Remember how I said that our barracks were a bit run down? Well apparently I’m not the only one to think this because on Friday they were condemned. So instead of living in a shitty open bay barracks, we now live in a shitty four-man room barracks just down the street. I think my favorite part of dilapidated barracks are the latrines. The paint on the floors is at least four layers deep, worn down to the concrete in most spots, particularly in the shower, creating a worn-down-gobstopper rainbow of dreary military colors. The sheer economy of the latrine is the most entertaining part. There are three unpartitioned urinals so closely spaced that it’s virtually impossible to use all three at once without being hip-to-hip to the guy next to you. There is one tiny concrete room in the corner with four shower heads that is supposed to function as a shower for a platoon of sweat-salted grunts. It’s rare for all four heads to work, and when any of them do the hot water pressure oscillates like a bipolar girlfriend creating a torturous wave of hot-cold-hot-cold. The toilets are actually partitioned, but they seem to always be occupied with guys trying to rid themselves of MRE-induced constipation or shamelessly masturbating. I think I’ve been duped. I’m not actually at a modern US military installation but Sing Sing, circa 1940.

On Saturday we did a little land navigation training. The standard land-nav training consists of each soldier being given five eight-digit grid coordinates to be found given a map, a compass and three hours of time, but instead we were given one point that a 12-year-old boyscout could have found. Then we did the dead-reckoning course where you must find three points given three different directions and distances. Once you reach your point, there is a sign or post of some kind with a code on it. You record the codes and turn them in once you’ve finished. I was walking back from my third dead-reckoning point when I heard someone yelling ‘help’ from a hill. At first I thought someone was just messing around, but the pleas continued. I walked up the hill (as did another sergeant that was in the area) to find a young soldier who had gotten his foot stuck between two large rocks and fallen down, twisting his ankle something wicked. He was in a lot of pain and was unable to untwist himself. Looking at his leg, it looked bent in a wholly unnatural way, implying a good compound fracture. The rocks weren’t gonna budge, but after a little work we finally got his leg unwedged. Turns out his leg was fine, just tweaked his foot pretty good. I couldn’t believe it. Young soldiers are made of rubber, I swear. Later he told me that once he realized he couldn’t move and no one was responding to his cries, he fell asleep for a while. Again, testament that soldiers WILL sleep anywhere.

I don’t know if I mentioned this earlier, but Tony, the weapons squad squad leader tore a ligament in his elbow while climbing a dumpster (another useless bit of training about climbing obstacles) and may be going home. This means the weapons squad needs a squad leader. The squad has asked me to lead them (they are all guys from my original company from the city), but that’s a decision made by my higher-ups. I’m not certain how I feel about being a squad leader to two machine gun teams, never having really been a machinegunner myself. The upside would be being with guys that I already know and love and not having to deal with all the egos and know-it-all attitudes of my current squad, the downside being having nerve-wracking amount of additional responsibilities while leading what would be essentially a band of thugs. But I would be working directly with Ray, which gives me great comfort.

So things have started to mellow out a bit here. Instead of training from 5am to midnight, we've started getting off most days by 4pm at which point we're allowed to change into civilian clothes and do stuff like go to the PX or the mall off post or whatever, so long as we return to the barracks by 11pm. Despite this, I still find myself going to bed each night at about midnight. Getting up at 5am and exercising outside in ball-freezing weather is a serious drag, though. The training during the day has been really mellow too, mostly classes on stuff like land navigation, calls for fire (calling in fire missions from mortars or artillery), first aid, and walking through basics on CQB (close quarters battles, i.e. urban warfare). None of this training has been terribly noteworthy, so I'll just share a couple of highpoints from the last few days.

