Journal Entry: "Iraqis at the Polls"

Not much time to write today. Just had to mention that the Iraqi elections went very, very well. All of even the most optimistic expectations were exceeded. How is the press going to spin this into something negative? I’m sure they’ll find a way. It speaks to how jaded and complacent we’ve become when we can’t post the same turnout percentages as a place where voters face the potential of violent death at the polls.

Journal Entry: "The Mini-Mall"

Today we got our first on-post pass. We’ve had what are called mini-mall passes, which allow us to walk a little ways down to (you guessed it) a mini-mall where we can purchase toiletries and other necessities. Today we were given the run of the post…with one minor exception: Some of us had left our lockers accidentally unsecured earlier in the week – a most heinous crime, and therefore had our passes revoked. Instead of spending the day on post eating decent food and having soft drinks and shopping and generally just decompressing, we got to stay behind and strip the wax off the floors. All day. And yes, I was one of them. I had apparently left my locker unsecured earlier this week. I can’t explain how it happened and its really not a big deal in the real world, but here its treated as if you whipped out and took a piss on the drill sergeant’s boots. I had to wear a duffle bag on my back all week that contained the entire contents of my wall locker and wake up ever hour on the hour to sign a piece of paper saying I had my locker secure – every night. So when Saturday rolled around and we smelled a pass in the air, I figured I had served my sentence and would be allowed to go. Wrong. Oh well, it really didn’t bother me that much and when everyone else came back from pass, we had that floor looking better than it ever had before. There was a strange satisfaction in that I can’t quite explain. I was rather proud of myself that I took it without once having felt sorry for myself and I accomplished the rather distasteful tasks given to us with no contempt or irritation. I’ve come a long way in that respect. It will serve me well when things don’t go my way in the field.

Journal Entry: "The Poor Man's Opera"

We were discussing the organization of displaced civilian/refugee camps and reviewing a diagram of the layout of a five-thousand-person camp. It was noted that the “unattached males” section of the camp was diametrically opposed in location to the “unattached females”. The reasons were obvious. The instructor mentioned that sex was virtually the only form of entertainment in a refugee camp to which I interjected, “That’s what they call it the ‘Poor Man’s Opera’.” I got a lot of confused looks and realized no one got the joke, so I stood up and went “Ohhh, ohhh, ohhhhhhhhhhh!” parodying an operatic orgasm. The instructors pride themselves on their game-faces. He couldn’t maintain his this time. He had to go behind the projection screen for a full minute while the rest of the class recovered its composure. I’ve had to give a few repeat performances of that one up in the barracks since.

Journal Entry: "Don't Be Too Proud..."

Something occurred to me today. In class we watched some gung-ho video showcasing all of the U.S. military’s hi-tech, expensive war-making equipment blowing shit up set to Slipknot or Corn or some anger band’s thrash metal. I watched the rest of the class getting pumped up and then as the instructor came to the front of the class afterward to praise the myth of victory through technological superiority. As a typical American pop-culture victim, I kept thinking of Darth Vader: “Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed…” We have so much pride and place so much faith in our technology that it has inspired an overconfidence, a false righteousness that could prove to be our undoing. Our enemies inflicted tens-of-billions of dollars of damage, hundreds-of-billions if one considers the economic ripple-effect on consumer confidence, and murdered 3,000 people with box cutters. Throwing technology developed for traditional battle-front warfare at the problem, no matter how impressive the technology, will accomplish very little in solving the underlying causes of conflict. Its unsettling to see how much we still worship the high-tech, sexy, multi-billion-dollar weapon systems when its fairly obvious most of them have been sidelined in the fight we find ourselves in.

Journal Entry: "Tough All Over"

Whoa! Things just got a whole lot busier. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs this week. Morning PT formation has been an hour earlier every day which means one hour less sleep, I have a moderate head-cold, we now have mandatory showers after PT which means our cleaning and maintenance time is compressed. My wall locker was left unsecured by accident and as punishment I have to carry all 30lbs of my clothing in my rucksack on my back all day for the entire week and get up every hour on the hour until midnight each night to check everyone’s locker to “ensure proper security”. And to top it all off, I was made Platoon Guide…again. The position carries not the prestige and honor here that it did at BCT. It’s a punishment to be sure. I’ve been handling it well, but this confluence of events has run me down to my most weakest point of health since joining the Army – and with no recuperation time on the schedule for another ten days. Though the stressors are artificially induced and from a logical perspective are utterly senseless, it is giving me a preview into the kind of high-pressure conditions I’ll certainly face when in country. The barracks standard operating procedures (SOP) has become increasingly more anal-retentive and now (damn it!) I’m the enforcer of all things absurd. The soldiers are taking the heightened restrictions very well and I’ve slid right back into a very comfortable leadership groove having learned many lessons in my tenure as PG at Basic. As it was at Ft. Jackson, this position is subject to an unprovoked, spontaneous termination so most likely I’ll be relieved (and boy will I be relieved) at some point in the not-to-distant future. Stay tuned. I’ve instituted some time-saving measures and a few organizational changes that are already starting to make a difference and just knowing that if I have to go to the mat with someone that a promise of swift and harsh Drill Sergeant brand justice will back me up should keep me from having too many compliance headaches. I doubt it’ll come down to that with these guys. Most are on-the-ball and don’t require the babysitting that was often necessary in Basic.

