Alright, well…I planned to go to sleep and then wake up and check for my mail. Not the case. Instead we were launched on an emergency mission to provide support for our troops in contact. So in about 1 hour, I packed for a week with everything I would need, water, clothes, ammo…everything. My backpack was full of batteries and radios and weighed in at just over 80lbs with food. 1 hour and 10 minutes after we were notified, the wheels on our bird lifted up and we were off to the fight. We touched down on a ridge connecting to major hills and were battered with dust and rock kicked up by the bird while we unloaded about a half a ton of ammo for the guns, and then all of our equipment. We got communications and figured out a security plan for the area, set up the guns, computers and settled in just before it got dark, not knowing if we were there for hours or days.

 

    If you look close at the picture, in the foreground there, you see those rocks. That is Afghanistan. Nothing but rocks literally littering the ground. Now you can sleep on the rocks, or move them and fight back the scorpions that appear from underneath them.

    This was alot different mission then the mission we had went on previously. Before we were located with a large SF security force, miles away from the fighting, hoping to avoid any half-hearted ambushes by the enemy. This time we were located about a 3 min walk uphill from the village where a huge firefight had taken place, and was still underway, and where over 20 people had died in the last 8 hours. (Mostly all bad guys) Also if you look at the first picture of the gun, look on the hill behind the gun. Not good to give away the high ground right behind you but we had no choice. Anyway, the point was, this was not going to be a “get in your sleeping bag” kind of night. This was a lean against your ruck and ignore the rocks in your ass and stay awake enough to listen to the radio kind of night.

      Soon morning came and the realization that the sun was soon to follow. With no shade and no water left this became a daunting proposition. We frantically made calls to get water on the mountain as soon as possible due to the fact that is was 95 degrees, and the sun had just come up. Soon water arrived and the biggest problem was the sun. Of course there was no clouds to break the sun, and no terrain features to provide shade.  We realized that today was going to be about trying to drink enough water, to stay alive on the mountain in the direct sunlight and stay alert enough to scan for the enemy.

 

 

 

    Of course the Army has strict rules about uniform…so this was the outfit chosen for trying to beat the heat. This picture was taken early on in the day. Towards noon, one watch read 137, I doubt that was correct. But the radio was so hot that it would burn you to touch it from being in the sun and eventually it broke and we had to get another one. I bought this little spray bottle fan thing when I was at home. But the XO said I couldn’t waste 1/3 of a bottle of water on using it.

      So there we sat baking on the mountain listening to the guys we were with describe yesterday’s firefight like a group of guys that work factory jobs, after a fastpitch softball game. My favorite quote was a guy that had gotten shot the day before, everyone agreed that is was the funniest injury yet…after getting shot…”They got me!!…Oh my god I can’t believe I just said They Got Me…I can’t feel my leg…is my dick alright?” They had lost a few guys the day and night before but were unnervingly at terms with that. We were constantly being alerted to the presence of potential bad guys all around us…(notice the silhouettes on the hill in the picture of me above) It turned out that everyone they saw in the village the day before was a badguy, everyone, so there was very little trust for anyone coming or going from the village. Especially those with backpacks or anything suspicious. Let’s just say that the sniper teams were busy.

 

 

    Somewhere around 1:00 the SF moved through the village again and found nothing, blew up some caves, and since we shot anyone coming or going, they decided that the village was secure. Smoke was from the blowing of caves and helicopters. It stayed around awhile because there was no breeze at all.

 

 

      After a while it became apparent that the SF guys that we were attached to had all but forgotten about the 60 or so of us on the rock. They denied our requested to get X-filled (picked up) a couple of times and then just moved out of radio range. So without permission, the captain of the force we were with, in a near heroic move, called in for his own X-fill. And at almost exactly the 24 hour mark…sun burnt, thirsty, exhausted, and unutilized…we were on our way home. Soon enough, the sound of the helicopters echoed through the mountains and then finally the birds appeared to take us home.

