I guess I haven’t written for a long time, but I haven’t really had the leisure to. Now I’m on my final hour of my guard duty and I’m gonna keep writing probably till they start knocking on the doors. Recently I’ve been wanting to go to Iraq more and more. I mean, this really sucks. I’m a 19 year old, stuck in this place. I know it’s not something I should dwell on, but it’s frustrating, being here, not being able to do the things that I want to do. I want to try and attach myself to an infantry unit as a 71L and go on patrols until August or even September. Now I don’t even know if this is possible, but I’m seriously considering it to be a viable option if it is indeed open to me. When I get back, I’m wanting to puruse a career flying Apaches, mainly, but anything really. If not, I’m thinking I can go intelligence interrogator or airtraffic controller.
Recently I’ve been more and more annoyed by the Lopez and Perez duo. It’s not really that they’re just young… I mean, they’re only what, a few months younger than I, but they whine and whine. And not because they need to, just because they want to. I suppose back home they’re used to getting what they want because of how they act and they get along so well because both of them execute it so well, but here it’s becoming much more of a nuisance than anything. It’s also kind of sad when you know they’re going around the post getting laid with various people. Basically lack of discipline that I would respect, but I shouldn’t have expected so much to begin with.
SFC Rodriguez is one person that I could not figure out in this deployment. He’s told me that he only has one friend, that he’s actually never really called anyone his ‘friend,’ because that word is very important to him. And I suppose I need to respect that. But … I just don’t get it. That’s quite a sadistic way of living this life, when you trust no one worthy enough to be your friend, always paranoid and never trusting anyone.
I remember long time ago Jones came in late for her shift by about 30 minutes. She started to say that she had a really good reason for being late. Well, she really did. She was apparently taking a shower in the trailers when all of a sudden, after she had soaped herself, the water turned off. So she stood there for what seemed like hours hoping that the waters would turn back on but it didn’t. So there she was, standing cold, I suppose, all wondering what the hell she joined the army for, and came out when and soapy and dried herself in time to get to work 30 minutes late. Well, almost same thing happened to me today, but not directly. See, I was washing my clothes today because the mornings are the best times to do it. So before lunch at around 1130, I put it in the washer. I came back around 1330, and it was still filled with water. The washer I guess was confused or something, because it was leaking water into the washer little bit at a time. So I started the whole thing over in another washer, and came back an hour later. Well, the power had gone off. So there it was again, soacked in water. I left and came back another hour or two later. Well, my stuff was moved by someone that turned it off and put it in the dryer. I was fine with that. I came back about half an hour, hour later, and I went back and found that someone had already bagged my clothes so they could use the dryer. So all in all, this laundry took 7 hours to complete. Still, I think this is better than getting caught without flowing water with soap all over my body.
We got a straight out mechanic with a stripper as his wife that came out positive on urine tests and still was promoted to E-5 (Gonzales), a mentally damaged soldier due to a car crash that is persistent in all she does but is frustrated because she can’t seem to grasp ideas fast enough (Daughters), a self-made millionaire that is losing tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars while being here and has closed down 6 of her 8 stores (Mettler), a young 22 year old who moved from Oklahoma to Idaho because she met the husband of her dreams, an ex-marine now permanently on a wheelchair due to a car accident (Jones), a semi-professional soccer player that can no longer handle stress on his knees (Nielson), a 22 year old with a 4 year old daughter who can’t seem to get over the fact that his dumbass ex can’t seem to grasp the concept of earning money (Porcayo), a special ed teacher who never seems to become upset about anything in any manner and is most cordial in every aspect (Price), an ex-infantryman who has now gone through a divorce after 8 years of mangling with a failed marriage and avoided a 12500 dollar price tag for flipping over a humvee (Fitzgibbon), an ex-Ranger as a first sergeant of a post office (Basilio), and a computer geek who owns a private network hub place as a captain (Eng). I don’t know how it can get any more variety than that. I’ve experienced lives with these mature men and women, and I don’t know how else my life could have turned if it wasn’t for their wisdom of ages. I’m 19.