Your music is gay

It's been asked what the soldiers think of my musical tastes. We have a little stereo in the barracks and I recently borrowed a CD from John that is an MTV compilation of alternative 80's hits. John has great taste in music, by the way. I've already been branded as being gay by my platoon for a number of stupid reasons like looking younger than I actually am, crossing my legs when I sit, being educated, having some sense of style and generally being WAY more in touch with my anima than your average infantryman. To add fuel to the fire, I was listening to this CD and Kirk starts haranguing me about listening to gay music. Then walks in Chris and he starts flipping out about how much he likes this CD and how he used to own it. Kirk and I were both shocked. Chris then states emphatically, "Second squad needs to know that my favorite singer of ALL time is Morrissey." So Chris flips through the different tracks, commenting on each. While it's on a New Order song, someone yells from the latrine, "Keep it there!" Then walks in Tony! Keep in mind that this guy is a Brooklyn cop, normally our hard-assed platoon sergeant and Willy's arch-nemesis. So we're all listening to the various tracks now, talking about where we were when we first got into this music and the memories that it provokes, then a sergeant from another platoon walks in with a CD case and says, "I heard you guys are listening to depressing music so I came over." Another closet alternative 80's infantry sergeant! More discussion ensues and Tony says, "Hey, I've had this song in my head for years and I can't remember the name of it. It goes like this: 'Hey now, hey now now...'", then the other sergeant says, "Yeah, that's The Sisters of Mercy. I've got it right here." Now Tony is acting like he just got an annoying piece of popcorn out of his teeth that's been bothering him for 10 years. The whole time all this is happening I'm in ecstasy watching all these trained killers act like giddy school girls as they discuss these bands. At this point Kirk is in a state utter disbelief and disgust trying to comprehend how his infantry company could harbor so many apparent fags.

This is my weapon, this is my Gerber...

The first and second squads of my platoon share the bottom floor of a two-floor barracks. It's an open bay and we do most of our squad-level classroom type training here. If you are wondering what an open bay barracks is like, watch the beginning of Full Metal Jacket. It's just one big room with a bunch of wall lockers and bunks, except ours is seriously run down. A few days ago we're all working on disassembling and assembling the M249 machine gun (aka "SAW" for squad automatic weapon). Once again, I had the best time behind Dan. I think I could have beat him, but I believe that the politically intelligent thing to do was to just let him win. I think there is more value in him feeling superior than there is for me in the gratification of beating him. Or I could just be full of shit and this is my elaborate excuse for not beating him. :) It's probably a little of both. Anyways, after the guys got tired of this, we started working on taking it apart and putting it back together while blindfolded. This can be really tricky, by the way. While James (another city cop in real life) was taking it apart, he was having trouble with one of the parts and asked, "Does anyone have a Gerber? [multi-tool]" and he puts out his hand. Without missing a beat, M______ says, "Yeah, here.", whips out his dick and puts it in James's open hand. Everyone was on the floor in tears. For about a good ten seconds, James didn't seem to know how to handle this unprecedented violation, and continued to work on the weapon before finally taking the blindfold off and making an attempt at trying to find some sort of physical retribution for the affront. This incident has become a source of much discussion and the jury is still out on who is more gay: the guy that touched a dick or the guy that let a guy touch his dick.

One could literally write volumes about the homophobically homoerotic undercurrents in the infantry.

Elias vs. Barnes, pt.1

Thursday was the big day. Rifle qualification. Forty pop-up targets of human silhouettes, 20 to be shot from a foxhole supported position, 20 from the prone unsupported position. Targets range in distance from 25 meters to 300 meters. No scope on the M16, just plain 'ole iron sights. Hitting 36 makes you an "expert". Two guys in my platoon shot 38, I shot 37, the next best was 35. My squad leader, Chris, an NYPD sniper shot 33, and my other team leader, Kirk, an FDNY firefighter and my new nemesis shot a plain shitty 26. Yes, I am gloating. And oh yeah, remember Corporal (now Sergeant) D_____ that asked me on the bus if I want people to hate me? Well, he couldn't stand me before and now he can't stop telling me how much of a bastard I am for shooting better than him. Respect comes in all forms I guess. There's been a lot of tension in my squad (and platoon even) as to my ability to soldier and this was the perfect way to serve up a steaming hot helping of "shut the fuck up." A lot of the guys in my platoon, particularly Chris and Kirk, have a leadership style that is more rigid than mine. They are both originally from the same company and are used to working together with non-city troops (aka rule-following upstate white boys). Leading troops from the city forces one to take on an entirely different approach to leadership. John put it best when he said, "You can't push a piece of spaghetti." Willy has said over and over that leadership in the National Guard is more difficult than anywhere else. You can't show up to drill and treat guys that are normally civilians like they're on active duty. If you push them, they resist and all that comes of it is that nothing gets done and everyone thinks you're an asshole. Additionally, I come from a Special Forces background where they pride themselves on being "silent professionals" and look down on the rest of the Army and their pushy form of leadership. Between being former-SF and having worked with guys with typical Bronx and Brooklyn attitudes for the last four years, I have developed a style of leadership that assumes the soldier is an adult and doesn't need to be hounded every two minutes about whether or not his boots are shined to standard. In my normal company I think I'm held at fairly high regard with the soldiers and the leadership. For five months I was the acting Platoon Sergeant for which I am currently under review to receive an Army Commendation Medal, a fairly prestigious award. Then not but one month after having this award submitted, I show up to a new squad and platoon that thinks I'm a lackadaisical turd. Funny how so much comes down simply to perception. Also, I was in the process of being promoted then as soon as I got to this new unit that I am deploying with, the promotion doesn't go through. Hmm, odd. Anyways, the point of all this self-congratulatory blathering was to share how I did well on the rifle qualification. I guess it turned into a segue into the topic of the tension between me and Chris & Kirk.

