american short-timer

fail fail fail again...

2007-06-17T21:36:00.000-07:00

''If one has not been a ronin at least seven times, he will not be a true retainer. Seven times down, eight times up."

from the Hagakure...

2007-06-14T23:14:00.000-07:00

When I was young, I kept a "Dairy of Regret" and tried to record my mistakes day by day, but there was never a day when I didn't have twenty or thirty entries. As there was no end to it, I gave up. Even today, when I think about the day's affairs after going to bed, there is never a day when I do not make some blunder in speaking or in some activity. Living without mistakes is truly impossible. But this is something that people who live by cleverness have no inclination to think about.

2007-06-11T13:33:00.000-07:00

There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.

Everyone lets the present moment slip by, then looks for it as though he thought it were somewhere else. No one seems to have noticed this fact. But grasping this firmly, one must pile experience upon experience. And once one has come to this understanding he will be a different person from that point on, though he may not always bear it in mind.

grasping at straws...

2007-05-22T19:09:00.000-07:00

Whether people be of high or low birth, rich or poor, old or young, enlightened or confused, they are all alike in that they will one day die. It is not that we don't know that we are going to die, but we grasp at straws. While knowing that we will die someday, we think that all the others will die before us and that we will be the last to go. Death seems a long way oft.

Is this not shallow thinking? It is worthless and is only a joke within a dream. It will not do to think in such a way and be negligent. insofar as death is always at one's door, one should make sufficient effort and act quickly.

life is short...

2007-04-28T01:27:00.000-07:00

Human life is truly a short affair. It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like. But it is important never to tell this to young people as it is something that would be harmful if incorrectly understood.
Personally, I like to sleep. And I intend to appropriately confine myself more and more to my living quarters and pass my life away sleeping.

word to the wise...

2007-03-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

...in the old native tongue of the sarges...

i was truly surprised and amazed and ecstatic to hold and fondle and smell the inaugural unbound press. fantastic stuff! charlie and amy have really outdone themselves with this. charlie insists it was all amy's effort and hat off to amy for the fantastic work. look forward to more, 's all. be sure to check it out!

there is no monster under your bed child...

2006-10-30T17:46:00.000-08:00

there is no such thing as an al qaida.

there is no axis of evil.

there never were any "weapons-r-mass-distrukshyun".

there is no iranian nuclear threat.

there is no north korean nuclear threat.

there is no such thing as global warming.

there is no such thing as anarchy.

words

2006-08-13T18:12:00.002-07:00

The most important way of expressing one self is to say nothing. If we wish to go on without speaking it is easy to do so. When we must by all means say something, we should speak reasonably using few words. We are abandoned by others and disgrace ourselves putting our words carelessly.

learn well

2006-07-13T10:29:00.000-07:00

There are many men who give lessons in the world, but few who are glad to take them. There are even fewer that take heed of them. No one over the age of thirty takes to lessons kindly. Therefor such men will become selfish, allowing themselves to be fooled by errors and end their life in vain. You should accept lessons. Being on intimate terms with a person who is well versed in reason.

change of heart

2006-06-16T11:55:00.000-07:00

Feeling deeply the difference between oneself and others, bearing ill will and falling out with people--these things come from a heart that lacks compassion. If one wraps up everything with a heart of compassion, there will be no coming into conflict with people.

severed goat testicle stew

2006-03-20T01:47:00.000-08:00

Don't be making jokes along these lines with the local tribesmen under any circumstances, and most definitely not in the appropriate combination of clacks and grunts and spits. You just might be accidentally understood and some poor beast somewhere will have to surrender its manlihood for the pretense of salvaging international relations, or some such shit.

whenever

2006-02-13T08:33:00.000-08:00

During the Shimabara Rebellion, his armor being still at the encampment, Shugyo Echizen no kami Tanenao participated in the fight dressed only in hakama and haori. It is said that he died in battle in this attire.

cover me

2006-01-30T10:53:00.000-08:00

All I ask is that every single Joe gets his 800 word AP news wire write-up and his MSNBC headline when it's his time. That's all I ask. But no, even that's too much. FUCK YOU Joe I hear all over again. Die off screen motherfuckers. And keep your voice down when you do. Take if for the fucking team low wage chump-ass bitches, is what I hear. You don't know the efforts average Joes make to keep these bungling clungling buffoon prima donna motherfucker starlets outta harm's way. But why bother... who wants to know? The silence is nigh unbearable.

Oh no nonononono, you don't understaaaaaaaaand, they're there to cover the war. The people gotta right to know. Spare me the bullshit. I got enough of it on this side of the wire. Right to know? Know what? What is it that you think you know? Mushroom cloud on the horizon on the six o'clock shaky cam. What do you know? What do you know? Mangled to sheer shit car body and gaggle-a-dumbfucks dancing around it. What do you know? What? WHAT? Couple-a-Brads and some Hummers shootin' through an intersection. What's goin' on? WHAT? Major Sheisshnaz sayz we neutralized a dozen terrist motherfucking evildoers, detained fifty more and two Joes got bruised doin' all this splendid shit. What do you know now? What do you know? Colonel Pussyfurlips sayz we restored power and water in some unpronouncable goatdropping sandlot. Which means.... what? WHAT?

Lemme spell this out. You know jackshit. You know nothing. You think you know what's goin' on? WE don't know what-the-fuck is going on. You think these prima donna teevee starlets and their hairdos and all serious-looking mugs know whattheFUCK is going on? Nobody on Satan's burning ORB knows whattheFUCK is going on, and those little slivers of motion and movement and hysteria and madness piped through yur opium tube are just confusing the issue. This is entertainment... GET IT. ENTERTAINMENT. We're your Channel 22 alternative viewing choice between new episodes of Survivor and, heaven forFUCKINGbid, American Idolatry. You wanna know whattheFUCK is going on in the world, unplug yurself from that friggin' opium tube and start asking some questions for a change, instead of swallowing everything these fuckers keep shoving down our throats.

Think Bob Schieffer is gonna take some time outta his broadcast to wish me well when my shit gets fucked up? No. No, I didn't think so.

THANKS Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooob.

Truth be told... I don't even wanna be a fucking prop on your goddamned sham infotainment circus. Not gonna get my shit fucked up over here for your viewing DElight, sorry to report. Shove your lens where the sun don't shine and report on the massive turd of indifference passing through the collective bowels of Amurka. There's your story right there.

veteran voices

2006-01-22T13:21:00.000-08:00

Over at T-Bone's War Journal you can get the varnished truth. Bright and shiny and spit-shined with grit and balls and muscle and honest sweat and upright sincerity. This is a message that's being pumped out at over, fuck if I know, five trillion milblogs and counting. Check the red, white and blue blogroll over at the Lifer Uberblog, Mudville Gazette. Honest, sincere, upright, flag waiving, true believers. Soon as you pull up the Gazette, you get this refried horseshit thrown at you:

"Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Sure does set the tone. You know why I sleep 'peaceably' well through most of the day? I sleep peaceably because I polished off a fifth of anything forty-proof or better and scored myself a SUPER hottie and we threw ourselves at eachother and went at it till we collapsed from sheer exhaustion and then drifted off to sleep. THAT's why I sleep 'peaceably.' And anyone stepping up to the plate to offer hisself to 'defend' me from the so-called evildoer motherfuckers out there I'd say, kindly fuck off, I'll do my own defending, no matter how ineptly, thank you. One thing I learned but GOOD in the motherfucking Army is that apparently rough men will use any old flimflam reason to do fucking violence, and enjoy doing it too. And if doing violence happens to be 'defending' something, anything, well... how goddamned convenient is that? Sweet!

If you wanna read blogs with some of the varnish chipped off and the polish flaking off the toe and the rifle all banged-up and not-up-to-muster and holes in the uniform and the hair unregulation-ass long and a ready middle-finger right there quicker than you can say straighten-up-and-fly-right, there are a few 'other' blogs...

Colby Buzzell's blog My War is still up, but he pulled all his posts. He managed to score a book deal out of his military experience and my copy should be in the mail just about now and I really look forward to it. I wish more people would have the time and opportunity and mindset to tell command to fuck OFF and cough up their deepest fears and their innermost reservations online. It's like the guys in the middle of the fight are the ones left out of the goddamned debate on the thing and the shit is really pissing me off.

