5 Years in the Army by the Numbers
As of June 2009 I will have been on Active Duty as an officer for 5 years here are a few of the stats.
5 years=60 months
______________
Deployed: 30 months (50%)
School: 11 months (18%)
Field: 7 months (12%) (preparing to deploy)
At home in garrison with unit: 12 months (20%) (preparing to deploy)
My career has been schoolhouse, prepare to deploy, deploy, schoolhouse, prepare to deploy, deploy, schoolhouse (July 2009)...
It's beginning to get monotonous.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
I need to go home...
You know what I don't need anymore of:
Shitting in a fucking coffin sized shitter with another guy less than 12 inches away from you.
Pissing in poorly designed Arab pisser that splashes the piss all over you.
Handsoap that smells no better than the latrine I just shit in.
Seeing contractor's making 2-3 times more money for doing less than I do and putting up with 1/3rd of the bullshit.
Rubbery chicken breast served everynight lukewarm for 455 days.
The TCNs with the shit-eating grins that don't understand when I say I don't want any fucking rotten ass tomatoes. I don't want any fucking rotten ass tomatoes.
Rotten fucking lettuce.
The same fucking food served every day like fucking clockwork, piss warm, with no flavor, and covered with an extra side misery as you think about the meals you could be having at home.
Desert. Sand. Sun. Heat. I don't want it anymore.
Spending 12 or more hours a day stuck in a cubicle, crammed in a fucking dusty, noisy, hot-ass tent staring at a computer screen not doing shit. Not accomplishing anything but making my bosses feel like they are actually important and have a critical mission, when they don't.
Taking on every stupid daunting task, that everyone has passed up by everyone before us, in an attempt by my bosses to get another bullet comment for their fucking evaluations.
Pretending like we are actually important, like we matter, because we don't.
The mental diarrhea that gives birth to the abortions of ideas and thought, and the lack of thinking that goes into all of them.
The hopeless feeling of marking another fucking day off the calendar to realize that the next day will be just as meaningless and empty as the one just finished.
To realize all of those black dashes across that calendar are days that I will never get back. Days, that have to turned to weeks, and months and now over a year that I have LOST and have disappeared, to me, my son, my wife, and my family. For What?!
And I've done it twice.
Shitting in a fucking coffin sized shitter with another guy less than 12 inches away from you.
Pissing in poorly designed Arab pisser that splashes the piss all over you.
Handsoap that smells no better than the latrine I just shit in.
Seeing contractor's making 2-3 times more money for doing less than I do and putting up with 1/3rd of the bullshit.
Rubbery chicken breast served everynight lukewarm for 455 days.
The TCNs with the shit-eating grins that don't understand when I say I don't want any fucking rotten ass tomatoes. I don't want any fucking rotten ass tomatoes.
Rotten fucking lettuce.
The same fucking food served every day like fucking clockwork, piss warm, with no flavor, and covered with an extra side misery as you think about the meals you could be having at home.
Desert. Sand. Sun. Heat. I don't want it anymore.
Spending 12 or more hours a day stuck in a cubicle, crammed in a fucking dusty, noisy, hot-ass tent staring at a computer screen not doing shit. Not accomplishing anything but making my bosses feel like they are actually important and have a critical mission, when they don't.
Taking on every stupid daunting task, that everyone has passed up by everyone before us, in an attempt by my bosses to get another bullet comment for their fucking evaluations.
Pretending like we are actually important, like we matter, because we don't.
The mental diarrhea that gives birth to the abortions of ideas and thought, and the lack of thinking that goes into all of them.
The hopeless feeling of marking another fucking day off the calendar to realize that the next day will be just as meaningless and empty as the one just finished.
To realize all of those black dashes across that calendar are days that I will never get back. Days, that have to turned to weeks, and months and now over a year that I have LOST and have disappeared, to me, my son, my wife, and my family. For What?!
And I've done it twice.
Friday, February 06, 2009
What the Fuck is there to Investigate?
HEADLINE: Army says suicides likely jumped last month
The number could surpass January combat deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan
That's the headline from MSNBC. Really? We're going to investigate why people are committing suicide in record numbers? Do we need an investigation? The investigation sounds like a bunch of CYOA beauracratic bullshit to me. Do the senior leaders care? I'm sure they do, I mean afterall they are human.
Let me save you the time and money: We're spending 3/4 of our lives in COMBAT ZONES conducting dangerous operations. Even if you're not directly in the combat zone and you get deployed there is still separation hardships, troubles and problems back home, etc.
