Dear Family and Friends:

Attached is a picture taken of me outside of Al Qaim back in October. It was taken by Ssgt. Toothless just after I jumped out of the Humvee to provide perimiter security. I like it because I actually look like a real Marine(!).

:D

Dear Family and Friends:

Desert Storm

...

The clouds surround the base in a massive, black crescent, the storm like so many others seemingly skirting around us to pound the uninhabited sands of the wasteland.

Near our hooches there's this solitary, uneven and cracked slab of pavement that serves as a basketball court. The hoop has long ago been broken by would-be slam-dunkers. I have never seen anyone play there.

Our staff took us there yesterday to chew our butts for something that was completely beyond our control. One of the Marines got hurt in a convoy-- his vehicle flipped over when he swerved to avoid a civilian car as it recklessly cut him off. The next day he's back with us, but we're hearing words like "there will be no liberty anymore; none of you will drive anywhere... we don't want you getting hurt" etc.

Classic knee jerk, irrational reaction to something beyond our control. Sometimes I want to slap them silly and yell in their faces that if God wanted us dead the next mortar would hit us and then all their stupid, obfuscated, enraging rules and inconsistently enforced standards would be worth nothing more than a pile of... what's left of us.

But tonight I'm too crushed to slap anybody. I don't even find my habitual self-doubt in place. I've spent most of the day feeling the deep and ruinous frustration of this place, of these people. I've cried alone when I thought no one else was around.

The rain is already starting to patter the ground. Vast underground ant colonies pass under my feet as I make my way to the basketball court. The ants scatter at the falling water; they always seem to me like it's the first time they've been wet: their running is manic, their level of organization something I always misapprehend.

I lay down in the middle of the court. I don't even kneel first, or roll down. I just collapse there and the minor pain of the ungiving surface just isn't enough to register with me. It doesn't matter when my heart hurts so bad, when all I can think to say to God is "Jesus help..." inbetween flashes of a pain I don't understand.

I just lay there, repeating myself. I place my boonie cover over my forehead at first, then toss it aside and let the warm little droplets land and slide wherever they want. The drops of rain tickle my closed eyelids. My cammies get soaked, and even though I know that only means I'll be a humid mess later, I don't care. I don't care.

The spear-shafts of lightning are immense. They criss-cross insanely fast accross the length of the crescent before plunging down to smite the earth with their familiar, fearsome roar.

I'm gonna call one of my friends tonight. It's her birthday.

...

Later, still damp.

I wrangle a phone from the masses and I can't wait to implement my plan of many days. I'm going to sing happy birthday over the phone from Kuwait. Tone-deaf over the phone like anybody, and I'm going to do it. The first time I call the operator interrupts and cutts me off just as her voicemail sounds-- wherever this operator is, please miss, stop messing about-- and I have to hang up and dial again. Not a problem if I were in the first world, but I have to rout my calls now, dial obscure locations in the US and have them transfer me. Automated menus, operators paid minimum wage.

I sing to the voicemail. Tone deaf and suddenly self-conscious in a room full of rowdy players, I don't quit. I throw in a blessing and hang up, and sit so no one can see me.

...

On the slab the rain is kind. It is warm, like tears except they don't bring sadness with them, but delicate and profound strength. I have been kissed like this.

...

Real men won't quit when they know it counts.

I borrow Stan's phone card, since mine lost its mind. She picks up. I tell her I'm going to sing happy birthday to her but she giggles-- a little laugh slaps me with a smile even this far away-- and says she just listened to the message. I almost sing again anyway just to show her that no indignity is too base for me to undertake twice on her behalf, but there's other things to say. When phone cards and busy schedules conspire, time is precious.

"I don't turn 29 for another five or six minutes," she says.

I laugh. "Trying to hold on to 28 for all it's worth?"

"Not really. I didn't like 28."

Not like 28? I ask her what she means. Apparently she didn't like 27 either.

"Now hold on," I say. "Near the end of 27 we met, and I'd say that makes it a pretty good year by any stretch!" and I'm already laughing at myself. Already laughing.