Then I found The Statistics: the heretic, J.D. Engelhardt, aka hEkLe, and Joe Public, three soldiers over at Fight To Survive the first time and was blown away by their guts and I finally said, well FUCK, THAT's blogging man. Their blog has been online for a while and there's a lot to read and I recommend going through all of it. POWERFUL stuff.

Brian over at One Veteran's Voice is finding his. Every single time Brian writes he bests himself, and he just started writing. It's goddamned good stuff. Read it. LEARN. GET the message.

Brian's 18 January entry is the rawest of truths on this bullshit:

War is scared kids taking pot shots at each other because some other guy says it's the right thing to do. War is collective insanity. It can be justified by logic, but it's still chaotic, collective insanity. Sometimes, once you start it, you can't stop it. Maybe you even start to like it-- the rush of temple throbbing, "holy shit that was close adrenaline" that is like a drug. There are most definitely sadists, thugs, and war junkies in the current military. Lowering recruiting standards doesn't help the situation. Most soldiers in Iraq, however, are decent people thrown into an insane situation. They generally react by acting insane. Morality goes out the window. It's law of the jungle time. It's up to America's citizens, not her soldiers, to interpret the morality of our actions in Iraq.

Awesome shit Brian. For real man. Write dude. Write. Get it all down. Get the word out. All of it. And fuck 'em if they can't take it.

Thomas Strickland. Thomas' journey ended some place in time understood as Monday, August 15, 2005. Near some unpronounceable shitdump on some goatfuck so-called mission.

A glimpse into Thomas' thoughts over at his blog, One Foot In The Grave.

The Worst Day of My Life

I remember having a hard time focusing, what seemed like hours of tasks and seconds to do them. Beneath me was the road, black topped, six foot embankments dropping on either side, a canal to the north reeded and muddy, and farmland stretching everywhere else. It was the Mulla Fayad expressway screaming "welcome to the cootch of civilization" its mouth split wide by a 250 lb aerial bomb and two propane tanks wired together as a carepackage from the insurgency[...]

..........

this is what happens to unacceptable tripe

2006-01-16T11:40:00.000-08:00

This grossly offensive profanity-laden diatribe has been removed and shredded and then burned and then chemically incinerated and then shipped to a nuclear waste processing facility for once and forever disposal and banishment from humanity.

There.

Happy?

Fuckers.

do the right thing

2006-01-12T15:09:00.000-08:00

Oh! Oh! Oh! Me! Me! Me!

(I feel like one of those little asshole suckups from way back in the day, stretching and craning and frantically arm-waiving and doing everything but leap on top of the desk to grab teacher's attention... pick me Teach, pick me! Me! Meeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!)

Check THIS sweet shit out...

The Army's Buying PR

Word comes from RL that the Army has hired PR firm Hass MS&L of Detroit to offer "exclusive editorial content" to blogs willing to run government propaganda.

"The Army believes that military blogs are a valuable medium for reaching out," account executive Charlie Kondek has written to a number of pro-military blogs in a January 6 Email.

"To that end, the Army plans to offer you and selected bloggers exclusive editorial content on a few issues you’re likely to be interested in," Kondek says.

This sweet shit came courtesy of an attentive reader--thanks again Mark!-- wondering if this had percolated down to my end of the sticks, and I just couldn't resist. You know me, ANYTHING to help the war effort... America! FUCK YEAH! Coming again, to save the motherfuckin' day YEAH!!!!!!!!!!

YO! YO! YOOOOOOOOOO! PR DUDES!!!!!!!!! Check this shit out yo! Kickin' ass and takin' names over in the Raqistan. Over in Da Sandbox. Fuck yeah. Kickin' some serious turrist tail yo. Makin' the Raq safe for Mocracy. And pro wrestling! And Jiffy Lube! Defending Muncie, Indiana and Flagstaff, Arizona and Oahu, Hawaii and Kodiak, Alaska from evildoer motherfuckers and Burqa-lovers and unsavory dark-eyed 13th century folk with evil intent and shit-stained fingers. Disrupting turrism and bomb plots and stompin' down hard on all the evildoer mud with every step. Just yesterday I single-handedly built twelve mosques, handed out four-thousand pee-aich-DEEs to said number of Raqi FEEEEEmales, established fifteen new Raqi political parties, eventhough I've never voted once in my life and don't believe in that shit but FUCK IT cause I'm super HARDCORE and mission-oriented and glass-floweth-over CAN DO SIR! to teach the sand people Jeffersonian majority tyranny cause command said MOVE OUT! and what else.... oh yeah, taught a battalion of newly badged Raqi pigs, I mean, cops, how to line up head shots! That's how much boy scout shit I did just yesterday, just me and my left hand (hint hint), in one day! HOOOAH!!!!!!!

Look, PR Dudes.... this is how it is... American Short-Timer is THE obvious choice for all your Insider Poop dispersion. I have like TEN confirmed Left Coast Commie Pinko Naysayer type regular readers, and I ga-RAN-TEE if they start hearing about all our good deeds from the Short-Timer's salivating mouth, word WILL go out in the hash dens and mosh pits and street corners of lefty Murka... We are WINNING the hearts and minds and guts and bowels of the Raqi people, a billion dollars at a time. Twenty thousand dead Joes and ten trillion dollars and fifty years from now this place will be just like downtown Detroit. Free at last, free at last... HOOOAH!!!!!!

So dudes... do the right thing...

PICK ME!!!!!!!!!

PICK MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PICK MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

stodgy prejudiced fucks...

trippin'

2006-01-06T22:54:00.000-08:00

Just as assuredly as smoking rots the lungs, wallowing in this shit rots the brain. Simple as that. Heard about this? Guy is home on leave, all giddy-n-shit, partying it up and somehow decides popping off a couple-a-rounds is the way to go about it... and one of his celebratory rounds kills a mother of two. Popped off a weapon on the wrong side of the plane ride. Shoulda saved that shit for this side of the pond homes. Not many give a fuck or two how many rounds you go poppin' off on this side of the peanuts and inflight movie. Poor dumbass. Honestly.

Course, he's gonna suck it down hard. Is gonna have to. And the sweethearts who cooked up this whole thrill ride are gonna skate the skate. Ribbons and medals and awards and promotions and laughing it up at cocktail parties and all, all serious and shit and dumbshit Joe poppin' off a few rounds back home in the hood one night on leave long, loooong forgotten. And how'd Joe get so fucked up again? And what was his point anyway? He's gonna have the rest of his life to agonize over that one.

One bullet, one life. On the wrong side of the pond. Fodder for cops and detectives and prosecutors and judges and dailies and blather radio and the entire social event around it. A trial they call that shit. Weighing the whole thing. In scales. Months of yapping. And judging. Assigning guilt and blame. Contemplating it. Debating it. And the tragedy of it all and yap yap yap yap yap.

This side of the pond bullets splode heads with the regularity of the solar cycle, which is to say, a near daily basis. No fanfare, no commotion, not much by way of drama or discussion or debate. Just physics and causality. Debate that shit? War is hell. There. Debate concluded. Cool as fuck in'it? Think Joe can use the War Is Hell argument and skate on it on your side of the pond? Maybe Joe can use brain rot as a defense. War blackens the brain. Maybe Joe can claim he wasn't quite sure which side of the plane ride he got off, claim geographic and situational disorientation or something like that.

General Assucker will claim nine-hunded-ninety-nine thousand troops done go home with nary a scare and it's all good and this nasty shit falls squarely on Joe's shoulders. Is what generals say most days. Cause they're leaders and responsible and In Command and take responsibility at all hours of the day, cause they understand the principle of leadership so thoroughly and they never EVER fuck up, NEVER and if they do, wasn't their fault, shit's complicated they'll say. Cause that's the typa leaders we got. Awesome motherfuckers who'll bend over backwards for the troops. Check out all the medals those fuckers got. How can they NOT be awesome with all that glimmer. Fuckin' A. Fucker's are so awesome... I wanna run outside and find me some occifers to salute RIGHT NOW... Ask Pvt. England. She knows. Knows all about it.

Wonder how many more Joes gonna be trippin' down the road, outside the box, outta bounds, so to speak, over the next ten, twenty years. And when they do, not if, I said... WHEN they do, not gonna see me pointing any fingers. There but for a whim of the Great Sadist Deity go I... is what I learned.