Unfortunately, the time I have on the computers is limited, so I'll have to get back to you on the soap operatic drama of my squad. I never really liked the movie, Platoon, but I watched it again recently and found that it has new meaning for me, particularly the malaise that the relationship between Barnes and Elias caused in their platoon.

Okay, so I caught a lot of flak from all you for antagonizing the guys that have wives or girlfriends. But I want you to see what it is that I'm trying to avoid. This is a photo taken of Juan, a guy in my squad, the day we left. This is him, his mom, his wife and his two kids sitting on the armory steps. There's nothing worse than lugubrious loved ones.



--------

I can't tell you how many times in my life I've been driving down the street and encountered other drivers so irritating that I just want to ram into them or run off them the road. Anyone who drives feels this way at one time or another. My personal fantasy was to mount a computer-controlled machinegun on the roof of my car and program some kind of tracking system where I could lock the gun's aiming system onto the annoying driver's car and lay a few hundred rounds of 7.62mm full metal jacket into it. Oddly enough, this fantasy may be coming true to a certain extent very soon.

As I mentioned before, this "Motorized Infantry" thing really hasn't been done before and the Army is literally making it up as they go. Apparently the tactics will be based loosely on Russian tactics for fighting vehicles used in urban environments. But here's the cool part. I'll command my own Humvee. The way it works out I have more experience than the other team leader in my squad, so he'll ride with our squad leader and I'll be with my team and probably 1-2 other guys. A Humvee will fit five soldiers snuggly, this including one guy in the turret. That's right, there will be an M240 7.62mm machinegun mounted on a 360-degree rotating seat/turret in the center of the Humvee. Additionally we will have a second M240 in the back if we need to dismount from the vehicle, at least one guy with an M203 grenade launcher (rifle mounted), a guy with an M249 5.56mm machine gun and me and perhaps a fifth guy with M16 assualt rifles. The guy with the M240 on top is is the true firepower. See the bottom of this page to see what these weapons look like: www.repugnant.net/guns. For us to be effective, this guy has to be a straight-up killer. I'm not sure who my gunner will be, but I pray it's Ray. He's about one step away from being the next world-class mass murderer, but a guy I know that will unflinchingly know who and when to shoot. I promise one of my future posts will focus on him solely. For those of you that I've told about my friend that worked with poo-flinging knee-biting retarded kids before becoming an Army sniper, this is that guy. He's a pale-skinned Puerto Rican that actually dated a Salt Lake Mormon at one point. But all about him later. The point I am trying to make is that the way things look, I'll be driving a vehicle in Iraq that any boy who every watched GI Joe could only dream of. Yes, yes, I know, I shouldn't compare combat with cartoons, but seriously, for just one moment let's look at this for what it is: driving around in a car with a friggin' machine gun mounted on top.

The weather at Ft. Drum has been warm and BEAUTIFUL, but that should all be coming to a gloomy end tomorrow. I'll bet we have snow in a week. I'm sure I'll complain about the Drum weather in every post. Also, I almost forgot to complain again about how gross my small pox shot is. And I only got pricked 3 times. The guys that were getting it for the second time had to get 15 pricks. Theirs look gangrenous.

Alright, I'm starting to ramble. We will be going to the rifle qualification range in a few days. This is when we really find out which soldiers are worth a damn and can perform the single task they were meant to do: shoot things accurately.

