A whole new world

and a few new thoughts. 

Here i sit in my room… …my room ha, that is a funny phrase to use when your room consists of a bathroom, a sink complete with mirror, a shower, 3 wall lockers, 3 secretaries, 3 beds and two roomates!  My room, maybe I should call it my communal room that is oft inspected by angry persons higher in rank then myself!  But I digress, no why did I get on this blog today?  Hmmm.. …good question.  I really had nothing of substance to say before I logged on, which is sad to say with so much going on in the world, forget the world right here in the great US of A!  We have the Republican convention and the official announcement of Sn. John Mccain as the presidential nominee for the republican party.  Who just so happened to name Sarah Palin as his running mate.  This should be huge on my mind, but it really is not.  Oooh Oooh, I know Russia vs. Georgia (no, not the state) that should be on my mind after all I am in the military.  But it is not, Russia will eventually bow to the will of the rest of the western powers so there is little to no threat there. 

So why the apathy?  The verbal lethargy? No idea.  I decided long ago that I wouldn’t allow my blog to be one of mindless drivel with the occasional injection of witty commentary.  No my blog is to be thought provoking, funny, charming, daring, in your face and capable of creating great controversy.  Okay so a quick recap of what has been written on this blog:

6 posts on fighting, 3 posts on military life, 3 posts on religion and 3 random category posts.  I am into fighting but really nothing that is peaking any ones interest (see comments or lack there of) , I am in the military and this seems to be a point of interest… …er to some.  religion, is a touchy subject, but I just haven’t done enough of my homework recently to really give it a good effort which is partly why only one of those posts is all on religion.  Enough about that, let me get into something of more substance. 

AHHH, now i remember why I got on here, I was driving today and I saw one of my favorite people of all time.  I don’t know him personally, that is to say that I have waved a few times, honked twice and said hello once.  But his dedication to his… …lifestyle should be applauded if not followed.  He is called the Jacksonville ninja.  The workoutis incredible(the first 30 seconds of this video are graphic in language, You might want to skip)! OH and did I mention his dance skills are beyond compare!

For the record he is one of the nicest people you will meet, always ready to smile and give a wave. 

I will write more, if you want some more phenomenal blogging check out my friends and there blogs.

p.s. if the videos do not work, just You tube “Jacksonville Ninja” or “Jacksonville’s Radio”

Last couple of weeks

I figured it was time for me to update you all on my life or at least the parts of it that I can.

For starters and most exciting to me, I am still with my amazing girlfriend.  She puts up with me and my absence as well as any could ask or hope for.  I only wish she could truly understand how much I appreciate that sacrifice.  Something that is not given as much thought these days is it should be is that it is the woman of the men serving (or in some cases the man of the woman serving) that truely sacrifice just as much if not more then the serviceman or woman.  In the spartan community it was the spartan woman that were held in such high esteem.  It was normal for a man to go to battle but for a mother or wife to watch as her son moves to that battle and then continue life as normal with a strong dignified face to help keep the younger woman steady, that is the sacrifice. 

Last week I got to do some training with the MV-22 Ospry.  Basically we were testing some of it’s insertion and exiltration abilities.  We did some spie rigging (highlight the links that I give and copy and paste them in order to actually see them- sorry still haven’t fixed that problem)

none of that is me, but I wanted you all to have a visual of what it is to spie rig.  Then we did something called helo casting  

Again not me but another visual.  it was a pretty good time except when the birds’ altimeter was showing that it was 15 ft from the water when it was actually 2 (keep in mind we had 3-4 ft swells that day!) 

It was an adventure and I hope to get to do it some more. 

This week as been somewhat slower, but I am sure the more exciting stuff will come.  What I can post and relay to you all I will! 

Out!

Todays Top Five

This does not mean that their will be a top five again tomorrow or the next day or ever, these were simply my thoughts on today.

1.  Chelle you have never made me prouder!!! For those that didn’t see her comment, “All you need to know is tito is a Douchbage.”  Great!!

2.  I realized something today this instant and by this instant I mean about 5 minutes ago but I was to busy talking to a friend to bother writing my new epiphany down.  Let us hope I remember the whole thing.  I was thinking about my life and wondering how it has changed.  Why I was thinking that I am unsure, but one thing I was sure of is that it had indeed changed.   Here is what I have compared 17 in high school to 24 in the Marine Corps:

17 in HS-  My friends and I were cool jr highers not so much

USMC Life-  My friends and I are cool and boots (new marines) are not

   And that is as far as I got!! I have found myself in the same situation I was when I was a JR in HS.  HAHA, funny

3.  I wanted to take this opportunity to show a better side of the Marine Corps.  Let me walk you through my day today. 

    0700 My alarm goes off I turn it off roll over and begin to lay there debating whether I should get up and eat morning chow.  This seems like an easy choice but that is because you haven’t received chow from this chow hall.  Eggs made to order which means you order them, they pour them out of a milk carton and you get whatever they felt like making.  Ask them for egg whites only and you get looks as if you just referenced their dear loved ones death or something.  Bacon that is saturated in grease so much so that they shake it out in order to give you the “driest” piece and french toast that is harder then your average NHL hockey puck! So you obviously see where the dilemma was, I did indeed go, and it was delightfully disgusting!  Then I sat in my room and waited. I was supposed to work on the next level of my martial arts program that the corps has, but no one showed up, to include the instructor.   At that point I got tired of waiting and decided to do some training of my own.  I began to play Grand Theft Auto IV.  Yeah, I beat it, what can I say.  I then went to lunch were I was offered an assortment of greasy foods along with a slender piece of chicken and some jello.  1300 I decided I should at least get a workout in, so I went with three of my buddies to the pool were we engaged in a  60 min workout.  It was great especially the cool down which was the four of us falling asleep in the lounge chairs around the outside of the pool in the sun.  At about 1500 we decided it was time to call it a day and went back to the barracks where we immediately let ourselves off work.  These are the days I love my job!