I am a conspirator-- if it must be known-- and I conspired with a mutual friend to get her a present. Halfsies gets good when you're both buying for a friend you love enough to get them something that says "people who know my heart and love it bought me this." It's a necklace, not just any old piece, but scandalously beautiful. My favorite ninja picked it out herself.

"I'm going shopping soon to pick out an outfit that I can wear the necklace with," she says.

"oh...." and I'm always in a rush at the end when we talk. It's the exact opposite of being crushed by months of foul speech from ignorant men who hate your bravery and love of life. With calls like this there's an abundance I feel, something that wells up within me. A blessing. I only have a few seconds left and in keeping with my quirky outspoken-mindedness I'm counting down

"Five, four, three, two, and Jesus bless you today. Bye, J."

...

If only there was more rain. This place would be so green.

I wallow there, soaking wet. It's serious this prayer for help. It's all here-- me, that is. Pick through it. Sort by name or number. There's a lot here I see I'm not comfortable with. I can't change it. I need this help. I can't even imagine making a phone call today without this. There isn't anything abundant in me that's worth... I just don't know how to say it.

He doesn't leave me there. His rain, His crescent-shaped storm of darkness and skylit fire. He puts me together, gives me the only gift that really scandalizes, the only thing that's really beautiful enough to share, the one thing that cures the pain instead of just making it stop a while.

His love.

"Go call, son."

...

:D

Dear Family and Friends:

Something serious for once,

My wrist watch was stolen a few days ago. It's one of those fancy new models that stores information, and I had most of your phone numbers in it. It was sort of a portable/compact contact list.

Warning: If any of you receive calls telling you that I'm wounded, captured, or dead, these calls are FALSE. Even someone claiming to be part of the Department of Defense, no matter how credible their information, is lieing to you. The process by which family members are notified of a service member's adverse status does not include phone calls.

That being said, I'm very sorry if any of you receive 'prank' phone calls as a result of my failure to retain the watch.

love,

:D

The day has finally arrived,

Most of Alpha Co. is leaving late tonight. I'm left with my new favorite sergeant and a bunch of new guys.

Anyone know any cats with the last name "Tran"? I've managed to work with no fewer than four since my first activation two years ago. They're strange. I mean "something's disconnected up there" strange. One guy I knew was over here for OIF 1 and refused to put his gas mask on during all the bio/chem alerts the troops experienced just prior to the invasion. A couple months later he decided he was tired of carrying his rifle around and left it out there. Er, *somewhere*. It was eventually found by a Seal Team unit and shipped home.

In case this isn't apparent to some of you, Marines *are* actually married to their rifles. Unless it's in an armory, it's with you all the time. You even have to sleep with it inside your sleeping bag so no one can take it without "getting through you" first.

I've never seen anyone lose a rifle to an "enemy," even in practice combat ops where other Marines are playing the opposing forces. The only people who steal rifles are senior staff members, like our 1st Sgt, which means if I didn't like the guy before for all the grief he's piled on us, this little filching habbit of his hasn't helped.

Okay i'm not going to pretend to have anything witty or important to say.

God bless,

:D

Dear Family and Friends:

I've been a Marine for 1,620 days, 17 hours, and 36 minutes. I hope I remember what it was like for the first 1,095 days the rest of my life (before I made Corporal).

...

Today the Marines are being taken up to "the rock," a section of the base where there's a barber shop, post exchange, etc. They're all crammed in the bus that's waiting on the gravel road. I've just gotten done talking with the Sergeant I so politely tussled with last night. We exchange civil but meaningless discourse. I head towards the bus, needing a haircut myself.

I've been damp all day-- the rain here is nothing less than Champion grade these days. Even when I'm not out wallowing in it, it's hard to stay dry. If anyone had asked me at that moment whether I cared if I accidentally tripped and fell headlong into the mud, I might have shrugged indifferently. As it turns out (keep reading :) it was a good mood to be in.

Ever see Napoleon Dynamite? It's a movie you need to see. If you ever felt awkward and misunderstood ever, watch it. It's like seeing your most embarrassing moment over and over again. It hurts so good.

First, I Ieave the office and step into a puddle, foolishly thinking it's only a few inches deep. Turns out it's a small trench the Sea Bees had been digging and my left boot disappears in a gush of dirty water and mud.

"Tight," I whisper to myself.