My small pox shot itches SO much right now. It's a pussy blistery scabby mess. The anthrax shot has finally stopped hurting though.

The temperature at Fort Drum has been unusually warm. The honeymoon before the divorce. There should be snow on the ground before Halloween. It think the year I'll dress up as a soldier...

Today and for the next two days I am teaching a class on the M240B machine gun. This gun replaced the M60 (aka "The Pig") of Vietnam fame. Excellent weapon, the M240, but heavy. Twenty-eight pounds without ammo. Rate of fire at 950 rounds a minute, maximum effective range at 1100 meters with a maximum range of 3725 meters. That's right, it can shoot 3 miles.

For this mission we will be going as "Motorized Infantry" which will be something the Army really hasn't done before, at least not since WWII. We are part of something completely new. In other words, the manuals of doctrine for motorized infantry will be written after this deployment based on our experiences. Despite the inherent dangers of being total guinea pigs, I take a certain comfort in knowing that we will be absolutely BRISTLING with various weapon systems in each Humvee.

The Monastic Order of Infantrymen

The last two days has been Death By Powerpoint. Presentation after presentation and trying as hard as possible to not fall asleep. Still haven't had more than 5 hours of sleep a night for 10 days running now. Yesterday was medical familiarization, such as dealing with cold and heat injuries, burns, fractures, etc. The instuctor seemed to see it as an excuse to show as many messed-up photos as possible of injuries -- people run over by tanks, knivings, shootings, frostbite, burns, and the semifamous photo of the still-conscious guy that had some sort of explosion take place in his mouth from a blasting cap or something that left his jaw split in half and dangling with everything below his eyes a huge mess of hamburger with his blood-drenched tongue hanging down in the middle of it all to the point where you could see the back of his throat. There was absolutely no reason to show half of the pics that she did. Gore porn is all it really was. Fascinating, sickening.

I find myself spending a decent amount of time with John these days. One of our favorite topics of discussion is how we epitomize the single soldier. No wife, no kids, not even a girlfriend. He described us as being part of a subculture that he called the monastic infantry. Such a perfect description. So we starting thinking about who else falls in this category-- Willy, Ray (our sniper that I MUST tell you more about later), Ernesto, and a few other guys. The funny thing is that all these guys (with the exception of Ray) are really decent, normal guys -- educated, decent looking, friendly -- but just can't seem to settle down. I have to admit that the Tyler Durden buddhist in me takes great pleasure in this. What I lack is what gives me my strength. I have nothing so I have nothing to lose. This of course it totally untrue, but not having a wife, kids or girlfriend that I have to call regularly like the guys I see calling everyday is something that I take great solace in. I have the luxury of being able to focus on the moment in which I'm living and not have to dwell on what and who I'm missing. God, when I think back to my experiences at Ft. Bragg and Ft. Benning ten years ago while trying to nurture a broken relationship with Heather, I shudder. The telephone is an emotional trauma delivery device. I hate the telephone when I'm in uniform. Putting a phone to your head is not unlike putting a gun to your head. This of course coming from my usually dormant cynical, hurt streak.

But being the asshole that I am, I have to take things a step further. If you know me, you kow that I have a penchant for breaking balls. I like to think of it as a public service. I make light of topics that most decent people would never touch, but I think it's good to be able to expose the things that cause the real pain and just laugh at it, morbidity and all. For example, one of the guys in my squad, Joel, is on his second wife with whom he's had 4 children and who came with 2 kids preinstalled. As I was pontificating one day on the bus about the virtues of the monastic infantryman, I told Joel that while he's away there are 7 people that will have learned how to live without him by the time he gets back. P____ shook his head in disgust and muttered, "That's fucked up man." P____ is the liberal of my squad and has a very serious, very liberal and very beautiful girlfriend who is also going to learn to live without him. So I suggested that we should start a pool on who's going to get the first Dear John letter. He really didn't like that idea either. He said, "That's so bad, man. Guys don't want to hear that stuff." Then this guy, Corporal D_____ chimes in and tells me, "Do you really want this many people to hate you this early in the mission?" Not nonplussed I quipped, "What, you mean to tell me it's taken you this long to hate me? I better work harder, it doesn't usualy take this long." Then I started to feel guilty. Then I thought about it and decided, fuck that, I don't feel guilty, these guys are being wusses. So I turned back to P____ and said, "Look. Every week in Iraq three to six US soldiers are killed and 40 are wounded. There are 15-20 attacks made against US soldiers A DAY over there right now.[Army Times] The chances of someone we know getting killed is highly likely. The chances of multiple people we know at least getting wounded is pretty much a statistical certainity. If we can't even joke about getting Dear John letters, how are we going to be able to handle this stuff?" The only thing that seemed to placate these guys was when I determined that having the least familial liabilities, I was the best suited to be on point.

