18T14:57:00.000-06:00

I don't know if this made the news or not. I don't think so, but I haven't been much a newshound for awhile. I just read an article called "Brave Newark World" from Halloween of last year written by Dr. Mike Adams about a re-education program the University of Delaware had started in its residence halls. It's chilling. Fortunately, there is Supreme Court precedence here and thanks to Dr. Adams' readers and a general community response the university revoked that initiative within five days of the article being published. Essentially, UD required the students in their residence halls to attend meetings (UD called them "treatments") with their RAs who had been trained in "diversity facilitation" and who would then conduct diversity training and ask the students invasive questions pertaining to their sexuality and experiences in "oppression". I urge you to read Dr. Adams' article. It's extremely important to recognize that things like this happen in America, so we have the vigilance to stop such things from happening again.

It's unbelievable to me that enough college administrators with such Orwellian agendas can get together and force these kinds of things down the throats of young and impressionable college people. If you read the quotes that Adams provides, these people weren't trying to just show their students that "underpriveleged" people exist in the world, nor were they simply advocating responsible recognition that racism is a problem. This is a systematic brainwashing of impressionable young people by the authorities they pay to teach them, people who hold economic power over them by virtue of their owning and being in control of the places the students live in, and who control these people's very livelihood as students. This disgusts me. "There, he is taught that '[a] racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality.'” They're taught that racism is a uniquely white thing? How racist is that? These people should be put into prison. This is a state school. The people enacting these policies are unelected government officials, imposing strict partisan dogma on every student who is paying to live in their dorms. This terrifies me.

I know I don't have many readers (to my knowledge, Dad and occasionally Ryan). But if you happen upon this blog and you're a college student, please visit the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and have them send you (for free!) their guides, especially if you're in a student group of any kind. I had them sent to me when I was vice president of the College Republicans and president of my fraternity, and though we had no occasion to use them (thank God), they are indispensable for what they tell you about your rights as a student, especially in situations like this. Again, they will send you their guides at no expense to you, and if you find yourself in such a situation you can get in touch with them (their site makes this easy) and there is a good chance they will provide you with legal representation and publicity to make this kind of damn thing stop.

Fifth Column

2007-12-31T12:22:00.001-06:00

I've been slowly reading through The Futurist for all its insight, and have come to an interesting article about fifth columnists. I read through his first example (at Daily Kos, who Forbes listed as third of the top 25 most influential internet personalities) and it was frightening, maddening, and disgusting. Its only value is in its honesty, and the unshakable evidence it provides from a leading leftist who admits to hating America. His reasoning, as I said, is maddening, and when I tried to think of how you could reach a person like this in argument I came up with nothing. I then read The Futurist's advice on how to debate a person like this, and I'm not satisfied at all with his advice either. It's because I do not think there is any way to reason with someone like that. Someone so disconnected from reality, who clearly has so little desire to understand truth, who is completely devoid of honor, cannot be reasoned with. There is no Truth to a person like this, except his belief in nothing, which is to say his loyalty to the destruction of everything. These people are part of Dad's 90% (or higher), the percentage of the population who I will never understand, never agree with, whose values I will never share and who I will never befriend and will never want to. Hopefully, they make up an extremely small amount of that 90%.

Anyways, enjoy your New Year's Eve and have a happy New Year!

Reagan speeches

2007-12-19T16:46:00.001-06:00

I've been watching some of Ronald Reagan's speeches and reading others today. It started with a link to a YouTube video of his call to Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. Watching that speech at first, I was caught by the way he had with words, his eloquence and slow, simple, profound speech. Then he says, "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate." And the silent crowd erupts in cheers and applause, causing him to pause. Then, the command of righteousness in his voice, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." The cheers explode in a roar again, only moreso, like he is a rock star just coming on stage, his message music to the ears of a people tired from years of divisiveness, agitation and crisis. And I thought, "My god, this truly was a great man."

A lesser point from his farewell address was what brings me to this post though. I'll quote it liberally here:

An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family, you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-'60s.

But now, we're about to enter the '90s, and some things have changed. Younger parents aren't sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven't reinstitutionalized it. We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom--freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs protection.

So, we've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion but what's important: Why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant. You know, four years ago on the 40th anniversary of D-Day, I read a letter from a young woman writing of her late father, who'd fought on Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said, "We will always remember, we will never forget what the boys of Normandy did." Well, let's help her keep her word. If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. I'm warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit. Let's start with some basics: more attention to American history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual. And let me offer lesson No. 1 about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an American, let 'em know and nail 'em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.

This seems to me like a very important message, more true now than ever before. "Those who create the popular culture" obviously have not heeded President Reagan's call, and our television, our movies, and our national sense of pride did not return to a place where it's "in style" to have that well-grounded sense of patriotism. There's a very small group of about four or five leaders in Hollywood who occasionally make movies that instill a sense of pride in our national heritage, and hope for where we're headed. As he said, too many parents don't seem to bother instilling that "unambivalent appreciation for America," and we suffer as a result. See the complacency I mentioned in my last post. And, while as Dad said there are plenty of us still out there who treasure it and are willing to fight for it, I've noticed a downward trend. "Trend" really is the right word because it's like Reagan said, it's not "in style," and realizing that being trendy is important to so much of our nation is a disheartening thing. Is there nothing worth valuing your whole life, are there no absolutes that are important enough to keep in your heart and free from the opinions of others?

Something that Reagan seemed to have, and correct me if I'm wrong (I was barely five years old by the time he was out of office), was a near invulnerability to the stresses of politics. His agenda didn't seem to be party-based, it seemed to be Reagan-based. He appeared to me, from what I've read and seen of him, to hold himself above politics, basing his decisions on a higher set of ideals. Ultimately, it seems he had a better memory of right and wrong, a more cohesive, consistent understanding of why he believed what he did, and a steadfast determination to stick to his gut. He aspired to a higher purpose, that of liberty and freedom from the evils of the world. Just doesn't seem like he muddied himself with petty partisan politics (and I hate alliteration) like is so much the business these days. They don't make 'em like they used to.

Invasion

2007-12-03T03:36:00.000-06:00

[edit: I changed the font size of the posts so they weren't so hard on the eyes, but I had to fool with the html quite a bit to get it to look right to me. If it's absurdly large or small on your browser, please let me know in the comments so I can go back to how it used to look. Thanks!]

I just read Bill Whittle's "Freedom" (possiby the oldest essay on the site? Second oldest?). It was a marvelous essay as usual. While not terribly revolutionary in its arguments, he once again put things so damn perfectly and clearly that it renewed in me my vigor on the subject of the Second Amendment. Something he said in it, though, triggered a thought that I'd never before allowed myself.

"And by the way, gun rights supporters are frequently mocked when they say it deters foreign invasion -- after all, come on, grow up, be realistic: Who's nuts enough to invade America? Exactly. It's unthinkable. Good. 2nd Amendment Mission 1 accomplished."

The thing that bugged me was the word "unthinkable." I guess it's something I've always believed myself, that an invasion of the United States is something reserved for wildly imaginative fiction, something that I literally had never given serious thought to before. My whole life, even being the paranoid fantasist that I am, I have never allowed the reality into my head that any force or country could try to invade the U.S. I've imagined countless fascist takeover-scenarios where our government's invasiveness reached a boiling point and federalist troops have come to take away our rights and our weapons to ensure the continuation of their oppressive regime, always resulting in my dad and I staging a heroic last stand or forming a kind of underground resistance (hell, I even started writing a short story about it long ago, and my NaNo story is an extrapolation along the same lines). But it wasn't until Bill Whittle said a foreign invasion of our homeland was impossible, unthinkable, that I realized it's not unthinkable at all.

Most any country in the world could not even begin to hope for victory in invading American soil. There is not a country in all the world, nor has there ever been a country, who could even consider an invasion of our mainland without risking complete depletion of all their resources in attempting such a task, especially not while we have even a single ally. The fighting spirit not only of our military but that which is imbued in every American citizen is simply too great and too common. But it's possible. Communist China has the manpower for such an invasion force, if they were to enlist a quarter of their populace into their armed services. Pretty much every able man and woman of military age would be needed, but they've got enough to throw at us that they would stand a chance at crippling our government, if they could reach our shores. They've got the industrial power to arm so many if needed, I think. And they've probably got a political climate unstable enough where a person of sufficient insanity and boldness could come into power. The chances of these things ever happening are infinitesimally small, but there is still a chance that it could happen.

The reason I decided this thought was worth posting about is that I don't think it's something we should consider unthinkable. If it sounds unpatriotic to imagine a foreign army able of taking down our military and then a significant chunk of our civilian populace, I'd say it's just the opposite. In a strange paradox, it seems to me that so much of the American populace is convinced of our invulnerability, they've lost the appreciation for what we have. It's complacency at its worst. Our national identity is crippled by our strength. We've been so lulled into feeling safe that we have forgotten how fragile our national existence is. That's why September 11th was such a shock, and also why flags flew from every home for months afterwards. When we forget that there are millions, perhaps billions, of people in the world who would like to see us destroyed, or when we let that knowledge become so unreal to us that we can't even imagine a full frontal attack on our home soil, we tend to forget why our nation is something worth defending, and indeed something that needs defending.

This, I think, is a thought that is fairly peculiar to the most recent generations of Americans. Up to 1865, the United States was in a frequent state of war fought to truly establish and preserve its existence as a nation, and fought largely on our own turf. We continued to fight conventional wars against powerful, organized enemies through 1945, and indeed our last full-scale war against uniformed enemies was fought in Vietnam, though it was far from a conventional war, with a great deal of guerilla war in the mix, and a vast swath of opposition to the war here at home. According to my limited understanding, that was the beginning of modern anti-war sentiment, or anyways the first time there had been a sizable chunk of Americans back home who were vociferously against the war we were fighting. Everything since then has been smaller conflicts, or in the cases of Desert Shield/Desert Storm and now the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, wildly one-sided in the case of the former and almost entirely a fight against guerilla combatants in the case of the latter.

Anyways, I'd argue that the last serious, cohesive threat to the United States was gone in 1991, when I was eight years old. So my generation was mostly too young to ever understand and appreciate what it's like to feel my nation threatened by a powerful, capable enemy that existed as more than an ideology. My whole politically-conscious life has been while the United States was the sole superpower, so I never had to fear for the life of my nation. And at that, I think the last great, uniting, open battle against a common foe ended in 1945. Even the baby boomers have never seen a traditional full-scale war. And I posit that these last sixty years of "peace" and prosperity for the American people, these years since our last conventional war, have lulled us into a sense of national security so impenetrable that many of us can't understand the imminent, everlasting need for "a well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms". We've only fought elective wars for sixty years, and we've learned to dismiss any possibilities that our great nation could ever be challenged, so we've begun to challenge it ourselves. This complacency towards our national existence for lack of examples of its fragility is what then rots into anti-nationalism. All the apathy towards the safeguards on our freedom, and the attitudes of protectionism that spawned those safeguards, is what results from that complacency. To the Founding Fathers, it was easy to understand how essential an armed populace is to ensuring the security of a free state. But there hasn't been a military-industrial power capable of seriously threatening our borders in at least sixteen years, and we haven't fought a full-scale war on our own soil in 143 years. Still, how quickly people forget.

Somebody named Mark William Paules responded to Bill Whittle's most recent post, "FREEDOM versus JUSTICE", saying that "an engaged and educated citizenry is necessary for a healthy democracy, but there comes a point in the history of every civilization where decadence sets in", citing as an example that when "the Vandal horde [sic] approached Rome in AD 455, the able youth of the city refused to man the walls," essentially having forgotten what it was to be Roman out of complacency. I can only hope that this period without the U.S. fighting wars for its right to exist has not made us forget what it is to be American, fighting tooth and nail not for a tribal leader or a king but for ourselves and the nation in which we can choose our own paths and live with more true liberty than any other civilization in the history of the world.

Late night NaNo

2007-11-01T04:57:00.000-05:00

Well, it's officially November 1st, and at midnight I was free to start working on my NaNoWriMo novel. I didn't start til later and kind of putzed around with it til I got going, but I did finally get going. So far I've written 583 words, which is 1084 words short of my daily minimum (1667 words * 30 days = ~50k words) and only about 1.2% of the monthly goal...but it's 5 a.m. on November 1st. I'm going to get some rest and start up again when I wake up so I can write something coherent. I'm pretty damn happy with how well it's going so far...I've got ideas up the wazoo and I'm already seeing interesting plot twists on the horizon and some character development, and I'm only a single-spaced page in. Look forward to more good news...but I think to save time I'll mostly use my Pownce blog (linked on the top right) for NaNoWriMo news on my front.

NaNoWriMo

2007-10-08T15:21:00.001-05:00

November is National Novel Writing Month, and I'm participating in it this year thanks to the encouragement of my good friend and fellow writing enthusiast, Ben Arnold. Essentially, it's a sort of competition (or challenge, really) that was started something like seven years ago where you try to write a novel of about 50,000 words (about 120 pages) in the month of November. It starts at 12:00 a.m. on November 1st and ends at 11:59 p.m. on November 30th. The idea is to just sit down and write and to learn to squelch your inner editor, so you can actually write the whole damn story and not stop yourself out of frustration with the inadequacy of the story. There aren't really prizes per se, just certificates for those who succesfully write a 50,000-word story, but as I said, the whole point is sort of the learning process of writing through to the end, the discipline to make yourself sit down and write every day and not get so flustered that you quit writing. So, Ben and I are trying it this year. I've done some outlining for what I want to write, and can't wait for November 1st to come around so I can start putting words on paper. Also, I've added a sort of mini-blog per Ben's invitation, which I have linked on the top right of the page. Feel free to come around in November for updates on how I'm doing, and offer any encouragement you possibly can. I'm terrible at making myself write through what I believe to be crap writing, so I'm going to need all the encouragement I can get.

George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language"

2007-09-20T18:24:00.000-05:00

My neighbor, Beth, and I discussed modern politics today. I mentioned that I've stopped watching the news and following them online entirely since I returned from Iraq, having lost my stomach for lies and inaction. She kindly directed me to an article by George Orwell that insightfully chastises modern political language, saying that today's "chattering class" (as Maj. Gen. Kelly so deftly calls it -- thanks Dad!) is so full of meaningless identity politics and empty commitment to orthodoxy that it's become unbearable. I read it and see what she means.
http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit

P.S. It is as hard as it sounds to write how Orwell describes.

500 scientists refute global warming scare

2007-09-12T17:35:00.001-05:00

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,176495.shtml

Tuesday, September 11th, 2007

2007-09-11T11:42:00.001-05:00

Six years have passed, but all that time hasn't dulled my memory of that Tuesday morning a bit. All the emotion I felt that morning hasn't left me, but just been buried under years of other problems mercifully taking my mind away from what that morning's events represented. Last year at this time, I was enjoying 115 degree heat in the cradle of civilization and bringing the fight to the moral brethren of the September 11th attackers, so I don't know what to do with myself this year. More disturbing is that I don't know what to think about today being September the 11th, as though I've allowed myself to numb to the importance of the date. This was a day we must never forget lest we should allow ourselves the complacency that made its tragedy possible in the first place.

Civilization began in the fertile crescent of the Nile, Jordan, Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, where ancient cultures developed thanks to the sustenance available to them from proximity to those powerful, thriving rivers. Human civilization further lept forward in the Mesopotamian city of Babylon (in present-day southern Iraq) with the establishment of coded laws, and its prowess as a civilization could be gleaned from the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. As long as there has been civilization, there has been civilization in Iraq; indeed, it has been a launching point for civilization and culture all throughout human history. But we are entering a dark age of civilization of which Iraq is already deep in the throes, because civilization does not come inherent with large collections of people but from those people sharing a cumulative moral value. Plenty of trade is being conducted both here and there, culture in and of itself continues to develop, yet there exists an increasingly downward trend of morality, responsibility, and respect for fellow man that condemn us as a civilization.

Peace is a glorious achievement and should be the end goal of humanity, but that kind of peace must be righteous. Easy peace in the depths of corruption, murder and immorality is no peace at all, and our present decline of morality becomes evident in our civilization's lack of moral courage to fight immorality, murder and extortion at our own doorstep. All of our great progress in science, culture, art, business and technology cannot continue with an impotence of will to consistently reaffirm our right to exist. Our progress, our values are doomed if we think ignoring the murderer will stop him from killing us in our sleep.

I remember that morning well. Second and third period I spent at the vocational center, and Mr. Michel had the television tuned to the news, which was unusual, so I walked in and watched. Two hours later, after the towers had fallen, I still stood where I had first walked in, my backpack was still on my back and my coat had never come off. I hadn't even noticed that there was a full class around me, seemingly oblivious to the importance of what had just happened. I went to my next class, and the teacher had the radio on. She was listening to it, and so was I, unable to tear myself away from it while my fellow students took advantage of our teacher's preoccupation with the radio. They sat in the back of the classroom and joked around, talked about what they had done the last weekend and who was dating whom. I had to concentrate to keep myself from crying in public, but they seemed more concerned with what was happening in baseball. All I can think is that those must be the people able to yell out for peace, screaming that we should never have gone to Iraq, that we've got too many other problems to deal with at home to continue this war. They must not have been paying attention on September 11th, 2001.

Afterthought: In 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor when World War II was already in full swing. At best, Americans heard about that day's events over the radio long after it had happened, versus watching the whole event play out in real time and in living color. Roughly half as many Americans died that day, mostly military, and it brought the United States fully into World War II. The war continued for four years and cost almost 167 times as many American lives as the war in Iraq, throughout brutal victories and defeats, with military servicemen away from home for at least twice as long as today. Yet American support for that war began and continued to be extremely strong, with the might of the American economy working almost single-mindedly towards wartime efforts the entire time. That war took four years and ended decisively and gloriously in favor of the United States. Perhaps in sixty years we have indeed lost that much of our courage, endurance, and surety of righteousness. We must unite, and regain our lost composure and strength of purpose, if we are to prevail now as we did then.

