So the story continues....on to another land. So I left Ft, Jackson. My two Aunts and my brother came to visit me one last time and give me some family support as I sail the fair seas. I forget how long the flight lasted but we were able to take a pit stop in Ireland for 6 hours. One last time to let the alcohol influence my way of thinking for a year. {I think I might of made the decision to go to war while I was influenced.} When we got off the plane at 3 a.m. the flight attendants handed us a ten dollar voucher to spend at the bar in the terminal. Sweet, they're paying us to wait. Oh contraire, I get to the bar a order a drink, in which I selected a Scrumpy Jack, and the bartender tells me my voucher is no good here and the only thing I can get is a sandwich at the end. No thank you, I've been on a plane since San Diego, they've been feeding us every 3 hours, I want a drink Damnit! And I want this voucher to pay for it. Well of course I sucked it up, he had the Scrumpy Jack and I didn't. It's ok, I didn't become scrumpy after about 3 of them and I slept well on the plane.
We landed in Kuwait. My first thought of this place is that I felt like I was on the set of Star Wars were Luke Skywalker lived. Nothing but sand everywhere. In your face, in your eyes, in your ears, in your nostrils, and yes your mouth. Yummy!
There we had more training. Mostly, learning combat shooting techniques, convoy, and IED identification. They transferred us from a nice coushiony base into the middle of the desert, as if we weren't there already, with a couple of tents, some porta-potties, and MRE's. Meals-Ready-to-Eat. There were no showers, no sinks, no flushable toilets. Only the comfort of about a hundred or so strangers who we've had to come to trust pretty quickly in two weeks. We camped out for 3 days. One of those days was the 4 of July. I remember, I didn't have a barbque or fireworks. MRE and a flashlight, close enough. So I got my sober self to sleep on the floor of the tent with twenty other people. I've woken up from situations like this but usually because I was passed out drunk.
The training was tough, only because it's hot as hell and I'm suffering from jet-lag. You expect me to stay awake in a humvee with those conditions and the humming sound coming from the engine. Ambient doesn't have a strong enough dose to work faster.
After the practical training, we get back to the talk about lessons learned and kill us with more power point. Again they have to stress the Laws of War and Rules of Engagement. It's important, our leaders send us out here to fight their battle but if we are caught in a fire fight and don't act completely humane to such rational people, then we got to go through trial after trial to defend ourselves because we were ordered to go into Iraq, deal with a high stressed situation, just to have our lives on the line in the court of law. Not to mention that most of the troops on the front lines are just barely out of high school, not knowing what the real world is like and probably haven't really thought of what this job entails. They're doing it cause it pays better than Mcdonalds and you have the sense of comming out like a hero. Or you don't have the money to pay for college or healthcare. The government knows that and takes full advantage of the situation and lures in the crowd. Under all these conditions if you're caught making a mistake in a war zone, then you've got to deal with the Law possibly not having your back because American society doesn't like violence. I could go on and on about Law of War and Rules of Engagement and all the frustrations I feel daily with the way life is out here, but it gets boring reading about somebody crying about a situation they put themselves in. Yeah I put myself here. Why? Well I'm trying to make my way through life in an American society that loves captialism, making the rich richer by making the poor poorer. All I want is to live comfortably, get out of debt, save for a future and produce cool little people like me to make the world a better place. Plus drink beer on the beach in San Diego.
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2 comments:
I'm going to say more about this later, because I don't want to rush it, but what you have to say isn't boring. In fact, don't even worry if it is boring. Because you're there, if it makes you feel better, I want you to write it, and because it makes you feel better, I want to read it.
P.S. If you close your eyes and rub them really hard, that makes fireworks.
Would you have to go to multiple trials for one incident, or does "trial after trial" refer to incident after incident. That must be so frustrating. It seems like they want you to be two opposite things. It almost sounds like you have to fight and defend the same person. I know it's not exactly that, but just about. The soldiers that have been displayed in the media going through those trials seem like they are being used as a scapegoat.
I've heard more than one person speak about how there are many poor areas where a person's only way out is the military. That is where I'm moderately sympathetic when someone says, "I didn't sign up for this." More to the point, the government gives gross corporate welfare to this companies who are the only thing holding these towns together, only to have the company take those millions they saved (not paying their fair share of taxes) and move their entire company out of the country (because, how many millions is enough), ultimately leaving the town destitute.
So, as higher paying jobs are eliminated, and low-paying jobs are created, as well as jobs being outsourced, a endless resource of desperate workers is created to use as a politician pleases.
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