 

 

    We came home, put away the guns and the computers, got them both ready to shoot again from here. Put away our equipment, cleaned our weapons and headed for chow. hmmm….what is this, chicken parmesan for dinner? I thought maybe the momentum was headed the other way. Bad news first, then the good. I love karma. Immediately my thoughts turned to the mail that was supposed to have come.

 

 

 

    All three packages that I was waiting on came at the same time. Once again…I love karma. The worst day in a long time followed by “package-y goodness” I tore open the boxes and found all the food I ordered, another great package from the the “grands”, and of course…

MY BOOKS!

 

   They say that stupid is as stupid does. I never knew what the hell that really meant, but happy is as happy does. I took my food around for awhile and shared the wealth with my neighbors. By the way…I think it means, stupid people do stupid things…so I did happy things?? I think that makes since I am not sure. Either way I got my books, and a good meal and was about to take a shower. Doesn’t get much better than that in Afghanistan.

 

     This picture was supposed to look alot happier, but just when you think nothing could ruin the mood, someone farts in the tent and then runs away to enjoy the reaction from everyone else…(Benny). That was my actual expression by the way.

 

 

   That was the look I was going for….notice how the cameraman got as far away as possible for the second pic. I took a shower, ate some junkfood, and then took a 12 hour “nap”. So the moral of this post is clear…Karma is real, and just when everything sucks so bad that you that there isn’t enough water on a mountain to quench your thirst, somewhere else, someone is delivering your mail and cooking chicken parmesan for dinner.

 

   (for those not in the know, I am an artillery man)

.   We shot the other night for a few hours in support of a patrol. It is fun to shoot, it gives us something to do, maybe saves lives (ours), and justifies our existence here. Also, it tends to draw a crowd. This was the biggest charge (amount of gunpowder) we have shot since we have been in country. The video is me watching the J-lens, an extremely powerful thermal/night vision camera mounted on a tower here for security. The people in the background are the J-lens operators and the man yelling “FIRE” is Benny. The video explains itself…enjoy

http://box.net/public/MyersAndrew22/dfiles/100_0232.MOV

 

    Tomorrow is supposed to be mail day…will it happen? Only the incompetent dickheads over at KAF in charge of supply know. I am trying to not expect anything, I can’t take anymore disappointment when it comes to the mail.

 

(:    ?    ?   ):

Construction Ahead

 

     So here was the problem…ever since I have been in country, I have sat in a damn foldout chair, like the ones that you take to a little league game, or Nascar event. Fine for those occasions, but I was altogether tired of sitting in one while watching a movie, or just relaxing while off shift. But the options were:

A: Sit on the floor

B: Sit on my bed away from the TV

C: Sit in a foldout chair

      I was not pleased with those options, and the quest was on. I have not seen one couch in Afghanistan ever since we first arrived. NOONE has a couch, for some reason when I woke up on Friday I decided that I would have a couch. I didn’t really have much for materials, and I had no plan on how to make one. So I rummaged around and found this left outside someone’s tent.

 

 

  It appears that this used to be someone’s bed. I started this project with all the determination that spawned the “shitter with a view”. I could see it in my head, I had a plan. All I had for tools was a hammer, a bunch of rope, my Gerber, and eventually I came across a hacksaw. But nothing can replace human ingenuity.

 

 

    If you look really close you can see what I was trying to make happen here. I rested the extra bars that look like (#) vertically on top of the existing ones, and then an extra pole that makes the sides of the bed, in front of it pinning it against one of the bars of the # piece. The idea was to tie the bar down to the frame so I wouldn’t lift up, and again to the back so it wouldn’t slide forward. That way I figured that the # piece wouldn’t be able to lean back too much and would be the back to the couch. For the most part this worked, parachute cord can hold 550lbs per strand. I tied it as tight as humanly possible, on both sides and every other section. I figured this would be plenty but I forgot that parachute cord tends to stretch a little and also, engineering logic always calls for cross-bracing. Vertical and horizontal supports will always give just a little bit. So I stared at it for a few minutes and came up with an idea/solution.