On Canadian Health Care

2007-07-07T16:27:00.000-05:00

Free markets produce an incompassionate lust for money, whereas nationalized health care means everybody can get the health care they need? I think it's the other way around. It's lucky these people had the money and the means to get what they needed. A poorer man would have been left to die.

In remembrance

2007-07-04T13:56:00.000-05:00

Cpl. Paul N. King, 23, of Tyngsboro, Mass., was killed June 25th, 2006 in Fallujah, Iraq. He and his platoon, from 1st Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, were providing perimeter security and cordon for 1st Platoon, Hotel Company, 3/14, after one of our 7-ton trucks was hit by an IED right in the center of Fallujah, just a few blocks away from the Iraqi Police station. The truck had frame damage and two tires blown, so we had to stop and make just enough repairs to make it to the relative security of the police station, where we could fix it enough to make it adequately drivable.

Cpl. King, providing our perimeter, was shot by a sniper known around Fallujah for his marksmanship and elusiveness. The sniper, probably using a high-power rifle leftover from other conflicts and himself probably a mercenary veteran of other radical-Islamic conflicts around the world such as Chechnya or Afghanistan, was able to shoot Cpl. King while moving under the armpit, in an extremely small area unprotected by body armor. Cpl. King was immediately evacuated to Fallujah Surgical, and we heard later that night upon our return to Camp Fallujah that he had died of his wounds.

I never knew Cpl. King, never met him and I knew nobody from his company or 1/25 in general. Yet I will never forget his name, because when we were under attack in the hottest part of Fallujah and in the middle of a cross-compartment danger zone, he and his fellow Marines came out of cover to make sure no hidden insurgents took advantage of our convoy's incapacitation. He came out with no notice to ensure that we were safe, and in doing so, he was killed by a coward unwilling to fight us in the open.

Cpl. King is just one of countless Marines who have had the courage to forgo their own safety to ensure the safety of others, and put everything they had on the line in the service of a higher cause. Cpl. King and others like him are, for me, the number one reason we must see this fight through. The price we have paid is too high for us to submit to the divisive politicking or our own self-doubt. He did not doubt the righteousness of our cause, or our resolve to ensure the security of our Iraqi friends, or much more importantly, ourselves. God bless him and his family.

Bill Whittle's "Victory"

2007-07-02T00:46:00.000-05:00

Back to reading Bill Whittle in my spare time. I read "Responsibility" today and liked it, as it very elegantly and perfectly put my thoughts on the fundamental difference in human beings and what creates conflict. I more or less forgot all about it, though, reading "Victory." He wrote it in 2003, evidently shortly after they tore down the statue of Saddam in Baghdad. You know the one. The one I didn't see in Baghdad, because it wasn't there. Anyways, a lot of people, especially opponents to his way of thinking, and even myself at first, would say in hindsight that the article is written pretty naively optimistically, given that we're still fighting there and don't know when we'll be done or if we can really call it a victory. As the piece went along, though, I saw that even in mid-2003 we really had achieved profound victory in Iraq.

Everything I've read of Bill Whittle's so far has deeply touched my mind, but this one deeply touched my heart, too. I thought I was going to cry reading it at one point; thinking back on it now, I still might cry writing about it. In his typical fashion, he leads you to believe that he's talking about one thing, then reveals that he's talking about something more basic and significant yet. In this case, he talks about the victory we've won for two-thirds of the article, then says that he's not talking about our military victory, but the fact that we were even willing to fight at all, and then how we fought. The part that nearly made me cry was this excerpt:

"...we had the genius – the only word for it -- to place reporters from several nations, and from every point on the political spectrum – among the troops, to not only see for themselves, but to show the entire planet, in real time,
whether or not American servicemen are baby-killing murderers or the most
tightly disciplined, courageous, humble, humane and morally magnificent army that has ever gone into battle in the storied history of this human species.
Just step back for a moment, and think about how monumentally confident that action was. Before it even started, without knowing how well or badly it would go, with dire warnings of street-to-street fighting that would echo the horrors of Stalingrad, and predictions from shrill and desperate cynics that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians would die – on camera – we decided that we could trust our eighteen and nineteen year old grunts to do the right thing with bullets flying and the blood of their best friends on their uniforms.
Ah, but these were American kids, well-educated, highly motivated, decent and determined, and the most professional warriors, ambassadors and statesmen that ever walked this earth. Good God I am proud of every single one of them."

It truly is of unparalleled significance that our leaders had the monumental confidence in us to go about the war as it has, that our people, less the whiners and scapegoaters and demagogues, had not even the courage but the indelible confidence in our young people to go ahead with the war as we have. In addition, he crystallizes the notions that this war is probably preventing many wars future generations would have to fight, by reminding the world that we will fight a long and daunting battle to prove that our rock-solid system is the best system on the planet now and in all of its history. That "everything the enemies of America could throw at us – failed."

I have also been thinking lately, and was reminded strongly reading "Victory", of the comprehensive economics of nations. I think war's goal is to cause the enemy nation to hemmorhage resources, both tangible and political, until it can no longer survive further losses and is at the mercy of its opponent. "Victory" was really more about the Hearts & Minds campaign than about destroying or cause to be lost to the enemy its tangible resources, but I think it helped persuade me of the importance of that Hearts & Minds campaign. My problem with it before probably stemmed from it being such a cushy, bleeding-heart catchphrase, but I think its success would mean total success for the same reasons that make Iraq and us different in the first place. Our end goal really is to reshape Iraq into a free marketplace of ideas, trade, and culture, as I believe is the manifest destiny of the rest of the world. The American experiment has been so comprehensively succesful and caused such rapid growth in every field of human existence, and caused so much of the rest of the world to advance in kind, that only the worst fools can denounce it. The beauty of the American system is that it isn't just American, or rather it's not a quick fix or uniquely fitted to America. Anyone equipped with logic can reason out for themselves that the existence of creatable wealth begets free trade begets freedom and growth, no matter the culture or religion or resources. The only two requirements are the ability to trust each other and the desire to work hard, and everything from there falls into place. It doesn't require sacrificing your rich cultural traditions, just your desire to rule others and get what you don't pay for.

I guess that basically sums up why some other cultures or peoples don't like it: they'd have to start equal to everyone else and work their way up. We do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. And once they're done, the whole damn world is better for it.

On Greg

2007-06-21T14:06:00.000-05:00

I've been doing a lot of thinking about Greg recently. This came about from listening to the Bob Seger song "Like a Rock," which whenever I really listen to it I can't help but think of Greg. It's been playing on repeat in my car at full volume, because the song kicks ass. If you're reading and don't know the song it's the one from about half the Chevy truck commercials of the last fifteen years (evidently, Seger, who's from Michigan, offered its use at length to Chevy to aid the then-struggling Detroit auto workers...whatever). To some extent, the commercials have cheapened the song because casual listeners (namely ones too young to remember the song on the radio before it was used for the ads, like myself) might have a really hard time hearing the song and not dismissing it as a lame marketing tool, but if you can put aside that initial kneejerk reaction to it, it's really pretty good.

Anyways, I always wish I had more of Greg's strengths. Here's a guy who really knows what he's about. He doesn't seem like he ever has moral crises, he just sees what's right and does it, quickly and with everything he's got. He knows his priorities and his values without even thinking about them, just sees the right in them and has the unwavering integrity to pursue them without self-doubt. I feel like I have too hard a time deciding what's right for me, what way I want to go with my life and all that to do the big things, but that doesn't seem to be a problem for Greg at all. He's got all the defining qualities that come to mind when I think of a real man. To top it all off, he's tough as nails too, man, he's a real steel horseman. He's wanted: dead or alive. What a badass.

Here's the first half of the song's lyrics, the parts that make me think of Greg, for your consideration:

Stood there boldly, sweatin' in the sun
Felt like a million, felt like number one
The height of summer, I'd never felt that strong
Like a rock

I was eighteen, didn't have a care
Workin' for peanuts, not a dime to spare
But I was lean and solid everywhere
Like a rock

My hands were steady, my eyes were clear and bright
My walk had purpose, my steps were quick and light
And I held firmly to what I felt was right
Like a rock

Like a rock, I was strong as I could be
Like a rock, nothing ever got to me
Like a rock, I was something to see
Like a rock

And I stood arrow-straight, unencumbered by the weight
Of all these hustlers and their schemes
I stood proud, I stood tall
High above it all
I still believed in my dreams

Tribes

2007-06-01T23:29:00.000-05:00

This is actually a comment I was about to make on my last post, but it grew too long and too important to be just a comment. It was in response to Bill Whittle's "Tribes" on the same site as the article from my last post. Here it is:

One last comment from me on this post, as my justification for not just starting a new post will have run out...and this one's for Dad.

I have now read "Tribes" as well, and at the risk of soliciting your disagreement since I'm such a wonderful and courageous young lad and whatnot, having served my country in Iraq with the mighty United States Marines, I'm prone to call myself the pink-leaning sort of grey tribe, and essentially a sheep in sheepdog's clothing. Any given day, I've got a better than average chance of feeling more the sheep than sheepdog, but in my Young, Dumb, and Full of...Whatever moments, I fancy myself a hard-line sheepdog. Frankly, I figure at my very best I'm Bill Whittle's kind of amateur, stand-by sheepdog.

I figure I'm too inclined towards the artistic in my writing, too bad at practical productivity to call myself truly grey. You might say I'm like New York in that I can turn deep grey in a might hurry when it's called for, but civilian complacency has great power over me, and the idealistic college attitude still has a great deal of control over me as well.

The biggest point he made about being a sheepdog that makes me feel like I must be one, though, was this: "...all I can say is that I believe in my heart that I would rather die for something bigger than myself than lead a life where nothing is more important than me." That is one of my most important ideals...if I die peacefully in my sleep as an old, old man, I feel like I will have been robbed. If there's one way that I really want to be "special," it's that I want to die a death that means something profound. There are too many interesting and powerful ways to die for me to die an average, peaceful death. I would be much happier to die on the field of battle, not only defending but proactively asserting the freedoms and ideals not even of my countrymen but by god of my own self. And that's something that this article may have helped redefine for me; I don't want to die for the bland idea of my countrymen, as there are too many in this country who don't deserve it and don't appreciate what I'd be buying for them. I'll be damned if I'm thought to be so generous as to give my very life for somebody else's prosperity. I would be giving my life in assertion that these ideals that I hold so high, this country system that I value above all others, are righteous and true and leaps above all others in virtue and worth. I don't fight to secure the rights of simply others in my country, I fight to secure the rights of my Tribe. I love my Tribe, I love those who mean so much to me not because of a shared geopolitical origin but because they have found the same ideals to be true and worthy of high sacrifice to secure them. I do not care for those in my same system with diametrically opposed priorities to my own, and I would not give my life to see that they are afforded the opportunity to topple my beliefs. I think it's important that as many ideas and as many options as possible are brought to the table, so that we may evaluate them, laugh at the stupid ones, and strengthen ourselves, strengthen our other ideals and our other crops through synergy. Make no mistake that I have any intention other than to topple those who oppose my beliefs through the success of my system over theirs, and through the butterfly effect of conviction and commitment to what we have found to be right. We have found it to be so thoroughly right and righteous that our conviction knows no bounds; the things we know to be true are worth so much to us that their continuation is profoundly more important than our own.

Okay, so maybe I am a sheepdog.

You Are Not Alone

2007-05-29T14:12:00.001-05:00

My father sent me a link to a page called Eject! Eject! Eject! that has an article (or two, I suppose) called "You Are Not Alone". This article is largely about the precarious balance between cooperation as a society and self-advancement, about the need for just action in the face of exploitation, and the role of incontrovertible character and duty in a society rife with criminal personalities and self-destructive short-mindedness. It excited me enough that I had to start this post before I was finished with the second half of the article, so forgive me for failing to mention a strong point. Only an hour til I must go to work, and I thought it possible that I'd talk on it so much just posting the link that I wouldn't get it posted until after work, when I could possibly lose the necessary luster to expand my thoughts on it.

Anyways, there is more concentrated common sense and sound, educated logic in the first segment alone than I've read in anything since Atlas Shrugged. It's written very intuitively, the author addressing next exactly what you probably conclude from reading it. It's therapeutic, both encouraging against the feeling of isolation we all have and reinvigorating the sense of logic in our most dear creeds.

A few things came to mind as I was reading it. One was: How much do you suppose the math of the game theory figures into it? I wonder if it makes much difference that it's six months versus two years imprisonment, if the results and their ethical implications would change if those seemingly arbitrary numbers came to a different ratio. As I was reading it, I thought it could be possible that a lower sentence, say a year, for non-betrayal might change the results drastically, but now, thinking on it more, I doubt it.

I just came to the part in the second segment about how isolating yourself from society is no way to show courage, or to improve anything. This is something I've wrestled with for years. Often as a kid I thought life would be much better if I could go live as a hermit in the mountains somewhere, that in that way I could show the world that my ideals could result in success, because I was so often jaded by the cruelties, the illogic, the cowardice of the perceived masses that I never wanted to participate. As time went on, though, I began to see the benefits to immersing yourself in your enemies; that thinking largely encouraged me to go to Augustana, where I knew plenty of loud-mouthed anti-patriots and liberal elitists would challenge my assumptions and give me something to challenge, to conquer, in return. As a result, I further developed my ideals, expounded upon them and learned what logic specifically guided my character, but at the expense of feeling too often beaten down by what appeared to be the norm. I still waver back and forth between those two viewpoints, mostly because it is very unsettling to try and stand strong in the face of fierce opposition and see your beloved ideals attacked and belittled. But I know now that strength is one of my highest goals, and that my beliefs, my character cannot be strong without tempering both in the fires of ordeal. Ha! I wish to stand high atop the piled bodies of my defeated foes!

ANYWAYS, it's not a perfect article but it's damn close. I encourage you all to read it and consider it. Perhaps I'll expound upon it more when I get back from work...but I always say that, and it seldom happens. Let me know what you think about the article.

Soccer

2007-05-19T10:26:00.001-05:00

Sarah coached a team of 7-year-olds in soccer this year, and today being their last game and banquet, I went to show my support and such. First of all, the kids were really cute and though I'm not nearly as good with kids as, say, Alex is, it's still pretty delightful to be around ones so young and bright and full of energy and excitement.

The game and people at it brought to mind, though, a conversation Sarah and I had a couple months ago. I was extolling the virtues of moral absolutism, and saying that the relativist apologists are the cause for so much self-victimization that's crippling our society and keeping us from being strong. I said that people must be held to their successes and not be allowed to excuse every shortcoming, to coddle themselves into complacency. Her response was that especially with kids, you can't urge them to succeed so much that they become hyper-aware of their failures or they'll become stagnated in their shortcomings. I thought she was suggesting coddling people so they don't get too hurt, so it took us awhile to reach a consensus. That consensus ended up basically being that everybody should be aware of what they're doing well and what they're doing poorly and be able to take advantage of that knowledge to improve themselves, using the knowledge of their failures to work towards improvement and the knowledge of their successes to provide the self confidence they need for that improvement. Or something like that. She said it much more eloquently than I am.

Anyways, there was a girl at the game whose parents, while being rightly supportive of her teammates, were quite literally screaming at her from the sidelines for somewhat minor things all throughout the game. The girl, in turn, was then hyper-aware of every time she did something wrong, and resorted to immediately making excuses every time she couldn't take the ball back or didn't block a goal. I was pretty put off by it, seeing as these kids are 7 years old and it's not like she wasn't trying. This reminded me of that previous conversation and I got concerned that maybe I was some kind of apologist, that next I'd start thinking we should transfer all prisoners to some kind of rehab facility where they can feel comforted that it's okay to commit murder so long as they later learn the error of their ways and feel bad. So, I rehashed the conversation with Sarah (she didn't know what I was talking about, because I'm probably the only person who remembers commonplace conversations for two months) and she put it perfectly (again, and as always) when she said she doesn't think you should apologize for people's shortcomings, that you should be aware of them and work through them rather than just forgetting about it. The key phrase for me was "not letting them indulge in self pity," which comforted me to think of it not as a concession to weakness but as a commitment to strength. It's a great way of putting what I'd been thinking all along and realizing that we were arguing two sides of the same point. So, yeah. I guess that's all I've got on this one.

Quantico

2007-05-05T00:23:00.000-05:00

I believe I mentioned this in the last post...last drill I was asked to be a shooting range coach for our Marines who have volunteered to go to Iraq. So last Saturday (the 28th), I flew out of Moline and into Washington Reagan and rode a bus down to Quantico to teach some Marines how to improve their shooting. Evidently, they're raising a battalion of volunteers from within a number of different Reserve battalions to be sent to Iraq this summer, so they're spending two weeks in Quantico getting some boxes checked off their pre-deployment list, beginning with Table 1 and Table 2 marksmanship.

Table 1 is essentially their BZO (zeroing their rifles) and then prequalification in a standard known distance course, which is very similar to the service rifle target competitions Dad shoots. We started Sunday night with remedial courses on shooting fundamentals and about three hours of snapping in and dry firing. Monday we got them BZOed and ran through the prequal, in which I had five relays of three to five targets (so between 15-25 Marines and sailors) to assist. Many of them were pretty rusty, so it took plenty of catching up, but thanks to a great deal of advice from Dad and my fellow range coaches we ended each relay on a pretty promising note. Tuesday we went through rifle qualification, in which I was on the same targets more as a judge and safety official, and wasn't allowed to give direct advice. Most of my Marines and sailors did pretty well, including several expert quals and few unqs (unqualified).

