Middle East Cultural Class

So today I was sent to a class/presentation about culture awareness of the middle east.

some very interesting, but also somewhat disturbing things.

Most of the things they talked about I already knew but the Army had some Air Force Major come talk to us. She specialized in Mid-East affairs. It was a Brigade level class so all ranks were there

Man oh man did she hold Islam and Middle East culture in such a high regard. The style she put that out was actually almost slightly insulting in my point of view.

It felt like she was saying to us that we are fuck ups and instead of being harsh and violent we need to do a complete 180 and pretty much put down our weapons and hug every Iraqi good or bad and things will be better. Ahem, ever been blown up or shot at?

Like one example is the Iraqi culture of kind of LYING to you, in their culture they're more likely to tell you a lie that you want to hear rather than the truth.

One of the slides she had presented the misconceptions of Iraqi's; Like lying

next to the word in bold it said "Lying? or just trying to survive?"

IT'S STILL FUCKING LYING

I don't give a shit if it's justified or not, it's still fucking lying and not what I need to hear.

You gotta understand for a second, I absolutely respect and admire the Iraqi culture and Islam, to a point.

But from 0800 to 1430 when we said screw this and left, to hear over and over that we're wrong in this and wrong in that, it's like;

OK, fuck you, here you are telling us how great they are, stories of you traveling to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, HOW ABOUT YOU TRAVEL TO RAMADI, OR BAQUBA?

Then tell me how the hell you want me to implement your Operation Hug an Iraqi and the IED's will go away.

I understand that some sort of cultural sensitivity is needed. I ABSOLUTELY AGREE, but good lord Major, you sure do know how to go overboard.

She sugarcoated the history of Islam so much it almost seemed like crap propaganda, I know a little about Islam and what you put is TOTALLY not accurate, the shits Airbrushed, and to hell with you trying to sell it the way you did.

Fact of life, I can kiss Hajji's ass all day long and do everything they want AND THEY'LL STILL TRY AND KILL ME AND MY MEN.

Oh wait, sorry, can't say Hajji. It's culturally offensive.

You know what's also culturally offensive too? Beheading my fellow soldiers and civilians, and then dancing by their corpses...

Fucking judging us from your high top cushioned chair, come down into the sludge and then tell us all your shit

Wow....Define Irony

Iran here we come

You think that ain't happening, keep dreaming buddy. I say fuck it, let's do it, but let's do it right.

But no the smartest thing to do though right now Branding the Al Quds Force a terrorist organization. They're supporting the Shia insurgency and the Taliban, that's obvious, but to officially label them that?

Sooooo not gonna help us out with the Iraq situation. I mean, they already got some forces there helping fighting us, teaching and distributing EFP's to kill us.

And now that we openly call them on it?

What's to stop them from sayin "Fuck it, if you call me a terrorist organization, I might as well help out ten-folds"

Yup....like I said fuck it, start bombing Iran.

I'm not serious about bombing Iran, that's a good instant band-aid for a long term wound.

One final thing. I hate ROTC shitbags, just seeing them makes me want to punch them in the face, fucking pissants.

Fallen Soldiers

Every time I open up a new Army Times I find myself always flipping to the section where they show the people who died in the 2 Wars, and at least once a week I go to Icasualties.org to look at the dead.

I don't know why....

Maybe to see if I know any of them?

I remember right before I deployed the first time I saw a buddy of mine in there, such an awful surprise, I remember how and where too. Ramadi, IED attack.

Very Eerie.

But to this day I don't even know why I still look at that part first.

It's pretty much the death section, then straight to PVT Murphy comic strips. I love the one running now about Murphy going to the E-5 board.

And to hell with stop loss.

I love how all my boys' ETS date on their LES all changed. One of my guys actually ETS 3 weeks ago. HAHAHA...Nope, sorry kid, You got one more deployment left in ya....

I am as far from being called "Religious" as possible

I'm a Karma kinda guy, like no joke. I live by Karma, it gets me through my day.