Side scribbles:

Some great emails and words of encouragement from a lot of fantastic people. Finally had a chance to update the blogroll. Wanna welcome Julie Anna, Sarah, Brian and that old warhorse Sergeant Hardcore hisself, T-Bone to the blogroll. I had to consult with the short-timers on T-Bone's enrollment, I mean, voluntarily associating with lifers-n-shit strictly being a most egregious violation of the Code-n-whatnot, but the committee ruled in favor of the link for the sake of spreading short-timer's disease. Taking one for the team so to speak. So sarge, welcome on board man. You can chew my ass out across the vast stretches of cyberspace all you want. You wrote that you were a short-timer at one point... I figure, you didn't get the right help in time so the Machine sucked you up in the end. Being a Senior Widget Master-n-all... I feel your pain sarge, I really do. I'm here trying to make sure that shit doesn't happen to other short-timers. Give these guys a warm welcome. Check out their blogs in addition to the other fantastic stuff listed here. Good reads!

Just in:

Got an email from a reader goes by the name of Guts. He started his own blog, guts on parade recently with a real passion for it and writes with a fever. Some excellent shit and thoroughly enjoyable. His January 8 post is just fucking EXCELLENT. All this awesome stuff online created by fantastic people and there are still dullards out there who plunk down cash for fifty pages of Madison Avenue crap and Writers' Shop fluff. Unbelievable. You guys are all awesome! Keep at it!

Anyone else with a blog or a web page and an interest in exchanging links just drop a line and I'll get you linked as soon as I can get around to it.

here's to you

2005-12-31T23:46:00.000-08:00

To all of you out there, wherever this finds you, at home or far from; alone or with friends; with family, coworkers, comrades, lovers, assholes; whether surrounded by intimates or deathwishers, lifelong buddies or casual acquaintances... whether you're taking it anxiously a day at a time or in vast stretches of comfort, hope this marking of time is a good one for you and bodes well for your future and that of your loved ones. For real. And CYA, always CYA, no matter the who the where the why the when. C-fuckin'-Y-fuckin'-A.

And to you guys out there reading, can't thank you enough for taking the time to read and to care and to opine and share and to have us on your mind. I'd be writing this if no one read it, count on it, but it wouldn't be the same. Not by a stretch. It's been a real kick in the ass reading the comments and the feedback and the kind words and cool comments. Din't know what to expect when I kicked this off, on an angry whim one not-so-fine day. Certainly expected more chaw and bile from my lifer buds, but din't really expect the outpouring of support and the sharing. Readers from Tokyo, Korea, Australia, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Britain, Scotland, all over the U.S. and Canada. And probably others. People who care, casual readers, high school kids, activists, veterans, military spouses... lifers even.

Wanted to wrap up this end of the calender with a sampling of your contributions and thoughts. Here is a random selection of reader comments since we kicked this off. Keep 'em coming!

See you on the other side!

28 August, 2005 01:46 anonymous said...

OMG. This blog is a riot. Are you for real?

09 September, 2005 16:34 anonymous said...

Balls!

17 October, 2005 10:08 antigone-

I enjoy your blog [...] but this post makes me feel the need to defend my chosen profession... yes, no one completely and totally understands what you guys are doing and going through over there, and yes, these pussy reporters are stay in their nice little hotels and going out to interview some people before scurrying back into their room and just verbaitim typing up the Press Release from the Public relations specialist. But don't shoot them please. We really need to see SOMETHING.

28 September, 2005 15:48 anonymous said...

Which book you readin? Cuz you sound just like Leppelman.

24 October, 2005 09:45 greg said...

This is great....when I think blogs I think 16 yr old girls writing poetry and giving shout-outs to their friends. This is what blogs are meant to be.

Keep it up. Don't get shot or get caught writing.

14 October, 2005 23:33 anonymous said...

wow, I would be impressed except something here doesnt ring true. whispers of conspiracy to get all the little hippy minds all worked up.

24 October, 2005 19:29 mrbandw said...

Wow I finally found somebody who truly appreciates the f word and puts it to it's proper use!

13 November, 2005 06:27 snag said...

The real American soldier is a Short-timer and always has been. That's the rub...these jerk-offs today don't get it. The citizen soldier's head is gettin' back home. If you want to occupy countries like we've been doing for the past 30 or 40 years, hire a cop.

14 November, 2005 01:46 charlie said...

Oh, AST... that insane, overwhelming, driving, ineluctable force to speak out, to synaptically revolt, to twist and turn and mentally somesault, to take the bastards with you as you gyrate and pyke and tuck, the gymnasium hall spinning around you...

14 November, 2005 08:13 diane s. said...

Rage! Rage against the dying of the light!

15 November, 2005 01:00 anonymous said...

You are certainly a skilled wordsmith, Joe. Keep writing as skillfully as you can. Because if you cop the same attitude with your next employer, perhaps all you'll have to fall back on is your writing skill to pay your bills. Remember, there are assholes everywhere in this world...you can't avoid them.

21 November, 2005 08:11 the un-apologetic atheist said...

You know, Short, strange as it sounds I think the Iraqi people might like us more if more of them read your blog...

06 December, 2005 07:47 tbone65 said...

Even though this task can suck, there is no need to whine and bitch incessantly about everything. Not everything is as bad as AST tries to make it in his posts. I do understand though that if he talked about some of the easy or good shit he experienced in the Army, it would ruin the finely crafted image he's tried so hard to build for himself - a steadfast rebel.

03 December, 2005 07:45 snag said...

I'd love to fight for ideals, but alas that's just the smoke and mirrors they use to keep potential candidates interested in their little game.

03 December, 2005 21:36 anonymous said...

...you sound like you can bitch as good as any military wife.

06 December, 2005 10:26 fnulnu said...

We're all short-timers on this planet and you never know when it's coming.

08 December, 2005 13:08 diane s. said...

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for consumate boozers and whoremongers and those reknowned for arguing with superiors.

07 December, 2005 16:03 diane s. said...

If I could, I'd come to 'Raq for Christmas. Come out there with a key and hand it to the first civilian I saw and say, "Here, here's your country back. We're going home now. Watch out for those dictators, man. Good fuckin' luck."

08 December, 2005 15:39 antigone-

Dude, seriously: signing on to have "Property of the US government" stamped on your ass is not the brightest idea in the world.

16 December, 2005 12:58 the un-apologetic atheist said...

We have troops deployed in scores of countries around the world. Many of them are my personal friends. I care about all of them... not just lame gung-ho "rah-rah-rah'ing" our boys in the Oil Crusade, and I'm going to fight against those who use my beloved troopers as mercenaries. I'm also going to fight against those who attack soldiers for doing what they are ordered to do, instead of attacking those giving the orders.

23 December, 2005 05:06 tbone65 said...

My mind still hurts sometimes dude. I try to push it aside and ignore it...but sometimes it takes me. No one with a heart will be the same after all this shit.

23 December, 2005 14:22 oneveteran'svoice said...

If we all speak up loud enough, shit will get changed.

28 December, 2005 12:03 sara said...

Boozer. Whoremonger. You and your Ambassador ways. They will make you Secretary of State when you return...

a christmas carol

2005-12-25T02:48:00.000-08:00

This is, I'm sure, representative of an average Joe's xmas pretty much deployed anywhere. On duty or off, far away from pretty much everything, you're either stuck working, which is to say, killing, readying to kill, hoping not to get killed, or doing a thousand-and-one widget jobbies in support of killing and the like. Peace on FUCKING earth citizen, is what that is called. Booyeah. Orrrrrrrrrrrrrr, you're one of them lucky sumsabitches that gets to steal off post and flea to some den of vice in shitholes from K-town to TDC and a hundred bumblefuck third world villes in between serving pretty much the same old special: escape and relief in pints and quarts and gallons and bowls and bottles and steins and mugs and cartons. On spoons and needles and pipes and wads. In gulps and sips and tokes and chokes. To be had for free or cheap or not. Short time or long time or overnighter. Handjobs and blowjobs and nutjobs. Teabags. A sit-on-my-face twofur special. Ecstasy and sodomy and anarchy. And, beg the pardon and such, but save that little baby Jesus shit for the folks back home. Out on freedom's frontiers, takes a little more than bible-goddamned-thumping to shake the shit loose if you catch my drifting.

On that happy note, I share with you gentle kind sweet folk this fuzzy warm hazy remembrance of my first xmas away from home in the warm cozy kind compassionate sweet embrace of us army.