Table 2 is a shorter version of what I used to call EMP, and it's essentially combat shooting with flaks and kevlars. They BZO at the 300 yard line and then move up to the 100 for moving targets, then up to...25 or something for multiple-target engagements and rapid position changes, standard combat shooting stuff versus the slower, more regimented Table 1 stuff. It's a bit more stressful because it's much faster and they stay locked and cocked the whole time, so there's more jamming, double feeds of rounds and just more safety issues to be concerned about, but it went off without a hitch. I felt it was pretty outstanding training for them all.

Thursday they had the grenade range, and our part as rifle range coaches was essentially over, so we did almost nothing all day, which was a pretty nice change of pace. We'd been standing in the hot sun all day (we were all redder than a Budweiser bottle by Wednesday) for three days, and had 3:30 a.m. reveille every day and worked til roughly 6 p.m. (hitting the rack around 7 p.m. out of pure exhaustion), so it's been a long and tiresome week.

Two of us had only signed on for the first week (those other poor fools haven't got anything to do but sit on a bus waiting for Marines to leave the field for the next week), so we flew back today, but that proved to be much more complicated than it ever needed to be. The sergeant who was supposed to drive us back to Washington Reagan pretty much doomed us by taking much longer than we had time for to get off base and head to the airport, and then we got stuck in the to-be-expected D.C. morning traffic and didn't even get to the airport til 9:45 a.m., five minutes after our flight was leaving and probably an hour or better after we should have arrived. We were originally slated to be back in Moline by noon, but since we missed that flight we couldn't fly back out of there til 6:30 p.m. and didn't get home til after midnight.

Part of me (a very small part) wishes I would have stuck around to participate in the rest of their training, because they've got some fun stuff going on. Today was ostensibly the gas chamber, which I haven't gotten to do since boot camp, Sunday's the crew-served machine gun range including the M240-G, M2 .50 cal., and supposedly the Mk-19 automatic grenade launcher (I'm going to be pretty furious if I missed getting to shoot the Mk-19, since I've never gotten to shoot it and those opportunities come rarely). It sounds like they've also got some urban combat training (MOUT) next week and probably land nav...and the biggest thing I feel like I'm missing out on is next Friday they're going to see the Marine Corps Museum on mainside in Quantico. That's something I've been infatuated with getting to see since I first heard about it, so I'm a little upset that I won't get to see it. I did, however, get to see the Commandant's building, most of mainside, and TBS (in fact, we did all our rifle qual stuff at the TBS ranges).

Downsides of this week: extremely sore feet from standing and walking around all day long, nasty sunburn, and just straight exhaustion from long hours and early mornings.

Upsides of this week: pretty much everything else. As Support Platoon, we were much more on our own program with significant responsibility and authority, as we had a significant billet (I was teaching a Marine captain who hadn't shot in years how to shoot again). Also, we had the great privelege of training a large group of Marines with limited time left in country before their deployment to a warzone, and that group was entirely volunteers, which is extremely motivating in and of itself. Having that billet of authority, I also was afforded the chance to really improve my bearing among seniors and develop a good deal of confidence in my own abilities as a Marine. I was able to essentially send off a great group of Marines feeling good about the training they'd just received with respect to what they might have to do in Iraq. It was a long week, but I'm extremely glad I got the chance to go help out.

P.S. I took the initiative to preemptively thank as many of those Marines as I could, because I knew you'd want me to.

Updates from drill, and VT stuff

2007-04-17T21:44:00.000-05:00

I had drill this weekend. It started Friday night with a "mess night," which evidently is this traditional formal dinner where you wear your senior uniform and everything's very regimented, including a lot of "fines" of a buck or two to raise money for the Ball. The night ends with eleven toasts, to the President, the Continental Marines, Marines of World War I and World War II, etc. Saturday was a lot of running around trying to finish our check-in sheet, a dental exam, HIV blood draw, and a lot of waiting. Since we had the mess night on Friday night, Sunday's drill only went til noon. I found out just before I left Sunday that I don't have to do a new MOS school until the next fiscal year, so it's more likely to be summer of '08 or something. Big relief there. I was also asked and agreed to be a shooting range coach in Quantico from April 28th to May 4th. A number of the unit's Marines have volunteered to be attached to units heading to Iraq, so in preparation they're doing some training in Quantico, and need some accomplished shooters to help teach those Marines.

McBride took me to an Italian restaurant he used to work at yesterday for a never-ending pasta special, and while we were there I caught the news about Virginia Tech. Two of my friends from Iraq, Matt Neely and Kurt Nario, are VT students, so I immediately called Neely to see if he was alright and he didn't answer, which made me nervous. He called back about five minutes later saying he was fine, having been off campus at the time and only hearing about it afterwards. He said when he heard the gunman was described as a man of Asian decent wearing a Marines hat, he called Nario, who's Filipino and a Marine, to make sure he hadn't gone crazy, which of course he hadn't, and he was well too. So that was a bit of relief. Still, it's a massive tragedy, and McBride and I spent most of our dinner in quiet disbelief. I'm not looking forward to the anti-gun outrage that's sure to follow, like it did in Columbine, as though it's related.

Here's a picture of Neely to refresh your memories (he's on the right):

Job search update

2007-03-29T15:24:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday I put in applications at Menard's, Lowe's, Old Navy and GNC. Yesterday, I got a call from Menard's, so I called them back today and scheduled an interview for tomorrow (Friday) at 10:30. About ten minutes later, Old Navy called and wanted to schedule an interview for Saturday at 2. The Old Navy one is evidently just a part-time opening, though they said if I took the job and a full-time position opened up later they'd give me that. So, we'll see what comes of this. Hopefully I'll have some kind of steady job by the end of the weekend. I might end up taking both and sticking with whichever one works out better for me.

A Cusp

2007-03-21T07:38:00.000-05:00

I'm finally starting to crack under the pressure of all the ridiculous bullshit I've been forcing upon myself for too long now. I'm getting awfully tired of all the talk of motivation mumbo-jumbo I keep subjecting myself to. I sound like some kind of apologist hippy. I've been telling myself for too long that I don't have the kind of inherent drive to get things done that other people do, and it's been a lie all along to keep myself from having to step outside my little life of ease and face the realities that billions of people face every day.

I'm extremely tired of this unhealthy life of decadence I've been leading. Every day I stay up til the wee hours of the morning, I spend what hours I am awake goofing off, wasting precious hours every day where I could be working to improve my station, alleviating the totally unnecessary pressures I've put upon myself through nothing but laziness. I drink too much, smoke cigarettes, laze around day in and day out, spend money like I won the lottery, and have in general just let myself go. I never exercise, don't keep myself up nearly as well as I should, don't even keep this crappy little closet I live in clean, like it's big enough to take any time at all (it's not; it's about the size of a large bedroom). Ostensibly it's all been under the pretense that I'm living some kind of carefree life, but it's resulted in being about as stressed out and down on myself as I've ever been before. It is past time to get my life on track. I know I'm capable of being at least as efficient and hardworking as anybody else, because I got all sorts of praise during my time in Fallujah, kept the platoon and especially my own vehicle running smoothly. I just have to stop letting myself get away with so much nonsense, and man up to the fact that I have to play by the same rules as everyone else.

Amusing side note: This rant and the generally ticked-off mood I'm in is the result of not being able to get back to sleep at 7 in the morning because I was plagued with so many concerns, so much I felt like I absolutely had to get done or I'd lose my mind, and all this after maybe 3.5 hours of sleep. Evidently even I am not allowed to cause my own sleep deprivation...do whatever you want to me, just don't cause me any shortage of sleep, or I will go to the root cause of any problem to make sure it never happens again.

Al Gore, champion of global warming

2007-02-27T10:12:00.000-06:00

I'll let this link speak for itself.
http://www.wwtdd.com/post.phtml?pk=1958
(beware strong language for those of you offended by that)

Prayers

2007-02-23T17:40:00.000-06:00

I don't know who all still reads this that was reading it while I was still in Iraq, but I got to thinking about some events from over there today and realized I don't think I've ever offered my deepest gratitude to everybody that prayed for me and my fellow Marines while I was over there. I wouldn't call myself any kind of outspoken religious type, but I can tell you that the collective prayers for me were answered, and worked to the great fortune of myself and the Marines around me. We were too lucky too many times for it to be luck. So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you all for your prayers.

Observations on a song

2007-02-23T12:40:00.000-06:00

I don't like country. Just to clear that up. I've never been into country music.

I don't care if you think you're some kind of Marxist. I don't care if you're both a hardcore cynic and a flower-wearing peacenik. I don't care if you hate country music, can't stand to listen to it. If you're an American and Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" doesn't stir you up at least a little, you must have been in a coma for the entire month of September in 2001.

I remember when it came out I heard some noise specifically about the line "We'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way", along the lines of the 'American way' shouldn't include aggression, something like that. People thought it misrepresented some kind of progressive ideals they believe the United States ought to have in which we should be against war, that we shouldn't want to fight. First of all, if you watched the towers fall like I did and somehow managed to not take it personally, then you're Mr. Roboto. Your blood is boiling, your brain IBM. Now, even assuming you're the kind of inhuman so guided by serenity that you didn't get the fight reflex that pretty much every human got that day, I still don't think you could deny that the most logical answer to an attack like that is to seek and destroy every son of a bitch on the planet with mass murder of that scale in their hearts. Personally, I don't see how anybody with a brain or a heart, one or the other, could not agree that the destruction of those who seek to assert their will over others by force and oppression results in a significant net gain for the whole world. September 11th gave us the motivation to get that done now, though we should have been doing it all along.

So anyways, I guess the point I'm trying to make is if you don't believe in the necessity of war in general, you're delusional and haven't ever watched the news. If you believe that those words in their context had anything to do with aggression instead of long-overdue policing of the trash of the world, then you definitely slept late that Tuesday morning and didn't wake up for at least a few weeks.

Some insight from Robert Heinlein

2007-02-05T13:18:00.000-06:00

I found this quote from Robert Heinlein's "Take Back Your Government: A practical handbook for the private citizen who wants democracy to work" at QuotableHeinlein.com. It's incomplete in explanation but offers some conclusions that I like and agree with, so I thought I might offer it for your consideration.

From politics I have come to believe the following:
(1) Most people are basically honest, kind and decent.
(2) The American people are wise enough to run their own affairs. The do not need Fuehrers, Strong Men, Technocrats, Commissars, Silver Shirts, Theocrats, or any other sort of dictator.
(3) Americans have a compatible community of ambitions. Most of them don't want to be rich but do want enough economic security to permit them to raise families in decent comfort without fear of the future. They want the least government necessary to this purpose and don't greatly mind what the other fellow does as long as it does not interfere with them living their own lives. As a people we are neither money mad nor prying. We are easy-going and anarchistic. We may want to keep up with the Joneses -- but not with the Vanderbilts. We don't like cops.
(4) Democracy is not an automatic condition resulting from laws and constitutions. It is a living, dynamic process which must be worked at by you yourself -- or it ceases to be democracy, even if the shell and form remains.
(5) One way or another, any government which remains in power is a representative government. If your city government is a crooked machine, then it is because you and your neighbors prefer it that way -- prefer it to the effort of running your own affairs. Hitler's government was a popular government; the vast majority of Germans preferred the rule of gangsters to the effort of thinking and doing for themselves. They abdicated their franchise.
(6) Democracy is the most efficient form of government ever invented by the human race. On the record, it has worked better in peace and in war than fascism, communism, or any other form of dictatorship. As for the mythical yardstick of 'benevolent' monarchy or dictatorship -- there ain't no such animal!
(7) A single citizen, with no political connections and no money, can be extremely effective in politics.

Pictures

2007-01-28T17:38:00.000-06:00

This is actually the last post today, but it'll be the first you'll see so I'll let you know what's going on. I started posting pictures of people that I've collected and whatever else I hadn't posted that was interesting. The first post today had an explanation and is a ways down the page. Hope this satisfies those of you who keep asking for pictures, because I don't have many more, and really none more that are interesting.

Judging by the lack of oil at this IED blast site, looks like they didn't hit anybody this time.

Detainee release

A detainee praying at a stop

Some Iraqi Army types, Sgt. Galvan, Fareed, and my roommate Tank

Coates, Powell, Sgt. Goodman and Cpl. Cox

Powell, Richardson, Cpl. Cox and Raines

Gunny Stuart, SSgt. Valdez, Doc V and a 14-year-old IA

2007-01-28T17:29:00.000-06:00

Iraqi Army

Controlled detonation of an IED we found

Looks to me like Ramadi

Some M1A1 Abrams

Can't tell who this is, but it looks like Maharaj doing a puppet show

A little town on the Euphrates

Tent City rules in Fallujah

Sgt. Evans' HMMWV post-blast

Another of Sgt. Evan's HMMWV

Iraqi Police station

2007-01-28T17:09:00.000-06:00

Mathisen and his turret-shield artwork

Nario, Cpl. Call (then a LCpl.) and Longworth, apparently on their flight to Kuwait

Painter on an early overnight mission

Powell, our other gunner, in the full APES suit we wear in the turret

Jackson, Sgt. Galvan, and Fountaine with some local kids

(top row) Fountaine and Sanchez, (middle row) Powell, Coates and Painter, (front row) Summerour and Sgt. Torres

Sanchez and Cpl. Galvan, catching some shade under the mortar shelters

Me, inundated with rifles at the EMP range in 29 Palms

People pictures, and a few others

2007-01-28T16:44:00.000-06:00

I've been collecting other people's pictures, mostly of the different people I spent time with over there. I'll try to post the pictures of different people I've probably referred to a bunch first so I can provide a caption, then just any event pictures in a rapid-fire style, probably without caption. We'll see how this works.

HM2 "Doc V" Vanderlois

Grey (David, LCpl.-type)

Doc Cintron and Neely

Horner and Neely

Neely and I, testing out a theory

Sgt. Miranda and Neely

Somebody I don't remember, Cpl. Call, Stevens, and Maharaj

Mathisen and Cpl. Call

The death tax

2007-01-04T16:52:00.000-06:00

This may seem as coming from out of nowhere, but I was doing some thinking about estate/inheritance taxes today and what is good and bad about them. What's "good": basically, they're taxes so some necessary and many unnecessary government programs are funded at least in part by inheritance taxes. Also, I suppose they help assure that the wealthy have earned their wealth and are knowledgeable about how to manage wealth (I won't even begin to speak on whether or not it's government's place to determine for you how to spend your own wealth...which it's not). What's bad: it undermines long-term investment, since if you know you can't pass on your wealth you will find other means of passing it on or instead just spend it. It is causing the death of family farming in the United States, since heavy taxes on estates means if all you have is land and farming equipment, it's going to become much harder to keep that land over several generations if you have to keep paying large inheritance taxes in order to keep the land in your family. Most importantly, though, it's bad because it hinders one of the most basic American dreams, which is creation of prosperity for your family...oh, that, and it's simply a literal tax on death. You died? Well, that means you owe us.

Here's an article that I was reading while I made this post: http://www.myheritage.org/Issues/MythBusters/DeathTax.asp It's perhaps a touch incomplete/abridged, and I basically hit the main points it brought up, but there it is.

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-25T14:16:00.000-06:00

Several readers have informed me that if I do not update soon, my blog will be deleted from their favorites. Having been strongarmed, I will subordinate myself to the readers' demands. But only with this Christmas well-wishing. Merry Christmas! Hopefully everyone here is as sick as I am of Christmas songs by now, and can agree with me in saying that one of the benefits of Christmas day is the oncoming realization that Christmas songs will very soon stop taking over otherwise worthwhile radio stations. But the sermon at last night's Mass has reminded me of the meaning of the season, which is: don't forget to love your neighbor; love him so much that you will not give up your rights to him in a communal system. Love him enough to know that he should not ask you to live your life for him, nor should you ask him to live his life for you. And now for some Ayn Rand:

"It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone
collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone
being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master."

About the pictures

2006-11-19T18:18:00.000-06:00

Seriously, there will be a bigger picture post sometime here. The problem is that I've put up most of the ones I liked of my own pictures, and I've been trying to get pictures from Marines I was there with and most of them are doing their own things and don't really feel like sending dozens of files to me via email, not to mention that I also just don't get the chance to talk to them very often. I've gotten a couple new pictures from Karnolt, but along the lines of three or so, so not too many. In the mean time, I'll put a few of his up to keep you happy.

[note] I can't figure out the different layout options for the pictures, hence the dissheveled arrangement of pics. Sorry.
[note] Sarah tells me it's pretty easy to fix. I don't feel like sifting through the html, so it's not gonna happen. Just letting you know.

Vote!

2006-11-07T14:03:00.000-06:00

Here's a guilt trip for you:
Too many countries' peoples can't vote or have to endure too great of dangers for us to not appreciate and take advantage of our ability to vote, so please be sure you get out there today and vote.

Pictures are still forthcoming, I swear. I'm still trying to get with my friend Karnolt so I can put up some of his pictures, since he's got many more and better pictures than I have.

Upcoming pictures

2006-11-02T12:27:00.000-06:00

Sorry for such a long time without posting. I don't know if anybody's still checking this, now that I'm safe and sound and it's all pretty much over, but I swear that soon I will put a bunch of pictures together to post here for you all to see. When I first got back there were a bunch of people who said they wished I'd posted more pictures all along, so since that didn't happen I'll try and post the good ones right here. I've got nothing but time these days, so it shouldn't be more than a day or two (I hope).

The most beautiful country in the world

2006-10-13T21:39:00.000-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen,
I type this from the internet center at MCAGCC Twentynine Palms, California. This means I am in the United States of America and deliriously happy about it. If only everyone could appreciate life in the United States every day as much as I do right now.