 

 

    This worked perfect, I had the chunk of the design problems figured out I just needed to work on the mattress/couch the design. The mattress would bend, but it had to much of it’s original shape and it put tons of pressure on the couch backing, also it wouldn’t fit in there just right, it needed some fixing.

 

 

    I laid the mattress out and got out my bayonet, and went to work. I cut the fabric along one side and then then cut along the one side of the springs also. Now the mattress flipped open like Pacman’s jaws, it had two distinct sections. It was perfect! It was time to make a couch.

 

 

     I tied it where it bent to the back of the frame so that it would sit tight and keep form. It was awesome, everything it was supposed to be, only one problem. It was tall, and it was made to be a “low-rider” couch. Sit really low to the ground because there is a lot of section to put your ass and you tend to slouch in it. Which is perfect except the bed frame was made to sit up so high that when you sit in it your feet don’t touch the ground. NOT comfortable. Remember when I said that I hacksaw came into play eventually…

 

 

    Oh yea, couch city baby…my hands took a little wear and tear from pulling so hard on the nylon parachute chord trying to tie all the supports as tight as they would go so they would stretch before I tied the knot. That’s alright the project wouldn’t have been the same without the some of at least some skin.

 

 

      All in all the project was an outright success, I have had about 20 people come by the tent to see the “couch with the slouch”.  It is one of the most comfortable couches I have ever sat on…well maybe not. But it is comfortable as hell. And nothing feels as good as the feeling of completion. The expression you see below is the look of victory…

 

 

 

 

(Don’t take this poem to seriously!)

Where have all the clouds gone?

As August approaches, it gets hotter everyday

When, oh when, will the sun go away

I don’t even care how much I’m paid

I’ll give it all back for an ounce of shade

It’s only the sun, from noon till’ night

There’s nothing in the sky, not a cloud in sight

Nothing but sun from the break of dawn,

Where O where, have all the clouds gone?

-MYERS

 

    I wrote this “poem” today in my head on the walk over here. That was probably the first time that I really realized that… I have not seen one cloud since I got back from leave and summer started. It’s like they all gave up or something. Nothing at all to break the sun’s evil tyranny on this land. When you walk between the shadow of a building or something and the direct sunlight, you can feel the difference by like 20 degrees. From like 80 or 90, to like 105 or 110. Just because of the damn sun. And there is not one cloud in the entire sky to offer relief from it. Of course they can fly, and if I could fly, I would leave here to, rather then spend the day in the sky with that trynical bastard of a sun.

 

     Thanks to everyone for voting on the hotornot thing, who knows if it made a difference, couldn’t  hurt. I got like 50 votes yesterday, makes me wonder how many were from my site. I had 370 something when it was posted and 420 something the last time I checked. It took like 2 months to get 370 and a day to 50? Hmmm, either way thanks to those who voted.

 

 

    It was 3:00 in the afternoon, just before it gets dark here (Zulu time). I had left to go out to the range. Only expecting to be out there for a moment, I did not bring any night vision goggles. The journey out there was your usual off-road adventure which in a humvee is more fun then problem. Here at FOB ripley we have two compounds. The US, a small, tight, very secure perimeter, and then an outside perimeter guarded by and inhabited by the local army of Afghanies. Our perimeter is very tight with gravel roads and buildings. Theirs is an open area with more then a mile of square area. Most of it built for 4 wheelers, dirt bikes, or in my case….a humvee

      We left just as is began to get dark and intended on following a small convoy that knew where they were going back to the inside perimeter. However a very dim friend of mine forgot his sunglasses, or I should say lost his sunglasses back at the range so we had to leave the convoy and go back to look for his glasses. After 10 minutes of not finding them it was time to head back to post, in the dark, no night vision, no path, and no convoy. Now the thinking person would say to just turn the lights on the humvee on to light the way for safety sake. However, the army has strict rules about turning the lights on at night. Similar to the rule of not letting you put your hands in your pocket. Apparently there are concerns that the enemy will figure out where we are. In my opinion, if our daytime presence for the last 3 years at this base, has not alerted them to our location, then I dought that my lights would. But who am I to argue with the rules. So I started back across the camp, at night, in the dark, with no path.