THEY gave us a choice. Work through Christmas, or work through New Year's. Why work at all? It was reported the North Koreans were planning a smashout knockdown World War Three-like offensive. Suicide puppies with satchel charges strapped to their bellies, four thousand sarin-spitting pieces of artillery, one-hundred thousand suicide commandos and one million starved to death tiny little angry Korean guys lusting after decadent hot South Korean ass and a violent tour of Seoul's noraebang carry-oaky music rooms.

This pathetic militarist wetdream had been predicted the last five thousand weekends without fail and had proven false and nonsensical and bullshit and none of it mattered in the slightest or leastest. The essence of soldiering is after all absorbing senseless flaglation and baring one's vulnerable parts and taking the pointlessness and senselessness smilingly and willingly for very little and the better and quieter and uncomplainingly you take it the more highly you are regarded for becoming the embodiment of servitude and sacrifice and selflessness.

I escaped for Christmas and stole off on a kimchi bus to Seoul and hooked up with my buddy for this most special of holidays. We crashed at his girlfriend's place. He helped her in her tiny kitchen marinate the squid. Nakji bokkum. For Christmas. How fucking more holidaysy than that can you get? Squid in enough red pepper sauce to burn a hole through little baby Jesus' gut.

They wrestled squidy at the sink and I was on her couch staring at this fifth of peppermint shnapps my buddy had liberated for the occasion. Peppermint shnapps and rot gut red peppered squid... it must be Christmas...

"What's this shit?"

"Shnapps."

"Shnapps," I echoed. Din't look like no shnapps I had ever seen back in Die Heimat, but booze is booze and when it gets down to the partikurlurs of boozing I'm not very. Partikurlur that is.

So while my bud and his girl wrestled the squid and debated marinating the sucker raw or throwing it in the pan, I sipped my first thimble of shnapps.

"This is some good shit," I reported to my bud.

"Have at it man," he said more or less preoccupied with squidy, squirming and wriggling pink asslessness futily in the clutches of my bud and his babe plotting sweet marination and the likes.

The shnapps was going down smoothly in the mean time and I poured myself another, then another and within twenty minutes had emptied the entire bottle all social and thoughtful-like without giving the matter much thought.

When the squid was ready so was the shnapps. I was well on my way to wherever it is you go when you down a bottle of shnapps in such manner and my bud's tirade floated right on past. Now I realize at once this reeks of the vilest asocial assholia and under normal circumstances I would concur, unfortunately there are no such critters as 'normal' circumstances in the military, unless you are inclined to debate the position that the military itself is a 'normal' circumstance under any circumstances, and all fluctuations of this mere temperature variances. Fine by me. In the mean time, the context to this apparent severe breech of manners was quite simply I had not merely stolen off for the holidays but returned from fourteen days in the field, and friend, let me assure you, no sensible person in-the-know puts down a pristine unopened bottle of delectable booze in front of someone who has just spent the last fourteen days molding his underwear to his ass like so much soggy cardboard and suggest to have at it and not expect said bottle of said booze to not be all there, shortly. Especially when said someone is an unabashed and confirmed boozer and whoremonger of the worst caliber.

The next thing I remember is us stumbling through the frozen night and Seoul, me in my shirt, leaning against my friend and him leaning against me. And us both chattering away and swearing and cussing and that kinda thing and it could be he was waiving a bottle of soju, a sad but necessary short-cut to enjoining me in my mindless state and I remember every now and then some well-intending Koreans would shout 'Melly Koorismassuuuu" at us which evoked nothing but a string of FUCK YOU's and FUCK OFF and DIE COCKSUCKERS and more of such, ambassadors mind you, and us two ambassadors, me and the vice-consul, swerving through the street looking for trouble, something readily found in Seoul for G.I.'s most any time at any rate.

We ended up in some pool hall, my buddy and me, with about twenty Korean thugs, true gangster types, and somehow my bud had gotten into a wager and I was lolling against a wall and barely conscious and for some reason I was like ah screw this joint and told my buddy I was getting outta there and dragged him with me and this mob of thugs closed on us and we got into a stand off and it was getting ugly but we were too drunk to do any proper math on our prospects of getting our asses kicked but good by these guys as we were slowly backing off toward the stairs and at some point in the shouting and pointing and threatening that tends to preceed butt stompings I lost my footing and tumbled ass over gut down six flights of stairs, never stopping on my way down and when I crashed at the bottom at last the fight was off cause the concensus was I had died of some sort of breakage or rupturage or maybe lots of both and my buddy and the thugs were standing over me surveying my remains when I realized I was surrounded and sufficiently startled from this dizzy aching stupor remembered something about shoving and shouting and us about to get it on and I jumped to my feet and started swinging at once and maybe the thugs were thinking if three-hundred steps and a boatload of gravity run amuck can't kick this drunk fuck's ass what are we gonna do but kill him to keep him down and somehow my buddy managed to drag me outta there and we were in the street again and to make matters more pathetic a stage-perfect snowfall drifted lazily down reminding us what had driven us to pursue our present course of self-imolation and the next thing I knew my buddy had dragged us both to the very middle of the Hannam Bridge and climbed atop it and was screaming into the wind and the traffic sloshing past and the dark water below and the Christmas spirit gently wafting down from the orange sky overhead and my buddy resolved to jump into the Han River some 200 feet below and me struggling with him to get him down from the goddamned thing and then finally, like some hostage negotiator type I had talked him into 'symbolically' jumping by offering clothing items to the goddess of Cold Black Water Death and this somehow satisfied his urge to be done with it all sufficiently and so in short order his scarf, shoes, socks, gloves and jacket went sailing into the night in a sincere tribute to the darkness below and he was ready to strip his pants off but the cold of the bridge had communicated sufficiently with his bared feet to convince him to call it a night and so him in his bare feet and me in my shirt the whole time leaning against each other shouting and crying all out, waddled back to his girlfriend's place, screaming and crying and cussing, my barefooted buddy and me. And little tiny snowflakes lazily drifted down on that Siberian breeze walloping Seoul, wholy indifferent to any of it.

By one or two in the morning I was on my back after a few hours of crawling back and forth to and from the bathroom and violent puking all the livelong merry way. The room was spinning and U2's Unforgettable Fire came to me and I thought I was hallucinating cause a young girl was next to me working my pants open and the best I could muster was what.... the... awesome! and now I know I'm dreaming and she kept glancing off toward the bedroom and the sound of serious hard sex mixed in easily with that U2 and this chick working my pants open more furiously hiked up her skirt and worked off her panties and threw herself atop me and started grinding away and me just lying there deader and sicker than fuck And if the mountain should crumble, Or disappear into the sea, Not a tear, no not I and ever louder groaning from the bedroom and this chick riding me getting into the act and me still flat on my back in a complete aching stupor. Helluva dream I thought and passed out promptly.

When I came to the place reaked of sweat and socks and stale vomit and every joint and bone in my body ached and I discovered a rich collection of bruises and when I had finally propped myself upright against the protestations of my back I realized a young girl sleeping on the couch and the whole hallucination from mere hours before had all been deliciously real.

And much later you'll be on the phone talking to your mom and she'll ask, how did you spend Christmas and you'll draw a complete blank. Ah... you know... stuff... which is really how you feel most times about this place when pressed to explain it... cause what's to explain...

It could be Tuesday, or Saturday, or Laundry Day, or Easter, or Labor Day. Christmas maybe, or so they say. Autumnal Equinox, Election Day, the first day of Spring... Thursday? I have no clue. I catch myself sometimes, midthought... is this it? Or this? Today? Is this the last of these? Does it all end here? Or here? Then I tell myself to shut the fuck up and knock that shit off and that shit gets shoved to the back, out of sight out of mindlike and I turn to weighter issues, like, are my mags stacked racked and packed and squared away and is all my shit good to go and are the batteries good and I din't furget my knife and a hundred little things of this nature, any one which might end it for you, or worse, a buddy.

Frankly, I don't know what day it is and I don't much care. There's only one day that matters, I'll be far away from here and turn my back on this shit once and for all, for good. I write it down now cause I have a sense I won't much have the stomach to return to this later. Ever.

a letter home

2005-12-22T22:01:00.000-08:00

These always start something like this:

Hey guys,

How goes? Hope you guys are holding up well and making the best of it, being the holidays and all, is what people are saying that it is. Some sort of holiday. You know it's dead for me. All of it. The army killed it. Did it to death. Search and destroyed it and closed and killed it and moved to contacted it and raided it and assaulted it and extra-dutied it and rostered it to smithereens. It's just time slippage now. More sloppy X-es on Suzies hot ass (Suzie's my December vixen) marking time. Let's just leave it at that.

