April 6, 2010
Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan
18:28
Today I was thinking about who the enemies are right now, or at least who my enemies are. I realized that I dislike my own command and leadership and feel more at odds with them than I do with the Taliban. Isn't that unfortunate? That's not something you would've expected a U.S. service member to say, is it? It's unfortunately a reality. The truth is, every day I spend here I feel less like an American fighting for his country and more like a fifth wheel that has no place in the world.
I had this idea a while back called Tan Belt Sergeant Major which I'm still interested in pursuing. It's a comical thing about the Marine Corps that's either going to be some kind of cartoonish episodic video thing or probably a comic series, though I'd rather make a video and use my own voice for all the character voices. It's be something like The Professor Brothers, and I'm not expecting anyone to know what that is. The idea being that one of the central characters is a Sergeant Major who only has a tan belt in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program. If you're not in the Marine Corps or associated with it, that might not sound as funny as I think it is.
The other Marine Corps related project I'm planning on is going to probably be called The Death of the United States Marine Corps and it will be a collection of probably around 15 short stories. I'll take the approach that Tim O'Brien took with The Things They Carried and use fiction, or fictional adaptation, to convey more truth than a nonfiction story would. Each story is going to be based on my own person experiences, hearsay, or something I've seen. The overall theme is the fact that the military (or at least the USMC) has totally lost the point of its existence, or has at least lost the point of what the U.S. taxpayer expects. It'll be an eye opener for those who don't know much about the military and how it operates in the rear, and probably some deployment situations.
Of course, the project I'm working on now, which I think I'm going to call One Way Glass (though I don't have a title for it), will be finished before I start the second project. If I can start work on a couple short scripts, probably about ten pages in length, I'd like to start the Sergeant Major one and have it be an ongoing thing.
What do you think?
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Friday, April 2, 2010
Convoy!
April 2, 2010
Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan
13:40
Three Days Ago:
My Staff Sergeant tells me I'm going on a convoy.
Two Days Ago:
I wake up at 03:00 after getting hardly any sleep. I have butterflies in my stomach; I was pretty nervous the night before and pretty much played my DS until the battery ran out to just get my mind off the convoy.
I get all my gear together, flak vest, helmet, gloves, eye protection, etc. With the other five or six guys from my platoon, I walk to the motor pool where the rest of the Motor T and Security platoons are headed. I feel like crap, hungry, tired. It's so typical to have to wake up this early for a big event in the Marine Corps. They can't just start them later...
I arrive at the motor pool around 0400 and wait around till 0500 when the brief kicks off in a small tent everyone is sitting in. The company 1stSgt goes over a power point pretty quickly, which I find irritating because I've never been on a convoy...ever. Not even in training. I was maybe on one, but it didn't really count because it was an admin movement and not actual convoy training.
I'm going to be an Assistant Driver (A Driver) in a seven ton flatbed truck with a bunch of boxes and cases strapped down on the back of it. It's vehicle number twenty-three (vic 23 for short).
After this brief, I get a folder called the "Smart Pad" with a couple sheets of classified information I'm supposed to keep track of. It lists some details about the convoy and has some maps. Usually the A Driver is responsible for communications, but the driver in my truck maintained the radio and did all the talking. Me telling him and the gunner "Sorry, guys. I have no idea what I'm doing, so if you could help me out that'd be awesome" probably lessened his faith in me using the radio. I pretty much ended up being "Keeper of the Smart Pad" for the entire convoy. Whenever they needed to see the papers they'd snap their fingers (because they didn't know my name) and they'd say "Hey, gimme the smart pad!" and I would hand it to them and continue reading the magazine I was reading.
The convoy begins to leave the motor pool around 0600. Our vehicle is 23, and is therefore in the back. The gunner's feet are right next to my head, in between me and the driver. That's if he's standing. Half the time he would sit with his feet resting on the edge of the hole in the cab's ceiling.
It took a while for everyone to actually leave Leatherneck and get "outside the wire." This is when I really notice that Afghanistan, or at least the southern part, is quite a wasteland. It's like an ocean of sand and gravel as far as the eye can see in some parts. And there are no roads. We only know where to go by following the tracks in front of us.
