The Army Sucks: A Dialogue, by Me.

Me:  Hey Army, is it alright if I drive 366 miles on the four-day Thanksgiving weekend to visit some friends for the holiday, so I'm not stuck here by myself without a good dinner?  I've been working pretty hard, haven't gotten into any trouble, and I don't think it would be too much to ask.

Army:  Certainly, that sounds like a good idea.  Take some much deserved time off.  Afterall, what's the harm?  You have four days off anyway, why not drive a few hours away to visit friends?

Me:  Gee, thanks.

     * * * Two Weeks Later * * *

Army:  Guess what!  We've decided to send you to Texas for a couple weeks, starting the weekend after Thanksgiving, to help with some training.  Whaddya think?

Me:  Ok, that's cool I guess.  I might have to cut a day off my planned and approved trip, but that's ok.  It's always fun to go on TDY and get a little extra money, right?  Sure, I'm in... not that I would have a choice anyway, right?  He he he.

* * * Tuesday Before Thanksgiving * * *

Army:  Guess what!  This is great- we got your flight moved a day early.  So now, you'll be leaving the day after Thanksgiving!  Isn't that wonderful news?!?  Flight's at 4 PM, and don't forget to get there a couple hours early.

Me:  Um, that sucks.  Why are we leaving earlier than planned?

Army:  Because the unit wants to get a head start on the training, so you guys will be able to start the training on Saturday, their day off.

Me: So, sounds like we'll be flying in friday, working saturday thru friday, have off the following saturday, and then working the rest of the week.  Ok.  Do I go through with my plans to drive to North Carolina, even though I'd get there late Wednesday night and have to leave again very early Friday morning?

* * * TO BE CONTINUED * * *

Loading Planes

I spent a couple nights last week loading Air Force planes for our guys who are heading over to Iraq.  Boy, what a cluster-f#ck.  Now, you have to understand, the 224th MI BN has never, to my knowledge, been trained on how to properly load a C-5 or C-17.  I know I haven't, at least.  None of us are qualified, especially since we would not be the ones piloting the plane, to load them ourselves.  Apparently there is all kinds of stuff you have to worry about, like getting the weight evenly distributed across the plane, and strapping and chaining the cargo down.  So we were at the mercy of the Air Force.  What I mean by that is, we were told to meet on the flight line at 1600, and the load masters would arrive around 1630.  We'd have the planes loaded by around 2000, and they'd be ready to take off by 2030.  1730- still no sign of the load masters.  The guy in charge of us tells us to go grab some food, but be back by 1800.  1800- still no load masters.  1900- still waiting.  Sometime around 2000 they show up, ready to go.  All of a sudden, it becomes "rush, rush, rush," and we start loading.  Hours pass, and I think around 0030 or 0100 we finish up.  Lots of hard work, but we finish.  It's not so bad.  That was day one.  Day two of loading goes similarly, except we don't meet until 1800.  We start around 1830, maybe 1900.  Things go alright, though for some reason this Air Force crew wants to do most of the work themselves.  We help out, but they don't seem to trust us.  I don't know why.  Maybe they got word from the first plane that left a couple nights earlier that the cargo wasn't strapped down right and the plane crashed.  Who knows.  But, as with all things military, things started falling apart.  At some point, about half-way through loading, right when things seemed to be going well, someone discovers a slightly flat tire.  Slightly.  And it was on this giant green box with wheels that is the worst part of loading these planes.  I don't know what the heck this thing is, but it's heavy, enormous, and hard to move.  It was carted up to the ramp of the plane before the flat tire was spotted, so we had to wait around for someone to come up with an air pump.  We found one, eventually, but it didn't work.  Or something.  I don't know.  I don't know, because a few of us left while they were still trying to figure it out.  We decided to try to get something else done while everyone was standing around thinking.  At some point while we were gone, they got the big green box loaded onto the plane, and by the time my group got back, there were only a few things left to deal with.  We finished right around midnight.  And I went straight to bed.  Anyway, here are a few photos I snapped with my phone.

E-5: The New E-4 (or, Thought I Was Done with IET part II)

Today was another day of weed pulling, dirt sweeping fun.  I won't go into all the details again, because, believe it or not, today was remarkably similar to yesterday.  But I took pictures with my camera phone today (sorry about the poor quality) to document where your tax dollars are going.  (SPOILER ALERT: Your tax dollars are not going toward tools for us to use in order to complete our job.  Our hard-earned Army dollars (our paychecks) went toward that!)