Ahead of me are the HESCO barriers. HESCO is a Texan company that produces a very ingenious form of barrier for the military. It's comprised of a cube-shaped wire frame with a synthetic fiber lining. Fill it with sand and it becomes an oversized sand bag. If any of you could take a tour of bases over here you'd see these things lined up by the thousands in varying sizes. It's a very effective way to limit the explosive "kill" radius of indirect enemy fire.

There's an opening between the H. barriers just between me and the bus. In a moment of inspired leadership-- yes, i did actually decide this was a good idea in a split second-- I decide to run headlong at the barrier, smack into it, and in so doing reap a chuckle or two from the Lance Corporals on the bus. They're sitting there in the damp and stinky bus interior making their best Sardine impression. They need a laugh.

I'm running, my boots are slogging through the mud, and I hit the barrier at just the right angle to glance off it-- it's just this silly rifle I carry is a factor I hadn't allowed for. The carrying handle snags the barrier, the barrel and front sight assembly snap into the inside of my left knee ---oooouuch...--- and there I am.

Making out with the mud.

"ooohhhh..." I whine audibly. "DANGIT!!! I JUST CLEANED MY RIFLE YESTERDAY!!!"

I stand up. Peals of laughter are erupting from the bus. My rifle is stuccoed with mud, as am I.

I board the bus, standing there in front of two dozen smiling faces. I try to look like a cat that just fell out of a tree and pretends no one saw it happen. I yell in my best Drill Instructor voice

"I am an NCO-- Non-Commissioned Officer of Marines and I WILL NOT BE LAUGHED AT!!!"

They wail, they squeal, they writhe in their chairs. I see teeth and smiles from ear to ear. I grab the rank on my collar for emphasis and gesture like a true nincompoop. Their mirth is unquenchable.

"I didn't see it..." Chelsea complains. "Oh God I wish I'd seen it! How did it happen?!?!"

In the midst of the explanation provided by red-faced witnesses, I slam my rifle/stucco combo down on the floor.

"Reallllly?" I ask.

I walk off the bus. I walk back through the barriers, get a good ten yards away, about face in the mud and face the tinted windows of the bus.

"All you Nasties watching? I wouldn't want anyone to miss it! We good?"

A muffled chorus "yesssss" comes from the bus. I can see indistinct profiles from inside the tinted windows.

I run. I smack the barrier. I throw myself a bit further, end up rolling through the mud into a larger puddle. I jump up and board the bus, repeating my earlier tirade to the letter. The Navy bus driver is mortified. I drip wet sand unrepentantly.

Cackle, cackle, cackle :]

...

Later, at my new favorite watering hole (the Green Bean) an Air Force officer is sitting at the two tiny circular tables with a bunch of civilian contractors. I don't hear a single word they're saying. I'm too busy laughing with my buddies. Getting out of the bus, I smacked my head on the door frame. This was unintentional, just like the first fall, and we're having our fun.

"Excuse me, Marine," the officer interjects. "What's the red patch on your uniform for?"

"It signifies my Military Occupational Specialty designation as that of an In-Flight Missile Repair Technician, Sir."

This is total B.S. and I'm a bit confused in that instant as he doesn't even seem to have heard the preposterous words that just escaped my lips.

"Also, sir," I continue, "It's awarded to Marines who are qualified as Door Gunners on the Space Shuttle."

But he's trying to interrupt me and I don't catch what he's saying before I finish the last bogus explanation.

"Excuse me, sir?" I ask.

"Try again, Marine."

He hasn't smiled yet. What a dork.

"Actually, sir, it signifies us as the HIV-Positive platoon. It tells all the desert-hotties to stay away."

"Try again, Marine."

This guy isn't smiling. He's like a boring broken record. I'm holding my second mocha for the day-- my arm was twisted by my buddies and the Hadji behind the counter-- which signifies shots 4-6 for the day. I figuratively regard the first few ounces of chocolatey-beany goodness as "the party," the last few ounces as "Full Self-Destruction." I'm not in a place where I can respond to his perturbed inquiry.

"It signifies me as a Landing Support Specialist, Sir."