Had a little fun today. I switched the platoon motto temporarily from “Screw it! Drop the bomb!” – a Strangelovian creation of mine as it was, to “It puts the lotion on the skin or else it gets the hose again!” my nod to the film classic “The Silence of the Lambs.” Some of the soldiers didn’t get it and weren’t sure about this total non-sequitor being thrown into the mix like that, but that all changed when they saw the irrepressible smile creep across the drill sergeant’s face. The rare complement of “Nice touch” and a quote back of “It does what its told!”, also from the movie, was our modest reward for our creative expression. I get the impression that all the other drill sergeants figure I’m a pretty decent guy with a good disposition and that I’m doing my best to keep things running smooth as they don’t give me a very hard time anymore, but Drill Sergeant Rose has maintained his intense and contemptuous attitude towards us all and I haven’t always been able to keep from betraying my disgust at his approach to our training. I hope that ultimately I’m wrong about him but for now the judgment is: “Complete Asshole.”

Tomorrow is the last day I have to wear that freakin’ duffle bag on my back, so the weekend’s looking up even though we’ve got another ruck march scheduled for Saturday morning. Step-off is at 0500, which means no sleeping in…again. But at this point we’ve become so much harder that no one even batted an eye when it was sprung on us this evening. Its probably just another 10k. No big deal. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but really, we’ve become accustomed to so much worse things that would have been unimaginably difficult and harsh in our past lives.

I received my official orders for combat this week. I’m going to need all the mental and intestinal fortitude that I can get. I’m not really thinking that far ahead though. Its enough just to get through the day.

Journal Entry: "No Dark Sarcasm in the Classroom"

Its Saturday early afternoon. We started the morning off at 3:45 with a 10K ruck march. It went well. Only a 45lbs load and I was feeling good. We started classes in earnest this week – finally got our laptops too, so I won’t have to hand-write anymore except when we’re in the field. Hell, yeah! Unfortunately, it appears that internet access is going to be the exception and not the rule. After all, as we are reminded daily, we are untrustworthy, stupid and lazy “privates” who will either a) die in Iraq or b) get someone else killed in Iraq because we suck. Even though some of us are degreed, accomplished, motivated, over thirty and dedicated to doing our very best, the Army ensures that we’re all treated as badly as the worst recruit that has ever passed through the United States military. It’s the age-old bureaucratic sense of fairness. Who hasn’t been to the DMV or some other government-related entity and needed something done outside of normal process and told, “If I do that for you, I’d have to do that for everyone.” – the battle cry of the bureaucrat. Well, that’s pretty much the order of the day here. You’re going to be demeaned, threatened, beaten-down and punished whether you need it or not. Some of this is understandable. For instance, collective punishment teaches soldiers to rely on each other and work (or suffer) as a team; to place the well-being of the team above their own. Those are concepts I definitely support. However, the overall attitude towards trainees ranges from moderate loathing to absolute contempt. Its been the hardest aspect of this experience for me to adjust to save being away from my family and my comfortable, relatively carefree life.

We started combatives class this week as well. We’re learning some pretty scary, effective ways to end life. It bothers me somewhat, and I hope to never put it to use, but pragmatically speaking, if it comes to that, I want to be prepared to defend myself and put the other guy out instinctively. Its hard to deny what I’ve gotten myself into when the topic of discussion is the quickest way to kill another human. We have several classes each week on this subject and I’m actually looking forward to the next one. To be honest, I’ve never been very comfortable with physical confrontation and I’d very much like to get over that. There’s little doubt that after this experience, I should be over most of that.
We’ve been spending the day since the ruck march frantically cleaning and straightening our living quarters in preparation for inspection later this afternoon. If we pass we get four hours down at the PX/Mini-mall complex. I can’t tell if it’s a setup for failure or if they’ll actually let us go this time. You never know. I hope so, I’ve got a sweet tooth to indulge.