      I made it most of the way pretty well based on the silhouette of the mountains in the sky and just headed for the barricade that makes out our perimeter. I figure I would follow it around to the gate and then get inside. As I said, I was doing well, even spotted a few landmarks of the post on the way, and heard the familiar sound of brush scratching at the bottom of the humvee as a rolled over anything in my way. But then, I heard an unfamiliar sound, the sound of metal brush scratching at the bottom of the truck. Metal brush? you may be thinking. This was what I was thinking. Humvees are designed to roll over rocks and logs and huge holes in the ground. Unstoppable was used in the sales pitch to the army at least once. Well I found something that will stop a humvee.

    Not a small car or some huge log. But a single unmarked roll of barbed wire strung out in the middle of nowhere. Apparently the wall I was following was not our wall, the wall I was familiar with. It was a wall that the ANA built out by there little compound. And running off from one of the corners, was not a wall of barbed wire like ours, with markings and fence posts every few meters, but a single roll of wire that someone could just run and jump over. I would have no problem getting past this wire, my truck however had a problem with it

       After I realized that I was in wire, I backed off of it figuring that the tires would have smashed it down some, and also figuring that this wire would not stop a humvee even if I rolled right through it. Maybe I should have rolled right through it. When I backed off, the wire on the tire on my side came loose so without much thought I figured that the other side would to. As I backed up I noticed that I was pulling the whole strand with me after a few feet. Apparently on the other side it was not just the tire that had wire on it. The wire had already tangled itself on the frame and axle of the other side of the vehicle, so when I turned the wheel to get it free, it simply pulled the tire into the tightly stretched strand or two of barbed wire. If you have ever heard 50 or so pounds of tire pressure be released in less then a second. It sounds just like…”Oh shit”.

 

        After the tire popped I just wanted to get back to the tent so I could get the wire off and minimize any trouble that might come from this. (there was none) Only problem being that I had nothing to cut the wire with. I literally broke my Gerber on the wire using the little wire cutter on it. I was able to cut 1 of the 3 strands that had us tethered to entire roll first. Having only 2 strands left, I had no way to get free from the wire, and I found myself asking a familiar question…”What would Mcgyver do?” Well Mcgyver normally had gum, or hockey tickets, or something useful, I remember remarking that I had nothing but a flat tire and rocks. Not to be denied, I cut of a chunk of tire with the little saw tool on my knife, propped a big piece of rock against it firmly, and at an angle, pulled the wire over this edge, and then bludgeoned it with another rock. Mcgyver would have been proud. Not only did I free the truck with my “contraption”, but the solution involved my pocket knife as well.

     With the truck free we limped back to the base on 3 wheels and explained the situation. I spent the morning today putting a new tire on the truck and for the most part, I think the barbed wire got the worst of the encounter.

 

 

**Edit

      Oh no, I have fallen from grace. My 9.9 that I was so proud of has fallen. I realize how vain and mentally unstable this concern is but despite that, if you could hit “rate me” and help me get my perfect 9.9 back by giving me a 10 I will love you forever, whoever you are.

(thanks for your help)

    So last night I went to Barnes and Noble.com and ordered about 13 more books to add to the library of about 25 that I bought when I was at home on leave. I want to get that up to at least 100 before I buy my first house. All good books, and nonfiction only. I finished buying up the entire collection of Hunter S Thompson and then about 4 more screen writing books that I didn’t have that looked useful. I am thinking about going and getting a few books on how to write a book though as well.