Hey! great stuff on Bud's new job. HotDAMNED that's some good shit Bud. I'm laughing my ass off thinking last time you mentioned you were willing to stuff grocery bags just to get out of the house. And now you're actually back in an office and directing legions of grovelling underlings. SWEET. Man alive, I can't fathom it though, honestly I can't. I mean the concept of sitting at home and feeling a compelling urge to get back out into the world. My sole ambition is to float away on an ocean of Jack and slither up to the occasional half-naked chick and if the world left me behind that would be just fine by me. Not much of an ambition, I know. Remember when all I could babble about was archaeology? I've seen these thousands-of-years-old ruins and didn't even have the ambition to capture the moment or explore or nothing. None of it. I'm consumed with one thing, one thing alone. Make it to tomorrow. Claw my way to the next day. A day at a time. As long as there's tomorrow I'm doin' okay. I saw the ruins and realized we haven't learned much from any of it, history that is, if we're standing here again bristling with weapons and raging 500 pounder laser-guided goodwill. What's the point of digging it up? No one wants to listen. No one wants to learn. We don't WANT to evolve. We're reading the riot act to goddamned 13th century goatherders. Like THEY give two shits what we have to say. Like WE know what we're talking about. Bwaaaaaaaaahahahahahaha... These Civil Affairs clowns kill me every time. Twaddle about progress and nation-goddamned-building and all the hot love they feel from the Raqis. I suggested to one of these dorks that he go out by his lonesome in shorts and flipflops with a big ol' white hat on and a teeshirt with a smiley-face and a shovel and a tool belt and go help the natives and see how long the hot love illusion held up without his li'l backup crew of gun monkeys and Abrams and Bradleys and .50 cals and close air support at beck-and-call. Yeah right. I'm so sick of all this pointless shit it's not even what it never was anymore.

Wow... see how that goes? Hahahahahaha... that was supposed to be a reminiscence on missing archaeology. Boy oh boy oh boy. I try a little ditty on reminiscing on something I used to love and the milk turns sour before I've even finished pouring it. Holy SHIT there's something wrong with me...

I don't know about the leave thing. I heard from some of the guys about back home and how it's great to be home and all but getting back on the plane was the hardest thing they've ever had to do and the time flew by so fast it didn't hardly seem to matter anyhow and I'm not so sure I could do it myself, get back on that plane I mean. If I did, I'd do it for the guys, because they're stuck in the shit and I don't think I could live with myself running off to Canada or Amsterdam or Rome. And then pile the stop-loss bullshit realizatin on top of all of THAT... quite a cocktail, lemme tell ya.

They said it was unreal, going out and like, the whole country is just rolling along, coasting along, and like, no one even seems to know there's a war on. A bud told me he was flipping through channels and there are entire days when there's not a word about the war. NOT. ONE. FUCKING. WORD. I don't know who to get more pissed off at... honestly. The sonsabitches who got us into this mess... the psycho asshole nutjobs stalking around out here, or the legions of fatass shoppers who keep giving the thumbs-up to this insanity. I get so pissed off I feel my head's gonna explode... more shit I gotta stop thinking about.

I miss you guys so much and I want nothing more than to be with you, but to be brutally honest, I just don't think I can handle it. I think I wanna try some place as alien and foreign and as far away from the war, and the warloving holiday shoppers and their fat complacent asses as humanly possible. It's not just that, it's the whole thing. The whole spiel. I'd feel awkward pretending 'to be home,' if you know what I mean, while my mind is still stuck over here. When I leave I want to leave it, this, behind me once and for all and be done with it. And I know you want me home and you'd say just to have me home would be enough but I know me and my mouth would sour it and I just don't have it in me to turn it off right now and pretend this stuff isn't bothering me tremendously so I think avoidance in this case is perhaps the better course. On a lighter note, I'm setting up this pool through a middleman, getting him to place wagers with all the lifers that I'll ditch this bitch first chance I get and run for the hills. Take some money offa the lifers and their bullshit and what they think they know about me... and turn a profit doing it. To swell the pool I'm gonna plant email stories about being somewhere implausible, Chile maybe, or New Zealand, somewhere like that.

I hope you understand. Give my very best to everyone and thank them all for their kind words and support and for all the neat stuff and even thinking about us at all. Considering the millions who don't give a shit, it means so much to know that at least we're in your thoughts. You're in ours, more than you know.

Your regretfully abrasive son,

And end up getting cut down to this:

Hey guys,

How goes? Hope you guys are holding up well and making the best of it, being the holidays and all.

Hey! great stuff on Bud's new job. HotDAMNED that's some good shit Bud. I'm laughing my ass off thinking last time you mentioned you were willing to stuff grocery bags just to get out of the house. And now you're actually back in an office and directing legions of grovelling underlings. SWEET.

I miss you guys so much and I want nothing more than to be with you, but I think I wanna try some place as alien and foreign and as far away from the war as humanly possible. I'd feel awkward pretending 'to be home,' if you know what I mean, while my mind is still stuck over here. When I leave I want to leave it, this, behind me once and for all and be done with it. I hope you understand.

Give my very best to everyone and thank them all for their kind words and support and for all the neat stuff and even thinking about us at all. Considering the millions who don't give a shit, it means so much to know that at least we're in your thoughts. You're in ours, more than you know.

Your loving son,

happy mocracy!

2005-12-16T07:08:00.000-08:00

Wow this is so cool... I feel like wrapping the whole world in a big warm sloppy wet kiss embrace thing. I've actually never done this. Pop off one of these from anything other than the trusted laptop, OPSEC and all being what it is and me religiously adhering to rules and such, that being very much in my nature... yeah right. Let alone do this surreptitious shit from a Haji shop, I mean, Mesopotamian boutique. BUT... opportunity presented itself... so here flies. It's pretty cool to travel a few sloppy militarily classified miles and pop down behind a random computer and pull up my web page... I think it really hit me for the first time how goddamned awesome this technology shit is, manner of speaking-like. And that there are actually real people out there, I mean... OUT there, reading this stuff. Before this y'all were just cardboard cuttout garden variety two dimensional digital characitures dropping emails and adding nice and interesting comments and stuff and it wasn't all really sinking in that much, at a certain level I guess... And now it's all so.... anyhow...

So, I ask this Raqi dude, dude, hey, you have Internet here? Yeah, yeah, what? Huh? In-TER-neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet... yeah yeah, shop closed blah blah blah andsoforth, dude dude, just let me fire off this one thing, take like, two minutes (closer to twenty and counting), went the exchange, and this other Raqi dude--spitting image in a deliciously inbred sorta way if you catch my slant on it-- 's gotta insert hisself into the matter, which happens all over the friggin' place every time you open your yap and attempt to reach out and make that special ambassadorial connection, is a whole mob of them materialize from nowhere and gather round and gape and stare and yaw and giggle and mope about, but it's all good, 'cept if one of 'em secretly is an evildoer sorta motherfucker which I suspect quite a few of them are at any rate... so anyhow long story short, right, I let that magic good old green shit do the talking for me and voila... dispatch.

So the way this started was, what I wanted to say was... happy fucking mocracy. To all my Raqi buds and gal friends in those sexy black wraps... happy goddamned mocracy. For real. You deserve it. Apparently it took us and our munitions-laden ways to shove the shit down your throat, but now it's yours I say... have at it. Mocracy. Tyranny of the majority. Einstein in a lab with ten retards voting on whether to make relativity theory the law of the land. Or not. Cause it ain't a perfect system, they admit, but it beats the pants offa all the other shit we tried. S'pposedly. Is how they sell it.

If your mocracy turns out anything like our mocracy, you have a bright future ahead. Indeed. You have at least two civil wars coming down the pike, couple-a-world wars, an industrial revolution, emancipation, a sexual revolution, and with a little bit of luck and the right mix of moxy and good will, your mocracy will bring you abundance, prosperity, and a fullness of yourself that somehow produces the compulsion to inflict your mocracy on the rest of the under-developed world. And more power to you.

Seriously Raqis... happy mocracy.

Can we all go home now?

How 'bout show of hands...

Right. Din't think so.

Mocracy. What a crock.

little follow-up war whine

2005-12-07T10:35:00.000-08:00

Some law student emailed me while back with some questions, and after it was all said and done she told me she supported the troops. And I know a lot of people share that sentiment and it's all really warm and fuzzy and whatnot, but honestly, I just rather you run out, sign up and catch the early-bird charter to Kuwait and get your ass over here ASAP so one of us can go home. Maybe we can arrange something, you know, by ones and twos and so on, pretty sure we could get all us over-extended types outta here in no time.