Why are suicides spiking now? Because the largest group of people are beginning to come back from their 2nd 15 month deployments, including me. I'm still in the shit for a few more months but my wife and I have both spent 30 of the last 42 months deployed.
The unfortunate thing is that the damage is already done and there is no problem to be solved. These things can't be fixed. The officer divorce rate is around 60 percent. Spousal abuse is at an all time high. More and more soldiers are having to enroll in substance abuse programs. This is your Army of empire people. Those that aren't doing illicit substances or abusing the legal ones are getting prescriptions for mood altering medications to combat depression and PTSD. Welcome to the Army. Is it all of us? No. But it's enough to have us wondering what the hell is going to happen to the Army in the next 3-5 years.
There is nothing you can do to get that soldier's wife to come back because their relationship fell apart while he spent 3/4 of the last 5 years in the combat zone. What are you going to do? You can't give them that time back. You can't give soldiers back the 3 or more years they've missed of their children(s') lives. That time is gone. They are already guilt-stricken for missing that. And what did they miss it for. To go liberate a country that didn't want to be liberated. To free a bunch of people that just want to kill us. To go watch their fellow Soldiers get blown out of their fucking trucks and then burn to death.
Fuck you and your beauracratic CYOA bullshit. There's nothing you can do. The damage is done and as more of us return from our second EXTENDED deployment therewill be more suicides, divorces, spoual abuse, spousal homicide. We don't know how to live in that world anymore. Home is here in theater where we spend 3/4 of our time. Home station is just a place where we go to fucking train for the next deployment. Some of us have a hard time adjusting to that life. We can't be in crowded rooms, noisy places, or around loud bangs because our reaction to those things back there is not normal. When I hit the ground here that's the norm that's what you are supposed to do. My behavior has been modified for the combat zone, and just as I start to adjust, guess what, I'm back on a plane bound for this shithole again.
We now have to deal with the conflict of not wanting to stay here but not wanting to be home. Sounds a bit crazy doesn't it. That's because it is. It's crazy to spend 3/4 of your life over the course of 4years in a combat zone.
My son is nearly 4 years old and my wife and I have spent 18 months of his life with him. How do you solve that problem? How do you give me that time back? Bottom line is, you can't.
The number could surpass January combat deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan
That's the headline from MSNBC. Really? We're going to investigate why people are committing suicide in record numbers? Do we need an investigation? The investigation sounds like a bunch of CYOA beauracratic bullshit to me. Do the senior leaders care? I'm sure they do, I mean afterall they are human.
Let me save you the time and money: We're spending 3/4 of our lives in COMBAT ZONES conducting dangerous operations. Even if you're not directly in the combat zone and you get deployed there is still separation hardships, troubles and problems back home, etc.
Why are suicides spiking now? Because the largest group of people are beginning to come back from their 2nd 15 month deployments, including me. I'm still in the shit for a few more months but my wife and I have both spent 30 of the last 42 months deployed.
The unfortunate thing is that the damage is already done and there is no problem to be solved. These things can't be fixed. The officer divorce rate is around 60 percent. Spousal abuse is at an all time high. More and more soldiers are having to enroll in substance abuse programs. This is your Army of empire people. Those that aren't doing illicit substances or abusing the legal ones are getting prescriptions for mood altering medications to combat depression and PTSD. Welcome to the Army. Is it all of us? No. But it's enough to have us wondering what the hell is going to happen to the Army in the next 3-5 years.
There is nothing you can do to get that soldier's wife to come back because their relationship fell apart while he spent 3/4 of the last 5 years in the combat zone. What are you going to do? You can't give them that time back. You can't give soldiers back the 3 or more years they've missed of their children(s') lives. That time is gone. They are already guilt-stricken for missing that. And what did they miss it for. To go liberate a country that didn't want to be liberated. To free a bunch of people that just want to kill us. To go watch their fellow Soldiers get blown out of their fucking trucks and then burn to death.
Fuck you and your beauracratic CYOA bullshit. There's nothing you can do. The damage is done and as more of us return from our second EXTENDED deployment therewill be more suicides, divorces, spoual abuse, spousal homicide. We don't know how to live in that world anymore. Home is here in theater where we spend 3/4 of our time. Home station is just a place where we go to fucking train for the next deployment. Some of us have a hard time adjusting to that life. We can't be in crowded rooms, noisy places, or around loud bangs because our reaction to those things back there is not normal. When I hit the ground here that's the norm that's what you are supposed to do. My behavior has been modified for the combat zone, and just as I start to adjust, guess what, I'm back on a plane bound for this shithole again.
