I haven't had much luck with meeting women as of late, and I don't get approached by women usually when I got sweats and dirty Tims and no makeup on, unless its to tell me that I dropped my wallet again.  Ok I kid about makeup but you get my point, I look like I belong on Howard St. in west Baltimore... not good at all.  I was browsing some books at Barnes & Noble today when I was approached by mindly-attractive girl.  She strikes up a nice conversation with me asking me about what I was reading, and we started talking about all sorts of things, books, school, bars, blahblahblah, the usual stuff, we got to know each other a bit for a good 10-15 minutes (long enough to warrant phone number exchanges).  I'm thinking I just hit jackpot, until we start talking about jobs.

Then the conversation goes to something like this:

Me:  So what do you do?
Girl:  I work at the mall part time right now, but I do a bit of side business.
Me: ...."side business"?
Girl:  Yeah its pretty fun.
Me:  Wait..... what kind?
Girl:  Oh its nothing big, me and a group of people have these business plans, you'll probably be interested in it i bet.... I can talk to you more about th--
Me:  Hold up....... you mean this whole time.......

[My pyramid scheme / get-rich-quick alarms are blaring off on DEFCON 1.]

Me:  Don't you hate pyramid schemes?
Girl: ..........
Me:  Well uh, you know what.... its been nice chatting with you but uh... if my uh, parole officer finds out I'm violating my probation he'll murder me.  Oh and um, my kitchen is on fire too so uh...  gotta go.  By the way, nice tits.  Bye!

*sigh*.  Some things really are too good to be true.  I'm sorry if I'm an ass, but come on now.  Don't waste my time.

Two years earlier today I just returned from playing in the Sandbox.  Two years earlier I had the tastiest beer in my life.  Seven months stuck in some shitstain of a country will make even Maddog 4040 worth smelling.  Man, that shitty deployment felt like yesterday.

Two years later I still wish I was that wise-ass Lance Criminal that I was once proud of being.  Back then, I was didn't know the word "responsibility" yet and that made me happy.  Send me back to the days of San Diego.... or Jacksonville, FL (not NC).  November 9, 2004 (ironically a day before the Marine Corps birthday) was the day I lost my innocence, and grew up.  I don't have to explain myself there.

My boy Ryohei and also xanga fan Jeph (oh what?) are getting out of the Sandbox in a few weeks, stay safe assholes.

......

I just learned the hard way earlier today that mixing different cleaning solvents and CLP for firearms is a no-no.  Its like mixing milk and tequila.... it just doesn't do right.  Hey at least I got the decocker on my Sig un-stuck, it was pissing me off all week.

By the way, don't ever pick a fight with a bouncer.  We get paid to deal with drunk toughguys, or just toughguys in general.  Locals here know enough not to do that, but the greasy wanks from New Jersey who suck at English and are overly aggressive are bad at this.  Besides, if you spent more than 30 minutes greasing your Gotti 'fro and wear velour tracksuits, you really shouldn't be throwing punches in the first place anyway.  Might break a nail.

I just finished giving a 10 minute speech in class earlier.  I forgot how much I hated speeches-- not the actual presentation part, but the preparation is a pain in my assholes.  Then I have to worry about if I'm going to get stage fright or not.  Ok, the class isn't so big, but I always remind myself of the times where I had to give presentations in front of hundreds of IT geeks and huge crowds frighten me.  I used to calm my nerves before major presentations like that with a quick swig of vodka in a flask, but one time.... oh yeah one time.

.....

Flashback, summer of 2005: San Francisco, CA....

I went on a business trip while working for Parsons out west for a major conference.  It was my first time going to assist an exec in a presentation to over 200+ people, where me and my friend Will volunteered to be technical advisors for the exec's presentation.  The conference was stretched out over 4 days, with each major company sending representatives to speak and give its findings.  However on our first night, the exec, an easygoing southerner we called "Billy Bob" invited the six of us that traveled with him down to the hotel restaurant for a dinner on his (the company's) tab.  Sure, I never turn down a free meal no matter how good or bad.  The food was delicious, I overate and probably drank more wine than I was supposed to.  We then made our way to the hotel bar (Will spotted a pair of women entering the bar area during dinner) to continue our night, it was still only a little after dinnertime anyway.  The jetlag hasn't really kicked in yet, being only three hours time difference from the east coast; so I was still pretty energetic.  After that, this is where I kind of get in trouble.