We got, by estimates, close to forty-thousand plus Joes involuntarily extended, stop lossed they call it now, cause dropping INVOLUNTARILY extended day after day after day I suppose places too much emphasis on the fact that a whole buncha us got stuck in the shit INVOLUNTARILY... cause, for all you non-incarcerated types, the usual nomenclature for being stuck in the service beyond your time is--used to be--INVOLUNTARY extension. Cept they had to twist the rules all outta whack and shit to keep the machine all lubed and oiled and chugging and belching and churning out the mayhem, and somehow, rather mysteriously it seems to me at least, with all that good ol' troop lovin' shit goin' on back home they couldna find the 40K + dudes and dudettes to get us squared away and outta this mess. Thanks for the love yo.

And I know I know, spare me the retort... "Dude, is what you signed up for." Right. I signed up for THIS. Sadist's circus. Marquis de Sade's Head-Chopping Ball-Blasting Brigade. Lemme assure you, if I had read some short-timer's Internet lament and that fucker would've had the common decency to point out that the Army is more like a three-ring circus butcher-shop motor vehicles prison typa clustertastrophy I mighta thought twice before lending my body to the cause of someone else's mocracy-buildin' wet dreams.

If I ever make it outta this mess, when I make it out, I'll make sure to support the troops likewise. I'll realize my lifelong dream of washing up in a yuppie burb and my kiddies just done wrap up their SATs in high style and Stamfurd or Princetum are in the works and I'll kick their fuckin' asses if I ever even catch 'em looking sideways at anything related to the military. Them having other priorities and shit and their talents being needed elsewhere and whatnot. Of course, we'll all support the military all the time. Course. We'll be havin' yellow ribbon shit on all our stuff, little flaggies everywhere and yonder, and we'll smilingly fork over that good tax shit to support the state's burgeoning quest to keep us all safe from evildoer motherfuckers. If I ever see a legless vet with a board around his neck all 'Help a homeless Iraq veteran' I'll be first to toss some quarters at the dude. Battle bros for life and all. And if I read about a couple-a-thou of the troops being INVOLUNTARILY extended, or stop lossed, or held over, or stuck in the muck, or jacked, or whatever they call it by then, I'll be all supportin' the troops and lamenting their sad tragic fate and misfortune. Maybe slap on an extra couple-a-yellow ribbons. Show support ya know.

As for war, course I'll support it. I'll support all the wars, all the time. Once I'm out of the shit, I'll support every war they ever wanna throw. Hell yeah! Why? Why? Cause nothing looks badder-ass and is more entertaining on television than live mayhem. I fuckin' love televised mayhem. Love it. It's the shit. Splosions and riots and gun battles and mob violence and jets launching from aircraft carriers. I could watch the shit for days. And have. Course... sittin' in the back of the ol' Hummer hauling ass toward a column of smoke couple-a-blocks down and your asshole up in your throat from fear and ready to fuckup any dumb fucker out there skulking around waiting to pour on some follow-up misery... "See anything suspicious, anything at all, do not hesitate. Drop every single last one-a-the-motherfuckers, every single last one!" I holler to clarify the so-called tactical purdicament, more to myself really, cause I think we're all pretty much of one mind on shit like that... and rushing into the shit, I imagine watching it on teevee, remote, disconnected, my ass snuggly embedded in a recliner of sorts--embedded get it?--stead of out here, actually in the shit, with a bigass target painted across the eyes... Better ta just sperience it with a remote control in one hand and a bag of Doritos in the other a few sloppy thousand miles away and not really speriencing it at all, more, enjoying it. Entertainmentwise.

More later.

reminder

2005-12-02T23:17:00.000-08:00

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.'

army zen

2005-12-01T09:07:00.000-08:00

Check out Snag over at DEprogramming Starter Kit. He's crafted an excellent piece. The real stuff. Definitely worth a read. Army veteran with eleven years under his belt. Salute brother!

I was 18 when they put an M16 in my hands and I thought "Oh shit! They're not joking! They really want me to kill someone! Holy fuck, I'm just outta high school!" I wasn't naive, I knew it was coming. It was just kinda fucked when it happened. It took 11 years, but I realized I'm too young to die for these old men. Tell you what, when they've got a good plan, got the good intel (you know...the real stuff they keep hidden for political reasons), gimme my rifle back and I'll go whack the fuckers and be home for dinner.

Snag

Forget about the thousand yard stare bullshit and all that other battle glammer blather baloney. At some point in an enlistment, virtually everybody experiences it. Their oh shit moment. It could be in the middle of the brightest brightass bright afternoon, sun chewing up everything and some, and you on your feet and awake by all conventional definitions of the word, and on patrol in the textbook shithole. It could be under fire, or you racked out and a thousand miles away from it all and the scariest thing around is Top with too much time on his hands and details galore. It could be in line at the chow hall, or hanging around at Finance cause your pay got fucked up again and now you've gotta walk the shit through yourself to get it set straight. You could be on your forty-fourth push-up or your seventh bottle or third tour or second ejaculation... and it'll hit you.

Oh shit. You are seriously and truly fucked, and there's nothing funny about any of it and all the decisions that dragged you here to this moment in time are sublime retardation, courtesy of the child you still were mere moments before, but you just grew up, now, here, in the moment, and suddenly none of it makes sense and there's not much you can do about it and mind changing isn't much appreciated or understood and how do you share something like that anyhow in the middle of a patrol, or a PT test, or a sex romp. So you tuck the head in and stay low and duck and weave and run, keep moving, biding your time. And you shoulda never in a million years joined. Ever. But here you are. In the middle of the shit. For real. Now try getting it all unfucked. Good luck. Yeah. Oh shit.

card trick

2005-11-28T06:39:00.000-08:00

Pick a card, any card.

short-timer no more

2005-11-21T05:34:00.000-08:00

Nuff said.

skating desert-thin ice

2005-11-13T21:48:00.000-08:00

This beaut by way of Diane over at an unfound door, and Diane sharing her own heartfelt tribute to veterans. Salute Diane. And thx for the luv.

Short-timers' Day, apropos, is best commemorated with nudity and obscenity and bowels full of liquor and flipping the Man the bird and if they don't get that, flash 'em the bottom of yur boots. The Man understands the boot. If only we did... I fear we're doomed to learn The Way of the Boot the hard way. What is the sound of one boot stomping?

If you want a picture of the future imagine a boot stomping on a human face... forever.

- George Orwell, 1984

how goes the war?

2005-11-09T10:57:00.000-08:00

The unknowing leading the unwilling doing the unnecessary for the undeserving.

- most every Joe-in-the-Know

please don't do this

2005-11-04T11:06:00.000-08:00

Dude dude DUDE you're posts are all gone?! Are you okay?! Is everything okay?! Are you in jail? Have you been arrested? Shot? Shanghaid? Tokyoed? 86ed? Done in? Done for? Chaptered out? Dude dude DUDE... what-the-FAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWK over?! You okay and all?

Whatever you do, don't do that.

Owing to ongoing logistical fucked-upness, keeping up with the Joneses and making the blog more hip and more phat and more with-it and adding visual and audio and tactile and servile and purile and juvenile content has proven... a real bitch. So shit's being simplified.

That's it. That's all. Simplify. Clearing out the old. In with the new. More vapid. More vacuous. More meaningless. More's the better, is what the word is. More more more of less less less.

fuckin' newbs

2005-11-01T03:58:00.000-08:00

Some newb was stumblin' along past when one-a-them munitions-type things sploded far off in the distance wounding the sand and earth and dirt and newb JUMPED out of his skin and cut loose with a good ol' ,"FUCK!" and I said, "Ain't that some shit?" and Newb said, "FUCK!" and I said, "I know man, I know... war... it's the real shit in'it?" and Newb said.... "FUCK!"

I would offer more substantial and meaningful insight into the matter, but on advice of counsel I've been advised to not do that. Just kidding.

fresh men

2005-10-29T12:02:00.000-07:00

's about the size of it.

hello dolly

2005-10-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

So they announced the reintroduction of PT shit...

I can scarcely believe it, but there I am in my PT nasties, dragging the ol' Ball-n-Chain along and for the first time thinkin' maybe if some-a-them Raqi tards would lob a few mortars over the wire just about now we could all safely run for cover and call this whole thing off. No such luck.