We now have to deal with the conflict of not wanting to stay here but not wanting to be home. Sounds a bit crazy doesn't it. That's because it is. It's crazy to spend 3/4 of your life over the course of 4years in a combat zone.
My son is nearly 4 years old and my wife and I have spent 18 months of his life with him. How do you solve that problem? How do you give me that time back? Bottom line is, you can't.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Turning a Blind Eye
How long will the US turn a blind eye to the Israeli holocaust of the indigenous people of Gaza?
So far, Israel has destroyed two UN buildings and two hospital, both of which are WAR CRIMES and prosecutable under the Geneva and Hague Conventions. The Jews have blockaded the Gaza area and have prevented all access to services and supplies. The Israelis, as the aggressor, again under international law have an OBLIGATION to ensure the safety of all non-combatants, and all civilian facilities to include mosques, schools, water treatment, and hospitals. When engaged from these structures there is an inherent responsibility to ensure that positive identification (PID) of aggressor is made and equal or limited force is used to only eliminate that immediate threat. In other words destroying a UN building because guys fired rockets from next to it, is an extreme use of force and would get commander's relieved from the US military in Iraq. I guess Israel doesnt hold its leaders and soldiers to the same proffessional standards and conduct.
Of course, why would we expect the Israelis to follow the rules now, when they have US looking over their shoulder? And what an example we set by constantly bombing the hell out of villages all over Afghanistan. So, I guess we, as the US, are out of tolerance of the same rules.
Two more soldiers killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan today.
It's time to finish that war once and for all. Afghanistan is the Korean War of my generation and I have no hope for it to end any differently.
Israel would be good to heed the warning of Edgar Watson Howe, "Abuse a man unjustly, and you will make friends for him."
So far, Israel has destroyed two UN buildings and two hospital, both of which are WAR CRIMES and prosecutable under the Geneva and Hague Conventions. The Jews have blockaded the Gaza area and have prevented all access to services and supplies. The Israelis, as the aggressor, again under international law have an OBLIGATION to ensure the safety of all non-combatants, and all civilian facilities to include mosques, schools, water treatment, and hospitals. When engaged from these structures there is an inherent responsibility to ensure that positive identification (PID) of aggressor is made and equal or limited force is used to only eliminate that immediate threat. In other words destroying a UN building because guys fired rockets from next to it, is an extreme use of force and would get commander's relieved from the US military in Iraq. I guess Israel doesnt hold its leaders and soldiers to the same proffessional standards and conduct.
Of course, why would we expect the Israelis to follow the rules now, when they have US looking over their shoulder? And what an example we set by constantly bombing the hell out of villages all over Afghanistan. So, I guess we, as the US, are out of tolerance of the same rules.
Two more soldiers killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan today.
It's time to finish that war once and for all. Afghanistan is the Korean War of my generation and I have no hope for it to end any differently.
Israel would be good to heed the warning of Edgar Watson Howe, "Abuse a man unjustly, and you will make friends for him."
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
The Shock Doctrine is in full Effect
It seems with this corporate bailout we are heading towards a sort of national socialism. Hmm, that term sounds quite familiar. The Shock Doctrine as coined by Naomi Klein has passed all 10 steps for the institution of a Fascistic government. Congratulations, President Bush was able to do what his grandfather couldn't with a coup in 1938 with a bunch of his corporate buddies...install a fascist government in the United States.
It was brilliantly played with the Reichstag fire on 9-11-01 and the depressed economy right on its heels, there's no way people would feel comfortable enough to govern themselves. Let us give all of our rights and money to the government so they'll protect us from their friends, the assassins of Arabia and Wall Street.
It was brilliantly played with the Reichstag fire on 9-11-01 and the depressed economy right on its heels, there's no way people would feel comfortable enough to govern themselves. Let us give all of our rights and money to the government so they'll protect us from their friends, the assassins of Arabia and Wall Street.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
We are a nation of men not laws
Of course I use the term "men" metaphorically because I am talking about Sarah and Todd Palins' Chenian legal maneuver. Wherein they fell they are above the lawa and can usurp a subpoena because they can be judge of what is important and what isn't when it comes to the people's business. Let's reverse the tables, what holy hell would be raised if Obama or Biden ignored a government issued subpoena, because they didn't agree with the substance of the subpoena, or the politics behind it? I don't thin we would ever hear the end of it. This only goes to show that Palin/McCain=Cheney/Bush. An administration filled with people who assume themselves to be above the laws of the nation. People who look down on government and only enjoy government enough to run for political office, not follow the rules, get government earmarks, and socialize corporate losses.