After about thirty minutes I realize that I'm way to tall to be sitting in this vehicle. My knees are constantly getting smashed against the dashboard, and there's a box in between my feet with MREs so I can't adjust to a comfortable position at all. I try several different positions and they're all worthless. I end up using some socks and shirts I brought with as a buffer between my knees and the dashboard.
The first few houses appear after about an hour and a half I'd say. I stop reading and look up to see the poppy fields scattered around. Surprisingly, they're vibrant colors are really pronounced, especially when they're sitting in the middle of a desert. I'm confused on how they get enough well water to irigate these fields. Some of them were so vast it looked just like The Wizard of Oz. And then on the other side of the road it'd be just gravel and sand.
The houses the locals live in are seriously made out of dirt. They are the most primitive living structures I've ever seen in person. It's hard to imagine living your life in one. Of course some are left in ruins, but some are well maintained.
For some reason, the vehicle with the Assistant Convoy Commander drives straight into a roll of C-Wire (kind of like barbed wire) and they have to stop while we wait. My vehicle and two others have to break off from the main convoy to go to a seperate place and unload. We take a trailer that has a large forklift on it to offload our truck with.
At some point the gunner says:
"Don't look up, I'm pissing!"
And I can hear a water bottle filling with liquid above. Later this bottle falls from the turret and lands on the platform next to my head.
"At least the lid wasn't off!" I call back up when the gunner apologizes.
"Heheh, that woulda sucked!" he answeres. Yes...yes it would have. Considering we weren't even a third of the way through the convoy, the last 60%+ being covered in piss would've been worse than it already was.
When we break off we are lead by two trucks with grunts (Infantry) who are escorting and providing security. Ironically, the time I found it most difficult to stay awake was when we had to stop and watch the grunts ahead sweep for IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) and they actually brought a dog out to assist them in finding any. This sounds pretty tense and I kept imagining one of the guys stepping on a mine.
Finally, we reach Marjeh, which you may have read about in the newspapers or seen on TV. Again, some of the vegetation and grass around here was inbelievably colorful and vibrant. The "huts" were a little more built up.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention the little kids and other civilians watching us. Some of them ran by the convoy, waving. Some blew kisses. Some hid around corners and watched from their hiding place. Some tried to approach the trucks when we were stopped. There was a kid who couldn't have been older than 9 trying to sell us a carton of cigarettes at one point. Wow.
The adults would ride around on these ghetto motorcycles and pass between the vehicles if we were stopped. Some would wait but others were more gutsy. They'd fit as many people as they could on these things, I saw three people squished onto one, and possibly for at one other point but I couldn't be sure.
At Marjeh, we stopped the 7-ton and the forklift unloaded us. I was relieved because after that (it took about an hour and a half) we left and I felt like we were on the home stretch, headed back to Leatherneck.
Wrong.
The truck pulling the trailer with the forklift on it had an issue. The last axle of the 6 wheel trailer bent and the wheels were just dragging at an angle. We stopped for about an hour as they fixed that, and then continued on, constantly having to stop and wait because of it.
Eventually, the piss bottle fell out of the turret again, but the gunner didn't notice and I just put it under my seat.
When the sun went down, that's when things really dragged.
"Where's everyone behind us?" the gunner asks.
"Huh?" the driver asks.
"Where's the convoy behind us?" the driver asks.
I look in the mirror to my right and notice that not a single set of headlights is behind is anymore. The driver flashes the headlights a few times to get the ghostly sets of red brake lights ahead of us to stop. They do eventually, and we wait for the vehicles behind to catch up. The convoy ahead of us begins to leave and the gunner wants us to wait. There was a period of about five minutes where we were sitting in pitch black. No vehicles to the front, none to the rear. We were totally alone in the desert. The headlights to the rear became visible and we continued.
This went on for the rest of the night. It took about 6 to 8 hours to get back to Leatherneck from Marjeh.
I didn't get mad until we could see the lights of Leatherneck ahead, and about 90 minutes after that we were pulling into the base. I don't know if we did circles around the base or what, but it was irritating.
When we got back I felt like crap.
Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan
13:40
Three Days Ago:
My Staff Sergeant tells me I'm going on a convoy.
Two Days Ago:
I wake up at 03:00 after getting hardly any sleep. I have butterflies in my stomach; I was pretty nervous the night before and pretty much played my DS until the battery ran out to just get my mind off the convoy.
