It seems like I’ve been here for the longest time but it’s only been a month. There isn’t too much that goes around here anymore. I think I can update last 2 weeks in a couple paragraphs.
Arnold Shwarzenegger came by the other day. I had to work my magic to convince my chain of command to let me get off work for a couple hours to go see him at the DFAC. I loved seeing him. The guy had a great aura him, and the first thing he said was, “I came here to pump you up~!” You should have seen the camera shots. He was just so huge, but it wasn’t as if he was too big. I tried to get his autograph on my kevlar helmet, but I couldn’t. The MPs were blocking his way and I just couldn’t get through to him. They were supposedly trying to maintain ‘peace and order’ but I just couldn’t see it. I was very pissed off. There was a box of MPs around him. They would try to get people in line as quickly as possible, but they had to go through the box of MPs to get in and get out. Then they would blame everything on them. I knew this because I was sitting there, on the table next to Arnold. There was a Sergeant Major that was standing next to me, he knew me from postal operations. And nobody touched me. Everyone else on the table had to clear out, but me, sitting next to this sergeant major that just walked up to me and knew me by name, I was pretty much untouchable. I felt so powerful, kind of like God or something. I bet I could have shot someone and no one could have done anything about it. Well, maybe not. But after that, I lost a lot of respect for the MPs and they run things. It could have been more organized.
Postal operations is dragging on. It’s only been a month but it’s taking its toll on me. I get very tired very often, and I can’t seem to be able to carry myself in good nature for the entire day. Now we’re on a different shift, from 6:45 till 2:30, and by the time it reaches 12, I’m gone. I could really care less. People make the same mistakes, and I could really tell now where the term ‘going postal’ came from. The disgruntled postmen. Yeah, I’ve now been there, I suppose, and I hope to God that I would never have to again after this deployment.
The latest rumor is that we’re getting help from the civilians by the time October rolls around. But it doesn’t seem like we’re going home. Word is that we’re going to Baghdad right after, and we’ll stay for another 3 months, go home around the beginning of January. For me, it’s everything I’ve been hoping for. I really want to see what it’s like up there, and to be able to say I was part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and I was an important part of the morale of the soldiers stationed in Iraq. And I want to visit the people there, see the children running in the streets with guns, the destroyed tanks littered on the streetsides, the disabled artillery shot up by missiles, the cities in ruins. The mansions that some see along the way, the streets filled with civiians asking for water, the stories you hear from various people, where they’ve been, where they’re going.
If I had three kidneys to give away, the first one right now would be for my brother to make through Ranger School. The 12 week suicide course that few dare undertake and even fewer (less than 30 percent of the original class) make through. He is leaving this 21st of July to Ft. Benning, Georgia, and it is my direst desire that he would make it through. I plan on attending church for the first time since the 2nd Sunday of March to pray for the first time in as many months. In close second would be for me to see Baghdad, for me to be able to meet the people, share the stories, and overcome misery that no other branch of service seems to have forgotten the meaning of long ago. Air Force is on 90 day deployment orders. The Marines that have been deployed since January are long gone since May. Navy has traded their aircraft carrier groups twice already. And the Army, with its special forces, have been here, operating since January, special forces for the past 17 months. What the hell is wrong with that picture? It seems like more of us are getting shot up, and the other branches of service are supposed to stand back while we take fire for them. It’s the army that control air traffic in Iraq, it’s the army that control the operations in S-Pod as well as the A-Pod (Sea and Air port operations), it’s the Army that took Baghdad, has and continue to conduct Psychological Operations, it’s the Army that has taken control over Baghdad and will establish a democracy along with a responsible and effective police force. Long ago I believed that the Marines were the first ones in, last ones out. Now I know too well it to be untrue. I see the faces of people everyday, tired from the faces of battle. And I wonder, with this war still yet unjustified but for mediocre and illusive excuses, would this still be worthwhile. I read in the newspaper ‘Stars and Stripes’ that we are spending 3.8 Billion dollars in Iraq and 800 million dollars in Afghanistan EVERY MONTH. That’s a billion dollars EVERY WEEK. We must be getting something in return. I have no idea what financial advantages we received for Afghanistan, but I believe that Iraq may be different. But then again, even if we don’t, judging by the stories I’ve heard, it may have been worth it nevertheless. People are glad to have been liberated. Sure, it might not have been justified, but the ends seems to justify the means. And I am always filled with smiles when I hear of Iraqis coming up to American soldiers, thanking them for the sacrifices that we’ve made.
The third kidney I would gladly give to receive a letter from someone. I’ve never really realized the power of letters at Fort McCoy like I did at basic training. And I feel so desperate again to receive a single letter, a single word on paper delievered to me from this person, that I would use up a wish to hear from her. And to think I have no other means to contact her than an old address…
It seems like everytime I read the papers Stars and Stripes that the Army publishes daily, one or two American soldiers die. And reading CNN from time to time whenever I have the chance to go online, it seems like that the public is unaware of the casualties that we are still taking. For May and June, we lost just about a man a day. Do people realize that Baghdad is still getting shot up, that the tracers are still lighting up the skies in the night as the dust covers the broad horizon and the orange moon sets at midnight? I don’t think people realize what it’s like to be away from home for 10 months. That’s 3rd Infantry for you, 4th ID, the MPs, the Transportation companies. Pretty soon it’ll be our 10 months away from home come December. And come January, Army would have fulfilled its promise, that I would have been gone for a year.