The Worlds Most Evil Drill SGT
(Thanks to Podmunki)
Archive for January, 2009
Neat Stuff I found This Week
Thursday, January 29th, 2009
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How to give your CO a shower in Ramadi
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009Let me tell you a little bit about my old HHC commander. He was by all means a Renaissance Man, a Tom Hanks from Saving Private Ryan type character, but his unfortunate lot in life was not to command Rangers, but to command an HHC (Headquarters and Headquarters Company), usually full of staff officers and NCO’s and some support people.
In order to preserve his own sense of honor, to lead by example, and to keep from getting bored he would volunteer to do just about anything to get outside the wire, no matter how dangerous the mission. He would harass me about missions, and remind me every time that I had an open position on a dangerous mission that he was available.
Funny, I Don’t Feel Fictitious!
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009My friend Diana sent me the following email yesterday.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skippy
Scroll down to the last of “fictional characters”
I am now questioning my very existence. I mean, it’s on the internet, on Wikipedia. Therefor it must be true. Which brings up several disturbing thoughts.
Sniper Check!
Monday, January 26th, 2009My National Guard unit was sent to Croatia in support of the Bosnia mission in the summer of 1997. Basically, we were a glorified truck stop for supply convoys heading into Bosnia until the railroad bridges over the Sava River, the northern border of Bosnia, could be replaced. All of the bridges over the river had been blown during the war.
In the fall there were riots at the Brcko bridge. Brcko is pronounced Birchko. That’s the secret of Serbo-Croatian, any ‘e,’ ‘i,’ or ‘u’
sound in English is left out when they spell the word, plus the ‘c in the middle of the word sounds like ‘ch,’ and at the end of the word is either ‘ch,’ or ‘ts.’
The Do’s and Don’ts of WoW
Monday, January 26th, 2009The Do’s and Don’ts of WoW: – From mostly a rogue’s perspective.
(Submitted by Jason Cyrus)
1. Do not mistake the mass buff bind for the Blink bind. This will result in your immediate death by cleave from the boss you are about to fight.
2. Do not pick a fight with a Ret Paladin, they will rape you in the face.
3. If you aren’t a plate wearer, do not pick a fight with a rogue, they will rape you in places you didn’t know you had.
4. Even if you do wear plate, unless you are a paladin, don’t pick a fight with a rogue, they will still rape you in ways you couldn’t imagine.
5. Just because the Paladin/rogue is on half hp does not mean you can win.
6. Always check your buff mats, no one likes to hear “I ran out of candles I’ll have to buff all 40 of you singly.”
6a. Don’t expect mages to always make a table.
(more…)
True Story
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009One day, while I was stationed in Bosnia, one of the female soldiers told our team lead that she needed to go to sick call.
When asked why she needed to go, she responded “Female Trouble”.
Being a typical American male, and a fairly sensible one at that, he decided that he didn’t need or want to know any further details, and sent her on her merry way.
The next day another female soldier in our unit needed to go to sick call, and cited the same reason. The day after that two more needed to go.
Our team lead was starting to get suspicious, and asked for more details.
Indoctrinated and Disenfranchised (An Army Story)
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009When I first started this job, it was a calling. Something I felt I needed to do for myself. I was lacking direction and unsure of what I wanted to do. Perhaps that is the reason I turned it into a calling, I don’t know. Now, almost 12 years later, it has become nothing more than a job. A big, contracted, corporate job. We used to be a family (in my eyes), now we are just a bunch of disgruntled people showing up every morning. I’m not going to lie; the Army has a lot of good points to it. I am in better shape than 90% of the civilians I know. I do a job that has the respect and admiration of millions. I have traveled to places I would never get to see any other way in my life. It got me out of the house, got me my first suit, and allowed me to find my own place in life.
With Apologies to Boots Randolph
Tuesday, January 20th, 2009Not On My List
Monday, January 19th, 2009This isn’t on my list. I was not an active participant, but an observer. It’s something that sticks with me even today, both the humorous and the parts left unsaid.
When I finished up my time in the regular army, I still had a two year commitment. I decided to spend my time in the reserve and make some extra money, as long as I didn’t have any problems like I did with my last section sergeant while I was stationed in Turkey [see the M-O-U-S-E story]. If that happened, my plan was to go into the IRR and since we were still fighting the Cold War, I was secure in the knowledge that I wouldn’t get sent to some rat hole overseas as an augmentee. I ended up spending one year of that time in a signal detachment.
In my duty section we had a host of Vietnam vets. Two of the sergeant first classes were always trying to one-up the other on how bad they had had it over in Nam. Back then one of them had been infantry, the other an MP. They both would be out of place today. The grunt’s hair was always just a little too long and the MP was always just a little too fat. He certainly wouldn’t have made weight or passed the tape test in today’s anorexic-army. Their BDUs always looked like they had slept in them too.
Things Not to Do on a(n Indie) Film Set
Sunday, January 18th, 2009This past August, I had the film-geeky pleasure of working on my first legitimate television or film property; I mean “legitimate” in that we had a real crew of professionals, near-top-notch equipment, had casting sessions, etc. I was personally involved from pre-production (casting, script reviews, etc.) on through the final day of shooting (when I touch film editing programs, computers stop liking me).
The project is a webseries called “Issues: The Series”, and the first episode debuted on January 7th of this New Year. The director, Scott Napolitano, is a high school buddy of mine who brought this idea to fruition in the wildly successful wake of other webseries such as “The Guild” and “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog”. The basic premise surrounds the customers and employees of a NJ comic shop. We tried to create an image of a comic book fan (or “bookie” as we call them) that wasn’t the Comic Book Nerd from the Simpsons, as funny as that stereotype was. The cast and crew are mostly comic fans ourselves in one way or another, so this was a labor of love and an expression of our interests coming together.
