Archive for the ‘Guest Story’ Category

It is called NBC – nuclear, biological, chemical – warfare. First line of defense: gas masks. In boot camp, to drive home the lesson that a ill-fitting gas mask is a Bad Idea and that it’s a Good Idea to get that sucker in place Real Quick, this is what they make you do:

Strap on a gas mask carrier with gas mask inside.
Enter a building chock full of billowing clouds of tear gas.
Stand around for a few seconds while the instructor savors the moment.
Order you to don and clear.

If you get it right, the tear gas is on the outside of the mask.

If you get it wrong you have tear gas inside the mask with you and it fills up your lungs when you breathe. Or if you manage to clear but not seat the seal around your face it seeps inside when you breath and then fills up your lungs.

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A pointless story, yet somehow instructive; this is a true story (as will become evident if only because there really isn’t a proper denouement at the end), although, perhaps, slightly exaggerated in places. Some caveats: while the descriptive text may, at times, suffer from mild inaccuracies, the recipe (such as it is) will not; if you should attempt to make this chili at home, be prepared to fend off legions of the barbarian hordes that will arrive on your doorstep just in time for dinner. Also, fix some cornbread and, if you’re sensitive to spicy food, some rice. Finally, be aware that, while I have told this story many times (and embellished it with every telling, no doubt), the punchline is something which I am not positive will translate well through written media. Here’s to hoping, eh?

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As everyone and their uncle ought to be aware of by now, I like to cook. This can’t properly be called a tradition, although all the men in my father’s generation also cook. That’s where it stops, though; before my father, the cooking was done by his mother and by her mother before her and on and on as was traditional. When my father came along, he was the first of his siblings (the third of eight!) to show any interest in what went on in the kitchen, and my grandmother imparted much of the secret lore of farm cooks unto him. He learned to bake bread, skin and joint a chicken, mix the perfect pie, and, yes, to make chili. (more…)

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My grandfather died when I was in Kindergarten. I don’t remember much about him – all I really knew was that he was active in his church and held down three jobs at the young age of 76 when he died.

When I was much older, I asked my mom a few questions about my grandfather. I had known that he was a Newark Police Officer for around 30 years and that he worked in the police credit union. I was surprised to hear that he served in the Coast Guard during World War II and drove landing boats during D-Day.

As far as I knew, only one other person in my extended family had served (as a chopper gunner in ‘nam) – I genuinely had no idea that my grandpa fought in WW2. My mom produced pictures showing him in uniform and pointed to the frame full of medals on the wall. (I still can’t believe that I never figured that out.) My dad came in about halfway through the conversation and wanted to relate a story to me about my grandpa’s time as a police officer.

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Drunken Midget Boxing:

The rules of drunken midget boxing are simple.  You MUST be a dwarf or gnome.  You have to be drunk IRL and in game (it really does kind of mess with your equilibrium dependent on your own intoxication levels).
You also have to be naked in the game, with nothing on, no weapons, no belt, no headgear or trinkets/rings/necklaces etc.  Once these requirements are met, the duel starts, it’s a best 3 of 5 matches.  The best effect is to get it going like a real fight, have bookies, and bet takers.  I think the most I’ve ever seen from a match like this is 350G. That was the TBC era.  I know gold is like pennies now.

Drunken midget boxing stemmed from me and a friend getting into an argument over something stupid.  We were out in the open in Zangramarsh, so we decided the best way to settle it would be drunken midget boxing.

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Okay, here’s another one, not military, but entertaining all the same.

When I was working in a department store at the local mall last October, I always made it a point to antagonize Doug, the security guy, on the sales floor. If I wasn’t sneaking up behind him and stealthily turning up his radio volume to the max, it was altering the displays in the men’s department to look very questionable (balloon “boobs” in the sports shirt displays, ladies brassieres on the dress shirt mannequins, ladies underpants arranged in the pocket square displays), and Doug was always the first one to see them. He wasn’t to happy with me for that.

Well, Doug is a member of the Rocky Horror Picture Show Divine Decadence cast here in Las Vegas and I discovered he was going to perform the part of Dr. Frankenfurter at the Onyx Theater, for the first time, Saturday evening.  Well, the day of, I brought the RHPS movie soundtrack to work.  The Urbanwear department associates had their own stereo system and were more than happy to be of assistance. I made sure EVERYBODY in the menswear department knew what was going on concerning Doug’s little RHPS gig that night and we needed to have a little fun with him. This is where the soundtrack comes into play.

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When I was still active duty military, I had a weekly radio show at FT Irwin as “The Voice of the Blackhorse”; it was a classic rock show. I was assigned to the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (OPFOR) and I worked with the 13th Public Affairs guys as a volunteer.

I didn’t realize how appreciated my show was, until one day I was at the FT Irwin commissary, and I was chatting with a lady who suddenly recognized my voice and exclaimed “Oh my God, thank you SO much for what you do!” I blushed and said “Anytime”. She introduced herself as the Garrison Commander’s wife, and she had a favor to ask of me.

I raised an eyebrow, “Sure, what did you have in mind?”

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Okay, Skippy, just because you asked.

This short list is what you might call “post-military”.

A while ago you abandoned a promising new list in consideration of you own health, well being, and longevity.  That list was entitled “Things I Am No Longer Allowed To Do Now That I Am Married”.

Well, while I was in a Special Ops unit, I had the precarious pleasure of serving with an individual who was your absolute doppelganger.  For quite some time I was convinced that you were him, and he just wouldn’t cop to it.  I still think that’s a possibility, you conniving bastard.

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I like history. I’m nowhere near a history buff, but it interests me enough that I take classes in it when I have the opportunity to do so. Anyways, with the recent global political climate, I thought it’d be appropriate to retell a story my professor related to us. It’s pretty easy to take this particular event and apply it to what’s happening today, so yay cyclical history. Forgive me in advance if I don’t have specific names or dates but I do not have a perfect memory.

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Oh God how I wish I were making this shit up.

Thankfully, professional ed my experiences with this soldier were brief, asthma and this is the last (or nearly last) experience that I had with him. Again, stomach we were deployed in Orgun-e (read my earlier post if you need to know where that is), and again I was on tower guard with him.

Thankfully, we had a rotating guard shift, which left us with a different person each time (or at least a welcome respite between shifts with Johnson). Due to the fact that this was almost six years ago, I forget if this was before or after the spoon incident, but it was the same deployment at the same base.

In addition to our tower duties, each of us had an assigned duty around our platoon area to help things along and keep the boredom away. Mine was the maintenance and repair of the tents, as well as the restocking of provisions for missions. PVT Johnson’s duty was simply to make sure that the arctic stoves had enough fuel in them to continually run. It was snowing out, and this is an important task, but a relatively simple one.

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Here’s a little story I’ve witnessed over here in my stay in Iraq.  One of those: you had to see it to believe it.

There was this kid named Anderson in my unit.  Anderson was your typical weird kid.  Not that weird kids are bad, I’m a weird kid, but this guy made you think “ah, crap…he’s a serial killer.” And I wouldn’t have thought twice if the person standing next to me when Anderson introduced himself to my platoon said exactly what I was thinking.  Anderson was also dumb.  And by dumb I mean date the BDE Col’s underage daughter dumb, AND had the “balls” to tell her dad to *insert long line of expletives regarding masturbation here*.  A PV2 telling an 0-6 what he can and will do to his daughter…hrm…

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