We spent roughly two days in Taqaddum and roughly two days in Kuwait and left the theater on the 9th. We refueled in Frankfurt, and my opinion of Germany improved tenfold. We were told we could drink if we were of age but only two beers, so of course I had four and was feeling terrific (at 5:30 a.m.). There was a delightful blonde girl serving the beers (some kind of hefeweizen...don't remember which brand), and I asked Karnolt and a few other guys if I should propose to her. I was instantly in love with her, I think. Anyways, we were there for two hours and it was probably the best time I ever had between the hours of five and seven in the morning.

We flew into March AFB around 11 in the morning or something like that. As we exited the plane, the local fire and police had several vehicles parked nearby flashing their lights and roaring their sirens and creating quite the raucus for us. The battalion inspector-instructor CO and sergeant major were there, shaking our hands and welcoming us home, along with a contingent of local VFW types. We hung out for awhile as they offloaded the plane then boarded a ton of buses.

The bus trip was a lot of fun. It's about 2.5 hours between March AFB and Twentynine Palms, and leading our convoy of buses were three VFW vets on motorcycles flying the American flag and blocking off intersections for us. Once we got past Palm Springs, we got the idea to open the windows and wave at people, and the bus driver took it upon herself to wail on the horn almost incessantly so everybody knew we were coming. It was like an hour and a half parade through five different towns. As we saw some American-ism that we'd missed, we'd shout it out and everybody aboard the bus would cheer, and then we got to just cheering whenever somebody waved at us or honked their horn for us, which was often. We felt like rock stars.

That day we turned in our weapons and found billeting then were set free to create as much damage as possible. The drinking started early and ended late and took on the tone of making up for lost time. I found a lot of my Charlie Battery brethren who had been attached to other units, and basically the whole battalion was partying together wherever we went, because of the interconnectivity of the batteries (Marines were mixed around a lot between the six batteries of Task Force MP, so you'd know people you were attached to in Iraq and people from your parent unit). It was a grand time and resulted in an awful Wednesday morning.

I finally ran into Schauer and Glynn Wednesday morning, which was nice. That night we were supposed to meet up and do some more drinking and catching up, but I just ate some Chinese and fell asleep in my clothes on my rack at an early hour, and haven't seen them since. We'll have to do some more catching up after we all get home.

Speaking of getting home, I'll be flying into Waterloo late Sunday night. I should have a 96-hour liberty through Thursday night or something, and I may or may not have to be in Waterloo for Friday. But we will have the weekend off and the welcome home party, which on Facebook I have dubbed "The Night America Becomes America Again" in a somewhat blasphemous display of egotism, will still roll starting around 3 p.m. on Saturday the 21st. My mom asks that people not drive home drunk. She ought to join that group.

Anyways, Karnolt's not feeling too hot and wants to leave, so I'll end it there. I'm terrifically happy to be sharing a country with everybody again, especially given how beautiful this country happens to be. I hope to see you all very soon.

A telegram

2006-10-07T20:14:00.000-05:00

FOLKS
AM IN KUWAIT NOW STOP BACK IN CA IN FEW DAYS STOP GLAD TO BE OUT OF IRAQ STOP
- RKW

Absence

2006-10-03T17:44:00.000-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen,
It has just occurred to me that this is probably the last time I'll have computer access for possibly up to a week. Consider yourselves forewarned.

In the meantime, I apologize for slackening on the quantity of endlessly entertaining content. I realize it must be very difficult to have to wait so long in between posts for the kind of beautiful writing I deliver. I apologize. It has been a long and busy week. But soon, I'll have plenty of free time to devote to writing all sorts of amusing and thoughtful anecdotes to share with you all.

Replacements

2006-09-29T12:16:00.000-05:00

Our replacements are here. They're an active duty unit out of Pendleton, and they seem like pretty decent guys. Their average age is a bit lower than ours and their platoons are significantly lower ranking than ours, meaning that we have a captain platoon commander, a gunny, two staff sergeants, something like fifteen sergeants and five corporals, and they only have a first lieutenant platoon commander, two or three sergeants and a handful of corporals. That's the way active duty is, though. Anyways, they're here, we're training them up and soon we'll be back in Cali.

I got taken off duty and put back on the trucks the other day because one of the guys had a concussion. In superstitious paranoia, I got myself ready and did a lot of praying because I figure that would be prime voodoo time for me to get blown up, after I was already thinking I was off missions. Well, I went over there to prepare for the mission and it turns out I got kicked off my truck so that some of our replacements could ride along and learn the ropes. So, my superstitions were qualmed.

A couple days ago I made a big leap in planning out the story I've been "writing" for the past two years. Basically I had no idea what kind of background I could give the main character that wouldn't be extremely cliche, but two nights ago I was in the zone and just randomly started thinking about it and figured it out. So that's swell. I'm still a long ways from actually putting much down on paper, but I do have a full sixteen pages of ideas in my notebook.

That's all, have fun. See you all soon!

Big news for you

2006-09-24T17:04:00.000-05:00

I went on a mission last night that was unnecessarily long (we could have driven to the same place in a quarter of the time if we could take the direct route) and painful. When I returned (around 4:30 a.m.), I found out that I'm on guard this week. Any other time, being on guard would be news but not big news. Finding out last night that I'm on guard this week means that last night's mission was my penultimate mission, leaving only our trip from here to our flight out of Iraq, and we're just along for the ride for that one. So essentially, last night was my last real mission.

For you, this means that the danger for me is basically over and you can stop worrying. That final mission, we'll be riding in the back of well-armored vehicles along a pretty dull road, then jumping on a plane bound for the safety of Kuwait. From now until then I'm on base, and the only danger here is incoming mortar rounds, and that danger is miniscule.

For me, I don't know what to think. It was a bittersweet surprise. Of course, it made me extremely excited because it meant that the end was in sight and I'd soon be back in the States and soon thereafter back home to my loved ones, but it also came unexpectedly and I didn't have time to prepare myself for it. There was no pomp, no celebration on my part, since I didn't even realize it was my last mission until it was already over. I had no opportunity to relish it, and there are certainly things I wish I could have done while over here that I now will certainly not be able to do. Regardless, it's very exciting.

In related news, we cleaned the heck out of our room tonight. We are having field days so often that it's no longer a special occasion. For instance, tomorrow is Monfieldday and the day after will be Tuesfieldday. It has gotten absurd. But this one was still special in the fact that we were preparing the building for its turnover to our replacements. I threw out a HUGE amount of stuff, which for those of you who know me well is a tremendous undertaking for me. I'm a packrat. In fact, I ended up actually picking up something that wasn't mine, but it was a book I wanted and I think getting new books is always a good thing. In this case, it was Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose.

I was encouraged by your reactions to my last post. I reckon that when I get back and no longer have as much purpose for this blog, I may use it to lie prosaically for your amusement.

Time to go, zai jian.

Chewbacca and others

2006-09-22T16:04:00.000-05:00

I just recently found out that my fish (Chewy) died a few days ago. Many of you may not have known that I had a fish. In fact, he wasn't really mine at all. I inherited him once a friend of mine graduated, and Sherm passed him down for me after I left and he graduated. Even while he was mine, I never took care of him. Sherm fed him and cleaned his tank and the like, because I'm stupid about fish, and lazy. But anyways, now he's dead. He was some kind of beta or something crazy like that. I don't really know what kind he was, technically speaking. All I know is he was mean as hell and everyone who knew him could barely stand being in the same room as him and I loved him with all my heart. He had a notoriously violent disposition, and it was whispered that if you stared too long into his eyes, he could steal your soul. We are all diminished by our loss of him.

This reminds me of another fish I used to have. I was down fishing in a creek under a bridge one day, straw hat, overalls, bamboo fishing rod and all, when I caught him. He was a big devil, and when I picked him up to take him off the hook, he winked at me. That wink won my heart, and I couldn't bare to skin him up and eat him, so I kept him in a tank in my room.

One day, I found him lying outside the tank, gills flapping for air, so I picked him back up and put him in the tank. Not a minute later, the lunatic jumped right back out. At that point, I thought maybe he was trying to tell me something, so I let him out a little while longer. This happened every day for several months, and each day I would leave him out a little longer, until finally I kept him out of the tank and let him sleep at the foot of my bed. By that time, he'd managed a bit of a flapping duck walk, so he and I would take walks.

Well, not a month later, I was walking with him down the road when we came upon the same bridge I had been fishing under when I first met him. It was a wooden bridge, and by this time the planks were starting to rot and the bridge was in poor repair. Wouldn't you know it, as we were walking across that bridge one of the planks gave way and the poor guy fell back into the creek. I rushed down to the bottom of the bridge to help him out, but by that time, it was too late. He had drowned.

So that's about that. Have a fine day, folks.

Bur-ba-dur

2006-09-21T17:36:00.000-05:00

Not much new here, as usual. Regardless, I will put you through a rather dull update.

I keep seeing this one doc, who I never really knew back at Bravo, around Camp Fallujah, and a few weeks ago I started up a conversation with him. He was very friendly and all that. Well anyways, it was just a chance encounter and I never had spoken to him before or since, until this afternoon. I was at chow this afternoon, and saw him as I walked past his table at the chow hall, and wasn't sure if he'd even recognize me, but he did and I said hello, but then he called me by name and told me that he'd checked for me to see about the Bravo Marine Corps Ball and all this. Point is, it turns out it's the night before Hotel's, so I probably won't be going.

On a related note, I happened to be in Al Asad the other day and talked to a few Straggler Platoon buddies, including one of my fellow Charlie Marines, Butteris. Well, he told me that Charlie is in fact planning on having a ball on the 11th of November, the week before Hotel's. So I might be going to two balls, one of which I could take a real date to, even if it would be pretty boring with only about twelve of us there, plus I guess the I&I staff and probably a handful of older VFW types. We'll see...I'll try and get more details on it once I get to 29 Stumps.

And still speaking of balls, I have yet to reserve a room or secure tickets for Hotel's ball. Considering the amount of trouble I'll be taking to get there (that is, driving for something like 16 hours), I should probably cement those plans soon.

After watching a couple movies recently related to rock and roll, I splurged on both those movies' soundtracks and then three Led Zeppelin albums on Amazon.com. Now I can't wait to get home so I can enjoy them all.

I need to start sending everything home. I'm planning on having just a couple changes of clothes and a few books to keep me busy when I leave for the States. So that's gonna take some doing.

Well, I'm out of time and things to write about, so I'll take my leave for now. Hope to see you all as soon as I get back.

Nothing new

2006-09-15T17:19:00.000-05:00

It's been a slow couple of weeks. Mostly, I've busied myself by playing dozens of games of Solitaire every day. Pretty much all my free time is spent on that awful wretch of a game. That's how dull my life has been lately. Then again, I did finish watching Lost, and have pretty much exhausted my movies. I haven't been reading much at all recently, though I don't really know why. Soon enough, I need to pack everything and ship it all home. I'm trying to minimize the amount of crap I have to fly with.

Man, the time is really ticking down here. Unfortunately, the closer we get, the slower time goes by. Soon, folks!

Stressful evening

2006-09-09T15:43:00.000-05:00

Things have been going pretty slow recently, without much worthy of note (well, last Tuesday was interesting). Today most of the NCOs had to come up with half-hour classes for us, to keep us from having to do extremely stupid, tedious manual labor for the first sergeant. A lot of them turned out to be pretty interesting, since many of them gave classes on things pertaining to their jobs back home, like law enforcement in Cpl. McTernan's case and federal employment in Cpl. Hinson's. It was educational. Blah.

So then, after the classes were all done, about ten Marines were required to do a PFT. I didn't like my last score, so I asked if I could do it, though it wasn't required for me. I didn't do outstanding by any means, but my scores improved enough to get me a first-class PFT, making me eligible for meritorious promotion. I did thirteen pull-ups, a hundred situps and ran the 3-mile in 23:27, which is better than I've done in awhile (which is sad). I could do better.

Ironically, when I walked back to the house from the PFT which finally qualified me for meritorious promotion, I was told that I would be doing a meritorious promotion board in two hours. It wasn't a real board, but rather a sort of preliminary board because the NCOs couldn't decide from the four of us who did it tonight who to send up for the board (normally, I'd have weeks to prepare). So, I found and borrowed some clean cammies, showered and shaved up really nice, and the four of us found a room and studied Marine Corps knowledge briefly, then at 2200 we went in one at a time. There were two sergeants and two corporals, plus my vehicle commander (errr, sorta former vehicle commander), Sgt. Nicola.

Well, they didn't tell us yet which two of us will go to the real board, but they did say we all surprised them with how well we did. Now, me personally, I think that's a load of crap, because I felt like I did awfully. For some reason, I was more nervous tonight than I have been getting shot at. I was a nervous wreck, and I think I was literally shaking while standing at attention (partially due to my legs being badly fatigued from the PFT I had just run). I didn't speak loudly or confidently enough. I could have done much better, and would have expected myself to do much better. These are the Marines I spend every day with, who I talk to with great comfort dozens of times a day. Yet when they're sitting at this table in front of me, judging my every mood to decide my fate, I quaked. So anyways, that was rough. I asked Doc Schmutz for some morphine afterwards. He said no.

Now, I should mention that I'm terrifically priveleged to have been selected for even this pre-board. That they couldn't decide among me and these three motivators is amazing. They've all been in considerably longer than I have and are all terribly competent. Furthermore, I can think of at least five other Marines I would have picked for it before myself. Pretty much the whole of the lance corporals would be pissed if I picked up meritorious corporal, since so many of them have put in so much more time and do terrific jobs themselves. So, anyways, it's a huge compliment.

This is already pretty long and I doubt there's much more I want to tell you about right now, so I'll finish here. Keep holding down the fort for me, and you're welcome for the lower gas prices.

Well well well

2006-08-26T16:36:00.000-05:00

Here I am, finally able to post and yet I haven't put any thought into what to write. Such is life.

I've been on duty all week, as I've mentioned. It's generally said that even duty gets old eventually, because time ticks by so slowly and it's awfully boring. Well, not this duty. This has been just a real treat, let me tell you. Not once this week did I mind even a minute of duty, and if anything it made the week fly by. I've been keeping myself terribly busy between reading the Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, which I finished, and watching assorted movies and especially watching Lost. I watched fourteen episodes in a day and two the next night and have been waiting for the next disc. Well, now I've got it and my computer lost its mind; it appears that the battery may be failing badly, or there's some wacky short circuit somewhere else. And even when it does stay on, it freezes up whenever I try to do much of anything. I have been considering taking my laptop out back and shooting it.

We finally had a lance corporal promoted to a corporal. It was Cox, somebody I've never mentioned on here before, a five-year arty lance corporal, which is usually the mark of death because arty is basically closed out for promotions Corps-wide. He's a good Marine though and he's been a solid lance for so long that I guess they took pity on him and just gave it to him. He deserves it, and it's encouraging to see them actually promote one of the lance corporals. We've had a staff sergeant become a gunny, a sergeant become a staff sergeant, and about six corporals become sergeants, so it's about time one of the lance corporals picked up.

I put together an Excel spreadsheet that automatically calculates the days, hours, minutes and seconds left. The other day I checked it and noticed that we have less than a thousand hours left. That's some pretty good stuff. I can't wait to get back to you all, unlimited internet, good steak, beautiful women, and beer (not necessarily in that order).

I really don't know what else there is to say. I'm not terribly eager to get back to the missions once I get off duty tomorrow, but I guess it'll make time pass quickly and keep me on my toes. I hope everything's going terrifically well back home for everybody, and I can't wait to see everyone again.

Exciting scuttlebutt

2006-08-11T13:17:00.000-05:00

Not too much today, just a quick update.

We've been having some pretty slow days lately, which is fine with me. I got to test out the new bulletproof glass shields we got on our humvees for the first time today, and it rocks. I feel much safer, closed up in a nice bulletproof glass box on three sides. Other than that I've just been reading (finally finished up with Atlas Shrugged and started Teddy's Iran book, which I'm enjoying), watching movies and doing busywork.

The exciting news I heard today came from my vehicle commander, the NCO directly above me. He told me that not only he himself but other NCOs as well have brought up my name when they discuss who should be meritoriously promoted. Unfortunately, it can't happen until I get all my professional military education (PME) stuff checked off. I'm finishing the first one tonight, which I just got today, but I'm still waiting on at least two more MCIs (Marine Corps Institute classes), namely Terrorism Awareness and Personal Finance, which I have been trying to get my hands on unsuccesfully since January. I talked to the NCOs in charge of the PME stuff a couple weeks ago and asked them to look into why I haven't received the classes yet. It looks like my address is still wrong in the system, which it has been for a long time. Now that they added an option for me to change it myself, though, my leadership has already had a full load checked out for me and sent to the wrong address. So hopefully I can disenroll the ones sent to the wrong address (29 Palms) and reenroll with this address, or possibly just contact comm school and see if they've gotten them and can forward them. Now I've got a fire under my butt to get that stuff done, if it means I could realistically be meritoriously promoted. Also, I'm working on bettering my PT scores. I've talked to two different guys who are willing to PT with me on a more regular basis so we can all stay in shape and improve our PFT scores. That will help a great deal for promotion.

That's it, gotta go!

Making up for lost time

2006-08-07T14:12:00.000-05:00

Pearl Jam sang, “I know someday you’ll have a beautiful life, I know you’ll be a star in somebody else’s sky, but why, why, why can’t it be, why can’t it be mine?” Indeed, I say.