Short version:  I had to stay in bed that morning b/c I was puking my brains out, missing out on our presentation which I was supposed to be working on.

Ok, Long version:

Will and I got the drop on the two women, attempting to place ourselves strategically to block the advances of some middle-aged sleazeball with a bad Hawaiian shirt and greasy hair.  A few hours of drinking, we found out that they were part of the convention too, not before we coaxed the two nice young ladies to follow back to Will's suite where.... I'll leave your conclusions up to you.  However, I was so hammered to the point that there were blacked-out moments, where I only remember very little things.  Will had a bottle of Chivas Regal in the room he bought at the airport, and poured glasses for us.  At that point I don't remember what happened next, until I woke up the next morning.

I wake up with my jeans gone, only with my boxers, shirt, and my shoes still on.  There was a note by where I was lying on the floor of Will's room, written by Billy Bob, the exec saying that I should get some rest.  However, I'm searching the entire room for my pants (where my roomkey was in), and I couldn't find it.  I had to borrow Will's pants to get my roomkey at the lobby (he's like 2 waist sizes smaller and I felt kind of awkward) and get my suit on.  All the while I'm still trying to figure out of they might have played a prank on me last night since we were all hammered (or was it corporate sabotage?).  Thinking I could still make it to the seminar, I took a quick swig of water from the bottle, until I realized the mistake I made....

I filled up a water bottle full of vodka before the flight so I didn't have to pay for all the little bottles of alcohol on the plane (I was on a tight budget back then), and I realized that the bottle that I just took a swig out of wasn't water after all.  Immediately I felt like being run over repeatedly by a horde of cattle and well, you could imagine the rest.  That's one business trip I'll never forget.

Oh, I did find my pants later on, it was in Will's bathroom the entire time.  How it got there is still beyond me, Will claimed he didn't know.  Wierd.

I intended to stay in last night after work and possibly do some studying, and pass out early.  Fortunately due to peer pressure and brute force, my buddy Alex decided to drag me out against my mental and physical will to a strip club to celebrate my friend Travis' last day in the Corps.  Yeah, he's out, and I've never seen the quiet little man so happy before in my life.  Especially after we bought those lapdances for him.  And when we forced the strippers to drag him on the stage and let him spank them.  It was beautiful.

However, I think I personally got ripped off.  Long story, but lets just say I overpaid for my own little peep show.  Look, when a beautiful woman (the strippers for once weren't fat, old, or plain ugly) starts shaking her VIP passes in my face while demanding more money, all willpower is broken down and I comply like the good little slave that I am.  With my history of going to nudie bars..... well, I got more than enough stories to tell.  Not in public though, you'll just have to ask me politely to tell them.

.............

I'm reading blogs of other reservists across the nation, and sometimes I honestly think my drills aren't that bad.  But most of the blogs that I read are.... no offense guys, but lance corporals, maybe a few corporals, ones that just "do your job and go home".  I on the other hand not only have a job to do (sometimes), but I get to deal with petty office politics.  I am always pressured on assigning useless jobs to my Sailors and Marines, and the fact that me having more combat flight hours, more medals, garner more respect from my junior peers, and the fact that I know how to do my job proficiently still does not mean anything.... ANYTHING at all to my other bosses with their own wanton demeanor and hidden agendas.  Five years in the Corps, Sergeant of Marines, and the senior staff still treats me worse than the new PFC that checked in last month.

"I don't like your attitude...... you're not motivating or counseling your Marines properly...... you don't follow the chain of command..... you will do things MY way and MY way only..... why can't you be more like Sgt SoAndSo...... tell your Marines to suck it up...... why is your Marine late today?  do I have to replace you as a shop boss?...... don't make me make an example out of you......  go take the trash out for me there, SERGEANT.... etc etc etc."  These are some of the things I get to hear from those whiny Staff Non-commisioned numbskulls all weekend long.

