Back again but not really motivated to do the “Usual Wrecking Ball” job. Maybe after I warm up a bit on the keys... The Old I.R. of fame & legend (if only in his own mind) is sort of at the burnout stage in this tour. Normal to see as I’m now looking at the One Year Marker in Baghdadland, formerly known as the Saddam-A-Go-Go. Yep. One more year checked off and ‘check the box’ for weirdness, incoming fire, and the usual bullshit that goes along with being here. The past couple of weeks have been the hairiest out of the past twelve months, seeing that the “High Hardheaded Weirdbeards” and associated “Dirty Haj Brethren of Bad Body Odor and Offenses against God and Humanity” have started up to their old tricks, and the incoming has claimed a couple of lives over the past few, Ye Olde Intrepide Reporter is a bit off his stride.
Hell… how can one NOT be off one’s game? Another year… this make 6 years of being over here in various positions, with the most common one being BOHICA. That to the newbies means “Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.” I’m surviving, but as I’m also approaching another major life marker, I’m a bit on the down side. That major marker being my Birthday and the “BIG Four Fuckin’ Oh.” Yep. The reality is I ain’t a young’in no more. I’m old. Hell... the fact that I’ve made it thus far after the past 6 years of intensely strange stuff in itself is a minor miracle. Two shrapnel wounds, a bionic kneecap and too many traumatic brain injuries to count later, The I.R. is more amazed that I’ve retained the barest mentality, and that I’m not in a home somewhere drooling all over myself whilst waiting on my mush. I mean hell, I can understand the whole ‘mortality’ thing better than most at this point. Some of my friends have been like “You should celebrate!” and I’m like “Shut the fuck up. What the fuck evar!” as I’m now feeling slightly bitter. 6 Years on near continuous field operations has me spent like a smoking shell casing left on the range. It’s hard to wake up in the morning facing 40, and coming to the realization that I’m still HERE as opposed to THERE with my wife and kids. Anyone for a nice, tall, cool, glass of ‘Haterade’ for breakfast hmmmn?
I mean from what I understand, it’s a normal thing for a guy like myself (formerly athletic, now ½ crippled by my standards) to be hatin’ on the four zero. I think I’m entitled to it. I mean shit, the guys who wake up in my mood at least are waking up in their own fucking hemisphere. In their own fucking bed… going to a job they may hate, but where the most dangerous thing they may have to face that day is a paper cut or a layoff. Me? No layoffs to foresee, not until we wrap Iraq up and put a bow on ‘er, but sheeeee-it…. I’d strangle a busload of Nuns in the Vatican to have a ‘normal’ lifestyle again.
Unfortunately, I’m faced with a thing called R-E-A-L-I-T-Y. A word that seems to elude small children, the mass media, the military and politicians alike. Reality is there isn’t a way for me to come home in this fucked up economy. Reality is short of a lottery win or finding the pot ‘o gold to pay off my huge-mongous mortgage means I’m stuck in the (temporary) tax free shooting galleries. That until the aforementioned politicians figure out how to rape me even more than they already have and tax the fuck outta me. Delusional is another word for those people, minus the small children… lil kids are supposed to be that way, whereas these demented motherfuckers whom I’m about to unload on, well, they get what they deserve IN SPADES.
Yeah… time to unlimber the “Rant-O-Thon.” Been a while but after reading the headLIES for the past couple of days, I’m ab-so-fucking-lute-ly done with being Mister nice I.R. I’m calling it like I sees it. My particular Rant of The Day is for the Mainstream Media LIARS and ASSHOLES who they are COVERING UP for. Specifically: Body Count.