So, I’m not dead after all. I guess that’s probably not funny, but it’s a sure thing that I’ve been out of touch for quite a long time, something like ten days without phone calls or emails or posts. We had a two-day mission last five days, and haven’t had a day off (off meaning without a mission, since it’s pointless to even talk about a true day off, which hasn’t happened to me in several months) since, and not even enough hours free to make it to the MWR, especially since they no longer run buses to our distant compound from mainside between the hours of 2300 and 0600, which makes me irate (I is for irate). I’m not walking two miles to the MWR after a long day. If we ever get any short days, then we’ll talk.

Frankly, your worrying about me is pointless and makes me angry anyways. All it serves to do is censor me and make me feel guilty, and given the amount of danger I see, it is in fact quite silly to waste your time like that. Frankly, if anything is going to happen to me then it’s going to happen, and your worry will not change that a wink, I’m sorry to say. I have accepted it and came here and stay here of my own free will and with full knowledge of the danger, so know that if something does happen, it will happen with my full acceptance of it and I will be happy regardless. Don’t think I will ever allow some cowardly insurgents to determine my outlook or my frame of mind. Don’t get me wrong, however; I do appreciate your concern, but for your own sakes, don’t lose any sleep over my safety, because I’m not. If anything, just convert your worries into prayers and leave the worrying to God.

When I first got to Hotel I was on this kick of listening to the soundtracks of the original Star Wars movies. Well, there’s this one song called “The Duel” on the Empire Strikes Back soundtrack, that plays at the point in the movie when Luke is fighting Vader, and when I first really listened to the song I almost fell off my rack. It is the quintessential song of some small hero standing up to boldly fight an incredibly powerful evil against impossible odds. I could imagine no better way of putting that to music. It left me wondering if John Williams is some distant relative of Jesus Christ, like thirteenth cousin five times removed or something. I made several of my friends here listen to this thirty-second snippet, this part I think is absolutely flawless and possibly the most powerful sounds I have ever heard in any thirty seconds, and they listened to it and thought I was loony, couldn’t understand for the life of them what I was so excited about. Ah well, I guess genius can be lonely.

There are a few bad habits that I intensely enjoy such that I can’t see myself living the rest of my life without them. One of those I’m enjoying right now, and that is eating in bed. I’m lying on my bed inside my sleeping bag with my laptop on my lap and some soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies to my side, stuffing them in my mouth and feeling happy as a lark. The combined joys of eating cookies and laying in bed makes me feel so good that I probably ought to go to confession.

Several of my friends have been sending me good stuff lately. Jackson, Dukes, Sarah and Teddy sent me a box with a book on Iranian-American relations, Maddox’s highly entertaining book, a Magic Eye book and some colored pencils along with some also colorful pictures. One too many pictures, perhaps (ugh…). Matt Berge sent me some Star Wars novels, something I haven’t enjoyed since middle school, so those should be entertaining. Amanda Freel sent me a signed copy of Sean Hannity’s book Deliver Us from Evil. And what does Mr. Hannity have to say? “To Roger – a great American! Thank you! God bless!” Good guy, that Sean Hannity.

A great deal of excessive C.Y.A. (cover your ass) action by assorted superiors lately has left a bad taste in my mouth. None of it dealt with me individually, but all of it affected me in some negative manner (I say this to ease any fears). For instance, we have to fill out these trip tickets logging all the hours we use our vehicles, and they have to be renewed every week, and when the drivers from our platoon came to get them signed for this week, it took us two hours because the staff sergeant in charge of motor t. wouldn’t give them to us unless we had humvee driver’s licenses, which none of us had. He played stupid and went to talk to the CO, who directed him to go ahead and sign the trip tickets. The catch is, everyone here knows almost nobody here has humvee licenses, and everybody knows that hasn’t changed, but they have to put up this little charade where they pretend they didn’t realize it all this time and shrug their responsibility of it off on the CO. Nobody here will act on anything without dumping responsibility for it off on someone else in case it causes problems. I understand that they are going against the rules and they could get in trouble for breaking those rules, but the absolute lack of willingness to take personal responsibility makes me see red. I joined the Marine Corps believing it to be one of the last few bastions of personal responsibility, going against the standard government red tape, but this deployment has continuously proven me wrong. The Corps is no freer of ridiculous responsibility skirting, blame-gaming and politics than any other government service, it turns out. It’s so obvious how damaging such political maneuvering is that it frustrates me to no end how prevalent it is today, and not just inside government but everywhere. Everyone tries to arrange any meaningful action so that they can not be blamed if it goes wrong. It’s childish. I believed Marines to be men of action and above such scheming, but too many Marines in high position appear to be men of careful wording and precarious shirking of responsibility. They’re not all like that, but the fact that some are is shameful. Marines these days ought to be afforded several years of law school training so they can become better leaders, the way things are sometimes. I will be damned if I ever become like that. That is backwards by my moral reckoning. I would sooner break such a rule loudly and outright than quietly pretend I’m not responsible for taking action. All that behavior does is reinforce the fear of action, causing us to avoid doing anything meaningful we could be held accountable for until we no longer take any action at all. I will not stand for that, sure as hell not in my Marine Corps. (And for Dad, on that note: “It was a lie, and the more I saw of them, the more I hated lies.”)

So anyways, that’s my soapbox stance for the week. Unfortunately, I have to be up in three hours or I’d write more spirited, philosophical rants about the downward spiral of human society. Thanks for all the stuff you’ve been sending me (and Mom, those peanut butter cup Keebler cookies were…almost illegally tasty). Hope everybody’s safe and sound back home, that everybody’s enjoying their last few weeks of summer in my proxy, and that you save a little fun for me when I get back (just a couple months and some change left). Love y’all. Except for the hippies.

(Note: This post was 2.5 pages single-spaced in Microsoft Word. Pat yourself on the back for making it through.)

Pointless update

2006-07-24T16:38:00.001-05:00

Per Alex's insistence I'll throw some words up here. I do feel badly about not updating in so long, but really I can't imagine what all there is to write about.

We got back at about 0730 this morning from a long-ish run to Tikrit. It was an interesting run and our vehicle ended up as the lead scout vehicle, so that was new and exciting. I never thought I could burn through my box of chem lights so fast.

I calculated my score for promotion the other day and I'm actually a bit higher than I thought I was. Once I get all my Marine Corps Institute packets turned in, I'll be awfully close, and it will only be a few months more until I'll be eligible. It could very well happen within the next six months, especially if I keep up the PT and all that. It would sure be nice to pick up corporal, and get that beautiful saber and those blood stripes.

For some reason we have started doing deployment-end stuff. We filled out a physical and mental health survey thing the other day like we were already done, and also passed around a sheet of our preferences for what to do when we get back, for those of us whose units are changing or going away. They didn't have the full information on my options, since the HTC in Waterloo will be gone entirely instead of just switching over to recon, so the battery first sergeant is looking into for me. That means I need to make some big decisions in a few days. Sounds like I can either transfer to another unit (hopefully the Reserve unit at the RI Arsenal), do a lat move to another MOS, transfer to another branch of service (ha), go active (ha), go active reserve (like deploying within the states, to the Mexican border or New Orleans or something), or drop to the inactive ready reserve, which isn't realistically going to be an option.

Everybody is at Nick's cabin in Wisconsin this week. And Bix is this weekend, so everybody at school will be at Augie over the weekend. Basically, this is the worst possible week to be here. Hopefully it goes by quickly.

One last thing, and THIS IS IMPORTANT! In my address, the part that says 3/14 H Btry and all that, it is NOT 3 PLT. That second line should read: 3/14 H Btry 1st PLT. My mail keeps going to third platoon, and that's why it's been taking me so long to get stuff. Sorry to have misinformed you! I don't know why I sent it as 3 PLT. I guess I just didn't think about it.

I don't know. Not much else happening here. I wish I was at home celebrating the birthdays of the many people I know who have had birthdays in the past week with a cold beer. But then, you can't always get what you want. But if you try sometime, you might find you get what you need.

Finally, a break

2006-07-09T08:19:00.000-05:00

We got back yesterday from a long and grueling five-day mission all over creation. It left me never wanting to drive in a humvee again. It's damn fine to be back at CF.

Today I started a week of duty, meaning I sit at a entry control point at our little battery headquarters and check IDs as people enter and exit. It's a welcome respite from the constant grind of long missions and annoyingly various working hours. I work two four-hour shifts a day, which leaves me eight hours for sleeping and eight hours for doing my own thing, which is much more than c0uld be said for my job the last time I had duty, in which I was constantly on call and hardly ever got reliable sleep. Plus, the platoon's out on a mission so I have the room and most of the rest of the barracks to myself. Peace and quiet is so nice, especially given all the reading I have been and will be doing.

Speaking of, I started reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons. I can barely put it down. It's very odd, at this point almost something like a collection of short stories fused together with even shorter blurbs, but it's spellbinding nonetheless. I finished...something else the other day, what was it? I can't remember. I'm blowing through books like mad, which I think is frustrating Karnolt because he keeps coming into my room to chew the fat but my attention is stuck in a book. Ah well, old Will's just going to have to learn to deal with it.

I think I already mentioned that I got a package from the dulcimer group ladies, which was much appreciated (I've been devouring those cookies ever since), and I got another one from Dee Hayen just yesterday. Plus, another package from Mom & Josh, and before we left I found out that my package from Dad had been sitting around the COC for several days and they had talked about just opening it and keeping the contents, even though nobody deemed to tell me it was there. So I was very happy to finally have my pipe, baseball glove, and those books I've been drooling over.

Gah, time's up, take care folks!

BUSY BUSY BUSY

2006-06-29T05:12:00.000-05:00

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.

Busier yet

2006-06-24T14:39:00.000-05:00

Folks,
Things have been getting just absurd. We've been working between 12- and 22-hour days for about two weeks now. We finally got today off, thank God, and I used it to watch Star Wars Episode IV, read about half of the book on guerilla warfare by Mao Zedong and translated by a Marine general that Dad sent me, and playing some Starcraft with my buddy Karnolt. I also went to the PX and picked up some cookies, because Mrs. Heffelfinger sent me some of these soft and chewy Keebler cookies a little while back that really blew me away. I finally got my room pretty respectably organized too, by buying a couple cardboard storage boxes for beneath my rack. I have one entirely full of assorted snacks and candies that you folks have sent me, and one entirely full of assorted hygiene gear that you folks, namely Mom, have sent me. I'm pretty well good to go on that stuff, and I appreciate it a great deal! I've gotten some very nice cards from Mrs. Hayen and co., one of which was signed by a bunch of different ladies that made me a little teary from its thoughtfulness (I'm a sap, what can I say?), and packages from Mrs. Heffelfinger and Mrs. Nyboer, on top of all the packages from Mom & Josh and Dad & Sarah. I literally have run out of room. Don't let that deter you, though. I'll figure something out.

I've been considering my future a lot lately, and something I've been playing around with is taking the government college money I'll rate when I get back and, after finishing my poli sci degree, tacking on another couple years for an economics degree, which is along the same lines but actually marketable. I'm back to the idea of going officer again, which I had scoffed for awhile since I got a taste of the active side of being a Marine, but since I've been having a pretty good time lately and this is both as bad and as good as being a Marine gets, I figure it's something I could really enjoy. It's damn rough being away from friends and family so much, but it's satisfying work and my options as an officer would probably be more open. Anyways, thought I might share that. It's the first time in awhile since I felt like I had an optimistic long term plan for my life, and it sure feels good.

They moved me to a new vehicle and everybody switched around, so I'm getting accustomed to the new setup. Also, I've been driving the 7-ton trucks on a few missions, which I've grown much more comfortable with.

Not much new to report. Hope all is well back there, and congratulations to Chad & Melissa and Petty & Val on their weddings! Good luck, folks. Love ya all.

Long time with no updates

2006-06-14T08:43:00.000-05:00

Folks,
I have been to the internet center probably six times in the last 2.5 weeks to update this bad boy, but the net is so slow that it's nearly impossible, especially if I want to upload some pictures while I'm at it. Speaking of, I shaved my head, and liked it quite a bit better than I thought I would. My head, though huge, is fairly smooth and reasonably shaped, and no hair means no noticeably receding hairline. We'll see how long I decide to keep it shaved.
http://s43.photobucket.com/albums/e399/rogerwilley/?action=view¤t=DSC01498.jpg

I've been terribly busy recently, meaning we've had many missions without much free time. I went to the Jordanian border the other day, and finally got to Baghdad International Airport (BIAP) the other day as well, which is a huge base with a huge PX, nearly Walmart-sized, with nearly everything I could hope for in a PX in Iraq.

I've been getting all your packages and letters, and have been enjoying their fruits quite a bit. I'm so happy to finally have a respectable collection of books and movies to busy myself with if I ever get a chunk of free time, of which I have had little in the last week. And the snacks have been keeping me fed on the road. I really appreciate all the thought you've put into them!

Gah, so much more to say, I'm sure, but not much time left. Take care, folks! Hope all's well back stateside.

Boring week on guard duty

2006-06-01T06:42:00.000-05:00

Ladies and gents,
This week's been awfully slow. I've been on guard all week, meaning I rove around from midnight til 0600 every night around the wire of our little place, then I'm on call every other day between 0600 and 1800, picking up chow for the other guards and doing menial jobs that need doing around the place. This results in me getting not nearly enough sleep except on my day not on call, because about every three hours of my day on call we get radioed to come in and do something stupid for an hour and a half. I can't wait til Sunday, when I can get back to the platoon and be done with this guard nonsense.

Dad, here's your details. I'm the turret gunner on a humvee, with an M240G. My job is basically to keep the Iraqi vehicles trailing behind our convoy on the interstates from getting at all close to us, which isn't hard because we've been here long enough for the locals to know to stay away and pull over when we're coming through. Now, I'm not necessarily always upgunner, since there are two other LCpls on the truck with me, but last week I was because they were on guard duty. The other day, for instance, I gunned on the way there and drove half the way back, and before that, on a really long convoy, I gunned the way there then just rode in the back on the way back to Fallujah. We're out of here but we chauffeur people around all over the place. As for Al Quaim, I haven't been there yet and thank God probably will not be going there ever, since that's an extremely long and arduous drive and another company took over that leg of the journey for us. However, I have their mailing address and I'm planning on writing Gibson and having him mail me the Ka-Bar. I want it back bad.

In terms of reading, I'm a big sci-fi and fantasy nerd, but when it comes to fantasy I'd prefer classier fantasies to the dime-a-dozen sword-and-sworcery fantasies that are out there. That is, I'd prefer something like Terry Brooks or Anne McCaffrey or Dan Simmons over some unknown fantasy that's really out there. I've also been meaning to read a lot of the big name classics, like Moby Dick, Robinson Crusoe, War and Peace, stuff like that. I'd like to give them a shot and see what they do for me. Other than that, I'd like to have some of the better Tom Clancy books (Sum of All Fears, Red Storm Rising, Patriot Games, etc.), and anything that sounds terribly interesting. I'm not much into your standard murder mysteries (sorry, Sarah!), but I'd be willing to give Michael Crichton a shot, namely that State of Fear book. But basically whatever you want to send me, chances are I'll read it. And my promotion board reading list: Blackhawk Down, Killer Angels, Attacks! (by Erwin Rommel), We Were Soldiers Once...and Young, etc.

The temperature here is absurd and getting hotter all the time. Fortunately, my room has got a kickass air conditioner that keeps it nicely chilly all the time. I'm really lucky in that respect. My room rocks.

I want movies, too. That list will have to come later, since I'm low on time. Essentially, I mostly just want my own movies back, but I can't remember where I left them or who I left them with. I'll figure it out later. Take care, folks.

Fallujah

2006-05-26T15:04:00.001-05:00

Folks, Truth is, things here are comparable to there, only smaller. The MWR is actually nicer, from what little I've seen of it (this is the first time I've been here), with more computers. Camp Fallujah is about a fifth the size of Al Asad, with much fewer people. Our command center and barracks are a ways away from mainside, unfortunately, so we have to take a bus to get here and the PX, but we do have a chow hall within walking distance. My billeting is quite a bit nicer, in that I have a room I'm sharing with three lance corporals and an E-3 navy doc, so I've got more privacy and it's nice to finally be able to set my stuff up how it's going to stay. Also, in response to one of dad's responses, Fallujah itself is indeed pretty torn up from what I've seen of it, but Camp Fallujah is a ways out of town and pretty nice. So yeah, I'm with Hotel now. I've been here since...Wednesday morning. Or something like that. I've completely lost track of days. Somebody yesterday said "It's Friday already?" and I was thinking it was Tuesday or something. This is to say I've been absurdly busy. It's been four days or something and I've been on two convoys. Yesterday I was working for 19 hours, ten of which were as the upgunner, so it was pretty exhausting. I've also in that same time seen pretty much every major place in Iraq outside Mosul. They've actually got me working comm, and I'm fully integrated with the comm team here, which is awfully nice. I've finally got a functional place in a real platoon. Which reminds me, I have a real, solid, permanent mailing address finally, which I will email to Mom, Dad, Ali and McBride following this post. My fears of being sort of outcast from my platoon were unnecessary. I thought that since these guys have been together for five months already without me, they would be close knit and weary of outsiders. Quite the contrary, everybody has been terrifically helpful and friendly, and I'm beginning to make a few friends, not to mention that Doc Vanderlois, one of the E-5 navy docs we came to Iraq with, has been hanging out with me quite a bit. I've only seen Klauer and the other two I came here from Straggler PLT with two or three times since I've been here, so it's good that I'm not having as hard a time as I thought making friends. I've been assigned to a vehicle, and one of the LCpls in the vehicle rooms with me and is friendly, and the other one is a fellow comm bubba so he's been showing me the ropes and offered to show me all the different radios and comm systems we've got, the ones I didn't learn much of at Comm School. Also good: our leadership seems to be locked on, namely our platoon commander, Capt. Keady, who is a badass and has the respect from everybody I've talked to. I bought the sixth season of West Wing today (something for which I feel I owe an explanation to my father: it is indeed consistently liberal, but it's a thinking man's show and a show about politics, so it's good for me right now, since I don't get much of either). Sure, I don't own any other seasons of the show, but I know basically what was going on from watching Bravo and it's a good season, what with Leo's heart attack, the presidential campaigns and so on. All I know is very soon I will need the seventh season (hint, hint, folks). I'll try and get pics of the place sometime soon. It's pretty nice, all things considered, especially being able to see the stars at night. That's one thing that got me thinking. Judging by the purple light pollution in the sky at night, I would say Fallujah is smaller than Sterling. I'm sure it's not, but it says something. My mind's not engaged enough to determine what. I read Ender's Game, Slaughterhouse Five, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas last week. I just tried reading the next book in the Ender series (by Orson Scott Card) and it turns out it takes place 3,000 years after Ender's Game and has none of the same characters or basic storyline. I'm pretty pissed about that. I need books, desperately. Anything good. I wish I'd written down a list of things to have Mom or Dad send me. There's also a number of other things I've been meaning to purchase online and have sent to me via someone at home. Ah well. I'm out of stuff to post. I know there's more I've been meaning to say, but I guess this means I need to start writing it down when I think of it. That's all, take care folks.