 

Here we see SGT Hintz demonstrating the "kick" method of weed removal.  It's simple- the traditional school of thought says to kick at the weeds with the toe of your boot, but an alternate method is to kick at it with the inside edge of the boot, as if you were passing a soccer ball, or, if you are feeling brave, you might try the "reverse heel kick."  It's a little more difficult to master, but yields greater power and less pain.

 There were a lot of vines growing through this fence and, the Army, being the soul-less, emotionless entity it is, declared that the aesthetic pleasure brought about by the look of a vine and moss covered fence was not in line with official DoD policy.  The vines had to go.  We used a leatherman saw and a hook device (not pictured).  This took a long time.  And now, thankfully, that side of the property is just as ugly as the rest.

 Yes, it's him.  This, ladies and gentlemen, is the INSCOM NCO of the Year.  It's a pretty big deal.  One would not normally think that a soldier of this caliber would be stuck doing such menial work.  But here he is, using an e-tool he borrowed from a fellow soldier, to hack at weeds in the pavement.

 

 

 

And finally, we see SGT Hintz using scissors borrowed from one of the teachers inside the building to cut weeds.  The weed whacker we tried yesterday didn't last very long.

Kid Nation

Firstly- if you don't watch Kid Nation, or don't know what it is, you need to start watching CBS on Wednesdays at 8:00.  I'm not really a big fan of reality shows, and I really don't watch much tv at all these days, especially considering I don't currently have cable, but I will go out of my way (as I have the past two weeks) to watch this show.  I don't know what it is about the series, but it's incredibly interesting and addicting.  Maybe it's the inner political scientist in me that likes to see how kids try to deal with the problems of governing and dealing with other people.  Or maybe it's because I like to think that I wasn't such a brat when I was that age.

The show's premise: A bunch of kids, ranging in age from about 8 to 15, are thrown together in a deserted town.  They start with some necessities, like food, soap, etc, and have to rebuild this town.  They learn along the way about leading, working together, cooking, and managing everyday life.  The kids divided themselves into four districts (red, blue, green, and yellow), and each week they compete in some sort of challenge to determine the pecking order of the districts in the town.  That is, the team who finishes first becomes the upper class and receives the highest salaries, second becomes the merchant class, third the cooks, and fourth the laborers (who have to deal with garbage and clean toilets, for the least pay).  Each district has a council member, the leader of that district, who is sorta in charge.  And each week, the four council members discuss who is most deserving of the gold star, a two pound solid gold star worth $20,000.

I've grown to really like a few of the kids.  There are some natural leaders in the group (Sophia, Michael, Laurel), some immature kids who will hopefully learn a lot from participating in the show (Taylor!) and some kids you just can't help but love (Alex, wise beyond his years; DK, smart and a natural leader; Jared, hyper and a little strange).

Last night, as usual, there was plenty of conflict between Taylor and the rest of the town.  Last week, Taylor was voted out of her position on the town council because she was a poor leader and, really, not a very good member of the town.  She doesn't participate in chores.  She wakes up late every day.  She doesn't contribute to town.  But what really made this episode memorable, and what almost made me think life was not worth living, were the events involving the town meeting (which is held every week to discuss problems and to award the gold star).

Most of the town hates Taylor.  As I said, last week she was voted off the town council.  Last night she refused to do her job, and when she was punished, she basically laughed in the faces of the town council.  The town meeting turned into a shouting match with people yelling at Taylor to leave town.  It was pretty ruthless.  But DK stood up and defended her a little bit.  He could see it was getting out of hand and just mean.  He shut everyone up, said his piece, and sat down.  When it came time for the host to ask who wanted to leave the town, DK rose his hand.  This would have been a little sad any other week (it's always a little sad when one of the kids feels like he can't take it anymore and decides to leave), but it was very emotional last night.  Before the town meeting, the council discussed who was most deserving of the gold star, and they quickly and unanimously agreed upon DK.  This was the first time in the series that the council reached a decision so quickly.  So when he rose his hand to leave, after having defended the most unpopular kid in town, I felt like my heart was going to stop.  Every one of the kids was in tears.  I couldn't believe that DK might choose to leave before discovering he was going to be awarded the gold star (if he had left, he wouldn't have gotten the star).  Thankfully, Guylan, in his first real test of leadership (he was voted onto the council last week), stepped up and took DK outside to talk.  He was able to convince DK to stay (without telling him he was going to get $20,000), and my heart was put at ease.  My faith in humanity was restored.  I can go on living, knowing that one of the few kids on the show who I think really deserved the star didn't give up. 

