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.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Re: Hammurabi, USMC - DMR
Dear Family and Friends: The JAG Major was all ears. He took notes. At the conclusion of our interview he muttered something about bringing in a Lt. Colonel to make sure that things don't get stifled at the battalion level. Overall me and my buddies (two others) were pleased that we actually managed to be articulate and not stumble over one another in our mutual frustration. "It says a lot about you guys coming here," the Major said. "It takes serious balls to do what you're doing." We felt good about that perspective. It's magically like that whenever I speak to a senior staff member or officer *from*another*unit*. They're encouraging. It's wierd to think there are Real Men who lead out there somewhere. ... "I feel like I'm taking Crazy Pills!!!!" --Mugatu, of "Zoolander" Rest assured the Department of Defense has issued several statements to the effect that long-term exposure to Crazy Pills results in medical conditions that can universally be healed with the passage of time. Generally it takes a Marine Reservist a few months back in what civilians (correctly) call the "real world," a distinction which baffles career Marines as they know nothing but the Corps. ... Crazy pill # ... oh who knows. So many of use lose the bottles issued to us we just end up borrowing eachother's anyway... Get this. Last night I hear that Lcpl A's original offender was being assigned to our shift, to work in the pax terminal RIGHT ALONG SIDE HER. Apparently the fact that an ongoing sexual harrassment investigation might complicate things never occurred to our staff. I had *just* walked the mile or so back from the JAG office upon hearing this, and sighed and said aloud to no one in particular: "Gee. I guess I'll go see the Major again tomorrow." Then the Sergeants of our shift got wind of the impending debacle and shook things up enough so the harrasser is on a different 12 hour shift than the harrassed. We have a joke in our unit, one we whisper behind the backs of senior sergeants who are taking on the properties of the next rank up, that of Staff Sgt (same rank as toothless). Once my mormon buddy asked aloud "So, when they get promoted do they have to s* their brains out their a**es or what?" Well... that may be. ... Darn me, I tried to do another good thing the other day. I have this Lance Corporal who is a real person and also one of the hardest workers (ergo finest Marines) I've ever had the fortune to lead. He should have gotten promoted the time our illustrious non-Mech Golden Boy did, but he wasn't the Major's buddy. This time I took several hours to write a three page recommendation that he be promoted meritoriously, citing specific examples. The best part is I didn't have to fudge the truth. He's ready for the authority and he deserves the honor. I offered this voluntarily, having heard another meritorious board was in motion. I tried to get a jump on things. Someone else is getting it. I don't know if anything I do gets heard by anyone up the chain of command. If it is, they don't care. Maybe I raise eyebrows. No. That's being optimistic, too optimistic probably. ... The other day the Major (our Major, the one who doesn't care about injustice among his ranks) made us wash our dusty short little retarded bus we ride to work in. (God had recently forbidden that anything belonging to our company be dusty in the desert, and we were horrified to hear of our transgression) So imagine this. We're outside with bottled water (precious commodity, remember, in the DESERT) washing the outside of the bus and scrubbing it with ... not sponges, but the one broken broom we have that's missing a lot of bristles. We're done soon enough, but only after three staff sgts have put their two critical cents in and sufficiently circus-ized (i.e. made like a circus) the excercise that should have been simple and bellowing-idiot-free. I'm looking characteristically downcast. My shift is over. I'm a Corporal in a Corps that I was once proud to be a part of, in a company that reeks of corruption, and for those of you who know me... that is everyone, right? ... you'll remember I don't intend to hide my feelings very often, and even when I try i'm still easily read. Anyone smarter would have known to just let me be. I'm working on my 14th hour for the day and I'm tired and cranky and demoralized beyond comparison... and I'm washing a bus in Iraq. Oh God the shame. If only my Great Grandfather could see me now (he fought in the trenches of WW1). "Good job, Corporal Robertson!" It's the Major. I turn. I am genuinely clueless: "With what, sir?" "The bus," he says. I turn. "Rodger that." I get on the bus and slowly become aware that there's this dull acheing knife in my chest and it really hurts and I don't know why. I talk to Super Marine, tell him what was said. "It hurts because that's all this whole deployment amounts to, dude," he says. Yay. Good Job. Wonderful little P.O.G.y washed a bus. Now take him to chow and send him to bed (voiciferously resenting him all the while for needing such pathetic mortal sustenance). The Major does genuinely wonder why moralle is so low. He's voiced his astonishment, and that was after he learned moralle was low in the first place. Yes, that's right, he's so out of touch that he doesn't know that the only reason we haven't stopped functioning altogether is because we really are Marines and the only reason our hearts really hurt is because we do, or did, Believe that meant something. Honestly, though, having seen him "in touch" with Lcpl A's investigation, i'm sorta glad he doesn't keep tabs on us. Maybe the inanely brutal yet utterly predictable rants of the 1st sgt are preferrable to a man who thinks he has what it takes. We see the 1st sgt for what he is; a paper mache demon stuffed with plastic party trinkets. We can handle that. We know it, after all, because we've lived too close. ... I volunteered for this? Please don't commit me to an asylum when I get back. This place messes me up so much precisely because I've done my best to keep my heart of justice and compassion intact. I figure I'll need it someday, and maybe, just maybe, will have bosses some day who prize it and don't see it as distinct and opposed from who they have made themselves to be. ... D
# posted by chevas @ 7:57 PM 