Memoirs written in prose of Sergeant Robertson, Damon M. USMC while in Iraq | ...with frequent appearances of King Hammurabi.
If you are new to this journal, make sure to start reading in chronological order by scrolling down to the bottom of the oldest post in October 2004. Damon's letters from August 20th, 2004 - October 23rd, 2004 were all added to this blog on Oct. 23rd, 2004. All subsequent letters are posted in real time.
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Re: Hammurabi, USMC - DMR
The World According To Damon Conveniently Paraphrased Edition ... This morning I chuckled to myself as I applied shaving cream to my scruffy face. It's my least favorite tactile sensation I experience over here (injuries notwithstanding) because it's cold here when I wake up. The shaving cream is cold, too, and darn. I hate it. But I laugh because I realize that there are so many Marines out there who are *so* lucky and they don't even know it. I mean the "real" Marines, the grunts kicking down doors, the civil affairs guys who try to build political/economic/social infrastructures... the real dudes. They're lucky they don't have my 1st sgt. This man has secured insanity for himself. The other day he was raging and yelling and shaking and wide eyed like a ... I don't know like what. It was amazing to behold. The sheer lack of control, the manifest clarity that he has been promoted beyond his ability to do anything other than detract from the exemplary work of others... he is nothing but threats and punishment and paperwork. a "paper-mache Mephistopheles," whose white-washed exterior is only a finger-poke away from revealing the dry and lifeless dirt underneath. What if he was in charge of combat troops? They'd die listenting to him. Thank God he's out here with us, interfering with our job and not theirs. The world is a safer place with his incompetence contained here. ... There is a picture on the Al-Jazeera website of a CH-53 (USMC heavy transport helicopter) approaching a Marine, who stands in the fore-ground. It is on the site illustrating the recent crash of flight S***, in which all hands were lost. The picture is actually one taken of our Marines doing an HST (helo support something-or-other), a very routine mission. The helo is on approach to an external load it's going to pick up and Sgt. S.ierra is standing there waiting to hook it up. So much for "spin." ... I hurt my back this past week. Almost as bad as I did a year ago, when I couldn't walk my spine was so kanked. I went to the surgical company here to get checked out and I happened to get the one Navy "doctor" who preached to me about how chiropractics was a myth, like a religion or something, and that there was no merit to the concept of "spinal adjustment." "look, sir, I don't mean to argue with you on a philosophical level, but I went into Terry's office hardly able to stand up and I left walking. That made me a believer." "Oh," he said, "there isn't any argument. I'm prescribing you pain medication." Really. Because I'm the sort of person who medicates pain instead of trying to see the problem healed. Cute, doc. So this past week I took my SAPI plates out of my flack jacket because even the weight of the empty jacket pinches nerves in my spine. It's a sad day, given all the people I love in the world, when I keep thinking to myself over and over again how nice it would be to be home. So I could see my chiropractor. ... The phones/computers were down this past week as a heightened security prior to the elections, which so far as I know have gone without anywhere near as many casualties as expected. I ran into a Marine last night who came in from Al Hit (pronounced "heat," very appropriate) with a superficial wound. I guess indirect fire had struck a house next door to a polling station and he was the "lucky" one who took a small piece of it with him. Grace, mercy applenty. He said there were thousands of 7.62 AK-47 rounds flying at them all day and no one was hit. ... out of time Maybe it's the real test, to see how better-than-human we can stay when we're in constant pain. :D
# posted by chevas @ 2:42 PM 