Oh Boy

Where to start?

I'm a week into Army PRT training and have been trying to survive that long without constant internet connection. Life is rough, let me tell you.

We wake up at the ass-crack of dawn every morning, sometimes we PT, sometimes we don't. Lately we've been in "hury up and wait" mode which essentially means we rush to be somewhere on time only to find out that there's 3 groups in front of us that we have to wait on. We literally spent 5 hours the other day sitting out in the sun doing nothing because they had garbage equipment that kept breaking for the group in front of us so we couldn't go.

I went to the hospital the other day.

I get bad migraine headaches; I've had them for as long as I can remember. It's just the way it's been. The other day (I can't remember which one exactly, they run together out here) I had the worst one of my life. I was shaking and hyperventilating because I was in so much pain so they called emergency and I got my first ambulance ride.

I saw an ER doctor and he recommended a medical evaluation board to determine my deployable status. Tomorrow I go see a neurologist and he may or may not start that process. Basically, I might be coming home.

Here's the thing: I don't want to leave my team hanging. I'm one of four comm. guys on this particular team. I've already started my training, I'm here, let's do it. I also don't want to have another episode like what I had in the middle of BFE Afghanistan where I'll be. But more importantly: DAMN I want to go home. I miss my wife, I miss my friends, I miss my dog, I miss the Thai restaurant down the road, and I miss not being here. I already have my hopes up and I'm going to try my best to get the doctor to send me home and the hell out of here. I don't care about the consequences, I don't care about anything else, I want to go home to my wife and my NORMAL job.

I don't know what I'll do if they tell me I can't go home.

The final countdown

A couple days left before the real fun begins. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it to be honest. A really big part of me wants to get out of here and do something real and tangible instead of sitting in a class room all day. Another part of me is apprehensive because I'll be stepping outside of my comfort zone to train hardcore for the next 2 months. I'm sure I can handle it but that doesn't mean I want to do it.

I have this big fear of the unknown. I can KNOW 100% that something is going to be fine, it's going to be ok, doable, whatever but nothing drives me crazier that not knowing exactly what is in front of me. It takes me a while to mentally prepare for things. I have to go through stages of acceptance before I can cope with something uncomfortable. To me, none of this is even happening yet. It probably won't be "real" until a couple months after I set boots in Afghanistan and by that time I'll have started convincing myself that home isn't real.

I've been browsing youtube.com looking for some footage of the next set of training I'm going to go through and then maybe some footage of the location I'm going to be at. I managed to find a couple of videos but they didn't come right out and scream THIS IS WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING HERE! I don't know what I was expecting but I had hoped for more than a couple of slide shows with music in the background.

Sorry that this is such a small post; I've been kind-of sidetracked while writing this and can't really think of much else to say so I'll leave you with this:

I've never been a proponent of killing. I'm still not sure I could pull the trigger if/when I needed to. It's just part of who I am. I've definitely not been a supporter of the conflict(s) in the middle east. Outside of getting Osama Bin Laden I think that we should have stayed out and let God or Allah or whomever sort out the mess over there. That being said, I have to ask you one thing: Don't buy into the media coverage of everything that's going on over there. I've been reading comments of videos on Youtube where people have been saying "...[American Soldiers] celebrating by drinking the blood of Muslim women and children" and "The soldiers aren't even wanted over there. They don't do any good."

I can't speak from my personal experience but everyone I've talked to says that the majority of people over there are happy we are there. They didn't ask us to be there and we shouldn't have gone but now that we are over there we've given them something to hope for. In Iraq, since the Iraqi military has been trained, casualties have been reduced to 18% of what they were in 2003. I don't care who you are, less innocent people dying is a good thing. Yes, some soldiers have done wrong and screwed up and have been dealt with accordingly. But don't pin that on the whole military. If I had the choice I probably wouldn't go, and for selfish reasons, but since I don't have the choice I'm going to do the best that I can.

This may be the last post for quite a while but I'll try to get to it as much as I can. In the meantime I'll be shooting guns, kicking down doors, and rolling around in the mud; taking as many pictures of it all as I can.

What would you do?

Ok, so this is a follow-up to my last post which, if you haven't read, you should 'cause you will be totally lost otherwise.

