Today I had a nice surprise waiting for me on my front porch. It was a wrinkled, rain warped manila envelope, inside of which was my official Honorable Discharge certificate from the Marines. I’d like to especially thank the postal service for doing everything in their power to make sure that I got this envelope in terrible condition. So thanks guys you really earned your pay.
HBO has had quite a few shows lately dealing with the war in Iraq, and they have all been well done and even-handed. Taking Chance is the newest HBO film that revolves around the Iraq war, and like the others it is non-political and just tells the true story of one Marine escorting another Marine home. I don’t want to try and deconstruct this film like some film nerd, instead I will just say that it is well worth your time. I watched it last night–instead of the craptastic Oscars–and it was an emotional movie. If you can watch this film without tearing up then you must not have a soul or maybe you’re just a cynical hippie (or both). Anyways watch the trailer then check it out:
I know I’ve been MIA lately but there is a good reason which I am going to explain. I have been drinking a shit-ton of alcohol lately while I have been working through some notions that have been rolling through my dome-piece. You see I have been feeling the itch lately (no not the VD itch) but the life itch. Every once in awhile I start getting restless and where I feel like I am in need of a drastic change in life. The last time I had this feeling I decided to join the Marine Corps and spent the next four years moving around the country and the world. Additionally, over the past ten years I have lived in four different states and over ten different apartments. I am just really restless and I am not sure why.
So why am I boring you with this? I don’t actually know, but I do know that I haven’t been able to work the problem out via alcohol so I figured what the shit I’ll blog about it. After writing up this blog though I decided to scrap it and not publish it as I felt it was maybe a bit too personal, and then I came back to it and decided to write it differently and to hell with it being to personal. It doesn’t really matter anyways since most of you all don’t know me, and I figure maybe if I write it out this way–as a dialogue between the warring factions of my grape a la Fight Club–then maybe the issue will work itself out. So here it goes this is basically the conversation that has been taking place, on a regular basis, in my alcohol fueled head over the last few months–and increasingly so lately:
“Self.”
“Yes, what do you want?”
“What the fuck is your problem?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
“Oh don’t give me that ‘I’m fine’ crap. Why you being such a sour Sally lately?”
“Why you being such an asshole?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Well, self, I dunno what’s wrong. I just feel like I have to get out of here, you know, move on to greener pastures.”
“What’s wrong with where you’re at? school’s going good, you have a dope new TV, a good apartment, enough money. From where I’m sitting (same place where you’re sitting btw) things look pretty damn sweet.”
“In a sense that is true, but I also feel the need to move on and do something with my life. I’m starting to feel a little too comfortable here, and a big drastic change could be just what I need.”
“It could also be just what you don’t need; ever think of that? Look you’ve been moving around quite a bit lately and it seems to me that every time you start to put down some roots somewhere you just decide to get up and leave starting the whole damn process over again. Maybe what you really need is no change; just try to enjoy life.”
“I do enjoy life but I’m starting to feel that ol’ adventurous streak flare up again. My life has become pretty normal and boring. I thought I was done adventuring and maybe I am, but then again, maybe I’m not.”
“You know you’re fucking retarded right?”
“No need to get snippy.”
“Well you are. What more do you need to do? I mean look in just a bit over four years time you have gotten and BA and a Masters. What else you need? Is that not enough of an accomplishment for you?”
“No it’s not. I need more. I don’t feel like this is accomplishing anything. Do you know how many people get degrees? The unemployment lines are full of assholes who have degrees. They don’t really mean that much. I want to put my stamp on the world.”
“Jesus delusions of grandeur. Here we go again, and I thought you were done with all that bs. But no, you just can’t leave well enough alone can you? Instead you get all these ideas floating around in your head and then you go and throw a monkey in the wrench.”
“That doesn’t even make sense. How does one throw a monkey in a wrench?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Well you know what I’m thinking because, well, you’re me.”
“Still want to hear your dumb ass say it aloud.”
“Ok, look dick wad I just think about stuff a lot. I think about where I’m going in this life and where I’ve been and I want to try and figure out which is the best avenue that I should pursue in the next section of my life.”
“I can’t believe that you are actually thinking that thought.”
Where it all began.