Journal Entry: "Late Night Earning My Wax Merit Badge"

It’s about 1 AM, I’m in the middle of a CQ shift, and writing has been particularly difficult the past 2 days due to activity. Today was M.L.K. Day for most of America. For Delta company, it was “clean all your shit day” as we continued our recovery from our 3 –day FTX. Today, I really started to notice a dynamic solidifying between the truly motivated and the rest of the soldiers. The gung-ho is wearing off somewhat as we settle into a routine and it became readily apparent who was going to work to make everything happen, who was going just do what they were told to do, and which soldiers (lazy sons-of-bitches) were going to actively avoid doing anything at all. I am consistently amazed at the lengths some will go to avoid the less-pleasant aspects of life, like work. Some of these guys use more energy and time finding ways out of doing a task than would have been expended just doing it. The fact that we’ll have hell to pay when the cadre comes in tomorrow and that their resultant disappointment will translate into a longer period of control over us seems lost in the short-term mentality of procrastination and pain avoidance. Instead of coming down for my CQ shift to add another coat of wax to the first floor, it turns out I instead inherited a chain of excuses for why it wasn’t done during each prior shift. This means that, once again, if the few dedicated soldiers don’t find their way around the minor obstacles and accomplish the task, we’ll all pay. And it ain’t like basic training – here they make you pay.

The FTX was a lot of fun aside from the bitter cold and lack of sleep. Just before we left the campsite to head back to the barracks, the DS’s “smoked” us in the ankle-deep red clay mud pit in front of our campsite in a tradition knows as “sugar cookie”, thus ensuring that every piece of our equipment required a thorough cleaning when we got back. We spent all of today doing just that. I put four coats of polish on my boots to get them back to normal!

I’ve been missing my wife and family more than usual today. I know I’ve got a few months left of being a sub-human soldier-in-training before most of my human rights are restored, but I am so ready for this shit to be over so I can at least talk to my wife and family when I want to. This would be so much easier if I knew I was going home for a while after this was done, but knowing that I turning right around and sent to Afghanistan for a year makes the heartache and homesickness more profound.

Journal Entry: "First Field Training Excercise (FTX)"

We’re already two weeks into this thing. The time is going by faster in AIT. The pace here is so much more demanding than BCT on its hardest day. Most of the time I’m glad of this but there are occasions where I wish it would slow down a bit so I could catch my breath (not to mention catch up on my journaling). But then I think, “To hell with that!” This is Special Operations Command training after all and I wouldn’t want to finish this holding no value of the accomplishment. In fact it would be rather disconcerting if nothing were to present a challenge at this level.

Today we’re on Day #2 of a 3-day FTX (field training exercise) Its basically land navigation again but we’re not playing around this time. We did it for one afternoon in BCT and, like everything else, even a “NO GO” was a “GO”. Here our navigation points are at least 1000m from each other and a “NO GO” means doing it again or washing out. Although I must admit, knowing what I know about how desperate the Army is to fill battle rosters these days, particularly in the Reserve mobilizations, I don’t take the wash-out threats too seriously. We’re doing night navigation as well, which is considerably harder. Counting the ruck march, I estimated we hiked between 20-25 km over the course of yesterday’s activities with at times as much as 70lbs of equipment. Most of the day was spent in the pouring, freezing rain thus adding to the challenge. Naturally, our brand-new Gore-Tex parkas remained in our rucksacks the entire time. We finally put them on only after the rain had completely stopped. (You think I’m kidding?) Its all part of the game called “make the recruits miserable”.

For the most part things are going very well. We have a pretty good group of guys and aside from Drill Sgt. Rose’s occasional raging abuse sessions, the cadre seems to be a decent mostly-well-meaning group. I can tell the other Drill Sergeants respect me enough already to leave me be for the most part, but I think D.S. Rose dislikes me somewhat for the fact that I’m not intimidated by him. People yelling and cursing at me just makes me irritated and a little defiant. Not to worry though, I’m not going to let anyone here get to me enough to do something stupid…but damn, sometimes I wouldn’t mind letting him know what an asshole I think he is. I’ll have to devote an entire entry to this guy’s antics someday. Perhaps in retrospect. ;)

Journal Entry: "Settling In"