3 miscellaneous pics

2006-05-21T04:17:00.000-05:00

Here they are. Please note that I am not now and have not been since first grade photogenic.
http://s43.photobucket.com/albums/e399/rogerwilley/Al%20Asad/?action=view&current=DSC01490.jpg
http://s43.photobucket.com/albums/e399/rogerwilley/Al%20Asad/?action=view&current=DSC01489.jpg
http://s43.photobucket.com/albums/e399/rogerwilley/Al%20Asad/?action=view&current=DSC01488.jpg

Quick update: False alarm on the moving thing for now. We went, checked in to Space A, loaded all our bags onto a pallet, bused out to the flight line, and sat in a building for half an hour before a sandstorm hit, grounding all the helicopters. They got us back on the buses, moved us back to the terminal, and told us to standby in case it didn't get cancelled and we could fly later. We sat around for five hours, and then at 0230 they told us the flight was cancelled. So we'll try again today, but our chances of getting on today are decreased since now it's all the people that were trying to go to Fallujah last night plus all the ones that will try to go tonight. We'll see what happens. It's a godsend, though, because I didn't get the chance to say goodbye to anyone before we took off, so I'll try and get that done today. I did, on that note, get the song "We'll Meet Again" by Johnny Cash stuck in my head, though.

Finally, some news worth posting

2006-05-20T05:39:00.000-05:00

I got word this morning that we're flying out tonight for Fallujah to join up with Hotel. So, my little vacation is over, although the last few days haven't been terrifically vacationy, anyways. Two days ago, Klauer was duty driver so I rode a. driver with him for most of the day, running our four little stops. Then yesterday was my turn, but old Klauer didn't feel much like returning the favor, so I drove around all day without any company besides the few riders I'd get. I spent fourteen hours driving around between the tent city, motor t., BDOC (our battalion headquarters) and Charlie MP's company headquarters. I got to see a lot of the base, but man was it tiring. I have a sore palm from shifting all day. That bus is a pain in my ass, though it is quite the monster in terms of driving over any terrain. Anyways, I basically got done driving my route around 1900, then at 2030 I had to take a few Marines to the flight line because they were flying out, and then had to stay to pick up somebody flying on a space available spot, which means he could be there when I got there or he could come in at 0400. He ended up getting in around 0330, so I slept between 2300 and 0230. I'm pretty tired today, but since we're leaving I don't get the day off to recuperate.

One of the cool things about being on this base is we see fighters flying around all the time. All of a sudden there'll be this mean shriek from the sky, and you look up and see two F/A-18's hauling ass and then pulling these absurd banks, making an absolute mockery out of the laws of physics. It's pretty motivating.

My major concern for today is finding Schauer, who was just pulled out of Bravo for some reason and assigned to Headquarters, and let him know I'm taking off as he requested. No luck so far, but I've still got four hours. I'm generally a touch upset about leaving all these fine gents whose company I've come to enjoy for a whole new batch of jokers I've never met and who have had the last five months to grow tight knit without me. At least I'll have Klauer along with me. Klauer and I get along swimmingly.

I just finished reading an e-book version of Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Despite its contradictions with the high value I place on war, destruction and death, I enjoyed it immensely. It really cracked me up, to tell you the truth. It reminded me of Catch-22.

I have three new pictures, but no time to upload them. Next time perhaps.

Obligatory update

2006-05-16T00:49:00.000-05:00

As usual, there's really nothing much to report on. Still in Al Asad. There's been some scuttlebutt about the possibility of us four Hotel detachments ending up doing range control with Sgt. Miranda, which would be good for the people we'd be working with (Jensen, Sgt. Miranda, SSgt. Thomas), but it would probably be terribly boring. We wouldn't likely see much of any action. Also, I ran into a bunch of my Al Quaim brethren yesterday and they said they just got audited and it was determined Al Quaim RDF needs three more Marines per squad, so they're in need of nine Marines. I don't know if any of this will end up affecting where I go, but we'll see.

A bunch of the lance corporals decided we wanted to grow out the lance corporal stache. Though everybody started a day or two before I decided to get in on it, I've got the resident king mustache. It's something to be proud of. Furthermore, I actually think it looks decent this time, if you can believe that. The last time I had a mustache, I only kept it for two days because it looked so asinine.

Nothing else is new. Just been hanging out, doing my thing. If I'm here much longer I'll get into the rotation of duty driver. Basically they asked who all can drive a stick, because there's a big nasty Iraqi mini-bus thing that we have to tote people around on.

Our whole platoon last night sat outside in our little camp chairs smoking cigars and pipes. It was outstanding, like something I'd probably be doing at home, just a really relaxed smokin' and jokin' session with some friends. Sgt. Miranda and SSgt. Thomas and the docs got in on it, too. It was a good time. Now I need to get Mom to send me my nice pipe, if I can remember where I put it and ever get a solid mailing address.

Pictures and brief update

2006-05-11T09:52:00.000-05:00

http://s43.photobucket.com/albums/e399/rogerwilley/Al%20Asad/
Today SSgt. Thomas let it slip to me and Schauer that I'm one of the three of us from Straggler PLT going to Hotel Battery, meaning I am doing convoy security. It was a bittersweet revelation for me, because though I've reconciled myself with convoy security and realized that it's a hell of a lot more interesting a job than most of the other dumbass jobs they've been throwing out there, I'm going there with Horner, Houser and Rummens, three guys I don't know very well and at least two of which whom I'm pretty sure I have nothing in common with. Specifically, it's upsetting because I won't be with Schauer, and that really, really sucks. I guess I just always counted on having him around the rest of the time. He's the only one I've been with the whole time since Jan. 1st, and he and I are damn good buds now. So I guess I'll just have to get used to seeing him from time to time and then catching up with him when we get back to 29 Palms. We (as in the lot of us) will definitely be doing an Iowa/Illinois Colleges tour of all our respective colleges when we get back though, and he only goes to Western so it's not like he's too far. Not to sound like I'm in love with him or anything. But he's my boy, you gotta understand. Anyways, so yeah, convoy security I'm happy about, not being around Schauer I'm not. That's all, I'm out.

Killing time in Al Asad

2006-05-09T01:48:00.000-05:00

I've been in Iraq for 3.5 days now and all we've been doing is sitting around Al Asad, trying to occupy ourselves. Battalion doesn't know what to do with all of us or at least hasn't decided and isn't ready for us, so for the next little while we're free to do whatever we want to do. For me that has been reading, listening to music and sleeping. Our first night after we flew in from Kuwait on a nasty C-130, we stayed in some temporary little huts over by the airstrip, but now we're in a nice big tent with plenty of air conditioning in mainside, close to the px and all that fun stuff. They've got Burger King, Pizza Hut and Subway here, not to mention a really nice chow hall and the MWR, where I'm at, with internet, phones, pool tables, movie rooms, all sorts of fancy stuff. From all I've heard this is about the nicest base in Al Anbar province. For the sake of pessimism, it's worth noting that that means it's only downhill from here.

My chances of meeting up with my boys in Al Quaim are sounding slim. It sounds more likely that I'll either stick around and be on radio watch with Schauer and a few other guys at battalion HQ or maybe I'll get to do convoy security, which is sounding ever more promising a job, if also a touch more dangerous.

We had our first sandstorm yesterday, but sadly I forgot to bring my camera with me today so I could upload the pictures for you. It was a really awesome sight to behold, and it also brought blendy of wind to blow away the heat, so yesterday and today have been pretty nice. I'll try and remember the pictures for next time.

I can't think of much else worth reporting. Hope all's going well back home. Take care folks.

Kuwait

2006-05-04T22:16:00.000-05:00

That's where I am right now. The keyboard has all sorts of squiggly lines on it. I just got done eating breakfast, and while I was doing that I said, "Hey, check this out: it's 5:30 in the morning, I'm eating a quarter pounder from McDonald's, and I'm in Kuwait." I thought it was humorous. Anyways, we're supposed to be heading for Al Asad today, and I imagine we'll be waiting around there for word on when we meet up with our platoon.

The weather was pretty damn nice here around 3 this morning. But it's supposed to get up to 109 today or something, and Iraq's not going to be any better. I've been here like five hours and I've already drank about a gallon of water. I'm peeing about every thirty seconds.

For posterity's sake, I'd rather not post it openly online, but I just emailed my mailing address to Dad, Mom, Ali, and McBride, so if you would like it and don't have it, those are the folks to go to for it.

The past couple days have been pretty exhausting, due to my inability to sleep on flights. I think I slept a total of 5 hours the last two nights together. I got to see Baltimore and Ramstein AFB, though, so I guess that was neat.

I heard Mr. Beaty died. That is terribly sad news. I can honestly say I never knew a better man, and the world is much less without him. I just wish I could be there for his service and all that. I don't even know how much I can expound on what everybody else is already saying about him. He was a friend to everyone, and cared deeply about every student he ever met. He was contagiously jovial. You couldn't be around him and stay unhappy. Just an indescribably nice person, the likes of which I have never met. Well, keep his family and friends in your prayers.

That's all for now, I need to go meet my battle buddy outside and get back. I'll try and get some pictures of the place for the next time I post. Take good care folks, love y'all.

One more day

2006-05-01T19:25:00.000-05:00

Folks,
Tomorrow night I'm outta here. I have to make this short because I have stuff to do, so bear with me.

I took a train to Anaheim Saturday night to go to some godawful hiphop club with lots of skanky girls and too many guys to compete with. I got to see the Mighty Ducks stadium and the Angels stadium. I drank too much and had a massive hangover Sunday. Glynn's uncle, who lives in Anaheim, picked us up Sunday around noon and we got some In 'n Out burgers and hung out at his uncle's house. He was a very kind old guy and pick up our tabs both for lunch and dinner (we had dinner at Chili's...carne asada steak is really good). Then we headed back to base. Nothing too fancy.

I finally watched Rocky and then last night Rocky 2. They're much better than I originally would have guessed, and now we're trying to watch at least the third one before we head out.

Nothing else too exciting to report. Hope all's well at home, and I will try to catch up as much as possible as soon as possible. Supposedly we've got reliable internet at Al Quaim, so if I ever make it there it should be easy to catch up. Take 'er easy, folks, and take good care of yourselves. Love ya all.

Tick, tock

2006-04-26T21:29:00.000-05:00

I don't even know where to start, it's been so long since I posted.

A significant event I don't believe I've touched on yet occurred back at 29 Palms, before we headed home for libo. We did this virtual reality convoy training out at Camp Wilson, and it was run by a master sergeant who was one hell of a wise old leatherneck. His name was MSgt. "Top" Formosa, he referred to himself in third person constantly, is one of the last remaining enlisted Marines who served in Vietnam, and claims he is the third oldest Marine in the Corps, after Gen. Hagee and LtGen. Matisse. It was quite an experience listening to him. He has a theory that the twenty-something years preceding our current action were largely peacetime operations for the Marine Corps, and that we basically had too much time to spend, so we spent it on stupid PC rules and looking good, instead of combat preparation and staying hard. He believes that we ought to basically do away with most of the customs and courtesies and drill training we receive in boot camp and replace it with practical infantry training, which he believes is in a sad, sad state. I don't know any Marines who would disagree with him, at least that a great deal of our training functions around ridiculous rules that don't make us any more effective in combat, and don't make the Corps stronger but rather weakens it, specifically ridiculously demanding equal opportunity/sexual harrassment/physical and mental abuse rules, which allow too many outs for recruits and Marines in training. Not that I'm saying we're not still better than every other service.

I got to see Mr. Tedrick's parents on Easter. It was terrific, as I had been eager to speak especially to Opa ever since I enlisted. It was awful nice to see them again and catch up.

As soon as I got back from libo we got all our trash together and packed it on the bus to come down here to Camp Del Mar, part of larger Camp Pendleton. The next day we headed out early. Del Mar is right on the ocean, the weather is beautiful, and our barracks are pretty nice, so we were enthused. We're literally like three blocks from the ocean. We've got a great view. Furthermore, these barracks are part of I Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group, and directly across the street from Headquarters I MEF, meaning when I look out my window, I see directly across the street the red flag with three stars indicating there is a lieutenant general (as in THE commanding general of I MEF) on deck. Maybe I'm just starstruck or something, but a LtGen. is kind of a big deal. There are like eight in the Marine Corps, if that. Probably less. I'll just stop talking about it.

So anyways. Last weekend we went out to the field, more specifically to the urban combat training town at the base of the Reaper. I never expected to see the Reaper again, but once I did, it was a tad disheartening. It looked much smaller and less steep than I remember it, plus it was all grassy, as opposed to the sand and loose dirt that dominated it in my time. Whatever. The MOUT training was pretty damn sweet though. Two hard-charging infantry experts and a Force Recon vet were our instructors, and they passed us some damn good training. We're talking like room clearing and high speed trash like that. It was terrifically motivating.

For the most part, since we've been here, we've been doing a bunch of power point classes on all sorts of stuff we've already learned, namely IEDs, combat lifesaving, rules of engagement, POW stuff, medevacs, etc. It's been pretty dry, but pretty easy, too, and we've been getting most of our nights and weekends off. Mostly I've been busying myself with watching assorted movies, squaring away my gear in preparation for leaving, and drinking beer.

I started writing in the journal I had originally bought for Asia. I didn't write much in it in Asia, and figured this might be the kind of life event worth documenting on paper. So far I've done a reprehensible job of keeping it up, but I'm hoping when I get in-country I'll work out a set time each day to write in it so I don't forget about it.

I've got some pretty motivating pictures from the assorted ranges, and some of the other training we've done here. I wanted to get some good shots of MOUT town and the Reaper, but forgot to bring my camera this weekend. Regardless, here are the ones I've got:
http://s43.photobucket.com/albums/e399/rogerwilley/Straggler%20Platoon/
As you can probably see from those pictures, the desert sucks and I'm happy to be back in SoCal, at least insofar as the climate is nicer. Could use a touch fewer liberals, however.

I heard a statistic this morning. Apparently, somebody studied how long it takes for members of the different services to reacclimate or reassimilate into the civilian lifestyle after leaving the service. Apparently Air Force servicemen assimilated almost immediately upon their return to being a civilian. Soldiers took three to four weeks, sailors took almost three years to reacclimate to being a civilian, and almost all the Marines studied never reacclimated to being a civilian. I thought that was some pretty motivating stuff.

I finished The Da Vinci Code in Palm Springs Airport while I was waiting for my ride back to base, and bought Angels and Demons by the same author (Dan Brown) as soon as I got back on base. I'm about half done with it. It's more of the same. Decent, not outstanding, but sure to keep you hooked.

I failed to mention it earlier, but I spent a week as fire team leader, which is only significant because it is a corporal billet and I'm only a lance corporal. The sad fact is I got fired because one of my Marines screwed up, and I couldn't even blame anybody but myself if I wanted to. It was a great learning experience in terms of developing my leadership skills, but I'm relieved to pass the torch onto someone else. Besides, now I'm back in my buddy Schauer's fire team. I'll shoot for more responsibility when I feel more prepared to handle it, which I think will be soon.

I've got about a week left. I'm not getting anxious, nor am I getting excited. Bizarre. Hopefully I can update again before I punch out. Godspeed, folks.

A word I nearly thought I'd never hear: liberty.

2006-04-03T22:01:00.000-05:00

If you haven't heard, I'll at long last be getting a liberty, if a slightly shorter one than anticipated. It lasts from noon on Friday the 14th til 6 p.m. on Monday the 17th. I'll arrive in Chicago at roughly 8 p.m. on Friday and leave out of Chicago at roughly 11 a.m. on Monday. The plan is to stick around Augie til Sunday morning, save for a few hours home to see Dad's RCIA deal at St. Pat's in Dixon. Sunday I plan on spending time with everybody as much as I can, and spending time at Grandma Willey's. Sunday night after family stuff I thought I'd spend time with as many Sterling people as are home. Furthermore, as many Sterling people as want to come hang with me at Augie on Friday/Saturday are welcome to as well, though like I said, Friday night I won't be getting around between 11 and midnight. I doubt I'll be doing much sleeping at all while I'm at home...I can sleep on the plane trips. Time at home is too valuable to spend sleeping.

I went back to Palm Springs briefly Friday night, but found it to be mostly inhabited by rich people between the ages of 28 and 45, and homosexuals. Seriously. So it wasn't terribly exciting and I won't waste precious internet time discussing it.