My boss, Gunny "Al", who is my mentor, my father-figure, and my good friend, has always been on my side ever since I first checked in to my reserve unit as a Lance Crispy.  No, more like I was always on HIS side, because he is well respected and doesn't play games.  He's an "old Corps" kind of Marine-- un-PC, tough on his juniors, won't take "no" for an answer, and will stand up to what he belives is the right thing to do, even against unbeatable odds.  I learned every micron of leadership from this man, and through many drill weekends, mobilizations, and a combat tour overseas for the last few years-- I've literally became his son that he never had.
Ok, my point is, it pisses me off to the lowest depths of hell that the other senior staff would call him out because he either tries to defend my actions, or speaks out against the other senior staff, they are REAL quick to dismiss him.... calling him "unprofessional" or an "idiot".  You know, I'm pretty sure you don't like other people calling your mentor or friend an idiot in your face, behind his back.  Fortunately for me, they're more straightforward in voicing their dislike of me.

I stand up to what I believe is right.  And I believe that the reason my guys follow my orders is not only because I am good at what I do, but I can be not only their mentor, but their drinking buddy that they can talk to off-the-record.  I believe that I can be a good leader without being your textbook carbon-copy oo-rah posterchild like the senior staff expect me to be.  Fuck that, I know better than that.  I believe in "work smarter, not harder"..... they think I belong in the Air Force instead.

Well, maybe they're right.  Maybe getting promoted was a big mistake.  Or being in the Corps in the first place.  10 more months, I can't wait to quit this job.

So for those of you in the Corps who don't plan on staying in for the long haul, DO NOT let yourself be promoted past Corporal, especially if you're a reservist (there's not much pay difference from E-4 to E-5 anyway).  Please believe me and trust me when I say being a Sergeant is not worth it.  Remember, out of the SNCO's you meet, one is pretty cool, but the other 3 you meet after that are neanderthals.  Stay Corporal.

.................

BTW, my legs hurt like a bitch.  I just completed a 7 mile hump today with medium load.  Airwingers going on humps.  Funny though, the two active duty guys fell out during the hump.  Couldn't keep up with the nasty reservist airwingers.  Weak.

In case you didn't know, out of the 17 people in my speech class, only two of us are male, the rest are female... the odds in this ballpark are in my favor .  Even the fact that they're the cute freshmen & sophomore type, ones where the massive alcohol drinking and humongous intake of food have not affected them yet-- is slowly beginning to not phase me anymore.

However I did find out a few interesting things about some of the girls in my class.

• One girl is a contorsionist, you know the people that are uber flexible and can bend their bodies in ways that would kind of make you blush.


• This other girl scuba dives and skydives for fun, runs 6 miles a day, has been to shooting ranges on several occaisions, and claims to have taken Karate when she was younger.  Personally, I think she would make a great Recon Marine, if they let females in their ranks.


• This one girl from Siberia, Russia, can speak 5 different languages.  English, Russian, French, and two other eastern European languages that I never heard of before.


• Another rather attractive girl is a local beauty queen and won two pageants in a row.  Not only that, but I caught her snacking on a japaleno pepper the other day.  Kind of wierd, but hey-- you are what you eat.  And thats hot (no pun intended).


• One girl is from Australia but speaks with an un-accented American English.  And supposedly she thinks Americans are much nicer and accomodating than Australians.  Funny, that's not what the crowd of women swarming the docks and throwing panties at us said when the USS Boxer that I was on a few years ago touched down in Sydney harbor.


• This one girl has an eerie resemblance to Laura Harring, even her body proportions are similar.  Yum.

The other girls don't have any other especially interesting quirks, but they're still fun to look at though.  I'm not complaining, no ma'am.

I got snowed in most of the weekend.  How bad you say?  Bad enough to finish both seasons of Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex.  There's way too much thinking involved in the series, I prefer the simpler anime like GTO (or hell, remember the old Macross?)  If you're fluent in Japanese, they have the entire movie of Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society on Youtube, no subs.  Good luck with that.