I get all my gear together, flak vest, helmet, gloves, eye protection, etc. With the other five or six guys from my platoon, I walk to the motor pool where the rest of the Motor T and Security platoons are headed. I feel like crap, hungry, tired. It's so typical to have to wake up this early for a big event in the Marine Corps. They can't just start them later...
I arrive at the motor pool around 0400 and wait around till 0500 when the brief kicks off in a small tent everyone is sitting in. The company 1stSgt goes over a power point pretty quickly, which I find irritating because I've never been on a convoy...ever. Not even in training. I was maybe on one, but it didn't really count because it was an admin movement and not actual convoy training.
I'm going to be an Assistant Driver (A Driver) in a seven ton flatbed truck with a bunch of boxes and cases strapped down on the back of it. It's vehicle number twenty-three (vic 23 for short).
After this brief, I get a folder called the "Smart Pad" with a couple sheets of classified information I'm supposed to keep track of. It lists some details about the convoy and has some maps. Usually the A Driver is responsible for communications, but the driver in my truck maintained the radio and did all the talking. Me telling him and the gunner "Sorry, guys. I have no idea what I'm doing, so if you could help me out that'd be awesome" probably lessened his faith in me using the radio. I pretty much ended up being "Keeper of the Smart Pad" for the entire convoy. Whenever they needed to see the papers they'd snap their fingers (because they didn't know my name) and they'd say "Hey, gimme the smart pad!" and I would hand it to them and continue reading the magazine I was reading.
The convoy begins to leave the motor pool around 0600. Our vehicle is 23, and is therefore in the back. The gunner's feet are right next to my head, in between me and the driver. That's if he's standing. Half the time he would sit with his feet resting on the edge of the hole in the cab's ceiling.
It took a while for everyone to actually leave Leatherneck and get "outside the wire." This is when I really notice that Afghanistan, or at least the southern part, is quite a wasteland. It's like an ocean of sand and gravel as far as the eye can see in some parts. And there are no roads. We only know where to go by following the tracks in front of us.
After about thirty minutes I realize that I'm way to tall to be sitting in this vehicle. My knees are constantly getting smashed against the dashboard, and there's a box in between my feet with MREs so I can't adjust to a comfortable position at all. I try several different positions and they're all worthless. I end up using some socks and shirts I brought with as a buffer between my knees and the dashboard.
The first few houses appear after about an hour and a half I'd say. I stop reading and look up to see the poppy fields scattered around. Surprisingly, they're vibrant colors are really pronounced, especially when they're sitting in the middle of a desert. I'm confused on how they get enough well water to irigate these fields. Some of them were so vast it looked just like The Wizard of Oz. And then on the other side of the road it'd be just gravel and sand.
The houses the locals live in are seriously made out of dirt. They are the most primitive living structures I've ever seen in person. It's hard to imagine living your life in one. Of course some are left in ruins, but some are well maintained.
For some reason, the vehicle with the Assistant Convoy Commander drives straight into a roll of C-Wire (kind of like barbed wire) and they have to stop while we wait. My vehicle and two others have to break off from the main convoy to go to a seperate place and unload. We take a trailer that has a large forklift on it to offload our truck with.
At some point the gunner says:
"Don't look up, I'm pissing!"
And I can hear a water bottle filling with liquid above. Later this bottle falls from the turret and lands on the platform next to my head.
"At least the lid wasn't off!" I call back up when the gunner apologizes.
"Heheh, that woulda sucked!" he answeres. Yes...yes it would have. Considering we weren't even a third of the way through the convoy, the last 60%+ being covered in piss would've been worse than it already was.
When we break off we are lead by two trucks with grunts (Infantry) who are escorting and providing security. Ironically, the time I found it most difficult to stay awake was when we had to stop and watch the grunts ahead sweep for IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) and they actually brought a dog out to assist them in finding any. This sounds pretty tense and I kept imagining one of the guys stepping on a mine.
Finally, we reach Marjeh, which you may have read about in the newspapers or seen on TV. Again, some of the vegetation and grass around here was inbelievably colorful and vibrant. The "huts" were a little more built up.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention the little kids and other civilians watching us. Some of them ran by the convoy, waving. Some blew kisses. Some hid around corners and watched from their hiding place. Some tried to approach the trucks when we were stopped. There was a kid who couldn't have been older than 9 trying to sell us a carton of cigarettes at one point. Wow.