I have a mailing address now. If you'd like it, email me at justanothersoldier@recognizant.com

-----------------

Did You See That Part of Jackass Where Steve-O Snorts Wasabi?

Today we had NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) training, sans nuclear. There could not have been a teaching environment more adverse to learning. Two companies of soldiers in one huge auditorium watching hour after hour of Powerpoint presentations about how to inject yourself with nerve agent antidote and the like. Keep in mind that none of us have had more then 4 hours of sleep a night for 7 days now. The "test" was then administered by basically nodding your head when the instructor asks "after the first injection you wait ten seconds before removing it, right?" Think Danny Kay being knighted in "The Court Jester":

KNIGHT: "The candidate must climb a stone wall in full armor!"

THE JESTER is thrown over the wall while wearing full knight armor and lands on the other side.

KNIGHT: "The candidate passes!"

The best part was the gas chamber. We file into a room full of CS (tear) gas while wearing our protective masks. We do some exercises for a few minutes then volunteers are asked to take off their masks. (They can't make you take your mask off anymore since this isn't in keeping with the new wussified Army that doesn't want to yell at or hurt the feelings of soldiers -- but they have no problem injecting relatively untested and potentially dangerous vaccines in us) I took my mask off, stowed it in my carrying case, got to the ground and did push ups. A few other guys followed my lead and took off their masks, but none did any exercises (wimps). I calmly walked to the door and tried to control the combination CS gas/veal dinner burps that were boiling up to my now-covered-in-tears-and-snot mouth. Yes, the stuff burns like hell. It's like breathing wasabi. After I got the snot and tears to stop pouring out of my face I had a cigarette.

Willy - The Amazing Brokedick Story, A Hearthbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Since Willy broke his foot a day before we deployed, it's been an incredibly emotional trauma ride for the poor guy. First he's told he can't go, then he's told he has to go since it's too late to take his name off the list. After spending several days not knowing if he's gonna get axed, we go to the administrative process to deploy - make sure guys teeth are okay (if not they get pulled - one guy had 13 teeth pulled), make sure no major medical conditions exist and that records are in order, make sure guys have wills and power of attorney set up, get them new ID cards, and give them tons of shots - I got anthrax and small pox among others. I was surprised how much anthrax hurts. They actually inject a live agent in you (similar to anthrax). Leaves a wicked bump. And we were given an entire briefing on why we shouldn't scratch the scabby blister that develops from the small pox shot. But I digress.

So when Willy shows up on crutches, this enormous grayhaired civilian lady that looks like an obese witch physically grabs him and tells him to get his commander and First Sergeant. She then berates the captain for bringing a soldier to the deployment process that is on crutches. She pronounces Willy's deployability dead and gives him his, um, walking papers.

At this point, Willy has sunk into a dark hole. This heartless 400 pound gorilla is in ecstacy apparently at the notion that a soldier's sole reason for being has just been squashed. She swaggers by (be it from bravado or just the fact that she's a shambling bitter curmudgeon whale) and says "One down." I could have strangled her. For the next 4 hours Willy just sits, trying to cope with the unthinkinable - being a brokedick soldier who can't be deployed. At one point one of the people running the finance section asks him if he needs help. That's how bad he was. Imagine a despondant Willy. It's a sad sight. I was nearly on the verge of tears. The idea of going into combat without him is incomprehensible.

