Grim Views

Month 1

It’s been 30 days since I left home. The first leg of my journey was from Portland, OR to San Diego, CA. Reason? Because the Navy wouldn’t get me a ticket from Portland to Norfolk, VA. So I had to fly to San Diego a day early. My wife’s friend Pam picked me up. She has an awesome fake rack and doesn’t mind me ogling as that is what she got them for. She’s cool.

The next day I was off to Norfolk. Upon my arrival I discovered they didn’t want me there until two days later even though my orders specifically said to be there that day. So I just hung out for a couple days taking in the grand sites of NAB Little Creek.

Finally I got to Norfolk and began processing. Being squared away, I had most my stuff done, so I just sat around reading a lot. I read Shogun in four days. I highly recommend it.

At the end of the week I got my 7 hour bus ride to Fort Jackson, SC. There I got more shots and an M16. Last gun I shot was an M14. A fine weapon actually.

For the last three weeks I’ve learned to shoot (sharpshooter) from a variety of positions as well as while running, clear a house of terrorists without shooting myself or my friends, climb out of an overturned hummer, sleep standing up, stomach Army food, put my boot on someone’s neck and butt-stroke terrorists. And no Felix it’s not what you think, stay out of the enlistment office.

My DI, SSgt. Hopper was awesome. A lot of energy and a great teacher. An interesting guy too. Has a degree in communications and as a civilian was/is a youth/guidance counselor for troubled teens. I enjoyed talking to him on a personal level, I wish we had more time for that. He had some unique insights.

I am done with my training here and we’re moving to a new location for more training. Where am I going next? I can’t tell you, because I’d have to kill you, but I’ll be offline for quite a while.

I have pics, but can’t access image hosting sites so I’ll post some when I can.

Out.

Month 2

This has been one long ass month. Maybe I’ll break this down to every two weeks. Maybe that will make time go by faster. I also have a lot on my mind. But today, I’ll only talk about two things.

First – Blogging
Vilmah asked me to make a blog. I told her I’d think about it. The next day, I saw a story in the Navy Times about bloggers in the military. And so I had something to think about. My opinion of blogs and bloggers is fairly low. A large reason for this is most take themselves too seriously although they only spew uneducated hateful crap. Much like I just did toward bloggers. Very few have legitimate opinions or credentials. Then of course there are all the people who leave messages as well. Internet blogs are a breeding place for hate, spite and general bafoonery. After reading the Navy Times article, I discovered my fellow service members aren’t much better. They made me quite angry.

One commented his blog had directly impacted regulations and improved quality of life. Sounds good on the surface, but we have a certain way of doing things. Circumventing the chain of command through the internet is not one of them. You may have seen the youtube video of a soldier took of some really shitty barracks. It was truly unsat (unsatisfactory). Beyond unsat really. His father put it on youtube. As bad as it was, I would have been horrified. My ex-wife once wrote the Secretary of Navy about something that was happening to me at one of my commands. And although the end result was good for me, I was appalled that she did so – even more so since I didn’t know about it until I was called before the man asking me about it. Another said he only talked about unclassified information. However, that doesn’t really mean anything. A very clear picture of secret information can come together by piecing unclassified information together from other sites. Have no doubts, there are teams of terrorists gleaning military blogs for information. Any blog really. They might even come across this little commentary by searching the net for key words. If your reading this Mr. Terrorist, fuck you, you’re time will come too.

To sum up, I don’t want to be just another jack ass with a blog. Even if I am talking about “somethingâ€

MONTH 3

That “Palestinianâ€

MONTH 4
Actually it’s more like month five. I’m a little behind. But I don’t have a little behind. I had something in mind for my month four rant, but I’ve put it off so long I have forgotten what it was going to be. The temperature has gone down here. It‘s a chilly 80 degrees. Seriously, it’s chilly. Never thought I would say that, but considering it’s actually 55 degrees lower now than when I first got here, that’s a pretty huge temperature change. Woot.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it
Today I was given an important mission. Find the donut shop. With the greatly detailed directions of, “Near the NEC (New Embassy Complex] somewhere down the road from the Freedom Chinese Food restaurant,â€