"Thank you, Marine," the officer says. I look at the civilians. They're smiling, even though he isn't, and I'm struck for a moment, in awe actually, of how large and dentally unsound their teeth seem.

"Sure, sir. You'd believe the most boring explanation."

I leave, instinctively watching the eave of the door as my head still hurts from my encounter with the bus. It's about six inches above my head and I'm not in danger. I'm giggling so furiously at my own expense that I almost trip on the stairs.

I hear the officer mutter an exasperated "ugh... MARINES..." as I leave.

Boo-hoo, Air Farce.

...

:D

Oh. I almost forgot. I'm in Kuwait now. I let that out in one of the last emails. It's like Iraq, except it doesn't smell bad, it rains, there's more coffee/internet/foofy things to do, and well, that's it. There's still a big flight line to run here. Oh, and there's no mortars or rockets falling in my general vicinity anymore. The phone system sucks, but I suppose trading good connections for less immanent danger is okay, right?

:]

Dear Family and Friends:

Damon "Napoleon Dynamite" Robertson, -or- How to Get in a Lot of Trouble in One Day

....

Start your day off tired. And I don't mean "I didn't sleep well last night." I mean "I'm fed up with this whole region of the world" kind of tired.

Go to the "office," get told by a loafer Sergeant that you're on watch today, which means you're sitting in the office staring at the paint as it fades. Watch him drive off on a "duty run" that's actually more fun than duty; i.e. an assignment you'll never get, and he'll always do himself. Sit there a while in the office, totally indolent, and sleep.

Get woken up by a Navy Chief who, instead of asking for help, intimates sideways via sarcasm that you'd better get off your worthless, lazy Marine a** and help him sink a flag pole into the ground. He doesn't actually ask for help-- remember this. The direct approach, even with swearing, would have worked for me. It's the "Criticize=Motivation" approach I'm pretty numb to, and especially from a Navy Squid who thinks that me and my Marines are his little *%@$#es

Take an honest moment. Look inside yourself. Find an amazing lack of concern for his plight. Sit there as one of your junior Marines, the one closest to the door, walks out to see what's up.

Endure the chief's second tirade a moment later. Still he never directly asks, never directly orders us to help-- even an order from a senior man outside of my chain of command I would have respected on any other Sunday. Not today.

I'm tired of his mouth. I stand up slowly, cold, not hot or angry. I stand in the doorway.

Now, if you want to get into trouble like me, offer the following in a casual, conversational tone:

"Hey, we've got a medical kit inside for any of you that are too butt-hurt to work today."

Then don't back down.

The way the story gets filtered to your chain of command will be something like this: "We kindly asked your Corporal for help and he responded with extreme beligerence. We just don't know what we did to set him off."

Oh God make it stop...

...

Later, when the loafer sergeant comes back, he sends you to clean your rifle. You choose to do so out in the rain because you'd rather do it there than in the office with him while he talks about banging a 20-year old air force chick. The picture of his wife and three daughters is sitting on his desk.

He tells me, after the rifle is clean, to go and fetch a Humvee. I ask him if I can go get a pizza while i'm out. He asks me if I'm going to get him any. I ask if he has money. He says no. I say No pizza. He says I can't go get it then, just the humvee.

This is the third time this week he's tried to extort food/coffee out of me, and the last two times I swallowed any dignity and gave in to his demands for Personal Servitude (this is something senior Marines can get court martialled for, mind you). He doesn't reimburse me for the expense. The "favor" of using a government vehicle is his part of the bargain. I should be thankful enough to get him something.

Go get the humvee. Get pizza while you're at it.

Come back and hear a lecture about disobeying a direct order. Acknowledge that you did it. It's true. Then tell him that providing him with food as a condition for permission to use a government vehicle constitutes personal servitude and that he's never reimbursed you before, and it's unacceptable. Listen to him tell you you're a nasty NCO, that you're only out for yourself, that you're a bad influence on the junior Marines, and that you need to square yourself away.

Stand up so the short man feels your height. Calmly tell him what he can go do with himself-- make sure to use words your mom would scold you for.

...

That's how to get in a lot of trouble in one day.

[Five minutes later my integrity makes me about-face in the mud, re-enter the office, stand at parade rest and repent of my indiscretion. Bottom line, other conditions aside, what I did was wrong. There's no excuses when I'm an E4 and he's and E5. Inexcusable behavior.]