While Willy is ruminating, he overhears a conversation between an officer and a soldier who is also unable to deploy due to back problems. The officer is explaining to the soldier that he needs a medical review by the head surgeon before he can be officially taken out of the mission. Willy interrupts the officer and asks who this surgeon is. Willy then crutches his way to the head surgeon's office and asks him the process to be removed. At this point Willy is enraged. He says "There are guys that are DYING to get out of this mission and they're not being let go and now you mean to tell me that all I have to do to get out this deployment is walk in with a set of crutches and an ace bandage on my ankle and I'm done?!" Moved by Willy's performance, the surgeon orders the active duty laison to immediately take Willy in his personal vehicle to the x-ray center on post and have his foot x-rayed. Once his foot is x-rayed and the slides returned to the surgeon, Willy starts working his magic before the surgeon has a chance to make a judgement. He tells him how the witch lady made the call to take him off the mission and how at one point his commander even wanted to take him off mission. Apparently this really got the head surgeon's goat. "I'm a Major! I make the determination if a soldier is fit to ship or not! Not your captain and not some civilian administrator!" He then looks at the x-rays and pronounces Willy's foot not broken. "Tape your toes together and put on a boot! Your foot is fine!"

That was yesterday. By using The Force to cut to the front of every line, Willy finished before noon a process that took all day and night for some soldiers. That night the crutches were unceremoniously destroyed and strewn across the barracks floor.

Have to be quick, on a laptop in an office at Camp Smith- It's basically been confirmed that we will be in Iraq for at least a year, this means the deployment will be at least a year and a half with two years total a good possibility. In the Army's infinite wisdom we will be training at Ft. Drum-- the the frozen version of hell on earth in upstate New York. Ray, one of the company's designated snipers put it best: You always keep the steaks in the freezer before you put them on the grill. Then we will spend Jan. 7 to Feb. 1 in Ft. Polk, LA, the swampy version of hell. Then off to the desert.

I've been made a team leader and it looks like my promotion is unlikely. My squad has a few guys that epitomize the insecure white soldier that I loathe more than any other kind of soldier. Mean spirited and antagonistic. It's going to be a long year and a half.

Friday, September 26th was my going away party. I flew my friend Mikey-O in from Salt Lake and my parents and youngest sister, Angela, came out as well for the weekend. My friends Theresa and Ian were gracious enough to have it in their home and they also did the lion's share of the cooking. Being that my family is very much Mormon (I'm a recovering Mormon), I was worried that my parents would be uncomfortable at the dinner party. Fortunately, things could not have gone better and I think they enjoyed themselves very much. Almost everyone I invited was able to make it except for a few auspicious absences (you know who you are) totaling about 20 people. The entire night was indescribably satisfying for me. I then spent the weekend with Mikey-O and my family in the city. Photos from the weekend can be seen here: www.recognizant.com/myiraq/nyweekend.htm

As Hunter S. Thompson wrote in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, "and that's when things went sideways." Sometimes things go sideways, as Willy demonstrated so adroitly a few days ago. The night after the party while at another party he broke his foot while horsing around. As it turns out he's still going on the deployment, but for about a day Mr. Jovial was probably the world's most crestfallen and despondent man ever. But sometimes the forces that send soldiers on deployments at the last minute without orders can also be advantageous. In this case keeping a soldier with a broken foot on the battle roster. The break was non-displaced and should heal in about a month. He will be put on light duty for about 6 weeks. He's not even wearing a cast. That's Willy for ya. Crazy brave and stupid strong.

Something of note: The Department of Defense's press release has us deploying for up to a year and a half doing no more than 12 months in Iraq. http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/read.php?story_id_key=5079

Apparently a real hot item in with soldiers in Iraq right now is the Garmin Rino 120. Willy and I ordered 3 but they haven't arrived yet. Hopefully I can get them rerouted to Camp Smith soon. Not exactly tactically secure (your position and the position of your buddies is broadcast), but what a godsend, a device like this. A radio and GPS receiver and map all in one. I can't wait to play with it.

So I had my last meal (a gluttonous about of sushi) and said goodbye to all my friends in New Paltz. I have to admit that my anxiety level is a bit high. I had a dream that I was in Iraq and the serial number on my rifle didn't belong to me. The worst dream a soldier can have is the "where's my rifle!" dream. This I suppose is derivative of that. At least I had a rifle in this dream.

I don't know when I'll have access to the internet again, so this may be the last post for a while. As soon as I know what my APO mailing address is, I'll post it here.

I wish there were a way I could spend an adequete amount of time with everyone who has supported me and shown me love in regards to this deployment. Understand that I love you. I don't know how else to put it.