 

       I noticed something very important about Barnes and Noble and other books stores. Despite the fact that there are at least 500,000 impulse marketers at least, at any given time in the US. There is not a single book on door to door sales, or impulse, or impulse marketing. Also there is almost no books on the importance of body languange and tone of voice in sales, and NO books on the importance of sales from the viewpoint of the numbers game, except in relation to telemarketing. That may not sound like much to you, but that sounds like chapters to me. This represents to me a market that I am well know ledged about and ready to exploit. Impulse marketing is the central theme in the movie that I am writing also and is a VERY interesting topic when presented properly. The beauty of sales related books or seminars, is that people don’t mind spending a pretty penny if it is good training and works, because in sales, if you get better then the training will pay for itself. Unlike if you buy a how to play the guitar book for example. You just paid to get better. 

 

         I did some work on the projected numbers and it looks pretty good. There is at least 25,000 offices/businesses in the US that use impulse marketing directly, whether they realize it or not. There is 10 to 20 people per office at least. Not to mention that impulse, is used in every type of sales situation there is, even high end retail. People don’t go to Walmart to buy toe nail clippers, but they sell thousands everyday because of impulse. People are standing in line and see something and make an instant buying decision. Impulse is right there, and impulse marketing just represents the act of taking that aisle around and showing it to them while they are at work, or going tanning, or are at the mall. Anybody that is in the business if sales could benefit from a well written book on the 4 factors of impulse, the psychology of an impluse sale, using body languange and tone of voice to sell instead of words, hot to play the numbers game, how to work your territory, search for product, build a team, open an office…ect. 

 

       My point is the market for such a book could easily sell 200,000 units if it was reviewed well and picked up by a publishing company that knew how to advertise it. 12.95 retail price, I haven’t researched what kind of points to expect from a publisher. But I think that I would get 3 or 4 dollars per book. Do the math. And if I only sold 1/5 of what I expect to…40,000 units, at 4 dollars that is 160,000. Plus residuals every year for the rest of my life and the rest would go to my kids. So that is my next brainstorm. HMmmmMm.

 

      Below is a list of quotes that I gathered from a site that I know, enjoy them…there is a bunch but they are a good read:

 

Quotes:

Victor Frankl:
What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.

Bernard M. Baruch
Only as you do know yourself can your brain serve you as a sharp and efficient tool. Know your own failings, passions, and prejudices so you can separate them from what you see.

Alfred Adler:
Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words. Trust movement.

Herman Melville:
We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results

Michael Hanson:
To will is to select a goal, determine a course of action that will bring one to that goal, and then hold to that action till the goal is reached. The key is action.

Tom Robbins:
The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and vile can be transformed, and (c) doing that makes it that. We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.

Bessie Stanley:
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.

Anais Nin:
Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.

Charles DuBois:
The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.

Katharine Butler Hathaway:
A person needs at intervals to separate from family and companions and go to new places. One must go without familiars in order to be open to influences, to change.

Gloria Steinem:
Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else

Alexander Hamilton:
Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have lies in this; when I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort that I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.

George Bernard Shaw:
If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.

Henry David Thoreau:
I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Pablo Picasso:
My mother said to me, “If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general; if you become a monk, you’ll end up as the Pope.” Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso

Barbara Kingsolver:
There’s a graveyard in northern France where all the dead boys from D-Day are buried. The white crosses reach from one horizon to the other. I remember looking it over and thinking it was a forest of graves. But the rows were like this, dizzying, diagonal, perfectly straight, so after all it wasn’t a forest but an orchard of graves. Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature.

Howard Thurman:
During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable, even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.

Myself:
Luck, like love, is an illusion. Only the prepared ever appear lucky or fall in love.

Myself:
Good enough is always much less then it could be, potential sucks, who wants to be a should be?

 

If you didn’t read those you are a terrible person

 

     This post is intended for any terrorists within 300m of me. You could shoot back, but are quick enough? You could run, but are you fast enough? You could hide… or could you….? I suggest you drop your weapon, come to gate one…and let me set you up with an all expense paid trip to Cuba. I hear it is beautiful there this time of year.