The adults would ride around on these ghetto motorcycles and pass between the vehicles if we were stopped. Some would wait but others were more gutsy. They'd fit as many people as they could on these things, I saw three people squished onto one, and possibly for at one other point but I couldn't be sure.
At Marjeh, we stopped the 7-ton and the forklift unloaded us. I was relieved because after that (it took about an hour and a half) we left and I felt like we were on the home stretch, headed back to Leatherneck.
Wrong.
The truck pulling the trailer with the forklift on it had an issue. The last axle of the 6 wheel trailer bent and the wheels were just dragging at an angle. We stopped for about an hour as they fixed that, and then continued on, constantly having to stop and wait because of it.
Eventually, the piss bottle fell out of the turret again, but the gunner didn't notice and I just put it under my seat.
When the sun went down, that's when things really dragged.
"Where's everyone behind us?" the gunner asks.
"Huh?" the driver asks.
"Where's the convoy behind us?" the driver asks.
I look in the mirror to my right and notice that not a single set of headlights is behind is anymore. The driver flashes the headlights a few times to get the ghostly sets of red brake lights ahead of us to stop. They do eventually, and we wait for the vehicles behind to catch up. The convoy ahead of us begins to leave and the gunner wants us to wait. There was a period of about five minutes where we were sitting in pitch black. No vehicles to the front, none to the rear. We were totally alone in the desert. The headlights to the rear became visible and we continued.
This went on for the rest of the night. It took about 6 to 8 hours to get back to Leatherneck from Marjeh.
I didn't get mad until we could see the lights of Leatherneck ahead, and about 90 minutes after that we were pulling into the base. I don't know if we did circles around the base or what, but it was irritating.
When we got back I felt like crap.
Monday, March 29, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
More Stupidity Part 4
March 26, 2010
Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan
02:13
Whoa, it's been a while. Sorry. I either haven't had much to say, or I've just been too exhausted after work to pour out my thoughts in these entries. I've always got limited time to write on this blog, so I'm always feeling pressured to write fast instead of good.
Anyway.
If you know me, you know I'm pretty laid back. I try to remain that way at all times and not get stressed out about things, or at least not show that I'm stressed out about something.
Today I reached my boiling point and exploded at someone. There was totally merrit in me yelling at the person, but it was just as surprising to me as it was to anyone else in the room. I'm getting more and more tired of people who don't take any responsibility for their mistakes. Seriously, like John Hammond from Jurassic Park, I don't blame for their mistakes, but I do either ask that they pay for them, apologize for them, or try and correct themselves. When someone has so many second chances to correct themself after making mistakes and still does not, I get pissed off. Tonight I got really pissed off.
Anyway, what else? I'm getting replaced already. My replacement has been working with me probably since just after my last blog post. He's got the job; I don't even need to be there. That either means the job's easy or I'm a good teacher.
I'm glad I'm leaving now though, I hate what the Bastion A/DACG is going to become. There are so many changes getting made for no reason and so many more high ranking people that are going to be around.
For the past month it has essentially just been me and three other people from my MOS running the place, not counting the forklift drivers. Since there were no NCOs around, my billet was pretty much the senior one, although I was basically delegating things that needed to happen instead of actually telling people what to do. Not that big of a deal.
I'm spent.
Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan
02:13
Whoa, it's been a while. Sorry. I either haven't had much to say, or I've just been too exhausted after work to pour out my thoughts in these entries. I've always got limited time to write on this blog, so I'm always feeling pressured to write fast instead of good.
Anyway.
If you know me, you know I'm pretty laid back. I try to remain that way at all times and not get stressed out about things, or at least not show that I'm stressed out about something.
Today I reached my boiling point and exploded at someone. There was totally merrit in me yelling at the person, but it was just as surprising to me as it was to anyone else in the room. I'm getting more and more tired of people who don't take any responsibility for their mistakes. Seriously, like John Hammond from Jurassic Park, I don't blame for their mistakes, but I do either ask that they pay for them, apologize for them, or try and correct themselves. When someone has so many second chances to correct themself after making mistakes and still does not, I get pissed off. Tonight I got really pissed off.
Anyway, what else? I'm getting replaced already. My replacement has been working with me probably since just after my last blog post. He's got the job; I don't even need to be there. That either means the job's easy or I'm a good teacher.