:D

Dear Family and Friends:

There has been some miscommunication, so here's the skinny:

I hear some of you thought I was heading home this rotation: I guess all my talk of buying a jeep or whatever else made it sound like I was coming home soon. Someone even thought I'd made a sly reference to me coming home but please,

1) I'm anything but sly: "sly" takes too much energy!

2) It's more likely I'd just make a mistake-- something like Projection, where I want to be home so badly I start talking like I'm there. Remember the crazy pills? Yep.

On another note, my poor Mom actually got a phone call from my unit telling her I was on my way home. I assure you, as I have her, that my boots are still firmly planted in the sand. The volunteer network at home is probably operating off an unmodified roster of names and is not aware of who stays, who goes, etc.

As for what unit I will eventually be a part of, God only knows. The shuffle is so misinformed with my unit that there's talk of sending me to join up with the Marines in Kuwait (and I was disappointed at not being shot at in Iraq... I hear they have a Hard-Rock cafe down there and that they actually get to go to it :(

Sorry to disappoint any of you. As always, you have my love and service,

:D

Dear Family and Friends:

I ran another 13+ miles tonight. That brings my total up to 71 miles in 10 days. I think. At any rate it's more than Ive probably run in the last three years.

Let this be an indication of exactly how strange my experience continues to be here. I'm not sure there's anyone else in the theatre of war who has the opportunity to run like they're training for a marathon. For a lot of service members I imagine finding seven or so miles of looped roadway that's safe to run on isn't even something they anticipate.

Of course I stuffed myself at the chow hall to a point just shy of indolent pain. One thing about running that long is you get hungry while you're still running. At least I do.

We're all still safe. Thank you for your prayers.

:D

Dear Family and Friends:

"Putting the 'real' back in Surreality"

....

Hmm. In case you thought this place could get any wierder--

They installed a mobile-home type "can" here. You know, like the big containers they load onto the back of semis, like the ones that get offloaded from cargo ships in ports? Well, this one's white and smooth on the outside, very inoffensive to the Western Eye, and on the outside is written

(Behold the Majesty)

"THE GREEN BEAN."

A coffee store? Can this be?

I stepped inside and was immediately transported to another dimension. Japanese pop rock is playing on an overpowered stereo, but at a tasteful volume. The floor is actually real masonry: thin slices of gold/brown marble laid out like asymetrical tiles. The menus read like Peet's Coffee menus. The Hadjis behind the counter speak intelligible Engrish. It even smells like any coffee shop back in the states-- no mean feat given that this country smells like ... something... not quite like years of slowly rotting waste but... ewww... Anyway. This is surreal.

I look outside. Sure enough. Same sand, same blasted Mars-type landscape. I turn around. Espresso is available at inflated prices. I feel at home.

In the halls of my heart, classical music by quartet slowly crescendos. I order a triple shot mocha and prepare for the jitters. Oh the jitters!

...

I once told my brother, having watched enough Western movies to make this comment, that there really wasn't anything more surreal than a man, or anyone for that matter, alone and wandering in the desert. Clint Eastwood, The Duke, the unforgettable Mr. Fonda. Shoot. Even Jesus had his forty day fast alone in the wilderness of Judea.

I have a modification to that statement:

There's nothing more surreal than a man in an espresso cafe in the middle of freakin nowhere. Look on one side: you see the smelly wadi and the primordial reeds shifting uneasily in the wind. Look to the other and there isn't unadulterated nowhere, but big blingy white can with coffe inside.

Sure, there's fewer deep, satisfying spiritual parallels to be drawn, but dang. the feeling.

It's a wierd one.

:D

Dear Family and Friends:

A Correction, requested by Hammurabi himself: several times I referred to him as "Big H" in the last dialogue and he has reminded me that his time spent in LA's gansta rap empire has earned him the right to add numerous and meaningless Z's and L'z to his words. Therefore the name "Big H" should have been printed as

Big Hizzl.

...