A VERY sore subject for me. It’s like a hot knife through my heart to read about our U.S. Casualties. The fucking media vampires and scumfuck editors couldn’t get enough of splashing death and dismemberment of our brave troops on the headLIES and front pages when they were capable of dropping said bodies at the feet of the “Bushitler and Darth Cheney” and helping the Goddamned Code Pink Fuckstains. Yeah I’m heated. Why do you ask? Well lets see… we just had the SINGLE MOST amount of casualties in ONE day and the media has managed to ‘spread it around’ and, despite stating the “largest single loss of U.S. life,” it’s been played like nothing. Now granted, I’m not in the US, but the ‘play and spin’ on the major news media websites can give me a gauge as to how things are playing back home, and we DO get CNN and ABC on the AFN (Armed Forces Network) TV to show what’s happening back home. Right now? I’d have to say “Fuckin’ Bupkiss.”
14 Guys bought the farm in 2 count ‘em TWO Helicopter accidents. Now, the editor in the back waving his fucking pencil wants to say “Well I.R… they reported that.” Yeah? Well what about the 8… count ‘em EIGHT OTHER Joes who got blown the hell away by various I.E.D.s and attacks… all on THAT SAME DAY. Nevermind the announcement of the recovery of 3 contractor carcasses who got shot down three days before? Hmmn… they, the “Department of Propaganda” A.K.A. the Mass Media Myrmidons or “The Obamanation’s Mouthpieces” have very cutely sidelined it and spread the news around to make it LESS of an event. Can you IMAGINE the screaming foaming at the mouth uproar if such a mass-cas list was unveiled under the Bush admin? Granted we’ve all seen it before, but it really gets under my skin… That’s 22 guys/gals gone to the Final Formation with the Head Sky Pilot… Never mind the ‘mercs’ who bought it… add them in as legit casualties and you get 25 in one day… That’s ¼ of a hundred… a HELL of a lot of blood on the hands of the man who stated Monday: "While I will never hesitate to use force to protect the American people or our vital interests, I also promise you this—and this is very important as we consider our next steps in Afghanistan: I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm's way," Obama said Monday during a visit to Naval Air Station Jacksonville. "I won't risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary." (stolen from A.P., all rights reserved… for me that is, to shove it up the AP Editors Collective Asses if I ever meet the sonofabitches face-to-face.)
Lets break down that little Statement from the “Cow…er... Commander in Chief.”
1) “While I will never hesitate to use force to protect the American people or our vital interests, I also promise you this—and this is very important as we consider our next steps in Afghanistan: I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm's way,"I.R. Translation: “I won’t hesitate to throw you to the wolves, if the Lobbyists who pull my pathetic strings order me to. However, because there’s an election coming up, and I can’t afford to piss off the Nutroots of the Demon-cratic Party that elected me, I’ll put on the brakes as best I can.”
2) “I won't risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary."I.R. Translation: “Once the election is over, all bets are off, and you’re all cannon fodder again.”
Is it any wonder we’re having MAD Morale issues? I mean Holy Jumping Dog-Balls Batman! With statements like that, it’s amazing we haven’t seen more Joes just saying “Fuck it, Fuck you, and FUCK OFF.” The main reason is that these kids are FAR better trained and have been fucked over so much in the past 7 years that they are, for lack of a better word, used to being assfucked by the politicians and the media.