I'm glad I'm leaving now though, I hate what the Bastion A/DACG is going to become. There are so many changes getting made for no reason and so many more high ranking people that are going to be around.
For the past month it has essentially just been me and three other people from my MOS running the place, not counting the forklift drivers. Since there were no NCOs around, my billet was pretty much the senior one, although I was basically delegating things that needed to happen instead of actually telling people what to do. Not that big of a deal.
I'm spent.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Early Risers
March 14, 2010
Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan
01:28
The other day, after I'd been asleep since maybe 2:30 AM, the lights in the tent flipped on at 06:00. That's AM. That's too early. Not...enough...sleep...
People started walking around kicking all the LS Marines' cots and waking us up. "Morning cleanup!" or as Sgt. Ebonics says, "Get up, mownin' cleanup!"
I just stood next to my bed and waited for nothing to happen while the two brooms in the tent were divided between 116 people. And then I went back to sleep, it was pretty worthless. Another one of those really pointless/senseless/useless mornings that I keep finding myself experiencing. If it's not one thing with the other Marines in my tent, it's another. They don't understand our jobs, they don't care, and they don't want to understand or care. It's also PERFECT that the company 1st sgt and gunny are both former drill instructors and can't seem to leave the drill field behind.
When I went back to sleep finally I had one of the worst nightmares I've ever had. Usually I can take something from nightmares to use as story ideas, but this time, I was just really disturbed.
I'm standing in Camp Leatherneck, people are walking around as usual, nothing out of the ordinary. Suddenly, one of the alarms goes off. We all know what to do, but everyone's just looking at each other with that "is this for real" kind of thing that happens when people are in large crowds and they're waiting for one person to react so they can all follow the lead.
I hear a whistling in the air, like the sound of a bomb falling and think "oh shit, this is for real."
I see a three foot tall concrete barrier and dive behind it. You know those dreams where you try to run, but can't? I always have dreams where I try that or I try and punch someone but I can't get enough momentum and my fist doesn't do anything. Well, when I jump to take cover, I just hover in the air. I'm thinking "I'm going to die, or at least take shrapnel" and it's taking forever for me to hit the ground and get behind cover.
As I'm falling through the air, there's an explosion ahead as one of the mortar rounds hits a small shack and blows it to pieces. The sky turns black, filled with smoke and I finally hit the ground as another round hits somewhere else. When I get the courage to look up over the barrier I at first think everyone's fine and no one's hurt, but then I hear someone scream loudly. One of those really awful blood curdling screams that sends chills down your spine. And then I see a man ahead of me standing, clutching his neck. Blood starts to pour out from behind his hands and out of his mouth. He's been hit by shrapnel in the neck and now he's bleeding to death and someone is screaming at the top of their lungs and no one seems to know what to do because more rounds are landing in the distance.
And then I woke up, literally out of breath. I don't think I've ever had that reaction to a nightmare before. It was pretty awful.
In other news, remember the augment Marines I talked about a few blogs back? The ones that have different MOS's and got stuck helping us out because we were short handed?
Turns out I'm actually pretty attached to them now. One got sent away and another one got sent to the other shift, so now we're left with one. I actually miss the other two, they were good guys. I'm going to miss the guy we have now if we lose him when we move to the FOB in April. Oh well. They definitely surprised me though; they picked up our MOS faster than we are able to even with a 5 week MOS school. Good job fellas.
Peace.
Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan
01:28
The other day, after I'd been asleep since maybe 2:30 AM, the lights in the tent flipped on at 06:00. That's AM. That's too early. Not...enough...sleep...
People started walking around kicking all the LS Marines' cots and waking us up. "Morning cleanup!" or as Sgt. Ebonics says, "Get up, mownin' cleanup!"
I just stood next to my bed and waited for nothing to happen while the two brooms in the tent were divided between 116 people. And then I went back to sleep, it was pretty worthless. Another one of those really pointless/senseless/useless mornings that I keep finding myself experiencing. If it's not one thing with the other Marines in my tent, it's another. They don't understand our jobs, they don't care, and they don't want to understand or care. It's also PERFECT that the company 1st sgt and gunny are both former drill instructors and can't seem to leave the drill field behind.
When I went back to sleep finally I had one of the worst nightmares I've ever had. Usually I can take something from nightmares to use as story ideas, but this time, I was just really disturbed.