Take today.

In our building we kind of have minor mice issues, we see them little furry fuckers scutter around every now and then but can never catch em.

Well today somehow someone caught 2 of em.

Put em in a container and pretty much just left em there.

I'm like..."Soooo what're you guys gonna do with the mice?"

....."I dunno"

Fuck it, I'll take em, I'll let em go in the fields away from here. The hell with leaving them here so someone can fuck with them.

Plus, they were kinda cute, so what if they maybe, perhaps, possibly, carried the bubonic plague?

I had to go take care of some errands first, so I told the supply guy that I'll be back for em, and I left.

Well...one of em died when I came back.

Now, just to get this straight, I ain't one of those touchy feely fuckers, but damn, I actually got sad.

So immediately I got the lone survivor and got him outside and set him free and stood there for a few seconds to watch him scuttle away, preferably away from the building, and went back inside.

I found out who killed it, and all I said was, Be careful, Karma's gonna get your ass in the end.

So with that little story being said I come to my point.

A few months ago when I was bored out of my mind waiting for my best friend get ready so we can go out, I picked up the bible on his dresser due to complete boredom and flipped to a random page, when I came up this:

Luke 12:22

After reading it, Man oh man, I pretty much had to say out loud to God. "Are you fucking with me?"

Its really hard to explain the emotions and what I was thinking at the time, but either way, that shit hit me bad.

I mean of all the things to randomly select and read, it had to be this.

F.R.E.A.K.Y.

Luke 12:22

[22] Then Jesus said to his disciples: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear.

[23] Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.

[24] Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!

[25] Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

[26] Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

[27] "Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.

[28] If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!

[29] And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it.


.....Kinda makes you feel just a lil bit safer, almost re-assuring.....

Some of us ain't coming home

Who's gonna be the unlucky one, who's gonna win the lottery?

Not this kid...

Hopefully...

Ha...

And to my Strep Throat, I say, Damn you Good Sir, Damn you...

The next president

Who oh who do I like?

Obama?

Clinton Part Deux?

Mr. Never was viewed as a good mayor till 9/11 Giuliani?

or Perhaps Mitt "I like you and your views but the fact your mormon freaks me out" Romney?

NONE OF THEM.

I support Mike Gravel.

And even I disagree 100% with his strategy concerning Iraq.

But in regards to every other issue concerning my country? I fully support.

The war was screwed from the get go. But I'm telling you. In my eyes, we have a chance now. Screw the whole strategy of "Let's say No to spite the sitting President"

It truly and unfortunately matter that this war was started on false pretenses.

It's happened and there's no going backwards.

There really IS a silver lining now, and it may cost me my life. But I personally believe it's worth it.

But ya, don't tell the guys in my platoon that. They already think I'm a hippie liberal commie..Haha...Inside Joke people, Inside Joke

A long day

The worst thing about going to Iraq?

Not the mind numbing counting down the days till we go
Not the preparation of your last will
Not coming up a list of whom my mom should call if I die

But the amazingly incompetent way we pack our unit equipment and personal/professional gear.

We pack it and we're told we're all set.

Nope, wait, we need to lay it out to make sure we have everything
Oh no, wait, take it back out, we have to inventory it.

It doesn't help that it's 104 degrees outside either. ha.

But surprisingly, this reflection isn't about the incompetency of the system, but is about how fortunate I am to be surrounded by some genuinely good people.

Here we are after 6pm, and they finally say we're done for the day (We're normally let our about 5). The married folks drive home and the single joes go back to the barracks, to complain to each other, to hang out with each other, to finally eat our microwave dinners or order pizza; the chow hall closes at 6.

Not even 5 minutes in my room, and I get a phone call.

Head back out, we have more packing to do.

Wow.

Seriously?

Are you fucking kidding me?

So here we are, close to 7, haven't eaten dinner, rolling out to have more packing fun.

It's mostly single soldiers and a select few married folks that didn't leave in time. Everyone that's around. Lucky us.