Kill Switch Engaged
Some call it PTSD I call it the kill switch and once it is engaged it's hard to flip off. It's becoming more apparent as we've had two cases of "fragging" in recent months in Iraq. One such case just took the lives of two NCOs in Iraq a few days ago. VETVOICE Has the Story and comments.
Some call it PTSD I call it the kill switch and once it is engaged it's hard to flip off.
It's becoming more apparent as we've had two cases of "fragging" in recent months in Iraq. One such case just took the lives of two NCOs in Iraq a few days ago.
I don't know if you've ever been in a situation where your life is in someway in danger. Such as being held up outside the grocery store, or even in a car accident, when your heart races, and your adrenaline is pumping. Now, imagine having that feeling day in and day out for 15 months with a 12 month, or less break, then back for 15 months more. It's an act of self-preservation where everything is suspect, and capable of taking your life. Is there a bomb in that trash pile? That kid could be carrying a grenade. That rooftop looks like a good spot for a sniper. When you are transported to a world where danger lurks in every corner, trash pile, and person you have to engage your senses to the point of hypersensitivity. You have to be ready to raise your weapon and kill at a moments notice. Your kill-switch must be engaged. You can operate with this hypersensitivity and lack of sensitivity to killing for a period of time and then come back. These timelines vary depending upon the person and the amount of combat they are engaged in.
In urban warefare this timeline shrinks due to the danger that is everywhere in everything. It's a multiplied hypersesitivity or hyperalertness that grows to a point where it can't be turned off. Then there is the desensitization that develops due to having to shoot or kill on a daily basis. That is why we practice firing with our rifles so much. It's not to make you a better marksman, it's to desensitize you to pulling the trigger. How many times do you have to shoot a person before you become completely desensitized to killing anyone, at all, that poses a threat to you? Anyone, such as your squad leader, who threatens your military career by correcting your performance. What's the number 2,3, 10 times? It's different for every person.
When these two forces of hyperalertness and desensitization merge I call it the "kill-switch." You are in a state of mind where killing is the reaction to anything seen as any sort of threat to you. Where your immediate reaction to anything is to literally raise your weapon and shoot. You can engage the kill-switch for short periods of time then disengage. But there is so much power surging to the switch that if you keep it engaged for too long it will short out and the switch will be left in the permanent on position with no way of turning it off.
This accounts for the increased suicides, and homicides we are seeing in the Army. Last week a soldier shot and killed his commanding officer at Fort Hood then shot himself. This week a soldier killed his squad leader and another soldier in Iraq. Everyday soldiers are committing suicide and homicide, and sometimes in public and disturbing ways.
Keeping the killswitch engaged for 15 months at a time with 10-12 months off between, another 15 months might be the magic number we were looking for. That killswitch engaged without enough time to come back to sense of normalcy compounds the problem. You may see soldiers out in public. They may look normal. But alot of them are thinking about how they are going to position themselves so that their back isn't exposed at the restaurant. What's in the trashcan they are crossing at the mall? Swerving to avoid the empty box on the side of the highway.
Unfortuantely, some of these soldiers may be lost to us forever, and the problem is only getting worse, not better.
UPDATE: The Army will assign an investigating officer to perform a thorough check of the situation leading up to the incident. It will probably be a few weeks before anything official is released.
CNN has the story with details and the families wait on the investigation.
Some call it PTSD I call it the kill switch and once it is engaged it's hard to flip off.
It's becoming more apparent as we've had two cases of "fragging" in recent months in Iraq. One such case just took the lives of two NCOs in Iraq a few days ago.
I don't know if you've ever been in a situation where your life is in someway in danger. Such as being held up outside the grocery store, or even in a car accident, when your heart races, and your adrenaline is pumping. Now, imagine having that feeling day in and day out for 15 months with a 12 month, or less break, then back for 15 months more. It's an act of self-preservation where everything is suspect, and capable of taking your life. Is there a bomb in that trash pile? That kid could be carrying a grenade. That rooftop looks like a good spot for a sniper. When you are transported to a world where danger lurks in every corner, trash pile, and person you have to engage your senses to the point of hypersensitivity. You have to be ready to raise your weapon and kill at a moments notice. Your kill-switch must be engaged. You can operate with this hypersensitivity and lack of sensitivity to killing for a period of time and then come back. These timelines vary depending upon the person and the amount of combat they are engaged in.
