Shit house poetry

So writing inside port-a-johns and latrines has existed in the Army since the beginning of time, I'm pretty sure. Some stuff starts and carries across the planet (POST IS GAY, GILBERT PUMPS CATS, etc.), other stuff is localized. It happens. Dudes are bored and/or frustrated and writing on a plastic wall with a sharpie is a way for them to vent. It's harmless as far as I'm concerned - I've never seen anything extraordinarily offensive. Sometimes, you get told to take a can of spray paint and go coat the shitter walls - then people write over it, whatever. It's part of deployment life. Of course, if you have a slow OPTEMPO and a unit full of staff officers and NCOs with nothing better to do, then shit gets stupid. Really stupid. Posting guards 24/7 on every shitter on the FOB type stupid.

Until the person comes forward and admits to what they wrote - which no one knows because it was painted over immediately and also the shitter it happened in is not being disclosed, our unit has to guard every shitter on the FOB. A person will stand outside and log every person that goes in then go in after them, inspect the latrine fully for graffiti and log them out. I heard this and I laughed - haha April Fools, right? Nope. I can't help but think: what the fuck are we doing here? Why are we deployed if we just spend our time doing dumb shit like this? I thought group punishment ended after Basic Training but I guess not. You'd think that with over 50% of senior NCOs and officers being sent to separation boards soon in order to reduce the number of people in the Army, leaders would not do stuff like this, but then I guess you'd be thinking wrong.

This reminds me of that one time I was in Iraq where we stood in formation everyday for 30 minutes because someone wrote "Thanks for the breastmilk" on a care package full of suntan lotion that came from someone's well endowed mother. Ironically enough, nothing makes me want to write graffiti on the inside of a shitter more than being forced to spend my free time guarding said shitter against graffiti. Go figure.

Panjwai Killings

Well, it seems that the dirty laundry is out on SSG Robert Bales. DUI, hit and run, assault and supposedly investment fraud before he even enlisted are on his rap sheet. It doesn't surprise me - the Army and the military as a whole made a lot of concessions to fill slots when both Iraq and Afghanistan were going strong. Criminal? Morbidly obese?? Old? Stupid? Tattoos up to your eyeballs? Permanent profile? Come on in. We took anyone and everyone and it seems now that we're paying the price. I mean, look at this guy. Look at his chin strap. I saw this picture and immediately thought "wow, I'm glad that guy isn't my squad leader."

I can sympathize with SSG Bales a little bit - yeah, it sucks here. The pay is shit. But, welcome to the military. No one wants to be here anymore than the next guy on the line. Everyone needs more money - that's not an Army problem or an American problem, it's a human problem. But that's no excuse to not seek help, no matter how shitty your life is. We are constantly being evaluated by multiple offices about our level of combat stress - the chaplain is here, there's a combat stress clinic here, the behavioral health officer comes to the FOB. There are a hundred outlets for your problems. There are thousands of grants and loans and relief programs for people in his financial situation. Not utilizing them is foolish. Almost as foolish as walking off the FOB and massacring a village. Fry him and fry his command for deploying a dude that is so obviously burned out.

Shitbaggery

Just when we started rebuilding relationships following the Koran burnings (now known forever in the annals of history as the KBI or Koran Burning Incident), this fuckstick pulls this crybaby shit. When you read shit like this back in the States, you think "wow, what a shitbag." Then, when you're over here, and you KNOW that the fallout from this will likely cause harm to yourself or your friends, you think, "wow, what a fucking shitbag!"

A US soldier in Afghanistan has killed at least 16 civilians and wounded five after entering their homes in Kandahar province, senior local officials say.

He left his military base in the early hours of the morning and opened fire in at least two homes; women and children were among the dead.

Nato said it was investigating the "deeply regrettable incident".

Anti-US sentiment is already high in Afghanistan after US soldiers burnt copies of the Koran last month.

US officials have apologised repeatedly for the incident at a Nato base in Kabul, but they failed to quell a series of protests and attacks that killed at least 30 people and six US troops.

Local people have reportedly gathered near the base in Panjwai district to protest about Sunday's killings, and the US embassy is advising against travel to the area.

Lt Gen Adrian Bradshaw, deputy commander of Nato-led forces, said he was unable to "explain the motivation behind such callous acts", adding that "our thoughts and prayers are with those caught in this tragedy".