I’ve been so busy with my working on my paper and finding distractions to keep me from writing my paper that I completely forgot what today was. I guess that could be considered a testament to how much things have changed of late. Today is the Marine Corps Birthday. 223 years ago on November 10, 1775 the Continental Congress ordered the creation of the Marine Corps. As legend would have it the Marine Corps, appropriately, was formed in a bar in Philidalphia–Tun Tavern to be specific. Even then they knew that someone would have to be either crazy or drunk to join, I was both. Just a little more than a year later, Christmas Eve 1776, a detatchment of Continental Marines would cross the Delaware River with George Washington, and proceeded to kick the crap out of the gawddamn redcoats at Princeton. Over the years the Marines have made a name for themselves as fierce fighters and epic drinkers. For over two centuries the Marine Corps has been striking fear into the heart of America’s enemies, and with luck they will continue to do so for the next 200 years. So to all my fellow devil dogs out there Happy Birthday.
Well this is it the last game perhaps ever at Shea Stadium. This season has been a roller coaster of emotions and I have risen to tremendous heights and desolute lows with this team this year. However, it all comes down to the last game of the season, and the Mets have to do it, again, against the Marlins. Last year Glavine didn’t even make it out of the first inning, and hopefully this year they can pull it off, and with a little help from the Cubs, make it into the playoffs without having to play a one game playoff tomorrow. I’ve been watching the pre-game show for an hour and a half and it’s good to see all the old Mets at the stadium talking about Shea, and some of the old memories.
One moment they have been talking about a lot in Piazza’s homerun after 9/11. That moment was voted the #2 moment in the history of Shea Stadium (#1 was game 6 of the 1986 WS where the Mets won on the Buckner error). For me, however, that is my favorite memory. Only in retrospect do I realize how much my life was changed by 9/11 even though I was 3000 miles away. I was stuck on base when Camp Pendelton was put on high alert, and we were all ready to ship out at a moments notice. All of us were still reeling from what had happened. It seemed like, even in California, that the nation had come to a grinding halt, and everything that we thought we knew seemed foreign. Baseball helped to normalize everything again, and when the Mets were set to continue the season against the hated Braves, I was able to put the tragedy in the background for a bit, and ressurect my absolute hatred for the Braves. When the Mets came back with that dramatic Mike Piazza homer, it was pure elation, and just for a moment everything was forgotten. Anyways that’s probably my fondest Mets memory, because I was a bit too young to remember 1986, and because still 9/11 is one of the moments that has so dramatically effected the course of my life.
Update 1:21
Currently still in a rain delay, game time is now set to 2:00 PM EST.
Update 1:58
Here we go, games about to start. I really nervous about this game, and I’m even more worried about how Perez is going to pitch on 3 days rest–especially with CC pitching in Milwaukee. Hope for the best that’s all I can do.
Update 2:03
1-2-3 inning for Ollie, and with only 7 pitches to boot. Like Gary Cohen said “no 7-run inning this time.” Thank God.
Update 2:13
Nothing doing for the Metties that inning, but they did make Olsen work–25 pitches that inning.
Update 2:20
A brief scare when Ollie tried to grab Uggla’s ground ball. He stayed in but his control was terrible afterwards, but he managed to get through the inning. 23 pitches through 2, and no score in Milwaukee yet.
Update 2:31
1-2-3 inning for Olsen. The Cubs scored before the inning was over, however, and the Shea faithful gave a rousing cheer.
I hate hippies, and I think I always have. The beginnings of my hatred, I’m sure, go back to my younger days when my pops told me stories about when he came back from Vietnam, and when he landed in the San Francisco airport he was called a “baby killer” among other things. Then there was the Iraq War and all the crap that came about with that. This story is old, back before I had this blog, but when I was stumbling around on Comedy Central I saw this, and decided to post a little bit about this topic.
The background is that Berkeley City Council and Code Pink were picketing the US Marines in Berkeley and telling them to get out of their town. Read more here. The funny thing is that I agree with some of the same things as these hippies, I just don’t like the way they go about it. They are the flip side to the extreme hawks that we see around this country. Both are wrong, and generally like everything, the middle road is usually the best course of action. Also I just don’t like dirty, smelly, pot smoking hobos who don’t believe in anything but free love. They also have a ridiculous, and unrealistic vision of the world.
I’d like to finish this unorganized rant with a quote:
There it is folks, we’re sitting here fighting for your freedoms. You got the right to say what you want, we got the right to punch you in your fucking mouth if we disagree.