I see the sarge on my way to formation and I can't help myself and I gotta make an issue out of it. "What gives with the PT retardation sarge?"

"Back to the real army Barley."

"Real army? Real army was that shit we just done wrap up. Stompin' the peanuts outta those goat-lovin' asses back in the 13th century. What's the point-a-this?"

"Keep you fit to fight shitbird."

"Look, sarge, if it's all the same with you, I just rather sleep. You want me to get out there and run circles in the sand and jump up and down like a tard on a string so my cardiovascular is all good-n-shit, then twenty minutes later send me back out into the shooting gallery so some sadass can tattoo my balls to the back of my seat... is THAT the plan? Seriously though, is THAT the plan? Cause honestly, none of it makes any sense to me."

"The PT's for the off off chance that you and those miserable little peas you erroneously refer to as 'balls' make it back to live another day of being a shitbird, shitbird."

"How about this... I'll stay in and just rack out until whenever the next time we head out to do battle with the dumbfucks, OR, I'll do PT faithfully but never go out again, just to make sure the health improvements from all that physical exercise don't go to waste. Makes a lot more sense to me. Waddaya say? Huh sarge?"

He says nothing and ignores me and we join the platoon and he calls us to attention and we launch into it. Gepetto out front pulling our strings, shouting it out, and us flopping around like a bunch a tards, jumping around and kicking dirt and waiving arms and bending knees and flopping up and down like so many wooden puppets and counting along with the cadences. Mind switched off and body pliable as rubber. Thinking of that warm empty cot and missed sleep and much needed rest... and peace and quiet. Not here. Not here ever.

Back in Korea we'd do this shit drunk. Just to make it worth our time. For the entertainment value of it. We'd pop a couple-a-beers just before stumbling out to formation and slam those fuckers down hard and after twenty minutes of jumpin' and floppin' and waiving arms and all the other retarded crap we'd set out on our run and guys would start chuckin' the shit up... and keep on running. Sometimes one guy's upchucks would set off a whole chain reaction of upchucking. Good times... Then as soon as we got back to barracks we'd dive into our fridge and pop more beers. We drink more before 9 a.m. than most people do all month. Yeah. Slap that on your recruiting poster sarge.

Sometimes... I think the whole point of it is to just drive you batshit. I mean... if not that... what's the point?

I'm too short for this shit.

poof

2005-10-27T03:03:00.000-07:00

And it was gone.

ask a simple question

2005-10-25T01:45:00.000-07:00

So I says Sarge, Sarge I says... he said, no. I said, but but but... he said, no. I said, aw come oooooooooooooooooooooooon Sarge, what-the-FAWK over... he said... no.

the mother of all shoutouts

2005-10-22T00:12:00.000-07:00

Checking the ol' email yesterday nearly stumbled over myself and knocked the friggin' laptop to smithereens ending this little adventure decidedly prematurely.... the mother of all shoutouts from the godfather of Iraq war ranting... got an email from Colby Buzzell. In the digital flesh. He was going through a shitload of blogs and took the time to fire off that little note.

This rant wouldn't exist without Colby. From what I had heard, a milblog was something through which you could reenlist online. Colby exploded that shit. And in the process revolutionized the process of grumbling. So it means a lot to me to receive words of encouragment from him. I've never even had a chance to read the original blog that got yanked. Colby was forced to take it down after his chain of command got wind of his blog (note to self)... correction, wasn't forced, was--ever-so-kindly--advised to tap out a different beat. Colby got the last laugh though, and how. His book, My War: Killing Time in Iraq is out and in bookstores and available over at Amazon. A must read!

Speaking of shoutouts, wanna thank Ed, Barb, Mike, Charlie, Paul, Chuck, Rick, Snag, Robert, Sara, Diane, Alex, George, Gabe, Amanda, David, Nancy and Ex-PFC Wintergreen (hilarious email) for some of the most outrageous shoutouts. Wanna let you guys know, I'm framing this shit when I have the chance. For real! Check out the blogroll while you're at it. These guys are creating provocative, moving, powerful, hilarious, thoughtful stuff. If you can find the time, give it a read. I do. Btw, anyone interested in exchanging links, drop a line!

if only

2005-10-21T23:36:00.000-07:00

I don't even know what that means.

obsolete

2005-10-20T23:56:00.000-07:00

Don't ask.

who's on first

2005-10-19T22:46:00.000-07:00

More specifically... what the fuck?

almost normal

2005-10-15T16:09:00.000-07:00

Firin' up the ol' puter today I find a shitload of emails--four!--and more bloggers shouting out. Good shit! Snag over at DEprogramming Starter Kit actually devoted a page to the Short-Timer's Code of Conduct, and plastered that baby all over his page... awesome bro! Distribute and spread the word! FYI, the Short-Timer's Code was inspired by the official U.S. Armed Forces Code of Conduct, for all you mild-mannered individuals who've never been forced to do federal time. It's a parody and basically a reminder for us not to reenlist. Like we need remindin'. Or a picker-upper on down days. A promise. OR a really really good time during inspections cause you 'forgot' to strip it down from wherever-the-fuck you had it plastered and you find the colonel wrinkling his brow and hesitating whether to smile or chew your ass severely.

Robert over at The Un-Apologetic Atheist, and Sara over at No Accuser have devoted blog space to my rantings... Fools! Fools! One and all fools! I love you guys! Thanks for the kind words and takin' time out to drop a line. Means a lot to me. And Diane, over at A Stone, A Leaf, An Unfound Door..., thank you for your warm kind words. There is humanity out there... in a world gone mad... how do they do it? You're all blogrolled and linked, for what it's worth!

And I was readin' Get Your Ticket Now at Barb's blog and instantly did a mental inventory of my mp3's wondering how many of those on the list were on my hard drive at this very instant. Not to mention some other stuff at Barb's blog that I rather not go into, specifically that one picture on the blog there. Cause it's so uncanny, 's not even funny... actually, it's a total crack-up.

Oh, and Charlie, what I wanted to say was hell YES to Scotch on the Rocks and let's work out a payment method... I INSIST. The only way to support the arts is through supperting the arts... which btw, ahem, brings me to this. I urgh, have appropriated some of the shots off of your blog, cause what I would not give to be THERE right now. I couldn't make up my mind so I swiped all of 'em and shortly I'll revisit Toxteth, because it triggers memories of the ROK, and other beloved Molotov-hugging deathwishers and their love of Yankee-bashing, and fun nights kicking the shit out of them and sometimes them kicking the shit out of us... is why I think I keep dwelling on it I think. Aside from the fact it's just a plain ol' good fuckin' read. Thoughts of Woody Allen only trigger recollections of him shacking up with that adopted Korean daughter of his, something I've considered many a shitfaced night mind you... shacking up, but then there were mornings and oh shit I got fifteen minutes to get my drunken ass back to base before the oh-fuck-hundred PT formation. Maybe Woodster would have been better off imprisoned with the rest of us in the arhhhhhhmy. Course, then he'd be in the Raq too wouldn't he? There's something to aspire to. Woody Allen doin' the Raq... someone give Woodster a buz will ya. Maybe we can set something up.

out of order

2005-10-12T00:41:00.000-07:00

Out of order? This whole stinkin' BLOG'S OUT OF ORDER!!!!!!!

by special request

2005-10-10T03:40:00.000-07:00

...of the Grand Inquisitor of the Special Inquiry of the Inquest into Subversive and UnAmerican Activities and Utterances Unsupportive of Global Conquest and Conquerage... removed without further comment.

what becomes of the purple hearted

2005-10-08T11:56:00.000-07:00

They whither.

last laughs 'n whatnot

2005-10-05T11:06:00.000-07:00

Content removed after being deemed insensitive to ethnic minorities and some four-legged mammals. Maybe even goats.

wiggin' out

2005-09-30T23:25:00.000-07:00

Offensive and sexually explicit content removed.

head-chopping shit

2005-09-28T02:54:00.000-07:00

In the practice of past times, there were instances when the
head flew clean off. It is said that it is best to cut leaving
a little skin remaining so that it doesn't go off flying in
the direction of the verifying officials. However, at present
it is best to cut clean through.

- from Hagakure

truth

2005-09-24T18:32:00.000-07:00

Die Wahrheit wird nur
durch die Vereinigung
der Gegensa"tze erreicht.