I'm standing in Camp Leatherneck, people are walking around as usual, nothing out of the ordinary. Suddenly, one of the alarms goes off. We all know what to do, but everyone's just looking at each other with that "is this for real" kind of thing that happens when people are in large crowds and they're waiting for one person to react so they can all follow the lead.
I hear a whistling in the air, like the sound of a bomb falling and think "oh shit, this is for real."
I see a three foot tall concrete barrier and dive behind it. You know those dreams where you try to run, but can't? I always have dreams where I try that or I try and punch someone but I can't get enough momentum and my fist doesn't do anything. Well, when I jump to take cover, I just hover in the air. I'm thinking "I'm going to die, or at least take shrapnel" and it's taking forever for me to hit the ground and get behind cover.
As I'm falling through the air, there's an explosion ahead as one of the mortar rounds hits a small shack and blows it to pieces. The sky turns black, filled with smoke and I finally hit the ground as another round hits somewhere else. When I get the courage to look up over the barrier I at first think everyone's fine and no one's hurt, but then I hear someone scream loudly. One of those really awful blood curdling screams that sends chills down your spine. And then I see a man ahead of me standing, clutching his neck. Blood starts to pour out from behind his hands and out of his mouth. He's been hit by shrapnel in the neck and now he's bleeding to death and someone is screaming at the top of their lungs and no one seems to know what to do because more rounds are landing in the distance.
And then I woke up, literally out of breath. I don't think I've ever had that reaction to a nightmare before. It was pretty awful.
In other news, remember the augment Marines I talked about a few blogs back? The ones that have different MOS's and got stuck helping us out because we were short handed?
Turns out I'm actually pretty attached to them now. One got sent away and another one got sent to the other shift, so now we're left with one. I actually miss the other two, they were good guys. I'm going to miss the guy we have now if we lose him when we move to the FOB in April. Oh well. They definitely surprised me though; they picked up our MOS faster than we are able to even with a 5 week MOS school. Good job fellas.
Peace.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
War Movies
March 7, 2010
Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan
01:55
I've been watching a lot of movies at work lately when there's down time, or just plain when no one's talking to me. I take off my headphones when someone walks in the door or when I hear something on the radio, so it takes me a lot longer to finish a movie than it would if I was un-interrupted.
I also started reading Twilight, but...ehem...that's a different blog post.
I was watching The Thin Red Line the other day, and I watched Flags of our Fathers today. They're really good examples of the kinds of war movies I enjoy and believe in. I rarely can accept a war movie that shows the winning side of the fight. I don't feel that's the correct way to make an anti-war film (which they all should be) and elicit a proper response. How can you really make a statement about war when the main characters come out on top and everything ends happily? That would suggest that "hey, it's alright to go to war, as long as you win!" and that doesn't really make sense.
The Thin Red Line and Flags of our Fathers show the "winning" side of WWII, but they really delve into the cost of victory in those two seperate instances. The Thin Red Line especially is a pretty downbeat movie, and Flags is as well, though it's a little more accessible.
I'm more interested in war movies that show the other side of the conflicts such as Downfall, Letters from Iwo Jima, Stalingrad, and even Gods and Generals since this country seems to classify the CSA as the "bad guys" of the war.
These movies make so much more sense to me, especially when the antagonists of the movies are people we've always known as the good guys in the past. I think it puts things into perspective better when characters are shown reacting to similar situations in similar ways, but they're on the opposing side of what we're used to viewing. All Quiet on the Western Front is a good example of this, as all actors are American with no foreign accents and they act very American, though they're wearing a different uniform and fighting the French.
This was just on my mind when I got off work, so I thought I'd mention it.
Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan
01:55
I've been watching a lot of movies at work lately when there's down time, or just plain when no one's talking to me. I take off my headphones when someone walks in the door or when I hear something on the radio, so it takes me a lot longer to finish a movie than it would if I was un-interrupted.
I also started reading Twilight, but...ehem...that's a different blog post.
I was watching The Thin Red Line the other day, and I watched Flags of our Fathers today. They're really good examples of the kinds of war movies I enjoy and believe in. I rarely can accept a war movie that shows the winning side of the fight. I don't feel that's the correct way to make an anti-war film (which they all should be) and elicit a proper response. How can you really make a statement about war when the main characters come out on top and everything ends happily? That would suggest that "hey, it's alright to go to war, as long as you win!" and that doesn't really make sense.
