What don't kill ya', makes you smarter....?

From the Soldier side: Many, many years ago, when I was an 18 year old private E-1 in the Army, I was a smart ass.

The thing you have to learn if you are a smart ass is: When you can be a smart ass and not put yourself in a bad position. When you are a Private E-1 in the Army, going through Basic or Advanced Individual Training (AIT), it is most important that you learn to control being a smart ass...or really, really bad things happen to you.

These really, really bad things are usually inflicted upon said Privates by Army Drill Sergeants. The Army Drill Sergeants are highly trained and dealing with smart ass privates.

After I "graduated" from Army Basic Training at Fort Ord, CA (It's closed now), I saw that I was being sent to Fort Polk, LA for A.I.T. The school was called: "Indirect Fire Crewmen- MOS 11C". Translated to Civilian...that was Infantry Mortars.

I was totally confused because this was not what I joined the Army to do...and I made sure the Drill Sergeants knew. They didn't care, so off I went to Fort Polk. Damn that place sucks. Why does the Army always buy property in such crappy places?

After we settled into our new barracks at Ft Polk...and introduced to our new Drill Sergeants...I asked the Drill Sergeant if I could talk to him after formation. "Yes Private, what do you need?"

"Excuse me Drill Sergeant, but there's been a big mistake....I'm not supposed to be here... I joined the Army to do something else...that requires reading."

That pissed him off. 20 push ups later, I was dismissed.
I continued to ask to be reassigned to another school or discharged. The Drill Sergeants got so tired of me bugging them.

One day, early in the morning...we were getting ready to go for a little 10 mile walk with packs, rifles and crap. At this time of my life, I was a stud. I could run for miles, do hundreds of push ups, shoot, and all kinds of deadly stuff.

As we were standing in formation to start our hike....my favorite Drill Sergeant called me into the supply room. He said: "Hey Private, we have you discharge for you to sign."

I signed for the M60 machine gun and the PRC 77 (Prick 77) radio. Each with all it's crap weighed about 25 pounds.

So, I had to hump the "Pig" and the Prick 77. A few miles into the hike, some of my buddies offered to carry these lead weights....but I turned down the offers. I was going to stand up to the challenge....because I was a Smart Ass.

I learned to shut up after that....until I earned my stripes and can deliver the smart ass with the "crusty old NCO" approach.

Why I hate Golf....

From the Cop side: I just got this photo from a buddy of mine in the F.H.P. (Florida Highway Patrol) Some pictures are worth a thousand words, so I won't say more.

Neighbors didn't like....

From the Citizen side: I got up early yesterday and put up my Christmas lights. (Yeah, they're Christmas lights, not "holiday" lights.)

The neighbors came around and complained.

What do you readers think?

Does this body armor make my ass look big?

From the Soldier side: As you enjoy your Thanksgiving turkey, ham, potatoes, yams, beans, bread, rolls, gravy, carrots, apple pie, pumpkin pie, beer, milk, coffee, coke, and all that other good stuff, think about how lucky we are today.

It was 35 years ago this month that I joined the Regular Army. I was very young and dumb.
I was so dumb, that when I joined, I didn't get a written guarantee for the job I wanted. Silly me. So, even though I scored very high on all the written test to get into the Army, I was placed into the Infantry.

I spent 2 years being an 11C- Indirect Fire Crewmen (in English- a mortar gunner.) I went through the Army Infantry School at Ft Polk, La. We had to go through all the stuff the basic riflemen went through and learn how to fire mortars.

I can still remember the drill sergeants on the mortar range with the 81mm gun. It was so f--ing loud, then when I actually had to stand next to it, holding a live HE round over the tube, then dropping it down the tube to fire....bending low and hearing that loud SOB go off. I thought:"shit, I have to do this for 2 years?"

I did get used to it. Maybe that's what dulled my feelings. But I learned to respect a lot of things...like throwing hand grenades. I learned to never throw them in thick wooded areas uphill because they will usually bounce off a tree and roll back to you.

To be cont.

Thanksgiving in other lands....

From the Soldier side: As Thanksgiving will soon be here, it brings back some found memories of some thanksgivings I've had while on deployments. When we were in Bosnia in Nov 03', our team was still at a smaller camp. There were only about 40 soldiers there and I thought it was great. We didn't have all the MWR (Recreation) crap that they had at the big camp (Eagle Base) but we made our own fun. The highest ranking soldier on our camp was a 1st LT.
When our captain at Eagle Base called us and said: "You guys can drive down here for Thanksgiving, and get off your little camp if you want."
We said:"Thanks, but no thanks sir, we prefer it up here."
Now you might ask: "why would you prefer to be at the small camp and not got down to the big base and enjoy Thanksgiving with the rest of your friends?"

Because there were no assholes at our little camp! The cooks were great and they made a great meal. When we were done, we drove into town and had more fun...stuff you just couldn't do at the big base with the 9 sergeant majors, 78 majors, 6 full bird cols, and hundreds of other useless frigging' officers and assholes. Nope. Camp Cody was the place to be. I invited the asshole captain to come and join us, but he was afraid to leave.

A year later...we were in the middle of the Kuwait desert standing in line in a little sand storm waiting to get into the mess hall for our Thanksgiving dinner. We hated Kuwait so bad that some of us were ready to walk to Iraq. The camp there sucked so bad. For every meal you ate a side of sand. You drank sand, you inhaled sand and you shit sand. We were so miserable....I never thought I'd be happy to go to a war zone just to get out of a shitty place like Kuwait.
I hate to tell all them Gulf War vets, but you fought for Kuwait and it ain't' worth shit....and the Thanksgiving there sucked.

So enjoy your dinner this year and please don't drink and drive because I'll be working my cop job and I love to arrest drunk drivers.

First time....

From the Citizen Soldier side: A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of running another pistol range for my National Guard unit. I say "pleasure" because next to shooting, teaching others to shoot is almost as much fun. This group of shooters were made up of those who missed the range during our "summer camp."

We had M9 and M11 pistols. This pistol course is "fun" to those who shoot a lot. You have 40 rounds and get 30 targets. There are multiple tables and in some, the shooter has to change magazines. It's all timed, and you don't have a lot of time. The last table requires walking towards the targets. Many of the first time shooters only hit 5 targets. Really, for the first time with a pistol they did pretty good. This is a hard course for somebody who's never shot a pistol... The above shooter finally qualified the third time through. He didn't give up, so neither did we.

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CI Roller Dude....