I learned the shocking news today. Fitzgibbon, Sanchez, and Mabugat were to be placed in a seaport base to support postal operations there. That left us with a total of 2 people qualified for Finance work, and 5 for operations, Contreras, Roberson, Perez, Lopez, and Maceli. I was pissed off. Why do I have to stay? Can I still go? I couldn’t have Mabugat change his mind about going, but I knew the other two really wanted to go. I’ve been stuck here with the platoon ever since the beginning. I reported on 10 Feb 03, and I never left the platoon. While they left for Ft. Jackson, I stayed back because I was the only one F5 qualified. While some people went on passes or leaves, I was stuck with the platoon. Why won’t they let me go anywhere?
The other day there was a guy under Transportation that said if I want to go to Iraq I should go with them. They’re bringing people back home, the 3rd Infantry. I asked if I could go for 3 days, just to go see what it’s like, and I would be back. I don’t know if they thought it was gonna be permanent or what, but they made fun of me for having tried to go. Later, about 2 days later, 1SG asked me what was going through my mind when I asked. I said it was only gonna be a 3 day trip, I would have been back by now. And he looked into the distance, I suppose wondering either if I’m still out of my mind, or if he should have had let me go.
We did PT this morning. And I don’t know if the 1SG was trying to make sure everyone made it back or not, but he was back… way back. That made me lose a lot of respect for him. Sometimes, he’s a funny fellow, and he makes sense. But other times, it’s difficult to deal with him. I think that’s why leadership can’t get too close to the enlisted. Because at one point you might need to make a decision and you can’t be subjective about it.
I saw a truck full of Kuwaiti women today. I feel sorry for the people here sometimes. They’re basically our servants, serving food, cleaning up the latrines and what not. I try to tell them thank you everytime they do something for me. I think I’ll stop doing that sooner or later because it doesn’t seem like they give a damn anyway. They look scared half the time, and the other half of the time they look like they want us to go away. I mean, they’re still getting paid the big bucks, but damn… And the other bad part is, they don’t get to work with women. I’ve seen all women work during the morning and all men work afternoon and nights. I mean, who would ever want to live in this shithole?