Maybe something funny:

The Hadjis, being an industrious and skilled people, offer many services on military bases, one of the most popular being the stitching of unit patches. A unit artist gets together with his buddies, they come up with symbols, a picture perhaps, and certainly a few choice words to print on the patches, then they make a few dozen and everyone goes home with them.

Our unit patch, running at 10 bucks a pop, turned out unspeakably lame. As it somehow perversely mimicks our time spent in this company, it seems appropriate and I will keep it as a sort of "Quasimodo in the belltower." Horribly ugly, yet compelling to look at all the same.

Some of the best unit patches I've seen:

A picture of a Guinness pint with a red circle/slash through it with the words "Operation Enduring No Guinness" printed around the circular frame.

Another with Homer Simpson in the middle, raising his pint mug, a cheery smile on his lips. the top reads "TO ALCOHOL!" in bold stylized letters. Beneath the picture on the bottom of the frame appear the words "The cause and solution to all of life's problems!"

I thought about having a small one made, maybe 1 inch by 3 inches, with the three colors of the iraqi flag printed like an instrument guage-- black, white, green. A small tacometer would be slanted all the way to the black and the label at the top would read "Alpha Co. B.S. O-Meter." i.e. we've tanked ourselves...

Okay I relent,

:D

Dear Family and Friends:

"The Return of the King"

...

"Hammurabi, what on earth is that you're wearing?"

He looks himself over incredulously. His puffy, cotton-stuffed black jacket hangs to his knees. Mind you it's in the 80's today.

"What, man?"

"You look like Tupac, Hammurabi," I say flatly. "Nice Corn-rows, by the way."

There is a moment of silence. A camel spider, mutant-space-alien-looking camel spider, is skittering manically accross the tarmac. It is as large as the palm of my hand-- not the largest I've seen, but I can still count each of it's teeth from 5 yards away. I'd shoot it or stomp on it or run it over with a TRAM but I remember quickly what company of Marines I'm part of, and that makes me remember I'm expected to behave like a pacifist eunic with no stronger desire than that of self-preservation. The spider skitters on, unmolested by hostile fire, boot, or rubberized tire.

"If you must know," Big H begins, "I just got done working as Tupac's stunt double for "Fear and Respect," his new video game."

My right eyebrow cocks mechanically like the charging handle of an M-16. My mouth opens but words escape me in an unintelligible mumble.

Why not?

"Hammurabi," I begin. "First off, no one is going to recognize you without your telltale beard. The beard, man. It was classic."

And I am actually disappointed. I can no longer point to the 25,000 Dinar bill-- the new circulating Iraqi currency-- and say 'I know that dude' and then prove it by pointing at my imaginary friend. I have a lot of those bills, and I'm going to keep them in case the Iraqi government ever stabilizes and the value rises over time. It could be a nice investment. Either that or my grandkids will have lots of funny-money to play with. Sure enough, there Hammurabi is on the bill-- right next to Stan or whoever it is who's taking dictation-- the creating of his fabled "code" immortalized in print yet again.

"It had to go," he shrugs. "Tupac dug it, too, but it was no good for the close-ups. Skydiving, flipping cars, jumping through fiery explosions-- I was good for those. It was the drama scenes, and the love scenes, that clinched it."

"Love scenes!?!" I roar. "You body-doubled for Tupac? I didn't know you were that scrawny. And your eyes are nowhere near as buggy!"

"Movies are illusions, my friend," Hammurabi says.

"You mean games, right?" I ask.

"If you know what I meant, why'd you correct me?" he whines. "I hate it when you do that!"

He's a king, or at least he was. Now he's a video-game star, or some day could be depending on sales, and he whines. I understand, though. I hate being "filled in" for correction myself. I look down at the shadows cast by my own oil-stained boots and wonder why I did it at all.

"I missed you, man," I admit at last.

He sits on the oil drum next to me, sloughs the jacket. He doesn't worry about getting it greasy because he's immaterial. All the flash, none of the trash. It's a good way to be.

"You still got that stash of Vodka out here?" he asks.

"Yep," I say. "Wanna mosey on down to the helo pad?"

"Yep," he says.

We go. There, underneath the eave of the bunker, about two meters from the reinforced concrete wall, about six inches beneath the sand, there's a box full of Vodka. More than I'd ever drink by myself. I bought it from the Russians who fly in here once in a while. I'm a light weight, a cheap date, however you want to cut it. Hammurabi is not.