Ok this is a clip from the Daily Show of Rob Riggle, who is a Marine and an Iraq War veteran, interviewing some of these hippies.
Here is another clip just because I can’t resist to interject a little Cartman hatred anytime I can.
Semper Fi bitches.
Last night I dreamt that I rejoined the Marine Corps and went back to Iraq for another tour. During my time there I ended up losing my right foot and arm in an RPG attack. Immediately after I lost my limbs I woke up, and I stayed awake for a long time thinking about how in the fuck I would play video games, jack off, throw a baseball, and many other daily tasks without the aide of my right arm. It’s weird I wasn’t too concerned about losing my right foot. I think I’d be fairly normal with a prosthetic foot, but losing my right arm really bugged me. It took me a bit to finally sort it all out in my head and go back to sleep, but now I wonder what the hell, if any, the dream meant. Most likely nothing, but I have been entertaining thoughts lately about going back to the Raq one more time. Maybe it’s a warning then. I did roll the dice once, and came back unscathed, maybe this is fate telling me not to push my luck.
After watching this superb mini-series on HBO I decided to pick up Generation Kill. I took it with me to Houston, and I was able to pretty much read the whole book in the airport because of all the delays that came from Tropical Storm Eduardo. As good as the mini-series is the book, for me, is even better. Evan Wright goes step-by-step in his journey with First Recon, and events that get cut short in the show are more fully explained in the book. The greatest strength of the book is the fact that Wright doesn’t try to turn the book into some treatise into why the war is bad, or good, or any other crap like that that usually gets in the way. Instead he makes it unpolitical, and just tries to relay to the reader what life is like for the these Marines in a war zone. He doesn’t hold back with the language or in any of the events that happen throughout the march to Baghdad. I really found it to be a fair and impartial account of life in the Marines during the invasion. This book is an incredibly smooth and easy read, and as long as you can handle reading a book with often times filthy language you should be able to cruise through it no problem.
One of the best parts of this book was that my old battalion got a little shout out, and I found out something that I have been wondering about for a long time. This chapter was cut down a bit in the show, but in the book it goes more in depth. The set-up is that a Marine is killed, and his body is taken into the town of Ash Shatrah and mutilated by the populace. My company was called in, along with others, to look for his body. The CIA was also called in, because supposedly Ali Hassan al-Majid or “Chemical Ali” was hiding out in the town. Probably one of the most bittersweet moments of my life leading a patrol to find this Marine and getting complimented by the CIA, but yet not being able to find the Marine. We didn’t not find him for lack of looking though. We tore up the hospitals and other locations, and ended up finding intel on other terrorists, but not the missing Marine. We were told by some of the elders that his body was taken out to the desert, and given a Christian burial. However, we all knew this was bullshit. Unfortunately we didn’t get Chemical Ali either, and after looking for him, and looking for the lost Marine again we had to leave for another mission. I have often thought about the guy since then. Who was he? was he ever found? does his family know how hard we looked for him? Things like that, and then I read:
The body of this Marine is discovered a week later by other American forces. They find him buried in Ash Shatrah’s trash dump.
Over six years later I finally find out what happened to the missing Marine. That alone makes the book worth the read for me. It feels good knowing that he was found, and that his body was brought back to the US to his family. It’s just too bad that it took six years for me to find this out.
So I’m sitting here tonight watching the second game of the Mets vs. Phils series, and I am trying to not think about last nights disaster. After last night’s game I felt like someone had punched me in the gut. I am still hoping that the Mets will redeem themselves, and will win the next two games, which is, in my book, mandatory. After yesterdays disaster, I think it is important for them to get up off of the canvas, and throw the Phils a beat down. By the way, a large part of the blame, for me, goes to Mr. Billy fucking Wagner. I get sick and tired of all of his excuses, and it seems that he always has some reason not to pitch. Last September there was a two week period where he had ‘dead arm’ and couldn’t pitch. Last night his shoulder was throbbing, and the Mets had him get a precautionary MRI–which found that there was no damage–so basically his arm just hurt.
In todays NY Times, columnist William Rhoden, called out Wagner:
On Tuesday, the Mets’ medical people advised the bruised Billy Wagner that he needed one more day of rest. Wagner subsequently met with Manuel to affirm the doctors’ decision.
Manuel said that had Wagner made the case that he wanted to pitch, that he was ready if needed, he would have called on him.
Wagner made no such case. He opted to sit this one out. Later, he told reporters that after watching the bullpen get slapped around, he had second thoughts.
