Trees and Hills --- On Pass for the Weekend

Today I am writing from my sister's house in Kentucky. I have not seen my family for over a year and this weekend I got a Pass for the long weekend. Its nice to see trees and rolling hills again. Texas is so flat. It feels good to leave Ft. Hood and see civilians again. I flew into Nashville on Friday and was picked up by my brother Ron and sister in law Sherry. Today I went to see my two nephews play baseball. They are both great little ball players. Kyle and Kaleb both promised me to get hits for me and they both did! Later that day I went a birthday party for my niece Taylor who turned 5. She is adorable to. Tommorow I will be celebrating my other neice's graduation from high school. Busy weekend. It does feel great to see them all though. I am a little tired tonight so I guess I will make this quick. Another day without shaving tommorow and then back to the grind and Ft. Hood on Monday. Hope everyone else is doing good this weekend.

Back from the Dead and Feeling Old

Last week I wrote about the training I was doing at the FOB (Forward Operating Base). Well I was killed during the exercise, but was brought back to life by the Trainers. Last Saturday I began IED training and was made the NCOIC of our group and the Convoy Commander for the actual training event that took place on Tuesday. It was another good training but the role of convoy commander took its toll on me. I damn near lost it. I did manage to keep my head long enough to get us through the exercise, but it was intense. Mutiple IED attacks, snipers, and groups of Iraqi civilians (some were actually suicide bombers). There is so much that goes on and my biggest problem was commucations. Our radios were not as good as we needed them to be and several times I had to run between vehicles to get my orders followed. Overall, the trainers thought we did well, although I admitted that I was just a tad overwhelmed with the situations. I was running around with all my "battle rattle" on (thats kevlar, IBE, and my body armor) in 90 degree heat. I survived all this and felt good on Wednesday when I got back to the regular job. So I am feeling old not because of this but because of what happened to me on Friday. See Wednesday we did some solid PT (stretching, pushups and situps and a nice long run), and on Thursday I ran with my body armor on. Friday was an easy day....just a friendly game of Frisbee football. During the game I bent over to pick up the frisbee and....ahhh..shit...I pulled something in my lower back. Now I didnt do the smart thing by quiting right there...I kept playing like an idiot. Big mistake. Well at any rate, I was in pain and could barely walk by lunch time. I had to go to sick call and the doctor gave me some drugs and ordered me to rest my back. I was real sore yesterday, but I feel that I will be ready for PT next week. Until then I guess I will keep feeling old. Ah well....I guess I need to stop trying to run with those 20 year olds.

SSG Glenn Read...American Hero......RIP

Well at least in the war game I was killed. It has been a long week or so. It started last Saturday when I picked up an M-16A2 weapon for the first time in 12 years. I zeroed pretty good, but at the qualification range I came up short of the number of targets I needed to hit. I will be going back later this spring to see if I can shoot straight. Later on Saturday I went to the FOB (forward operating base) and trained on force protection. I was put in charge of Squad 1 of B Company. Monday we trained on Convoy operations and Combat operations. On Monday afternoon we went out and did our combat operations and searched for insurgents. I was the truck commander for vehicle 5 in the convoy. I was 3rd in charge of the convoy and early on in the mission our convoy commander, a Major, was killed. The Army hires civilian actors to act as Iraqis and to act as insurgents. They also have weapons with blanks and fire off mortars and IEDs at us. Its pretty intense. At the end of the exercise, the convoy was ambused and some of our guys were killed by snipers. From the my position in the rear I could see where the sniper was and I know that he was preoccupied by the supressive fire coming from his front. I told one of my guys to follow me and that we were going to try to outflank the sniper and flush him out into the open. We did that and he was killed by one of our people. In the meantime, I noticed that there was a group of civilian Iraqis coming toward our convoy. Not knowing whether or not they were SB (suicide bombers), I ordered them to stop and to go down on the ground. One of the Iraqi woman had been hurt and needed medical support, so I radioed in the medic to take a look at her. One of the older Iraqi men (the shiek of the village) turned to me and said that he had information to share. I radioed in to our CC that we had some possible information on insurgents but noone seemed to know what to do. All of a sudden several mortars went off everywhere and shot were being taken from the wood line of the village. The CC ordered everyone to mount up but my vehicle was 300 meters away. I was left alone, surrounded by angry iraqis. One of the instructors came up with a smile on his face and handed me a KIA card. (Killed in Action)..When I laid down to play dead, all the villagers rushed me and began body raping me...taking all my shit. Not very dignified. Finally my trucked pulled up by it was too late....I was dead. I wonder if I will get the Silver Star or the Medal of Honor?....At anyrate, I did learn my lesson and was resurrected to fight another day. It was an intense week...but lots of fun. When I come back in August, I want to get Jason and Warren and Eric and do a little paintball war game with me...That should be fun and I will know all the best strategies....Happy Mothers' Day all you muthers....Haha.