Saturday I had guard duty from 1330-1930 and then Sunday morning from 0130-0630. I basically sat/stood at the RSU gate with an M16 looking pretend mean. It turned out to be extraordinarily difficult to keep my mind busy without imagining the damage I could do to the little birds and rats running around with my rifle, or imagining being attacked by rabid coyotes. Like I said, it was pretty boring.

We're hitting the range this week with both the major machine guns (M240G and .50-cal) and grenades, not to mention the primary reason for our being their, our M16-A4's with ACOGs. We have to sight in our ACOGs and all that, and they saw it as an opportunity to get us trigger time on everything else (except the MK-19...too much money for rounds). I'm eager. After we get back from liberty we head to Del Mar (at Camp Pendelton) for a couple weeks, then it's off to Iraq via roundabout cargo plane trips. Oorah. Should be an adventure. Until liberty, though, my address is now:

LCpl Willey, Roger K.
1st BTN 14th Marines
CRP
Box #788600
Twentynine Palms, CA 92278

I just realized how much I'm probably repeating myself from my last post, but whatever. Hope you don't mind.

We got our full gear issue today and should be getting our rifles issued tomorrow (hopefully). I've got all kinds of brand-new, high-speed gear to play with. It's very exciting to me, because I've never had a full gear issue, much less all the sweet new stuff. I got my flak jacket all set up with magazine pouches and grenade pouches and first aid kit and all that trash, so I'll have to get a good moto picture once I get my rifle, in all my gear looking hard-charging and ready to kill. The ladies like that kind of thing, I'm told.

Something I've been meaning to mention, just a little tidbit of information about the base here, is that the Marine base here at 29 Palms, CA (Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, if you're wondering) is large enough to fit every other Marine base in the United States in it and still have room to spare. It's just barely smaller than Rhode Island at 935 square miles. It was bought from the Army in something like 1957 for a dollar because the Army had deemed it "uninhabitable." Ha.

I started reading the Da Vinci Code because it had been so popular and it's finally in paperback. The writing is a bit poor, but the story itself is thus far pretty interesting.

Today Klauer told the staff NCOs that he hadn't gotten paid yet and needed the money for his new baby (Isaac Jacob, 7 lbs. 6 oz., born the 30th at 0150 hours), and when they looked into it, it turned out they had accidentally ended his contract. Like, he technically was finished with active service and could have gone home. So, they're trying to fix that. In the meantime, it turns out I haven't gotten paid yet either, and as I have been in the same boat as Klauer all along, it stands to reason that the same has happened to me. So, perhaps my activation is at an end, or at least as it stands on paper (as a matter of fact, it is...I just checked Marine Online and it tells me my expiration of active service was March 30th). I'm not worried, though...they want me in Iraq as much as I do. They'll be able to fix it, I'm sure.

I'm all out of interesting comments. Hope all is well back home, and I hope I can see many of you again soon. Take care and Semper Fidelis.

[edit] I just found this on Drudge. Ridiculous.

Always so much to update on, and so little time

2006-03-30T23:09:00.000-06:00

Folks,
I find myself once again apologizing for a lengthy internet absence, this time due to our moving out of our room where we picked up wireless to another building where we did not. This happened last Thursday night without warning. Last weekend I went to Palm Springs and the hotel didn't have internet. Tuesday we graduated from Comm School and rejoined what's left of our unit, who are staying in a squadbay with very limited access to power outlets, much less internet of any kind. So I'm writing this from the internet center and paying to do so. Gah!

As I said, last weekend we (me, Schauer, his Marine girlfriend and another girl from our class - who, so you don't even ask, I was and am wholly unattracted to) drove down to Palm Springs, which is about an hour away from base, for the weekend. We checked into some cheapo motel in a pretty nice area, reminiscent of Galena, and attempted to go to the bars. But Schauer isn't 21, and we weren't about to leave him behind just to do some drinking we could just as easily do in the hotel room, so we went back. Then we consumed said beverages while watching some infomercial for an 80's music collection I strongly considered purchasing. I read a book by Chuck Klosterman I had just received that day (by the way, Dad, I got your letter), and then fell asleep. Saturday was more of the same, except that for dinner we went to the same steakhouse chain that I went to with Dad, Sarah and Grandma Willey after boot camp, where I devoured a beautiful filet mignon. Sunday we returned to base after a quick stop at McDonald's.

Tuesday we graduated at 1300, and SSgt. Thomas, one of the staff NCOs from the straggler platoon from our unit, came by to tell us we were leaving very shortly after graduation to rejoin our unit, as opposed to Wednesday like everyone else. We did that and moved into the squadbay, and then they set us free to change into civilian attire and rejoin our class for our farewell barbeque. Then, being technically attached to no unit, I took advantage of my freedom and celebrated my graduation by going to the boring E-Club and drinking quite a number of beers. Walking home from there, I had to cross a concrete drainage ditch, very common around here, and hit a patch of sand and drove my knee into the ground and tore out the knee on my nice jeans. My knee is still scraped up like crazy and bruised. I'm an idiot.

Yesterday and today we just sat around the RSU (I don't even know what it stands for, but it's where all our unit's stuff is), doing working parties and killing time. Yesterday we cleaned out our old squadbay so that my original unit will have a place to stay when it gets back from Iraq next week. Today we cleaned the crew-served weapons (.50-cal machine gun, M240G machine gun, MK-19 automatic grenade launcher) so we can fire those next week. Oorah.

Suffice it to say, Dad, I have not yet taken a plane flight, although I'm amused that that was the conclusion you came to, not that I blame you. I just haven't had internet. I'll be sure to give you a call tomorrow or this weekend to keep you better updated, though, and let you know more.

Well, kids, I need to get back to the squadbay and hit the rack. I have two six-hour shifts as gate guard this Saturday, so since that's going to screw up my sleep schedule I'm trying to get as much sleep as I can today and tomorrow. I hope I've sufficiently updated you all for now, even though there's much more I could have said. I'll try to make it back here more often so I can actually answer emails as I receive them and keep everybody better updated. Hope all is well back home. Take good care of yourselves. Semper Fidelis.

Quick update

2006-03-21T09:32:00.000-06:00

Folks,
I can't say much because I have to leave in about fifteen minutes. We went out to "the field" yesterday, which was right behind the barracks, and set up all the radios, and then slept out there last night, and this morning they let us return to the barracks for showers and hygiene time, another reason I have a hard time really respecting how much of a field environment this is. Not that I'm complaining.

I woke up yesterday feeling about a thousand times better. The sore throat is still noticeable but the tight feeling is gone, the froggy sound in my throat is gone, and I haven't had any problems swallowing, so I can eat and drink normally again. I've been gargling regularly with salt water, and I think soon it will be all gone. I'm relieved to have finally broken that nasty sore throat. Thanks for all the tips, folks!

The majority of our company flew out at 2 this morning for the sandbox. I've got mixed feelings on that. I'm eager to meet up with them, and I hope I can and soon.

That's all, gotta go, take care everybody!

Sick

2006-03-16T14:15:00.000-06:00

I have a hard time convincing myself to post if I don't feel like much exciting has happened and the post might be short or imperfect. But it's been so long since my last post that I feel like I should post.

I am still sick, amazingly. I was feeling mostly better for awhile, and all I had was a minor sore throat that I could easily deal with. Now, that sore throat is just absurd, such that I've only been able to put down about half a meal at each meal, and even just drinking water is hard. A nasty cough came with it, but most notably one that shows up almost exclusively when I'm trying to sleep. I hardly ever cough, but if I try and sleep, I'll wake up about an hour later coughing uncontrollably. So after about three weeks of being sick, I finally went to medical on Tuesday. The guy took my vitals and questioned me a little bit, then I sat around and waited while I was expecting to see a doc. Instead, the same guy just came out a little later and said I could pick up some cold medicines from the naval hospital on the other side of base. So I went to pick up the medicines, and what were they but basically Tylenol, Robitussin and throat lozenges. So I got them for free, but it was nothing I didn't already have. Furthermore, since using those and the Nyquil I bought the other day, I swear it has only gotten worse. I can't understand it! I'm just tired of being sick. It especially sucks because we have a PFT tomorrow, and I doubt I'm going to improve on my run time with this sore throat and cough. If any of you know any good old maid's cures for a nasty sore throat, let me know, because it doesn't look like I'll be getting much help from BAS.

It's been a very laid-back week. Yesterday I filled out a security clearance application (again! I think this was the third time!), so if any of you get calls from the FBI or DOD, I'm not in trouble, just getting researched for my security clearance. Next week we go out to the field for three days for some practical application. It should be pretty easy, and laid-back field not like MCT super-intense field.

Yesterday I started getting all kinds of ideas for this short story I've been thinking about writing. It's exciting to me because it's not a fantasy and I don't often get interested in writing non-speculative fiction stories. We'll see if that leads anywhere.

I have to get back to class, my lunch break is nearing an end. I hope all is well for everybody out there. Semper Fi.

[addendum] I told my roommates the other day that not much I've ever encountered makes me happier than Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey. Here's a picture.

Silent Drill Platoon and Surprise Inspection

2006-03-09T22:45:00.000-06:00

Our internet has been almost unusably slow lately, so if I haven't been responding to much or posting as often as I'd like, that's why.

Last night the word in the lance corporal underground was that we would have a surprise inspection of our rooms today for contraband, due to some Marines getting caught with drugs or something. Schauer and I both have Ka-bar fighting knives which are over the size limit we're allowed to have here at school, so we dropped them off with our platoon, which just got back from their extended liberties. While I was there, I caught up with a few of them who had gone to Vegas for their liberties, and it sounds like they had such a good time that if they get the weekend off they're going back. Also, I picked up my one piece of mail, a card from Matt Berge, wishing me a happy Valentine's Day of all things. Thanks, Matt...?

This morning, our test was postponed, because the Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon and the Commandant's Own Band were performing on the General's lawn (our shabby grass parade deck here at 29 Palms). I have been wanting to see the Silent Drill Team since I first heard about them, so I was excited, and man, let me tell you, they did not disappoint. If you're not familiar with them, they are who you think of when you see all the rifle flipping around and all the perfect drill movements. They've been in a few movies as well...I believe you see them in the beginning of A Few Good Men, the Tom Cruise/Demi Moore/Jack Nicholson movie about a punk JAG officer telling some shit-hot Marines how they should run a base. Anyways, even the Commandant's Own Band was simply flawless. They performed a variety of stuff, from the Stars and Stripes Forever to some awful song from that awful hippy musical, Rent. Man, I hate Rent. I rue the day Ali made me listen to it.

After noon chow was the test, which I thought was pretty easy considering how little I studied for it. I wish college classes were this easy. Then after the test was the "surprise" inspection, which took up the rest of the afternoon. It was a huge mess, trying to thoroughly inspect probably 500 Marines' rooms in a single afternoon. We missed chow, so we ordered Papa John's. So yeah, they inspected our stuff, and recorded the serial numbers of our items of value like my PSP, laptop and mp3 player. Only one of our class got caught with contraband, apparently an empty bottle of brandy, and I'm fine with it because I hate the kid. He thinks he's a thug or something and that his growing up on the streets, which I doubt, should mean something to anybody else. I hope he gets kicked out of the class. He's pretty dumb anyways. I do my drinking at the E-Club, sad though that may be, and it keeps me perfectly happy, so why not him?

I checked my account the other day to see if I got paid, and apparently they paid me something like $1200 for travel expenses to and from MCT. That is a huge fluke, like getting a bank error in my favor in Monopoly. If they don't realize their mistake, then that money is mine, but I'm not going to spend it for awhile just in case I have to pay it back. But the same happened to all the other Marines who went to MCT with me, so maybe it's not a mistake, just some sort of overlooked kink in the system. I'm hoping I get to keep it.

That's probably all and more that's really worth mention at this point. Hope everything's going well for everyone else. Semper Fi.

Another week's end

2006-03-04T16:08:00.000-06:00

I haven't had internet since Wednesday morning or something, hence no updates in that time.

I didn't get promoted on Wednesday, so I spent most of the day down in the dumps after letting myself get excited about it. Then at the end of the day they called our names and told us we were getting promoted Thursday and to bring our new chevrons so we could get properly pinned. Being senior-most of the promotees, I was to lead the formation, which meant when the company gunny took his place next to the captain I called the "hand salute" command and gave the greeting for the formation of 30-ish promotees and all that. I was also the first one promoted and they read my promotion warrant separately, since I was being promoted to a different rank than everybody else. It was pretty sweet!

To all who shall see these presents, greeting:
Know Ye, that reposing special trust and confidence in the fidelity and abilities of Roger K. Willey, I do appoint this Marine a Lance Corporal in the Reserve of the United States Marine Corps to rank as such from the first day of March, two thousand and six.
This appointee will therefore carefully and diligently discharge the duties of the grade to which appointed by doing and performing all manner of things thereunto pertaining. And I do strictly charge and require all personnel of lesser grade to render obedience to appropriate orders. And this appointee is to observe and follow such orders and directions as may be given from time to time by Superiors acting according to the rules and articles governing the discipline of the Armed Forces of the United States of America.
Given under my hand at MCCES, Training Command, Twentynine Palms, CA this first day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand and six.
M.I. Considine
Colonel, USMC
COMMANDING

So that's pretty exciting. It's caused a major boost in both motivation and self confidence for me, as I had been desperately needing. Walking around here as a lance corporal is outstanding, since basically everybody else (besides Klauer and a few other flukes) are privates or PFCs. I get addressed by my rank much, much more often, and I feel like sometimes people shape up a bit when they see me walk by, as though I'm going to ream them for misbehaving. I just smile and let them think that. I never make any demands to be addressed with more respect or anything now that I've got a whole two days as lance corporal, but I don't mind being the cause of better military discipline around here. Well, I guess I do demand that Schauer snap to attention and do my bidding and stuff like that, because that entertains me and frustrates him to no end, but that's all in good fun.

We had our roughest exam this week, and I only missed two, and on our practical application for the same I passed with flying colors. We have one more week of classroom learning and then we hit the field for three days, do some more practical application, then start wrapping things up and prepping for graduation.

This week has been just long. Studying, studying studying, and I've been sicker than a dog since Tuesday on top of it. Fever, headache, backache, neckache, chills, sore throat, coughing. I believe I've finally found some appropriate medicine for it though, and it seems like it might be slightly subsiding.

It occurred to me that my promotion means I have to change all of my uniforms. I have to get new rank insignia patched on to all of my dress uniforms in place of the PFC ones on there presently. What a pain in the butt. Ah well, at least it will look that much more impressive.

1stSgt. Kasal

2006-02-27T20:21:00.000-06:00

This post is not about what's going on in my life. I just walked through the mailroom and saw a poster up with the picture associated with this story, and realized I had to share it with you all; I don't know how many of you may have heard about it, or to what extent. Our drill instructors told our company about it at boot camp, with a great deal of awe and reverence.

This is 1stSgt. Brad Kasal from Afton, IA, a tiny farming town not far southwest of Des Moines, being helped out of a house in Fallujah he had rushed into to save three Marines. This article explains it better than I could, so please read it.

These are the men I call brothers. This is the brotherhood I am proud to be a part of. 1stSgt. Kasal is a well-known hero throughout the Marine Corps by now, and all the Marines I've talked to about it are in awe of him, speaking of his story in almost hushed whispers, with deep respect and reverence. His story illustrates all that is good about the Marine Corps, all the high ideals that distinguish the Marine Corps from all other services, and the deepest reasons I joined.

Also, and this is on the side, please note in the picture that after taking seven rounds and absorbing shrapnel from a grenade he threw himself on to save another Marine, and losing 60% of his blood, he kept his finger straight and off the trigger. Oorah.

Sweatshops: Another Day, Another Dollar

2006-02-25T15:42:00.000-06:00

I don't know, I just needed a catchy title.

This week went by quickly, probably because we had Monday off. We started learning about actual comm stuff this week, like different kinds of callsigns, different kinds of networks, propagation of radio waves, etc. Nothing too exciting. Thursday night was field day again, and though cleaning probably only took us an hour and a half, waiting for the two different NCOs to show up and inspect our room took about three hours, so not much free time Thursday nights, it looks like.

I don't know if I mentioned that my roommate Klauer is class commander, as in basically the student in charge of the class. Well, three of our four squad leaders got fired yesterday for failing our first difficult test, and so Schauer and Heller, my other two roommates, are now squad leaders. I'm the only one in our room without a billet. I guess I oughtta start applying myself or something, IF I decide I have any desire to be a squad leader or anything along those lines. I'm not sure I feel like putting up with it, but on the other hand, I feel like I'm the slacker of my little four-Marine group for not being locked on enough to be put up for squad leader.

We PTed on Wednesday like I have never PTed before. We did a lunge run first, that is, running around for awhile then doing lunges for awhile. That transitioned into running up a mountain in soft sand, which is about the worst possible thing we could do around here. It was wretched. If you consider how thin the air is around here and the fact we were already pretty exhausted from the lunge run, and the fact that overall the run was probably four miles or something, I would hope you could have a little sympathy for us. Or maybe I just like to bitch. Regardless, it exhausted me, and I'm still aching.

I got a few pieces of mail this week, which was very exciting. My books finally arrived (I'm a hundred pages or so into book 8), as did a copy of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue from Matt Berge, which I found to be exceedingly thoughtful. If you were male and lived on this base for awhile, you would understand just how thoughtful. The male to female ratio is something like 150:1 or something, and that's just females, not attractive females. Young men need something beautiful to look at, you know!

Anyways, I also got a very nice letter from my friend Eavie back at school, including a few pictures from my last Monday Ribco, and Mom sent my new debit card, which was probably not a good idea on her part. I did, however, just change my direct deposit from the goofy Marine Corps-issued bank out here to the credit union back home, so my folks can pay my bills and such, should any bills arise (like too many charges on my charge card).