I’m waiting. I still maintain that eventually, these kids/men/women of the Armed Forces are going to FINALLY get tired of the lack of accountability and stupidity coming out of Sodom-on-the-Potomac. They’re going to come home and for lack of a better word, come home ALL SORTS of PISSED off. Heavily trained, and unemployed, the nightmare that the current Dot GOV should be thinking of is three words, modified from an ‘already happened in history’ moment. These being “Modern Bonus Army.”For those of you, who don’t know your history; check the Wikipedia entry for “Bonus Army.” In the FIRST Great Depression, the unemployed homeless and indigent Vets from Dubbaya Dubbaya Uno made a HUGE homeless camp on the grounds of the Washington Mall. They wanted/needed their bonus money that had been promised to them early, and in response, a thoroughly terrified Political Class unleashed the US Army on them in direct violation of the Posse Comitaus Act. This, mind you was in 1932. Now, officially, the Posse Comitatus act doesn’t hold sway in D.C as it’s a Fed-Gov territory, and in reality, this’s the SECOND time that the Feds freaked when their Mil-Vets demanded financial remuneration. The first was in 1783 when the Pennsylvanian war vets marched on the then-capitol of Philly. The feds being feds set up the new Area of Operation A.K.A. Washington D.C. as exempt from Posse Comitatus so that they have the full power of the US Military as their tools to put down rebellion and insurrection… pretty slick of them I think…. Without it they’d be run out of town on a rail on a regular basis. That in itself wouldn’t be a bad thing. Who was it who said “"A little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."? Jefferson I believe…
I’d have to say that if “The One” turns tail and hauls balls out of the ‘Wars’ the “Three Strikes You’re Out” rule might be in full effect. My own opinion is that the reason we’ve stayed on for so long in all of these wars is that they, the Political/Patrician/Elites/Ruling Classes have got to KEEP the military kids busy… if they don’t and we go to a ‘neutral corner’ so to speak, and what with the economy being in poor, nay ABYSSAMAL shape, then the LAST Thing they want is to let a quarter million HIGHLY SKILLED and WAR HARDENED veterans loose in America… Hence all of those reports that ‘slipped out’ calling on Homeland Security to keep an eye on Vets and the like… they, the fucking Fed-Gov have turned from being the “arbiter between the states” to being “Lord High and Overseers of Any and All Aspects of Your Lives so Shut up Peon, lest you be smited.”
Dunno about y’all, but I’ma getting tired of all the rules, regulations, expectations and bullshit that seems to be flowing like a broken sewage pipe out of D.C. Whatever happened to “Freedom?” I mean it’s sure as hell isn’t a ‘party thing.’ Political Parties, the “Repuboobicans” and the “Demoncrats” are strictly the means that the elites keep us divided and busy while they loot and rape us. And between the intentional dumbing down of our children in Public Schools, is it any wonder that any parent worth a shit is homeschooling these days? Even my 11 year old is aware of how retarded the school system is and DEMANDS to be taught at home. Hell, the threat of punishment in our house is “Do you WANT to go to school? We can sign you up and drop you off right now if you don’t behave!!!” Household Six only has to drive by the public school and point out to the kids that if they keep acting up, that THAT is where they were going to end up, with the dummies, malcontents and Mexicans. (As a side note: No bash on the Mexicans intended, but the illegal immigration in our A.O. is so bad that the school is running 50 to 60 kids PER CLASS and has to be bi-lingual because of insane overcrowding… due to this the quality of teaching is bottoming like a lead hulled boat, and the kids know it.)
Anyways... enough ranting for the moment. I gotta go to lunch.
OK Back from “The Ptomaine Palace” also known as “The Dagger Inn” or even now, the “Raider Inn.” Yep… how many name changes does a place go through? Too fucking many. When I first got here, the Camp I lived on was “North Victory.” Then just “Victory” Then, some asshole started calling it Camp Al-Taheer, or “Liberty”. This begat the split between “East Liberty” and “West Liberty,” as well as splitting East Liberty into the subheadings of “Camp Blackjack” and then, renaming it to, and not limited to, let’s see… “Tigerland,” “Ironhorse,” hmmm… and now, if to be believed,” “Camp Firesweep” whatever the fuck THAT means. One of my guys I work with thinks the “Firesweep” sign is more for identifying the Fire Department in the East Lib side, but it’s all the way up at the main entry to the area, mounted on the Main Entry Signframe that USED to say "Tigerland" or whatever, so until I’m told otherwise, I'm in an A.O. that sounds like a Gay Retreat off of Long Island.
Whew.
Is it any wonder I feel sorta kinda schizophrenic on a near daily basis?
More later, if I have time or inclination… 26 Days and a Wakeup til the Big Four Oh. Man I hate getting old….
Until then, I remain, The Intrepid Reporter.