 

 

 

    I set out to go to the range today. I still had to fix the front sight post that got bent by supply and then re-zero my weapon. I would say that I got it pretty well dialed in. While we were out there, a bunch of new guys showed up that are replacing a unit here. By “new guys” I mean new to this FOB, not the Army. Most of them were E7 or 03 or above. It was so cool to shoot with these guys, I am used to Bragg where when you go to the range everything is controlled by a little guy in the tower and it is so structured that you just wanna qualify and then go home. This is much different. Were were shooting while walking, shooting on burst, betting $ on different shooting games, you name it. If it was fun to do with high powered rifles and a box of ammo we probably did it. A great bunch of guys to, my favorite part was that I was the only low ranking, junior enlisted one of the whole group. I like to be the oddball, I think they were trying to show off how cool it was to be in the Senior enlisted/officer group and cut loose as much as they could.

 

 

        Then the local Afghanistan army guys shot off some their weapons, AK47, the Russian version of our 249…(saw) and even an RPG that is much cooler to be on the shooting end of then on the receiving end. The RPG took out an entire target stand. Great show, good day! I wish that I had taken more picture but my memory card was out of my camera and I only had like 10 pics to take. I had no idea that they were all gonna show up and put on a firearms display for me. But I got a whole bag of rounds to take home with me. I am going back out again in a few days to shoot again and I will get some movies and other cool stuff. I probably wouldn’t have been allowed to put the ANA stuff up on the site anyway.

 

        I took this picture while I was out on the range. I am not sure how much I like it. I am considering making it my new profile pic. If you could help everyone, I need to take a vote. The old one or the new one. What do you think?

    Sorry it has been a while since my last update. I have been a little busy getting back into the flow of things here and getting my sleep schedule back on. Plus I am aiming for quality over quantity. For those who check daily for new posts however I will try and keep something interesting up here.

 

      So I have been kicking around this idea of writing a movie/book while I am here. I have a great story in mind that I have a great perspective on and a great vantage point to tell it from. All the makings of a great script except of course lack of any previous knowledge of how to write a screenplay or book. I have the story picked out as I said before but the hard part is telling it in a “movie way”. Every scene has to tell something about what is going on. If someone is supposed to be a nice guy, you can’t just say “Gary was a nice kid”, like you could in the narrative of a book. You have to write the scene in a way that makes the viewer go..”hmmm…I think that Gary is a nice guy”, but then also, that scene has to be useful at advancing the plot. It is extremely hard to do well, but I am really excited about the challenge of it. I know it is something that is within my skill set to do, and do well, I just have to get it done and stay motivated about it.

 

       So research on the professional process of it was phase one. So while I was at home I bought about 10 books, everything from “How to write a screenplay”, to “Screenplays for Dummies”, to “How to make a Successful First Film”, even scripts to other movies that have been made already to use as references. (more on the books later) But today to get some ideas about how I wanted to tell my story I watched a few movies that I consider similar in either content or plot progression. “Blow”, and “Boiler Room”, and “Empire”, After watching these movies and then spending all day thinking about it I have made more headway today on the actual script ideas then I have after thinking about it for the last 3 weeks. I figured out how I want to tell the start and the main plot, and a few ideas for the ending. The ending is the hardest part because I am trying to write a movie with no antagonist. (the person that comes along and screws everything up) Just the characters and their progression through the plot. So that makes the ending a very tricky thing, because you can’t overcome the bad guy and then roll credits. Anyway I won’t go all the way into the process because it just doesn’t make for good reading. The moral of the story is that my goal is just to figure out the main layout, get it down on paper, and then spend the next year or more tweaking it to get it ready. After today I feel like I have a good enough idea to start writing, (obviously the most important part). Now all I need is my books so that I can study a little, and use the format portions of them as a guide….right so where ARE my books?