Thought I Was Done with IET

For those who don't know, IET is an army acronym that means "Initial Entry Training," and it refers to the period of time from when an enlistee enters basic training until he graduates from AIT (advanced individual training).  IET is a time when a soldier is frequently harassed by higher-ranking non-IET soldiers (sergeants+) about anything from having missed a spot shaving to having dirt on his boots.  It's a time when a soldier is at the mercy of his instructors and superiors and must obey many, many unnecessary rules.  But two things I will always remember from my IET days are police calls and weed picking. 

Oh, how I miss squatting or kneeling for hours and hours, pulling tiny green weeds from the cracks of pavement and from gravel paths.  Filling dozens of bags with leaves, twigs, and grass, yet somehow only having finished five square feet of sidewalk.  And all for the beautification of some side alley no one will ever walk through.  And I must not neglect to mention raking dirt.  That's right... Raking Dirt.  Why?  I don't know.  I guess dirt doesn't look organized when it's just lying around without grooves.  Or maybe it's because our supervisors had to fill our time with something, and since there wasn't enough sidewalk to go around, but plenty of dirt patches where even weeds refuse to grow, someone came up with the idea of raking nothing.  (By the way, a few months ago when I was at WLC, I started calling the action of raking dirt "dress-right-dressing" the dirt.  If you don't know what it means to dress right dress, ask me sometime and I'll explain the [lack of] humor in my joke.)

So, anyway, I finished IET a year and a few months ago.  I have since been promoted to sergeant.  Most of the people in my unit are sergeants or above.  Yet today, a dozen of us were out pulling weeds from the cracks in the pavement outside a building almost no one uses.  I guess the garrison commander is going to be cruising post Friday or something, seeing how things look.  I don't know.  But I guarantee he will not visit this building.  And, if he does, he's not going to wander out back to look at the fenced-in pavement that is used for nothing.  And get this- we were sent to do this pointless task without any sort of tools or herbicide.  It was a group of NCOs kicking at the weeds to loosen them and rip them from the pavement.  We probably looked pretty stupid.  That's how I spent my day today.  Your tax dollars.  And guess what.  That's what I'll be doing tomorrow.  Probably all day.  And if we don't finish, maybe we'll finish Friday morning.  Army Strong!

An Old Blog

While downloading some great new add-ons for Firefox this morning, I accidentally stumbled upon an old blog of mine, from my early days at DLI.  I read a couple of the posts and decided I'd put a link to the entire blog here.  Hopefully there isn't anything too embarrassing there.  If there is, I may end up removing this link.  But for now, read away!

Oh, and you may be wondering what's been up lately?  I moved into my new room about a week ago, but haven't had an internet connection until yesterday.  I've been out of touch with the outside world.  But it's all good now.  I'm slowly catching up on what I've been missing.

Update

Real quick, I just finished a book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, and it really opened my eyes. It talks about some of the key steps countries have taken in the past on their paths toward dictatorships, and explains how if things don't change, America could be well on its way. The thing is, dictatorships usually don't just spring up overnight. It's a gradual process that people don't realize is happening. Hitler turned Germany into a fascist dictatorship, but he did so within the framework of the laws at the time. By the time people realized what was happening in the country, it was too late to do anything about it. Anyway, read this book. It's a little scary.

What I've Learned

What have I learned this week? 