Friday morning we had to get up for an familiarization course in ground radio, which would have been okay except we were really hungover. I guess I was the best out of the three of us because Shitty was throwing up outside before our morning brief and Rattatat had to get called 10 minutes before we had to leave; he was still sleeping. We all packed up, headed to class, and had a few minutes before it started so we (the Air force group and the Navy group) were all outside BS-ing. Shitty comes up to me and says "Hey, I don't want everyone to know about last night, let's just keep it to ourselves." Cool by me, I don't want any more drama than I need.

We get through class alright and then go back to the hotel to sleep. 3 AF guys (Fag Sauce, Brit, and Anti-poon) decide they want to go to the German restaurant. They get there and mention to Cute waitress that they were Air Force. She asks if they knew us. They said they were here with us. She tells them about the last night. (I know some of you can see where this is going but try not to jump ahead.)

Now, somewhere between Friday night and Monday morning the Master Sergeant in charge (Copper top) found out about what happened with me, Shitty, and Rattatat on Thursday night. He tells Shitty and Rattatat that he wants to see them at the end of the day and then, as part of his morning briefing, tells everyone that if something happens to us while we're out he needs to know about it, or something like that.

Long story short: Shitty and Rattatat get chewed but nothing big comes of it.

I don't know why I am the way I am but after hearing that Copper Top found out about it I wanted to know who told him, but not for the reason you're thinking. You see, in retrospect we probably should have said something to him instead of, we thought, keeping it to ourselves. I concede that. I wanted to know why the person who told him didn't say something to one of us first, you know, something to the effect of "Hey, heard you guys had a messed-up night. You should probably say something to Copper top," as opposed to going behind our back and straight to the boss.

So I did some digging and heard that those three guys had been to the German place Friday night. So I called Brit: "Hey man, I heard you were at the German place Friday night and heard our story. Do you know who said something to Copper top," and proceeded to explain my reasoning for wanting to know. He said that he talked to Copper top but by that point he had already heard the story from someone else. Since Brit and Anti-poon are tied to the hip, that only left one more person. So I asked Fag Sauce and this is what he told me:

"I didn't say anything to him. I found out about it Friday morning when you all were running your mouths about it outside. Copper top was next to me so I assumed he heard and didn't care and I left it at that."

A couple of things bother me about that story. The first thing is that he said Copper top was next to him when we were running our mouths. Copper top went inside after only being out there a short minute to find out where a couple of people were. Secondly, he said we were running our mouths about it. Shitty was puking over in the bushes, Rattatat was up in his room passed-out, and I was dividing my attention between watching Shitty hurl and getting pissed off that Fag Sauce was calling out Shitty in front of the whole group. My buddy, Hopeless, was right there with me and talking to me and said I never mentioned it. In fact, the only person that I would have told is Hopeless and I wasn't even going to say anything to him until after the situation had blown over.

So now I have this situation where I know somebody lied to my face. He looked me in the eye and said "I did not say anything to him" and tried to pull one over on me by making stuff up. I would, well I don't want to say I'd be okay with it but I guess I would just let it ride, but Fag Sauce is going to be on my team and possibly my boss when we get over there. I really didn't care for him in the first place but I tolerated him 'cause I thought he was a genuinely good guy who was a little on the annoying side. Now I'm stuck.

I brought it up to the NCO on my team and told him exactly what I just wrote down. Today, he said he was going to Copper top with my concern. I guess he thought it was a big enough deal that I can't trust him. The thing is, I really don't want to make it worse for Shitty who is already taking a lot of heat for this. It is plain and clear that my issue is not with that night or even that Fag Sauce reported that night, which I'm 98% certain now it was him. My issue is just that; I am 98% certain that he lied to my face and I can't have that kind of disrespect and untrustworthiness (yeah, I made up a word for it) from a guys who is supposed to be watching my back.

So what would you do? Would you pursue it farther and try to get your issue with Fag sauce resolved or would you just forget about it because you can't prove that Fag sauce is lying without Copper top telling you so? If you're reading this please either comment on here or hit me up on myspace (myspace.com/thepftbdrummer) or facebook. Thanks for reading.