Too late.
I wonder, Billy, was that the Mets’ way, the Yankees’ way or your way?
What would Mariano Rivera have done?
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Turns out Wagner reads the Times and today he demanded an apology from Rhoden:
…Wagner added that he was angry with New York Times’ columnist William C. Rhoden for allegedly misrepresenting his statements in this column following Tuesday’s brutal loss to the Phillies.
When asked which part irritated him, Wagner reached into his locker and pulled out of copy of the Times’ sports section, then read the passage. As soon as he did that, Wagner said he wanted Rhoden to stand at his locker and apologize to him — and all of his teammates.
Well Wagner wants an apology, and I do too. I understand if there is damage you have to be careful with your arm. The problem is is that sometimes you have to push through the tiredness and maybe some cursory soreness, and just do your fucking job. Hey perpetual you’re not a professional athlete so you don’t know how tough it is? That’s true I don’t, and all the traveling throughout the year can be taxing, but guess what? you eat the best food, stay in the best hotels, and when you’re not on the road, you live in luxury at home.
So I don’t know what it’s like to be a professional athlete, but I do know a thing or two about pushing through my own personal tiredness to do my job, and to be there for my team. Except my team was called the Marines. Try going on patrol for, at least, 10-12 hours a day, and only getting maybe 2 hours of intermittent sleep for months on end. Guess what I had an exhausted body, but I kept doing my job and I pushed through the exhaustion, aches, and general discomfort, because that’s what I had to do, and I was paid peanuts compared to what your getting. So these excuses just don’t jive with me Billy boy. Go out there pitch, and if you’re tired, fucking push through it, because, by god, you are getting paid enough to show a little backbone and heart. Maybe that’s just too much to expect out of you though. So if you want an apology then so do I, and until that time my hatred for you will continue to burn bright.
I just finished watching HBO’s new miniseries Generation Kill. I would have to say that so far this is probably one of the most realistic Iraq dramas I have seen yet. The show follows the First Recon Marines before the invasion, and then what happens after they invade Iraq. Watching this I feel so many emotions bubbling up. Although I am glad that I am not in the Marines anymore there was a certain simplicity in the Marine Corps that is still enticing. What do I mean? There is a certain comfortability within the Marine Corps that you won’t find anywhere else. That is one of the aspects that this show captures really well.
It’s good that this show is on HBO, because on regular ass TV you wouldn’t get the sense of brotherhood, or the crudeness. They didn’t shy away from some of the most lewd, and crude, but very fitting language that is prevalent amongst Marines. No where else would you see blacks, whites, asians, latins etc all calling each other the most racist names they could think of, and not get in fights, but just laugh it off, because despite your differences you’re brothers. It’s akin to a big brother who calls his little brother names, but as soon as someone else calls him names, he gets in a fight to defend his brother. This show also gets the ridiculousness of the Marine Corps. You see the commanding officers and the Senior NCO’s complain about Marines not tucking in their shirts or not shaving properly. While all the regular Marines are concerned about the war, and surviving it, all the senior Marines are worried about stupid, meaningless regulations. Most people don’t realize that this happens way too often, and that Marines end up spending too much time and effort getting hair cuts or worrying about dress regulations, than about the more important details of staying alive. In one scene a Sergeant Major yells at the Marines for not shaving properly, and for not being properly dressed, yet when the Marines get their MOPP suits, they notice that the suits are camoflauged for woodland terrain, and not for the desert. Also they don’t have all the equipment they need to fight the war. As one Marines says, “they don’t give us everything we need to keep us pissed off. If we were happy we wouldn’t be ready to kill all the time.” To true, when the other branches of the Armed Forces go to war they have more than they need, the Marines, however, are always woefully undersupplied.
There is one scene in this show that cracked me up, however, and that was when the Marines heard a rumor that J-Lo was dead. I remember that rumor–and the shit ton of other rumors like it–and how people were either kind of sad or just really, really happy that she was dead. Rumors are a daily part of life in war, and most of the time some dude just starts a rumor just because he’s bored. Actually most of the rumors are false, but they gave us something to talk about besides what we were doing, and because of that, rumors always spread like wild fire. Then there is the real news that we get, like the story about Justin Timberlake and Pink recording an anti-war song. Despite what we all thought about the war, we felt that that was a direct attack on us, and everyone was (and probably still is) bitter, and would have shot J.T. on sight. He’s lucky he never did a USO show, because he probably would have never come back.