Oh...I have to Carry a Gun?

For the past few weeks I have been wearing the uniform, but more or less I have just been doing alot of the stuff I did in civilian world. Meetings, office work, and PT in the morning. But that will change in the next day or so. Tommorow, bright and early, I will be going to the range to zero and to qualify with my M-16 A2....now its been awhile since I qualified, over 10 years since I even picked up a weapon. But tommorow I will attempt to hit 23 targets out of 40...hmmmmm...well we will see. Later tommorow we get to go to the FOB for a 72 hour round the clock exercise. FOB stands for Forward Operating Base. Thats where the war takes place. We will be training on convoy operations, setting up security paramenters, and learning how to respond to IEDs and insurgent attacks. OPFOR's will be trying to kill us and we will try to not get killed. HAHA. OPFOR's stands for Opposition Forces. Today I was fitted for and recieved my body armor....damn this shit is heavy. When we get to Iraq...we will have it on...almost all the time. When we are in the field we will be wearing it and we will begin to do our PT run with it on in the next week or so. I will be taking lots of pictures at the FOB so that everyone can see what its like to see grown men act like boy scouts for a few days. I am learning to drive a hummer and will most likely be the gunner during this exercise...cool huh? At any rate, this should be a hard (but fun) week. Catch you all later when I come back from the FOB.

Have you Hugged your illegal Alien Today?

In the news the past several weeks there has been lots of information about what to do with illegal immigrants who have been crossing in from Mexico. There are all kinds of opinions out there about how to deal with this problem. Some people are saying send them back, others are saying put them on some kind of "citizen track", others have suggested building a big ass wall from El Paso to San Diego. There is no exact number, but it is estimated that there are over one million illegal aliens presently working their asses off for uptight rich people who pay them "under the table." You see lots of rich people want to hire illegal aliens for lots of reasons. First of all they cost almost nothing, have a great work ethic, and tend to take jobs all us lazy fat americans would never think of doing. Ahhhh and one more thing....They are easily controlled. See most of these folks are so afraid of being discovered and caught, they rarely ever say no to their "Hosts". They do whatever they need to to stay in the country. The last couple of weeks there have been attempts to address their plight. In many of the largest cities, protests have been organized. Yesterday, immigrant rights groups throughout the country called for a "day without Immigrants day. The purpose was to show how important immigrants
(including illegal) are to the American economy. We need them to cook and clean and do our lawns and watch our kids. We need them to bus tables and dig ditches. All this bullshit about congress working on a Immigration Reform Bill....now thats rich.! Can you imagine if the Natives that greeted the first wave of european immigrants had a stronger immigration policy? Damn...no one would have been allowed in. In the last few days, President Bush has made statements basically saying that the protesters should not be ecouraged to particpate in any acts of civil disobedience. He also has asked that the National Anthem should only be sung in English. Hmmmm...ok...no spanish version of the star spangled banner. It nice to know he has his priorities straight. I dont know why I felt like writing about this, but I guess I just felt like I had to say something about this. Its an underdog thing I think. At any rate....I need to go to bed...Good Night. Oh...and if you see an illegal alien cutting your lawn.....tell them i said WELCOME!