Douchebagistan

Haven't posted since I've got here. What a rugged, beautiful country filled with curious, hard-working people. Too bad the U.S. Army is here to shit all over it. The reduction in strength imposed by the President in order to adhere to the draw down has hamstrung our unit, just like it did to the unit we replaces and all units to come. It turns out sending half your people home makes you shorthanded. I would get back on a plane and go back to Iraq in a heartbeat. The days were long, it was hot as balls but we had a set schedule and a set rest cycle. I can count with my fingers the number of times I've slept through the night without being woken up to do some detail or another. I've pulled more 36 hour days (shift -> mission -> shift) than days I've got to sleep without being disturbed. I've been on the verge of calling IG or writing my congressmen pretty much everyday that I've been here. It's not just me either - it doesn't seem too intelligent to make a guy do two back to back shifts on tower guard but it happens daily. I understand we are short on people but that doesn't mean NCOs don't have to go to bat for their soldiers to shield them from the bullshit.

Gripes aside, things are well here. We saw some action in the wake of the Koran burning (thanks turds - you can never really understand the impact of some cunt burning a Koran or pissing on a body until you're actually in that country when it happens), but not too bad. Our mission OPTEMPO is actually ridiculously slow compared to the last deployment, we just have to cover down on the FORCEPRO and the chow hall guard unlike last time. One of the new guys called me a fobbit and told me proudly that he's been on 10 missions in 3 months so far. I laughed - in Iraq we did 90 in 3 months. As always, the busy gauge violently switches between watching paint dry and staying awake for 40 hours without sleeping. I miss going out everyday with the guys but at the same time our missions aren't anymore exciting than working in the TOC. Drive, sit in the turret while a KLE happens then drive back. I still get made fun of. I was thinking about changing the blog name to Fobbits Eat Ice Cream too.

Still around

Just finished our rotation at NTC. I'm not sure what the point of coming here was. Our brigade was cut approximately half due to the troop reduction (probably the first serious thing that has made me seethe with hatred over a Presidential decision) and will be broken off into individual task forces spread across Afghanistan. NTC only trains brigades. Brigade SOPs and brigade level training was conducted for 3 weeks yet in about 2 weeks, our brigade will dissolve and we will not work with them ever again. We learned nothing - we proved ourselves to be the best CoIST in the brigade and did nothing but utilize our company and BN SOPs. That being said, I witnessed some really terrible shit that makes me glad we will not be working with our own brigade soon enough. A no cell phone/outside communication policy that resulted in more than one soldier missing the chance to talk to a loved one before they died. A restriction on red cross messages to immediate family only to prevent them from leaving "the box" and pictures of pizza boxes in the brigade TOC while at the company level, we were usually restricted to MREs or sometimes nothing. Sometimes I am so excited and proud to be a member of the military and other times I am so disgusted that I regret ever joining. I suppose everyone in the military feels like this at one time or another, and that I am not extraordinarily unique in this thought process.

Well I'm off

Because the National Guard and the Army as a whole enjoy fucking soldiers out of money, we're doing two back to back AT's (2011 followed the next day by 2012) in order to not pay everyone BAH and the other entitlements we would normally receive on active orders for 6 weeks or so. Then we're off. I feel confident in the COIST team and I know we'll be able to perform whatever tasks the commander has for us. The largest part of our job is receiving intelligence and processing it to make it useful to the commander and higher headquarters. We're all college educated, anal retentive/borderline OCD neat freaks, so we fit well together. Not sure how the blog thing will work out this time. If anything, I'll keep a digital journal and then publish it all once we get back.

NYT Article

So I read this article today: http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/wanted-a-good-job-and-some-understanding/


Quite a good read. It makes me laugh too. The military and the government are always doing surveys and spending millions on how to fix veterans but they do not hesitate to keep troops away from their families for lengthy periods even when stateside. I ran the numbers and I was gone for training 1 day out of every 3 last year. This year has been even worse. Last year we had a month AT, two weeks off in between, a MUTA 12 (6 day drill), another 2 weeks off, another MUTA 12 then I was gone for 2 weeks for a school. I had two more weeks off, then was gone for a MUTA 4 (2 day drill) and a 7 day school. There has also been a disturbing trend towards having drills during the week instead of the weekend. Trying to get a job as a Guardsmen has been the hardest thing I've ever done. They ask for your drill schedule, see that you'll be gone at least one week a month, an entire month sometime in the summer and then either at the end of the year or early in the next, you'll be gone for an entire year. When you get back, you'll have a few months of nothing and then the cycle starts all over.

If I hear "we've filled the spot internally" one more time, I might get sick.