We dehydrate ourselves. Don't worry-- I'm off duty by then. Even when I'm on I don't do work these days. There's tons of replacements here who need the experience. I look at Big H, who looks back briefly. An old King, a young Corporal of Marines, sharing the rule of all we survey. We talk a while in the dusk about being replaced.

...

:D

Dear Family and Friends:

Two days ago I got the crazy idea to run further than I have in years. No imperatives allowed: no time limit, no pressure to maintain a pace. It was only important that I keep going until I met my goal. I figured once around the flight line was good, which by report was about 7.4 miles. I prayed a bit as I made my way through the first mile and said "Lord make this a continual act of praise to you," and He said "let's go." I ran the flight line once and as I neared the gate I'd started from I indulged this crazy idea I'd been harboring for the last 1.5 miles...

and did it again.

It was well after dark when I got back and I had missed the nightly meeting where our sergeant passes word (i.e. what classes we have tomorrow, how the staff plans to Screw You, Your Buddy, and Everyone You know, etc.). I got chewed on for that. I'm an NCO and shouldn't miss meetings... oh well. Is it me or do I get treated like an NCO only when I'm in trouble, and not when it comes time to assign tasks or authority (those get hoarded at higher ranks)?

[this isn't entirely true. I was told "make it happen" in regards to a flat TRAM tire, the kind that take O-rings and about five gallons of grease to seat and inflate. It took me and my Lance Corporals 6 hours to do, only to find the O-ring sold to us by the Hadji was too big and would explode--lethal i should add-- if aired up to capacity... exitement? Your guess is as good as mine, but I'd say "probably not.."]

Okay I was off subject--

I took out one of the Hummvees the next day and measured the route. It's not 7.4-- it's 6.6, making my grand total 13.2 miles in 1hour, 53minutes, 41seconds.

Maybe I'm not so doggone old after all, what with my problematic spine and lame ankle. Well, i'll be fair. I feel older than the hills today-- you know, the hills here that have been here so long they've eroded to useless sand. Legs hurt, back is stiff, and all that jazz.

OH WHO CARES I RAN MY FIRST HALF-MARATHON... almost by accident, too.

But let me say one more thing. This might actually be important.

Never underestimate the self-limiting power of negative thinking.

Before this run I would have never guessed in a year I'd be able to run that far. I had a sergeant who wanted to train up to it in two weeks, which seemed 'kamikaze' to me, but that night after he suggested it, I tried it, and I'm not dead yet.

What I'm getting at is I sell myself short. All the time. When I'm home, I run a few miles and berate myself for being bored-- A.D.D.?!-- and wanting to quit. Here, I use running to get away from all the mooks who make puppetry of my life and I've got to say, the brief freedom-- post meeting butt-chewing included-- is so worth it. Sometimes I run down near the waddi, over the old Iraqi bunkers and past all the blown up mig fighter jets and through the palm grove.

Better listening to these guys go on and on about 'not a whole lot,' I can tell you.

Alright. I will relent. Thank you all for your love and support!

:D

Joke in Post-Script: the bunkers in the middle east, including Iraq and Kuwait to my knowledge, were actually constructed by various European powers. I think Hungarians were responsible for Al Asad itself, and they did some nice work. Going inside the large bunkers you can see that the second 500lb bomb-- our planes drop two in rapid succession-- was needed to shatter the inner wall of reinforced concrete. The Hungarian models almost held out against 1,000lbs of munitions! Down in Kuwait we saw bunkers at Ali Al Saleem that had been ripped open like silly wet paper bags. These, we are told, were constructed by the French, who guaranteed their fortresses up to 800lb bombs-- guaranteed as in "we'll build the replacements for you for free if these fail." Alas, for the Kuwaitis there was one clause they should have had stricken from the contract: "guaranteed up to 800lbs *except* in cases where American munitions are utilized against aforementioned structures." Well, Saddam took the airfields in Kuwait in '91 and we blew them up shortly thereafter... and the French have stuck to their contract... the bunkers are holed and derelict to this day. No one insures against the American Menace? No one. :) This is your Marine smiling. :)