4.  I heard that when you joined the military you should always be ready to move.  Since I have been back in Virginia I have changed rooms 3 times, and had 3 different sets of roommates.  I thought they meant state to state, I was not under the impression that it was room to room.  Is there a certain quota that they are required to meet?  “you must have 17 moves each year in order to fully have full filled your commitment to the military.  (then in the fine print) must be atleast two doors down from your previous room)

 Hello Back Meagan.

The Military Life Pt. 1

As you might have seen one of my friends asked me what I thought of the military, and/or what it is really like.  Well, Bud, here you go:

As this blog will probably not be the last of it’s kind I will try to stick to a couple of topics.  Hurry up and wait can best describe what it is I do on a daily basis. 

DI: DOUBLE TIME (that means run)

Recruits: AH $h!t

DI: MARCH

which if you ask me sounds an awful lot like mush!  so we begin running as fast as the slowest man in the platoon we get to the classroom (which was a mere mile or so away) and STAND in front of our chairs for about an hour waiting for the Instructor to show up and teach his class. 

two years and some change later-

Plt Sgt: We are on your time now, marines.  We are wasting your time

We begin to hurriedly pack the truck only to find that the bus isn’t even scheduled for another 4 hrs.  But we will be damned if we cut things close like only 2 hrs of waiting. 

That right there is the down and dirty of what military life is like.  But I am sure the question pertained more to training so I will give you one of my favorite field exercises, err,  one that is most memorable to me.  It is about 5 degrees here in Quantico, Va.  there is roughly 3 inches of snow on the ground and we are asked to go on a patrol to look for Charlie… …who by the way has legally changed his name to Habib.  This patrol was to be a 36 hr patrol where we would find a place that we could defend from an attack from any direction now this sounds like an idea until the phrase, “Get hard or Die, Mother Expletive.” is uttered from our squad leader.  This seemingly innocent phrase actually says way more then what you see with your civilian eye it says, 1. sleep deprivation is cool 2. No warming layers allowed, 3. We are going to be digging into frozen ground in order to secure the FOB (Forward Operating Base). 4. Nothing you say will change my mind and yes I am insane.  Here is our packing list water (which is frozen), a poncho (for the weapons not yourself mind you), poncho liner (one per four man team- be advised these are 6′ by 6′ not big when the average height of your team is 6′1″ and weight is pushing 195 lbs per man.  Did I mention that this liner was less then 1/8 inch thick?  and the wind passed through it like a screen door!!).  Our weapons, my machine gun (44lbs later) and an e-tool (no that is not some kind of Internet thing, it is a shovel that can be folded in on itself so as to be compact.  Also a fantastic weapon of opportunity)  We throw all of this onto our backs via our day pack which is similar to the really cheap backpacks you used to get in elementary school only with camo and no pouches (useless if you ask me) and finally our flack and Kevlar this is a wonderful addition of 35lbs and that is dry (remember we are in snow).  Now we step off and hump (which is marine vernacular for walk at a rapid ) pace for about 6 clicks (or Kilometers) we do our comm checks and what do you know it is down!! (raise your hand if you are shocked).  We find a little hill that my squad leader in all his wisdom decides to climb (proper technique would dictate that you climb about half way up and circle bellow the crest so as not to “crest” yourself which is to show your position along the horizon.  But hey he is in charge “instant willingness obedience self reliance and team work, sir” has been beaten into us since T-1 of Boot Camp.  The notional enemy (remember Habib) now has a very good idea where we are so sleep will be less now.  We begin digging into the FROZEN CLAY!!  in order to fortify our position to begin patrolling out of.  We have dug to my ankles (not sure if you are familiar with fighting positions but they are to be to the armpits of the tallest man- which in our case is 6′5″) and have decided that we should lay in the prone as it is the more accurate fighting position.  We get settled in, a rough sketch of the area is drawn by each fighting position and returned to the PL (Patrol leader-or Squad Leader).  Now it is about 1800 (6pm) and we are tired and hungry and more importanly freezing.  This is how we warm up.  The person who is required to be away in each of the two man holes lays on top of the person that is allowed to get some sleep.  Every two hours or first hint of frostbite we rotate.  At this point I would like to say that “Habib” is being played by our higher (the people in charge) and there fore know exactly where we are.  Needless to say we were “attacked” all night whih made sleeping impossible, worse then that, after 36 hrs of this we are finally told to remove ourselves from this position and link back up with the rest of the platoon.  This is just a taste, there are some training ops that are pretty fun and you actually learn a ton of things.  But if I told all of them now, what would I have to tell you again in a later post.