Being quickly bored with the books I had bought at the store to kill time while waiting for my new ones to arrive, I ended up starting and beating Freelancer on my computer. What a great game. Now I'm smuggling drugs and scavenging wrecked spacecraft for heavy weapons, so that I can get the biggest damn ship with the best damn weapons and fly around worry-free. Also, flying around in that game and playing the storyline again makes me want to write fan fiction for it again ('again' meaning I want to finish the story I started a year or so ago; I won't pretend to have actually finished a story anytime in the recent past). I haven't had much luck coming up with more for the story I had been working on.

We had our first pre-test day quiz on Thursday, and I aced it, so I got cocky about the test and ended up with an 87. I was pretty upset with myself over that, but it got me roaring to do much better on the next test. At least I didn't fail the test, like 21 of the 55 people in our class! Our instructors were pretty peeved over that, which is why I now have the room to myself for four hours today and tomorrow, as my roommates are supervising study sessions for all those who failed.

Schauer and I caught up with a few Marines from my unit on Tuesday at the bowling alley, and they mentioned that while we were at MCT, the Commandant came to talk to the company, or maybe it was the whole battalion. I'm a little upset over that; I would have loved to meet General Hagee. He's something of a hero of mine. I think the only way I could do one better is to meet LtGen. Mattis, who I revere as a demigod. I think LtGen. Mattis may very well be the next Commandant, anyhow.

R&R: Just what the doctor ordered

2006-02-20T01:34:00.000-06:00

It's been a good weekend so far. Friday night we hit the PX and I grabbed a couple books, namely some fantasy I can't even remember the title of and a collection of short sci-fi stories that won L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future contest. So those are holding me over til the Wheel of Time books arrive (probably on Tuesday, as they've just been sitting in L.A. for three days now). Friday night I just stayed in the room, chatted online and read. It was refreshing.

Yesterday I sat around the room for quite awhile, playing Freelancer on my computer and reading. In the evening, Schauer got a phone call from one of our buddies from the unit, Valluzzi, saying that they were back from the field, so we suited up and headed over there to catch up. It was damn good getting back with those guys. We ended up all heading over to the enlisted club and getting our drink on. Absurdity ensued.

Valluzzi mentioned to Schauer and myself that the platoon was grilling out today, so we thought we'd head over. At about 1400, they decided we were direly needed over there to finish off some brats and beer, so Valluzzi called and relayed an order from our platoon CO, Capt. Chun, to get our asses over there immediately, which we gladly did. We headed over and found a couple of them playing guitar and the rest just chewing the fat. I ended up drinking a number of beers on government dime (your hard-earned tax dollars at work!) and enjoying some of the aforementioned brats. I took a few pictures, and am working hard trying to upload them to Yahoo Photos, but for some reason my internet is fighting against it. I'll put a few up here and post the link later, provided I ever make it work.

I got a good, long beer nap in at the platoon squadbay earlier in the evening, so though it's past midnight I feel wide awake. I imagine I'll stay up nice and late and sleep in nice and late. Oh boy do I love long weekends.

To hell with this. Here's a temporary link at a website I don't think I like. I'll try and find a better place for the pictures later.
http://photobucket.com/albums/e399/rogerwilley/
It's a mix of 29 Palms pics, pics of today's cookout, and MCT pics.

At long last, Friday, and a few days off

2006-02-17T18:06:00.000-06:00

We only had a half day today, which amounted to taking our first test (which I aced) after our first PT. Last night we had field day, so after evening chow we cleaned our room for three hours and waited an hour for it to be inspected, leaving little time for relaxation, so the four of us ended up staying up pretty late. Today we were all tired to beat the band, especially after our first strenuous PT in quite awhile, so after noon chow we came back and slept for about three hours. We needed the rest. Due to President's Day we don't report back til Tuesday morning, so we're changing over to civis and probably heading to the enlisted club tonight. I'm pretty excited about the prospect of having a few beers.

I don't know what to do with myself this weekend. We are on a phased liberty system while in comm school, so for the first three weeks we can't leave base at all, and there's not that much to do on base. We could go bowling I suppose and perhaps see a movie if any strike our fancy, and play some pool at the E Club, but other than that we might as well sit around our room and entertain ourselves here. Sadly, I'm still waiting on those Wheel of Time books to get here from Vernon, CA (only two or three hours away!), but they probably won't be here til Tuesday. I reckon I'll pick up a book at the PX if I can find anything interesting. Failing that, I might try to do some idea brainstorming for my story, and probably play a few computer games.

Not much else to report here. Hope everything's alright back there. Take good care of yourselves!

Off to Radio Operator School

2006-02-14T17:14:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, we received our orders for MCCES (Marine Corps Communications Electronics School) and moved all our gear out of our platoon's squadbay, into dorm-style barracks at Comm School, roughly a half mile down the road. There are four Marines from 3rd and 4th Platoons with me here, namely three former Charlie Marines and one former Bravo Marine: Klauer and Heller from Charlie, my unit in Waterloo, and Schauer from Bravo, the Joliet unit we originally came down here with. So far we just set ourselves up in the room, tactically acquired a secure wireless connection, and went through a bunch of check-in stuff, to include registering for a mailing address, which follows:

Willey, Roger, PFC
LOC# 1333 MCCES
29 Palms, CA 92278-8253

Any commercial mailings (FedEx or UPS, anything not USPS) must include "BLDG# 1657" in the address after the line with "LOC#" and all that.

I finished book seven of the Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan on Saturday, so I moved on to Flags of Our Fathers, of which I'd read roughly a third, and now I'm almost done with [update: just finished] that, so I bought the next three books in the Wheel of Time series on Amazon.com (made possibly by receipt of my new address). Those books are like crack.

We filled out a security disclaimer today, because much of what we'll be taught here requires a Secret level clearance, so supposedly I won't be able to tell you much of what I'm learning. At least, I won't be able to get into specifics, but you wouldn't be interested in them anyways. I'm just excited to be able to reply "I'm not at liberty to say," when someone asks what I'm learning.

Not much else is new. It's Valentine's Day and I'm single, so that sucks, but it wouldn't matter much anyways, being so far away from home. Also, it seems I got paid yesterday, which is nice. Right now, all the five other Marines I went to MCT with are on their ways home for their 96-hour liberties. Jerks.

Speaking of Flags of Our Fathers, which made me reflect at length on my reasons for joining the Corps while I wasn't getting choke up, Alex asked me in an email recently why I joined the Marine Corps, and suggested that I post it here. So here's what I wrote back to him, unabridged and uncut:

I joined the Marines for a huge number of reasons, but I'll try and name the most significant ones. First, I wanted to give back to the country that allows me so many assured freedoms, as in I wanted to be the one providing those same freedoms for others so that others would not have to; I wanted to put myself on the line so that some other person, either someone I love or a stranger, would not have to fill that spot for me. Second, I wanted to be an elite warrior if I was going to serve my country, like I wanted to be on the team of people who tie together elite training, harnessing basic predatorial instincts, and high standards of integrity and valor. Third, I wanted an opportunity to go over to the Middle East and kill those hajji bastards. Fourth, I wanted to be part of a proud brotherhood of men of honor with a long heritage of upholding and exemplifying the highest values of our country. I could name a million more, or at least expand for hours those reasons I listed, but those are the four basic reasons.

It wasn't terrifically well-written, and I barely scratched the surface, but I thought you should all know why I did it. I find myself saying all the time, "...and that's why I wanted to be a Marine," about a dozen different things, and when I realized how many things I say that about, I tried to classify them, with varying degrees of success. So there ya go.

Sgt. Mullane, my platoon sergeant, was back around the squadbay yesterday once he returned to 29 Palms from his early 96 (due to his leaving early for advanced party to Iraq). In that little time, he managed to reenlist my help as his computer slave. I was updating some rosters of his when I noticed a "Promotions" spreadsheet. I was one of three Marines slated to be promoted on 1 Feb, but I thought I wouldn't be promoted to Lance Corporal til 1 March. So we'll see if anything comes of that, though I doubt it. Still, I got some orders the other day that had me marked as a Lance Corporal, which I took to be a mistake. Oh well, if not this month then March 1st I'll get it.

I might amend this later if I realize I forgot to mention something, but for now, I'm out.

[edit] I've been reading a lot of Marines jokes and such online, and I found a good website. Women and those easily offended shouldn't follow this link. And it's pretty long, but only about half of it is actually Marines stuff, and only about half of that is any good. But that's still some good stuff.
http://www.stevenshiles.com/mchumor5.html

Back in Twentynine Palms

2006-02-10T21:55:00.000-06:00

It's good to be back in Cali, where there's zero rain and plenty of sun, and I'm almost too warm in my cammies in early February. Supposedly we're starting Comm School on Monday and finishing that on the 28th of March then hanging out briefly and flying off to the sandbox. We'll see, though, since I've learned not to take anything for fact until I'm in the middle of it. We've heard about six different versions of what we'll be doing in the past few days.

Supposedly, we get a wireless signal with internet in our squadbay, though none of us have of yet managed to make it work, so I'm at the internet shop right now paying something like 15 cents per minute. Hopefully that will change if and when I get to Comm School and am living in the barracks, but we'll see. If nothing else, I think I'll be slightly closer to here and the PX, maybe.

The past two days we have spent ten hours a day literally sitting doing nothing over near admin while they're supposed to be processing us back in. Fortunately, our command is pretty awesome and our company commander and company first sergeant encouraged us to bring in our many electronics devices to entertain ourselves, so I grabbed my PSP and mp3 player, which makes things slightly less boring between naps. Sounds like the same is planned for tomorrow. Yuck.

I've been in a really bad mood today. Just pretty down and withdrawn. This is a problem that could be solved if it was a normal Friday night back home. I could use a day off. But that's probably not in the cards until next weekend, and that's only if I get into comm school.

Certainly there's more to say but I can't come up with it and don't want to drop too much money. Take good care of yourselves, folks.

Augustana Observer article

2006-02-08T06:19:00.000-06:00

The Augustana Observer, our school newspaper, did a front-page article on me. It was probably the only decent article they've published since I enrolled. Here it is for your viewing pleasure.

Oh yeah, and I bought a PSP with Liberty City Stories. And Predator and Sin City for the PSP. But I swear that's my only big purchase til I get back and can buy a nice truck or something to replace my dilapidated Camaro.

Man oh man is the Gladiator soundtrack good.

MCT...awful.

2006-02-07T00:07:00.000-06:00

Well, MCT was not that fun. Granted, shooting machine guns and grenade launchers and throwing hand grenades is pretty cool, but after being spoiled by southern California's beautiful weather, the cold, wind, and rain of the North Carolina winter is bad enough to make the experience drag. Add in being treated like we're straight out of boot (like many of us were, but not me), and it got pretty tedious.

On the other hand, I learned to love MREs (meals ready to eat), and I truly appreciate every moment of sleep. Also, the training was definitely high speed, particularly things like the urban combat training and combat marksmanship drills, which are basically new, and, I'm told, particular to the Marine Corps, meaning your standard Army grunt's not going to get nearly the training I got. I'm told that in terms of combat training, regular Army infantry is about on par with Marines non-infantry, and in some ways not even close. Then again, I'm hearing that from some pretty biased people. Still, I prefer to believe it. Is it true that there's actually a ribbon in the Army for throwing a hand grenade? Because every Marine has thrown one. Let me know. (Oorah)

I made some pretty good buddies at MCT, including one who is a conservative libertarian poli sci major and into the same cigars I'm into. Good stuff. I was a fire team leader, and my fire team of five was (according to my lofty assumptions) far superior to all the other fire teams in our platoon of 97 in wit, intelligence, capability, and professionality. I can't remember exactly, but our average ASVAB percentile score was around 87, which is extremely high. I guess my being a genius didn't hurt that, but my capacity for modesty certainly didn't help, either.

I'm headed back for 29 Palms, or something. That's a huge runaround right now. As of tonight, we're either headed for 29 Palms, CA or Alameda, CA (near Oakland), though I also heard something about some awful Camp Wilson or some such. Lord knows. Not that it matters much to me; I just want out of North Carolina as soon as I can hop on any plane. I used to hate California because it is full of hippies, but when I realized how easy it is to ignore ignorance (especially in favor of eternally gorgeous weather), I learned to love it. Or at least Southern California, far removed from the evils of Berkeley and San Fran.

Point is, I'm heading back to my unit briefly to continue training with them until I get orders for communications school to learn to be a field radio operator, which will greatly assist me in my job as a prison guard in Iraq. I hope to spend just a little time there to catch up with my brother desolation angels before I pick up at comm school. Then by the time I finish with comm school, my unit should be in or near Iraq and there shouldn't be a problem catching back up with them, supposedly, so everything should be in order. Man, there's a lot of jumping through hoops just to head over to the Sandbox and do some hookin and jabbin, in the form of treating detainees with dignity and respect (blech). Some days I wish I'd gone straight infantry.

By the way, a lot of folks hear Marines and think of boot camp at Parris Island. Well, I'm here to tell you that PI must train a bunch of nasty pigs, because the San Diego-trained Marines seemed to be about the only locked-on devil dogs around. The heinous boots straight out of PI couldn't make a formation if their lives depended on it and certainly couldn't all shut up for more than five seconds. I'm a lot prouder to be a Hollywood Marine.

One thing I should mention, after bashing MCT so much, is that my instructors, while stern and impersonal, were outstanding and I really enjoyed them. Something about Marines being unapproachable and unyielding makes me appreciate it that much more when I see beneath the exterior to their real intentions, which are noble and selfless, and when we Iraq-bound Reservists were leaving today, they all treated us with great respect and well-wishing. I love Marines.

I really need sleep. I haven't gotten much in the last three weeks, and certainly not in anything resembling a bed. I should be updating with slightly more frequency in the days to come.

Romeo Kilo Whisky out.

MCT at Camp Lejeune?!

2006-01-15T05:44:00.000-06:00

Ten minutes of battery life left...must...post...quickly!

I'm at the airport in Charlotte, NC right now. It's 0645 local time here, and my plane leaves in 45 minutes for Jacksonville, NC, after which point we're driving to Camp Lejeune, NC for Marine Combat Training (MCT) for three weeks. So I'll be out of contact for quite a bit longer (I don't know what wasn't working with my internet for the past week, but it's been driving me nuts). Sorry, Mr. Tedrick.

After 07 Feb I'm heading back to Cali, specifically to Alameda, CA, close to Oakland and San Fran, also known as godless bastions of liberalism. Yay. I bet it'll be fun to be a Marine in the center of America-hating Northern California. Hopefully I won't be there for too long, because as soon as I leave there I'll be back at Twentynine Palms at comm school, about a mile away from my unit, and if I can get through comm school soon enough I won't have any trouble staying with my unit.

Not much new to report, besides I ran into my boot camp buddy Walcott at morning chow, which was terrific. Then I left for a month or so so I'm hoping he's still around when I get back to the Palms. He's heading over around March too, so we'll see.

Anyways, battery's almost out. I'll be away for quite some time, but I'll update as soon as I can.

...update...

Well, we got into Jacksonville, NC, around 7:30 this morning or something, and the cab drivers told us the base was closed so we couldn't check in today, so we went to a hotel instead. At this hotel is free wireless internet, so I now have time to update more thoroughly.

Friday morning we had a formation so "the General" could talk to us. That general turned out to be Major General O'Dell, commanding general of the 4th Marine Division. That was pretty cool. See, there are four divisions in the Marine Corps, the 4th being the Reserves division, and that means he's the commanding officer for a fourth or more of the Marines in the Marine Corps. Pretty much a badass.

Hmm, what else...the Bears game is on in an hour and a half. Most of these guys are Bears fans, specifically my roommate, who appears to be a fanatic, so I'm watching it too. Also, there's a Hooters a block or two away from the hotel, so that's where I'm going to be watching it. Sweet...

Pretty much everyone in my platoon has a PSP (one of the portable Sony Playstation handheld thingies, for you geriatrics), and they're pretty swell so I'm thinking about picking one up after I get out of MCT. I'm just not sure if I want to spend money on something big like that, since I'm banking on getting a new(er) car upon my return to the real world. But, it's only $250 and it has wireless internet capabilities and functions as a video player, and they sell almost all new movies in PSP format, often for cheaper than DVDs, so it might be a worthwhile investment. We'll see.

I can't come up with a whole lot else worth mentioning right now, other than that I've been coming up with a few decent ideas for the story I've been working on for awhile. The problem is I hardly ever have time to develop those ideas into something good, and whenever I feel like I've got enough to start actually writing, all those ideas count for naught when I'm unhappy with my writing style, or lack thereof.

Anyways, I've got stuff I can pretend to be doing so I don't have to keep writing this post. Out.

Mobilized!

2006-01-06T00:10:00.000-06:00

Having been mobilized, I decided to take one out of the pages of Teddy Wisdom and create a blog for my friends and family to read. Hope it's not misguided. Mrs. Teddy said I should (I think...I was drunk), and I do what Mrs. Teddy says, as a rule.

Well, it's now the fifth of January. I've been mobilized since the first, in Camp Pendleton, CA, since the second, and will be heading to 29 Palms, CA, on the twelfth. I'm with 4th PLT Btry A 1/14 (long story) right now, and crossing my fingers that it stays that way. We've been doing a lot of Arabic language training and prison guard training, which has been mildly engaging at least. The Marines I'm with are outstanding.

Soon I'll be in 29 Palms for ILOC (intermediate location training) with the unit, awaiting a spot in my job (communications) school. If I get a spot soon enough then I can stay with my unit after I'm finished, which is good. If not, then at least I won't have to just sit around doing working parties, as I'll head back to my unit and do real training with them in the meantime.

I have to be a buddy for someone who wants to make a head call, so I'm out.

Semper Fidelis,
Roger