You can only imagine the atmosphere and the pent up anger and frustration amongst the men. Even the Senior NCO's are visibly pissed.

We come to find out that our 3 biggest shipping containers were not inventoried nor packed correctly, even though we spent 2 days doing it.

2 days of packing and none of the leaders figured to do any of this?

Wow.

So much for that college degree....

So we're out there, packing and complaining, just another stupid "Hey, It's the Army, what'd you expect" explanation.

But then towards the end I notice something.

The mood is different, we were all laughing, and joking, even through the heat and the stupidity of things, even the fact that it's past 8pm.

The men were bonding, and it was at that point I realized just how amazing the men next to me really were. I mean, this ain't no sappy shit or nothing. It's just...Goddamn...this shit is the epitome of the suck and we don't give a fuck. We gotta do it, so let's do it and say fuck it all. We did it right and we did it laughing.

I don't know if I quite wrote down the situation properly but fuck it, because I understand.

And because of this, I know, no matter what happens in the hellhole we're going to....

Things will be alright...

My men

I love the men in my platoon and I fucking can't stand them.

I got smart ones, dumb as shit ones, and a few in betweens.

The cherries, they're all kids, I mean, when I joined I was in a sense a kid, but looking back, I was never as wet behind the ears as them.

They bought into the bullshit. They bought into the machismo bullshit.

You know what the favorite saying of the Army is? The most popular saying that most of us say to each other almost every day if not every few hours?

"Fuck the Army"

The Infantry changes you....

It sucks the innocence from you, from these kids, and they haven't even seen the war yet.

It's so draining....and yet, We all share that bond, the burden, and we all understand what needs to be done without even speaking about it.

Because let's be honest, who else is going to do it? YOU? Ha...exactly, I thought so.

Military Service is at an all time low, and you have piece of shit kids talking of which they know nothing about.

How dare you speak of Iraq as though you can even begin to fathom the complexity of the situation. The looks in the eyes of the children there, the reserved angst mixed with fear in the eyes of the men and women there.

Until you've walked the streets of Iraq, don't ever dare to say you know.

....And you wonder why I said fuck college and went back Active Duty.

That fucking chubby asian kid in my Poli-Sci 101 class. The epitome of shitbag ignorance. I should've punched you in the goddamn face.

I digress.

I even have a Cherry Joe in my platoon who's a goddamn VIRGIN. 19 yrs old. Complete World of Warcraft nerd, never had a girlfriend, introvert, got picked on in high school kid.

I can see the pain in his eyes, how he wants to prove them all wrong, a huge fuck you right back to those that said he wasn't a man.

He's a good kid. But he shouldn't be here. He's still in a sense; an innocent? You can tell he's been sheltered, and I can only imagine how the things he will go through will affect him.

He tries so hard to be a Man, but his immaturity always seems to find its way on top.

I'm pretty hard on him, and I don't know why. But I feel like I almost have to, to make him that much tougher, otherwise...he won't last.

but then again who the fuck am I to judge?

You fucking civilians send us out to a shithole mindfuck where we don't know who the enemy is, where everyone is a potential enemy and you expect us to be all nice and cheery like the local fucking postman?

And when some people snap and atrocities happen, you blame THEM?

FUCK YOU!!

Blame yourselves.

You all knew what would happen, but hey, better them than me right?

Go fuck yourselves, oh hey, Time for you to stop reading this, American Idol is on.

Why oh Why do you want us home?

Is it the number of soldiers dying?

Is it the innocent Iraqi's dying everyday?

Is it your hatred of our President?

NO. You and I both know it's not.

It's the mere pathetic reason that it doesn't look like we're winning.

And America ALWAYS WINS.

Shit, if we were looking like we were winning I bet you dumb fucking American's wouldn't give two shits of the atrocities that go on in this war, IN ANY WAR even.

As long as we win.

Cuz America doesn't care about right or wrong, only if we're winning.

Popular movie quote that rings true in this country.

If you ain't first you're last