This show almost gets it all right when it comes to candy. When you get your MRE’s you get some sort of candy in it. You either get peanut brittle, M&M’s Skittles, or Charms. The funny thing is is that most people that have had to eat these don’t eat Skittles anymore. They were the most prolific candy of the bunch, and we all tired of them really quickly. They don’t mention that in the show but I hope they bring it up in later episodes. They get it right with the charms, however. Charms are bad luck. Everyone I have ever known who has eaten them has had bad things happen to them. Luckily for us though we learned that while we were still in the states, so that by the time we were in country anyone that got charms in their MRE immediately threw them away. This is another one of the small details that his show got right, and lends to it’s authenticity.
There’s plenty else that is good about this show. It’s really hard to put everything into words, and I am still a little bit conflicted about watching something this authentic. Here’s a few small details that were good: everyone dips, everyone hates their commanding officers, everyone knows better than the people that are planning the war (and seriously it’s hard to contend that point after how this war has turned into a complete debacle), no one trusts outsiders, and porn is everywhere. These are just a few of the small detail points that this show gets right. It’s little details that normally no one would notice if it was missing, but for those of us in the know it’s these details that make it realistic.
This show was based on a book from an embedded journalist with the First Recon Marines–he’s from Rolling Stone. One of the best lines is when one of the Marines–commenting of Rolling Stone readers–mentions that they only feeling they know is the feeling of having a cock rammed up their ass. One of the Marines yelled at the journalist saying, “so you gonna tell everyone we are baby killers and women rapers?” The sad thing is is that most people don’t think that, but there are plenty that do. Many anti-war activists have no clue, but enjoy throwing those pejoratives around. I read a blog recently that called all the soldiers baby killers, and if I could have met that writer, I would have wrapped my hands around his throat until he turned blue. This is why many veterans and current Marines don’t like or trust outsiders. This show helps to convey the feeling among many Marines of “us against them.” You get the sense from the beginning that all of these Marines hate outsiders, and feel like no one is on their side. This is one of the most authentic feelings I believe that they conveyed in the show. It’s an amazing (and not amazing in a good way) feeling to be half the world away doing something that you hope is right, but also knowing that most people don’t give a shit whether you going to live or die. It’s that feeling that hardens you soul, and makes you do whatever it takes to get back home, to the few people, who you know actually care. That feeling comes though loud and clear in this show; although I’m not sure that the viewers will really understand it. Most likely they will just believe that the Marines are cocky, condensending assholes–which they are, but only because of the reasons I have mentioned.
But going back to the journalist, most of those guys were cocksuckers. The guy in the show seems ok, but I’m not sure how he is going to turn out (since I haven’t seen the rest of the series or read the book. For all I know this could turn out to be an expensive hit job on the Marines, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt). For the most part it was hard for those journalists to separate their political beliefs from their duties as a journalist. Most of them couldn’t and would end up writing a biased piece, or they would try to tell you how to do your job. One asshole tried to tell us that we shouldn’t be breaking down doors in this school, because we were damaging the school. He never wrote about how the schools haven’t been schools for years, because the Iraqi government had been stockpiling weapons in the schools for a decade. We cleared out schools all over Iraq so that kids could actually use the schools for school, but regardless, we still ended up being the assholes. I hope this show further explores some of these dichotomies throughout its run, and helps to show people a little bit of what it was like to be there.
One of the few things that bugs me about this show, so far, is that it follows a Recon unit, and not a regular Marine unit. I would just once like to see a show that follows a Marine Infantry unit, and shows, realistically, what it is like to go on a patrol. Not everyone gets to drive around Iraq in Hummers. Many of us ended up spending more time walking than riding, and we walked through terribly dangerous neighborhoods. Maybe someday something like that will come out, or maybe not. I’m sure this article has been a bit disconjuncted, and I apologize for that, but I am drunk, and I am trying to remember everything that I wanted to talk about. I’m sure I missed a few key points, but hopefully I told you enough to pique your curiosity. You should watch this show, no matter what side you are on, because most likely you will learn something that you didn’t know before. I looking forward to the rest of the series, however, because I want to see how my old unit the 1st Marine Division gets treated.
Update
For those that don’t know and don’t read the comments, Oscar Mike stands for “on the move” in military jargon.
