reminder

I posted this just about right when I had made up my mind it was time to flip the bird. But I get the destinct feeling some readers don't give the site a thorough look-through. I don't speak for others, but concerning my own issues, I want to be perfectly clear. I appreciate all the kind words and support and the comments, but stuff like sacrifice freedom service honor duty country and thoughts along those lines just don't apply here. Most soldiers will receive those gratefully, and I encourage you to go find their online musings if you feel a compelling urge to utter such, as for me, this is a slug. And I'm just struggling to make it through. And that's all it is. That's it.

I may have had hero ambitions at one time, but I wanted to be a porn star too. Big effing deal. I grew up. Now I'm all old and wise and shit I just want to be left alone. And I can't even pull that off.

If it ever has to come to it, someone will read this. If they don't, I'll be one pissed off dead fuck.

Specialist ------ joined the Army for lack of better options and unspecified romantic notions. Specialist ------ was disillusioned with the Army almost immediately but vowed to ride out his enlistment. Always at odds with his superiors, Specialist ------ was a consumate boozer and whoremonger and reknown in his unit for arguing with superiors. During his brief military service he flirted with court martial, received at least one Article 15 and numerous counseling statements. His military accomplishments include forging pass forms, multiple dozen AWOLs, impersonating officers, destruction of government property, embezzlement, fraud, occasional and incidental efforts in the defense of one foreign country and more of same policing another.

Specialist ------ nurtured a sense of impending doom dating back to the earliest days of his service, but this certainly became more pronounced after his deployments to Korea and Iraq respectively. Specialist ------'s numerous scrapes with eternity include a richly deserved near-fatal stabbing at the hands of a woman of 'loose morals' ('a suuuuuper hottie' he averred later); nearly being shot by Korean Air Force personnel after stealthily infiltrating their base through the front gate late one night; gut-chucking-close-call cab rides through the winding Kyoungi roads at the darkest hours of the night; uncounted bouts of alcohol and food poisoning; some balancing off the ledges of tall buildings with sinister self-destuctive thoughts.

Specialist ------ felt compelled to chronical this brief history of his, admittedly, limited military accomplishments after noting an alarming increase in bombings and shootings in his current area of operations in the country of Iraq. Of the Iraq deployment, Specialist ------ offered: 'Stop-lossed and a wake-up motherfucker. If I'm lucky.'