Moving

March 29, 2010
Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan
20:15

Random News: I have a strange urge to watch an early Akira Kurosawa film, one of the post war ones done in the 1940's.

We're done working now, and we're going to get sent out to a couple different areas in Afghanistan which are not surprisingly shittier than the place we're in now.

There's a group of people in the Marine Corps who think it's cool to go on convoys, and the security platoon invited LS Marines to go on convoys if we wanted to. One dude asked, "Milas, wanna go on a convoy?"

I immediately responded, "Hell no!"

"Milas isn't going? Figures," someone said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I turned around and almost slapped the dude in the face. Obviously, he hadn't stood in ten angel ramp ceremonies, a 21 year old man crying in formation while bodies are walked past.

Here's why I'm not going on a convoy unless I have to:

The last angel was a U.S. servicemember who became a double amputee after getting blown up. He bled heavily and suffered until he died shortly after.

The angel before that was a tripple amputee who also survived only to suffer for the rest of his short life.

The one before that was a guy in an MRAP turret. The driver somehow managed to roll the vehicle. The gunner on top had no time to tuck in or get pulled in. He was chopped in half. I watched as two caskets were loaded onto the plane for that one person weeks ago.

Convoys are not recreational experiences. They're seriously dangerous operations that should not be taken lightly. The only people who joke about them are those who haven't gone on them, or those who don't know the detailed results of explosions. Or, if they're just a plain immature freak, like most people in the USMC.

The good news is that I don't really care that I'm going to have to move. I'm going to be going with my Staff Sergeant, who personally said:

"Milas, you surprised me. You went from some guy at Mojave Viper who lots half his gear to the guy who runs the show when I leave."

"You've proved to a lot of people that you're ready for NCO leadership."

So I think I'll be in good hands. (I'll explain the Mojave Viper thing when I get to it in the other blog, probably not for a while though, so don't worry about it.)

Another thing on my mind is Final Fantasy III. That may sound random, but I've been playing this game for almost a year now...seriously. It's kicking my ass. The first two kind of felt like chores, but this one is insane. I made a goal about a year ago to play all of them through; it may take a lot longer than I want it to.

I'm reading a book called "The German Army on the Somme, 1914-1916" which is about what the title describes. I will follow that with "All the Kaiser's Men," "The Weimar Republic," and "What I Saw," which is a first hand account of life in the Weimar Republic.

If you're interested to know why I'm so interested in Germany between WWI and the 1920's, I'll explain it sometime.