 

       (Warning: anger ahead)   Well mail just came in about two hours ago. supply promised that ALL the mail that was in KAF would be headed out to us on this flight. You may remember supply, the same people that lost my guitar and all that mail for a month, and the same people that lost my helmet when I was on leave and had no idea I was coming and would need a room before I left. Well my books left the U.S. on the 5th of July on priority mail to KAF. For those of you quick with finger math, that means that they have had 11 days to get there. It seems reasonable to mention that you can priority mail things to and from Japan in 5 days or less. So I was getting excited about the idea of getting my books today, but not too excited because I knew the retards over at supply were in charge of it. No major surprise, mail comes…no books, no food. Obviously the package has had plenty of time to make it’s way to KAF by now, which is the source of the anger. Not that I didn’t get my mail. But because somebody else didn’t do their job is the reason that I didn’t get my mail. It just pisses me off that if I don’t do my job right people die or get hurt, and if I screw up…then all the trouble that the Army can muster will be dropped at my feet because of it. But these idiots came all the way here to do THEIR job, and if they screw up, which they do EVERY day, noone cares because all it means is that some hardworking soldier that lives out in the middle of nowhere with no PX to go buy things at, doesn’t get mail, or has to sleep in a tent because you didn’t have a room ready. And not only that, but as I mentioned earlier, they screw things like this up all the time and trouble never follows them anywhere, they get of with an…”oops”. It drives me crazy. As I have said before, “you left your family to come all the way to Afghanistan for a year to do a job, and you still can’t get it done??”

 

     P.S. I did some weird carepackage from some family in California. It has some weird “fruit leather?” and other weird candy and some crappy CD. But then some other really cool little stuff inside including a little note from their daughter saying thanks for protecting her. Thank you family in California, for making my day and keeping me from attempting to steal the helicopter parked outside, then try and fly it into the supply barracks at KAF.

 

http://box.net/public/MyersAndrew22/dfiles/Test%20Fight.avi

(This is a funny little short clip that my brother and I made a couple of years ago… enjoy)

   This is a poem that I wrote as a follow-up to the “Arcade” poem I posted a few weeks ago. If you don’t remember you need to go back and read it first. ( read them both slowly )

 

                                          A Knife Left Unsharpened

- There is an arcade, that was clearly defined

- Like a knife finely sharpened, and highly refined

- At first finely crafted, only that was sure

- After purpose was found it’s function was pure

- Quickly slice anything, unwilling to tear

- Like a sail filling evenly, amidst a strong gust of air

- But when the wind let up, and the sail lowered to deck

- What then was the sail without it’s intent?

- Just a fabric on a deck, to near to the ledge

- Like a finely sharpened knife, that’s lost it’s edge

- Seeking new function the blade follows the light

- It has found only shade, and nothing to fight

- Nothing to cut, in a world of glass laws

- Left noticing it’s reflection, and staring at flaws

- But refusing to be flacid, or left on a shelf

- It pays no mind to this place, and sharpens itself

- It prepares for war, focused on plans

- To once again find the butchers hand.

 

  I had just got off shift. More then ready for a well deserved nap and maybe a shower. All I had left until I was home was a little walk back to my tent…my favorite walk of the day. It was right before the sun comes up, when you can see all the mountains and the place looks beautiful, and it is not 110 degrees outside. I stepped out on to the first step of the porch, took out a cigarette, and started down the stairs.

 

  

       Now apparently someone has repaired the stairs since this morning, but as you can tell by the picture….something horrible happened here this morning. Just as I take my second step a hear a crack and get thrown off the side of the stairs falling to my hands causing my weapon to slide off of my shoulder and smack me in the cheek. My leg was still wedged in between the broken wood and the top step. I stopped and waited for my nervous system to send me a report on the damage. I knew it hurt, but I was worried for a moment that I broke my leg. Well good news, no real damage, no broken leg, but I did break my cigarette in two places!

 

 

      

(my leg was fine, but the cigarette had to be amputated)