For starters, I've learned that sometimes there is no use arguing.  No matter how much sense your side of the issue makes, and no matter how helpful or beneficial your idea could be, some people don't care.  They won't listen, and they won't change.  Maybe it's because they just don't have an option, or don't have the power/influence/position to make changes.  Or maybe it's because they're hard-headed and dead-set in their ways.  I learned one time that people fight the hardest and argue the loudest when they are on the verge of being proven wrong.  One of the most difficult things in the world to do is to rearrange your thoughts and ideas- your opinions about the way things are- and adopt a new attitude.  I think my class' teacher must be on the edge of altering her views, because she was arguing with us pretty loudly this week.  After last week's series of arguments, I decided I would back off and not inject my point of view when we started talking about how things in the class should be changed.  I realized last week that there was just no use in arguing with her.  I attributed this to a) our age difference, and b) our cultural differences.  After this week, I am starting to realize that, while a and b may be true, there is also a "c," and that is that she is not willing to compromise because she is right and we are wrong.  But she won't get off my back.  All this week, every day, she made some comment to me about how I'm not working hard enough, or not spending enough time studying in the evenings, blah, blah, blah.  Every time we took a break between classes, she would tell me how, though she thinks I am smart, she knows I am also lazy.  Thanks.  She's probably right.  I thought it was a little more because I just don't have enough time to do all the things I'm supposed to be doing each day.  But I probably could make more use of the 5 hours I have in the evening.  Actually, I might be able to cut back on the amount of sleep I get each night.  I'm clearly getting more that I need, as I haven't fallen asleep once in class.  I could probably gain about two hours right there.  And then there's dinner.  The four minutes I take to cook a frozen dinner and the 15 minutes I take to eat it are a bit excessive... maybe I'll start cooking it just long enough to thaw it out.  And as for the eating, well, in basic training the drill sergeants always told us that food was for fuel, not for taste.  Maybe I'm taking too much time to enjoy my frozen dinner.  And I'll stop changing out of my uniform after work.  That'll save a few more minutes.  So now I've added an extra two hours and 10 minutes to the day- two hours and 10 minutes more Arabic studying.  Maybe now I'll pass her vocabulary quizzes (which, by the way, don't actually count for anything.  Really.  They don't count for anything.  It's not like we're getting a report card or something).

Wow.  Ok, I wrote more about that than I really wanted to.  And there's still more.  But I won't go into it now.  There's always next week.  Or tomorrow.  Or later tonight.

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The Video

This is interesting, though.  Why is he making such a big deal about bringing 30,000 troops home who were scheduled to come home anyway?

Crabs: Best Shared with the Ones You Love

I went to the crab shack last night with some friends and got crabs... for dinner. The food kind. Boiled blue crabs. Not as good as steamed, but I thought I'd give them a shot. After checking with the waitress on the price and how they are prepared, I couldn't resist. After all, in my experience, it's not often that you find people outside of the north-east who know what Old Bay is. So I coughed up the $20 for six boiled blue crabs (expensive? yes.), and a few dollars more for some delicious smashed taters.

The crabs were alright. I should have told them to go crazy with the old bay, but I didn't. So they were under-seasoned, but that was ok, I just ordered some extra old bay on the side. I think there is just something about ordering a couple dozen steamed crabs from a little crappy looking crab place along the side of the road and bringing them back home in a paper bag that makes it better. That's the way crabs are meant to be eaten. With a bunch of friends sitting around a newspaper-covered table, having some beers, maybe some corn on the cob or tomatoes, ripping apart claws and shells. I suppose that's just one more thing to look forward to when I visit home in the summer, until the day comes when I can afford to buy a couple dozen live blue crabs and steam and prepare them myself. That's a lot of work, though. I'll just have to move back to PA when I'm done with the army stuff.

New Blog

 

 

Well, it's the first post in a while.  Actually, my first post to this "new" blog.  I decided to pack up and move my old blog to a new location... without the hassle of packing up and moving the old blog.  So, what we're left with is this.  No links to my old entries.  Just a fresh start. 

 

Here's where I work now. Cool, huh? I'd invite you to come to work with me sometime, but you'd be stopped at the door by a few highly-trained, heavily armed guards just waiting for a chance to kill some babies. Nah, just kidding. They'd probably just ask you not to proceed through the door.

So, what's new?  Where have I been?  Who am I talking to, you ask?  Alright, since you're wondering... after graduating from DLI a couple years ago, I spent some time in Texas (Earth's poop hole, you might say) and then got orders to Savannah, Georgia (Earth's stinky arm pit).  But that was a while ago.  Yeah, I'm still in Savannah, it's been a little more than a year now.  We're not on mission at the present time, so my days consist of studying Arabic again in preparation for the test, which I will take and fail in a week or two.  As I recall, the last time I posted (on the old blog) I was about to take the DLPT for the first time.  So, this isn't really new either. 

 

Oh, I know.  A group of us started a badminton league last weekend.  I'll post the league's website here.  We're playing every weekend with teams of two chosen randomly a half hour before the first game.  Yours truly is 2-0 after week one, and plans to be 4-0 in a few more days.  I know, I'm amazing.  And modest.  Extremely modest.  Probably the modest-est person I know.  Seriously.

 

Peace!