In urban warefare this timeline shrinks due to the danger that is everywhere in everything. It's a multiplied hypersesitivity or hyperalertness that grows to a point where it can't be turned off. Then there is the desensitization that develops due to having to shoot or kill on a daily basis. That is why we practice firing with our rifles so much. It's not to make you a better marksman, it's to desensitize you to pulling the trigger. How many times do you have to shoot a person before you become completely desensitized to killing anyone, at all, that poses a threat to you? Anyone, such as your squad leader, who threatens your military career by correcting your performance. What's the number 2,3, 10 times? It's different for every person.
When these two forces of hyperalertness and desensitization merge I call it the "kill-switch." You are in a state of mind where killing is the reaction to anything seen as any sort of threat to you. Where your immediate reaction to anything is to literally raise your weapon and shoot. You can engage the kill-switch for short periods of time then disengage. But there is so much power surging to the switch that if you keep it engaged for too long it will short out and the switch will be left in the permanent on position with no way of turning it off.
This accounts for the increased suicides, and homicides we are seeing in the Army. Last week a soldier shot and killed his commanding officer at Fort Hood then shot himself. This week a soldier killed his squad leader and another soldier in Iraq. Everyday soldiers are committing suicide and homicide, and sometimes in public and disturbing ways.
Keeping the killswitch engaged for 15 months at a time with 10-12 months off between, another 15 months might be the magic number we were looking for. That killswitch engaged without enough time to come back to sense of normalcy compounds the problem. You may see soldiers out in public. They may look normal. But alot of them are thinking about how they are going to position themselves so that their back isn't exposed at the restaurant. What's in the trashcan they are crossing at the mall? Swerving to avoid the empty box on the side of the highway.
Unfortuantely, some of these soldiers may be lost to us forever, and the problem is only getting worse, not better.
UPDATE: The Army will assign an investigating officer to perform a thorough check of the situation leading up to the incident. It will probably be a few weeks before anything official is released.
CNN has the story with details and the families wait on the investigation.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Weighing the choices
So this presidential election boils down to a choice between
1. Another legacy scholashipped, silver spooner, Luddite, with PTSD and an uneven temperment who spent his younger years carousing and boozing and graduated from the bottom of his class at USNA, where he was made a pilot because he wanted it, and his daddy was an Admiral. With an uneducated, unscholarly, Chrisitan Zombie Brigade, Pentecostal, who thinks we are on a Crusade in Iraq, and has no clue about world events for the past 8 years because she has been too busy being a vindictive ex-beauty queen and working on seceeding from the union.
----OR----
2. A man who spent his life walking the color line in a still prejudiced United States. Worked his way to get a Bachelors in International Relations, and a law degree from Harvard graduating the top of his class then going to teach Constitutional Law at a fairly revered midwestern university. Then began his political career by helping people get jobs, training and get food and keep their lights on the southside of Chicago, forsaking the corporate jobs full of money that lay in wait for someone with a Harvard J.D. He then moved to the state Senate and US Senate. With his VP pick being a man who has been on the Foreign Relations committee in the US Senate, the only body that can approve treaties.
1. Another legacy scholashipped, silver spooner, Luddite, with PTSD and an uneven temperment who spent his younger years carousing and boozing and graduated from the bottom of his class at USNA, where he was made a pilot because he wanted it, and his daddy was an Admiral. With an uneducated, unscholarly, Chrisitan Zombie Brigade, Pentecostal, who thinks we are on a Crusade in Iraq, and has no clue about world events for the past 8 years because she has been too busy being a vindictive ex-beauty queen and working on seceeding from the union.
----OR----
2. A man who spent his life walking the color line in a still prejudiced United States. Worked his way to get a Bachelors in International Relations, and a law degree from Harvard graduating the top of his class then going to teach Constitutional Law at a fairly revered midwestern university. Then began his political career by helping people get jobs, training and get food and keep their lights on the southside of Chicago, forsaking the corporate jobs full of money that lay in wait for someone with a Harvard J.D. He then moved to the state Senate and US Senate. With his VP pick being a man who has been on the Foreign Relations committee in the US Senate, the only body that can approve treaties.
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