- Okakura Kakuzo

word to the wise grasshopper

2005-09-20T03:50:00.000-07:00

It is said that becoming a dead man in one's daily living is
the following of the path of sincerity.

- from Hagakure

ode to sincerity

2005-09-17T05:13:00.000-07:00

'As everything in the world is but a sham,
Death is the only sincerity.'

- from Hagakure

...is all I ever do

2005-09-16T03:52:00.000-07:00

"To calm one's mind, one swallows his saliva. This is a secret
matter."

- from Hagakure

apply yourself young man

2005-09-13T16:12:00.000-07:00

It is said that even after one's head has been cut off, he can
still perform some function.

- from Hagakure

to sleep is best of all

2005-09-12T03:04:00.000-07:00

At first it is an oppressive thing to run until one is breathless. But it is an extraordinarily good feeling when one is standing around after the running. More than that, it is even better to sit down. More than that, it is even better to lie down. And more than that, to put down a pillow and sleep soundly is even better. A man's whole life should be like this.

-- Shida Kichinosuke

a word from the short one

2005-09-09T09:15:00.000-07:00

Received an email inquiry on the full text of the short-timer's Code of Conduct. The copy posted here is a scanned redacted copy for wider dissemination. You can access the document via the orginal 27 August post, the page banner, or any of the links.

Also... american short-timer, in association with the Air Mobility Command, is offering FREE one-way airfare to the wonderful sunny city of Baghdad to the lucky person who can guess which part of the code was redacted, and why. One submission per person. Contest is indefinitely open. Please contact american short-timer for further details. If winning contestant is already in Baghdad... well, you have my sympathies bro.

Oh, word of advice. I done googled the anwser, and google's got NOTHING on this one. You're gonna have to go old school guys.

That's it. I'm rackin' out.

who knows

2005-09-07T08:04:00.000-07:00

"No matter how much wisdom one possesses,
he will not be able to interpret my teachings,
since even I can not understand what I mean."

- Uyeshiba Morihei

gamble and lie

2005-09-05T04:30:00.000-07:00

"Go ahead and gamble and lie. A person who will not tell you
seven lies within a hundred yards is useless as a man."

- Yamamoto Jin'emon

sometimes things don't go the way we like...

2005-09-04T02:53:00.000-07:00

Matsudaira Izu no Kami said to Master Mizuno Kenmotsu, "You're such a useful person, it's a shame that you're so short."

Kenmotsu replied, "That's true. Sometimes things in this world don't go the way we would like. Now if I were to cut off your head and attach it to the bottom of my feet, I would be taller. But that's something that couldn't be done."

- from Hagakure

fuck power

2005-08-31T01:58:00.000-07:00

"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws."

– John Quincy Adams

the obit

2005-08-28T15:48:00.000-07:00

I regret I have but one life to give for the sake of decadence and indulgence and the pursuit of meaningless nothingness. I wish all of existence could be a pointless orgy of wasteful delight... alas...

short

2005-08-27T22:47:00.000-07:00

That's me.

code of conduct

2005-08-27T19:22:00.000-07:00

This was passed down to me by an ancient short-timer way back in the day just after I got to permanent party at my first unit.

For all the short-timers out there:

I am an American short-timer. I serve in the forces into which I so carelessly enlisted...

Learn it. Love it. Live it.

camp casey

2005-08-24T20:27:00.000-07:00

First thing that comes to mind when I think of Camp Casey is this blow job I got coming outta the gate at Casey one day. One of the girls I knew from the ville inTDC had wrapped herself around an alley corner, and beckoned me as I walked out the gate. She grabbed me by the hand and led me back to her hooch through a maze of stinking back alleys. In her room, she summarily shoved me onto her bed, threw herself on me and went to work. Even for Korea, this was a rather what-the-fuck-over experience. We didn't exchange a single word the whole time. When she was done, the tissues came out. I pulled my pants up, still a little in the zone. Parting was uncomplicated under the circumstances. I was about out the door and it started.

"Pay."

"WHAT?"

"Pay."

"PAY? For what?"

"Pay." There was insanity in her eyes and a threatening undertone in her voice. Maybe the insanity was in the eyes all along. I just chose not to see it. I didn't pay and there was violence and cursing and shoving and a laundry bucket full of water was thrown at me but I got out okay and I never heard about it again. Every now and then we'd cross paths in the ville and she'd give me one of those glares that you usually get walking around downtown Seoul. Whatever.

When I think of Camp Casey I think of drunken nights and whore mongering and dipshit clubs with heehaw names like Mojos and the Las Vegas and the Rendezvous. I remember TA50 Alley and getting stopped by angry MP's sure they had a bust because the place was notorious and totally off-limits to U.S. forces personnel, and I started screaming at them in German, really slurring it for the effect. Telling them I was a Russian and who-the-FUCK did they think they were demanding some ID and secretly glad these maroons weren't patrolling with KNP's.

When I think of Camp Casey I think of everything that was good and pleasurable and exciting and a release from the drudgery and dullery and routine of the Army. I only remember the total anarchy in the ville. I only remember losing myself completely. That's all that's worth remembering. So when somewhere in the background of soldiers mumbling to each other I overheard 'Camp Casey' I perked up right away and the memories tumbled out all at once. And then some confusion. They were muttering about the president, and fucking soccer moms, and something or other going on in Texas. Political shit. I rolled over and got back to chasing those Z's.

in-country briefing

2005-08-21T18:11:00.000-07:00

In the ROK, the Army schedules these briefings on venereal diseases for all the newbs arriving in-country. Seems cooties and crawlies and scabs and sores and drip-dick are a major problem around the Korean camp towns. Especially among the junior enlisted. Young, dumb, and full of it. The reason the Army cares so deeply about the state of our Joneses is cause apparently a drip-dick private cannot effectively defend the Republic of Korea from the northern hordes, lurking a million strong on the other side of the mountains. So young privates running around town sticking their dicks in anything with a wiggle is an accute problem to the Army's combat readiness. So we got these classes.

A medic prattles on about the horrors of the flesh, clicking away on a slide presentation behind him. Cauliflower dicks, oozing purple pustules from fuck-knows-what disease, swollen pockmarked vaginas, rhino nuts. Every horror of physical genital affliction unimaged to us. At first we're all grossed out. Flinching and grimacing like a bunch-a-retards. But as the mutilated genitalia protrude past us, the bravado kicks back in and pretty soon our mumbled commentary outgrosses the nastiest pubic-rot on-screen. The medic reels off numbers like it's the lotto... 30 percent of you will contract gonorrhea, 40 percent nongonoccal urethritis (looked it up). 90 percent will contract an STD before the end of their tour. He's not even finished with his little spiel or I know the rest of the crowd is thinking exactly what I'm thinking... everyone but me homes, everyone but me. If the rate were 99 percent, I'd be the lone holdout. I'd be that one percent guy. If it were even less, it'd be me. Get it? Hey, I'm nineteen. I walk on water. I FLOAT over the stuff. I'm invulnerable. Invincible. Can't touch this. Been there, done it and back again. Not tellin' me nothin' I don't know. Even if I didn't know it, I knew it. Cause you know what? Fuck it. Nineteen homes. Nineteen. Livin's gooood.

Stupid? Naive? Nineteen. Part of the reason the Army loves young minds. High on knowin' nothin' much. And pretty confident about it too.

I was at TMC a week after that briefing. Got the clap. Fucked up thing too... she was a super hottie.

There are no briefings like that before you head up north to the Raq. You know, like a neat little slide show presented by another bored medic. Injuries from improvised explosive device to the lower extremeties, resulting in complete loss of lower limbs. Close proximity concussive wound causing rupture and 4th degree burns of the cranial vault. Decapitation resulting from large caliber ballistic projectile. I'm sure we'd all be laughing it up. Look at those poor fuckers. Not me man, not me...

They don't give briefings of that nature at recruiting offices either. A little gut check. Ya'll came for the good shit, I know, I know. The free college money, the travel, the fantastic training, band-a-brothers type shit. There's just a brief little... thing I gotta show you before we get to the swearing in and other good stuff. Congress made me do it *chuckle chuckle*... 'full disclosure' bullshit.

Little good it would do. Most of 'em sitting there'd be nineteen years old. The vileness on screen would communicate nothing to them. They'd just giggle and squirm their way through the whole sad spectacle. A year later, it'd be their torn-off, burned, shredded, pulverized bodies on a slide-show for the next batch-a-fresh meat. And on it goes.