We’re now 11 days in and routine is starting to take form. We wake up daily to the intercom loudspeaker playing musical prayer calls followed by the mechanically sarcastic and steely voice of senior DS Rose hurling insults and various other negative motivations at us. For those of us that were hoping AIT was going to be more like college than like BCT, well we were grossly misinformed. Word is that this is the 2nd hardest AIT in the Army (I’ll find out the 1st hardest and let you know). The DS’s curse up a storm here and it is mostly directed at one of us poor recruits. The Army isn’t really geared for older guys. Everything is geared to the 18 to 20-year-old range where I suppose it’s safe to assume that if you give the slightest latitude to f*ck up, they will do so. I know this and have stopped taking their bullshit personally months ago, so all their raving and stomping has little effect on me other than a certain eye-rolling, “Oh, bother” kind of annoyance and dash of healthy, aloof resistance. I was made squad leader almost immediately, but I have yet to be called up to PG or Student 1st SGT. In this environment, I’m not sure I’d want the “honor.” The acting leadership gets abuse from both sides: the cadre and the soldiers they bear the bad news to. The DS’s are ruthless with their skepticism and their insistence on immediate perfection. My thoughts are that I will need to fill one of those roles eventually if I'm to make Distinguished Honor Graduate, but I am content for now to let one of the others “guinea pig” it for us for a while and learn from their mistakes. In the meantime, I’ve been having a lot of fun just being a regular soldier and leading informally by being a good example and helping the PG and 1st SGT behind the scenes. I’ve already obtained a positive reputation with the others and my sense of humor continues to serve me well as I’ve made a few memorable comments in formation already that have playfully chagrined the DS’s but drew belly laughs that made it all worthwhile.

One worth mentioning requires some back story:

On or about Day 2 we all decided that in order to seem really gung-ho and to annoy the DS’s we would repeat certain things followed by a hardy Army ”hoo-ah” whenever we were given commands. For example: When told to “Get down and push!”, we would yell, “Push, hoo-ah!” at the top of our lungs as if we just loved the idea of doing some more pushups. You get the drift. Anyway, it was after lunch and we had just been told by DS Rose to go up and "conduct oral hygiene" when I piped up with “Oral, hoo-ah!” (yes, I knew the double-entrendre) and broke everybody up except DS Rose, including a couple other DS’s. It cost me about 100 flutter kicks, and it’s become a standard in formation when the cadre isn’t around. Today, I added, “Shrinkage, hoo-ah!” when we were sprayed down with cold water before entering the pool for our combat swim test. Even DS Rose laughed that time. He’s actually a very intelligent guy with a well developed sense of humor. I’ll have to write more in depth about him later. Tomorrow is our first FTX. We have a 2-hour ruck march (w. 50-pound bag) and a 2-night bivoac where we’ll do day/night land navigation. Should be plenty of fun. I wish I could take a few beers and a couple of cigars with me.

Journal Entry: "Welcome to Ft. Bragg"

NOTE: I’ve already been at Ft. Bragg now for eight days and have been playing catch-up on my journal in every spare moment. Still, it took me this long to get caught up to this point. With the caveat that my time is not my own again, my entry frequency should pick back up again. I anticipate that within a week or two I will have a laptop issued to me and I can start emailing entries or publishing them myself.

Arrival at Bragg was fairly uneventful for me, but literally all of the other eight Civil Affairs soldiers I met at the airport in Charlotte had at least one or all of their bags lost. US Air sucks by the way. The feeling I experiences when I stepped off the plane in Fayetteville was very near that same crushing, claustrophobic loneliness I felt the first few days at reception battalion before BCT. It is so easy to understand why so few people chose life’s more difficult journeys. The temptation to retreat back to the comfortable, the familiar is very strong and were it not for the government contract I signed, I’m not sure I would not have given up somewhere during Day 1….probably within 15 minutes of arrival.

I spoke very little to the others at first. I just didn’t feel like meeting anyone. I was fighting the current that was pulling me back into the constricting grasp of military life, or at least the life of a trainee. I saw a few familiar faces: Chris, Anne, and Heather. It was a minor comfort, but my heart was mourning the loss of my family and friends and my mind was dreading the return to captivity. I was pretty much in a bad way for at least the first two or three days though one would not have known it from observing or interacting with me. I’ve become very adept at masking these emotions that evoke weakness. Though I must add that eventually everyone reveals their story of anxiety and depression and loneliness. After enough time has elapsed, it is possible to laugh at it. There is no balm for misery like sharing it with others.

Journal Entry: "Christmas Exodos"

Family Day and Graduation flew by and soon my wife and I were headed home. HOME. We took separate flights out of Raleigh but arrived home within minutes of each other. My holiday plane-travel luck is still holding strong - nothing lost and no delays!

Seeing my family and friends again was like seeing them for the first time - like coming up for air after a near-drowning. From zero to hero in a days time. It was a delightful reversal of fortune. Needless to say it was the best Christmas EVER! Mostly because I spent almost every hour with the most incredible person I will ever know. It’s one thing for a couple to compliment each other and to get along, but rare is the relationship that inspires you to grow beyond anything you ever though possible for yourself and is strong enough to whether the hardships that often come when one begins a journey such as this. We spent the days doing very little but visiting with friends and taking or dogs on long park trips. It was perfect. We spent New Year’s Eve with our good friends who toasted my safe return and my good luck in what promises to be the most interesting year of my life.