The Thin Red Line and Flags of our Fathers show the "winning" side of WWII, but they really delve into the cost of victory in those two seperate instances. The Thin Red Line especially is a pretty downbeat movie, and Flags is as well, though it's a little more accessible.
I'm more interested in war movies that show the other side of the conflicts such as Downfall, Letters from Iwo Jima, Stalingrad, and even Gods and Generals since this country seems to classify the CSA as the "bad guys" of the war.
These movies make so much more sense to me, especially when the antagonists of the movies are people we've always known as the good guys in the past. I think it puts things into perspective better when characters are shown reacting to similar situations in similar ways, but they're on the opposing side of what we're used to viewing. All Quiet on the Western Front is a good example of this, as all actors are American with no foreign accents and they act very American, though they're wearing a different uniform and fighting the French.
This was just on my mind when I got off work, so I thought I'd mention it.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Something Humorous
March 3, 2010
And his looks like this:
Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan
10:17
I thought I'd tell a funny story today, since, well...I woke up to one.
Let's call him...SSgt Albert. He's my company Gunnery Sergeant. Well, I woke up to him kicking my cot and saying "Milas..." "Milas..." and did I mention kicking my cot? It was pretty irritating. You see, SSgt Albert is an 18 year Staff Sergeant, and looks like he's about to die. He's one of the most incompetent Marines I've ever seen, if not THE most incompetent.
There were two Marines from my platoon that were supposed to be up at 06:00 to take a piss test, and apparently they were late, so for some reason this Staff NCO comes straight to my bed while I'm sleeping (not to my Corporal, why would he go to the guy in charge?) and asks me where they are.
Of all the people in my platoon that are asleep, he goes straight to me. He's notorious for being a little bitch and going straight to E-3s and below and not to NCOs or other Staff NCOs. He knows they have no respect for him, therefore, the only people he has total control over are junior enlisted. Weak titty milk...
Since my rank looks like this:
And his looks like this:
I kind of have to listen to him.
So, I sat up and looked at him, confused as hell, and he said:
"Where are Hill and Hoaglund?" in his old man voice, sounding like he's having a hard time making his toungue move in his mouth.
"Uh...there're not here..." I muttered, looking over at their empty cots. So, they probably went to take a piss test. Is that far fetched?
"They didn't show up this morning! Where are they?"
"Uh..."
"Well, I need you to get up and go find them..."
And since I'm an E-3 and he's an E-6, what can I say? The Corporal a few racks down woke up and looked over, but instead of actually doing something about the situation and asking why a company guns was interrogating one of his Marines, he rolled back over and went to sleep. Typical LS NCO.
"I don't care if you have to go out in PT gear...or whatever...they need to come find me. I don't care how many chow halls you have to go in...this'll go straight to the Sergeant Major if they're UA...do you think they'd be in the internet center...?"
"I don't know..." I answer, just sitting there. Seriously...this guy came straight to me. What the hell is his problem? He's had a problem with our platoon since Mojave Viper, but that's another blog entry.
I start getting dressed and another Staff Sergeant walks into the tent, asks SSgt Albert what's going on.
"These Marines didn't show up to the piss test...who're they with?" he turns and asks me.
"LS..." I say, almost a triuphant answer for him to hear.
"Do you guys have a logbook in here?"
"Yes."
He starts paging through it, doesn't find their names. "Well, they didn't sign out, figures..."
I finish getting dressed and as I'm walking out I hear him say something like:
"Well, take that book with you; shove it up their asses..." before he storms out.
I walk around Leatherneck for about five minutes before I see SSgt Albert walking towards me about 100 feet away, so I change directions and walk away. And just like I suspected, Hill and Hoaglund had been there and done that; they were sleeping when I got back to the tent. I wish I could make this story as funny to you as it is to me, but it's impossible for me to type the way this guy talks. If I ran on every word in a sentence together to make one super compound word, that might do it. He sounds like an old man who can't talk, and on top of that, he's a horrible leader with terrible judgement. He's been promoted five times in the length of time it'd take someone to become a First Sergeant, and he's been a drill instructor, so he should at least be an E-7. I'd just like to know where he went wrong in his past. Maybe I could understand him then.
Until that moment, I have to put up with his persistence in waking LS Marines up early.
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