I'm a geek in denial.

............

Some books I been reading the last few months--

If anyone has read Generation Kill by Evan Wright, which is a book about the experience of an embedded reporter that followed the 1st Marine Reconnaissance Battalion into combat in Iraq in 2003, be sure to pick up its "sequel", One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer.  It is written by Nathaniel Fick, the former Captain that lead 1st Recon into battle.  Not only is it an interesting read, but everything he describes about being over there is accurate, especially when I can relate to how he felt and dealt with being home trying to be "normal" again after combat.  Truth is as we all know, nobody is the same anymore after they return from a war.

More interesting reads:

No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle of Fallujah by Bing West.  Pretty self-explanatory.  Hell, I could have written that book myself, at least from my personal perspective.  But isn't that what books are written in, personal perspectives?  Maybe a book to be written in the future?  Who knows.  I suck at writing though.

The Blog of War by Matthew Burden:  if anyone has read online blogs of servicemembers in the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan (mine included), give this book a shot.  Actual blog postings are used in this book, with the author's personal footnotes.  Like all blogs, they are told in a very personal style, much like those you may have read online already.

102 Minutes, by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn:  As we know, around 8:46am on September 11, 2001, 14,000 people arrived at the World Trade Center's twin towers to start their days.  102 Minutes depicts the next well.... 102 minutes of survival before the fall of the great monoliths that has affected Americans ever since.  The authors interviewed dozens of surviors and rescue workers on their experience in the towers, emergency radio transcripts, from accounts of struggle and determination to the daring rescues that ensued.

Love My Rifle More Than You by Kayla Williams:  Ever wondered what it was like being an enlisted female in the military?  If you're looking for something more humorous, this is it.  Maybe I could figure out what goes on in the mind of my ex-girlfriend, the former female Marine.  Yeah, that was a mistake.

.......................

Yeah, I can't come up with anything good to write.  And I bet you didn't know I read huh?  No, studying textbooks don't count.

I was watching this documentary earlier on PBS called The Marines, which is a run-through of Boot camp, OCS, training, and history lessons.  A lot of the footages shown were all instant nostalgia-- when I first stepped on the yellow footprints at Parris Island, SC; the "useless" Combined Arms Exercises at 29 Stumps, all the way to the streets of Fallujah (which is kind of why CAX is important).  However, nowhere in the documentary does it mention that Marines are all foul-mouthed, beer inhaling manwhores-- that we REALLY fight for is not for freedom or protecting the country; but really for a paycheck lower than a janitor's pay, cool party suits that chicks love, a night out in town with the boys getting drunk and/or arrested, and hoping the chick we slept with last night was either disease-free or wasn't another Marine's wife.  I don't know, but some people actually think its worth it.

So back to the documentary, I was laughing so hard when I saw the part at recruit training when you get your first 13-second haircut right after the yellow footprints.  I swear to God that the same black guy cut my hair over 5 years ago when I first checked in to the Paradise Island resort.  Think:

Set of clippers: [$20]
Failing beauty school: [$6,500, just for tuition]
Cutting hair on a military base: [$10/hr]
Watching new recruits that are scared shitless squirm in your chair while you literally slice their scalps with your $20 clippers, and telling the others to shut the fuck up if they make any sound louder than your own breathing:  [Priceless]

Recruit Christopher Cox, Canton, Ga., winces as his hair is shaved away at the Recruit Processing Center March 13.

Photo by: Cpl. Brian Kester
Photo ID: 2006323141850
Submitting Unit: MCRD Parris Island
Photo Date:03/13/2006

http://www.usmc.mil

Its 1am in the morning, and I can't bounce tonight or much less drink b/c I've been coughing like a madman.  But I just came back from a relaxing drive, that sets everything in order.  Whenever I need time to clear my mind of impurities (aside from drinking), I go for a scenic tour of Baltimore city behind the wheel.  Just drive.... avoiding the attention of ricers or cops.  Especially when I'm pissed off, the last thing I need is someone or something to provoke me-- the best way is to just let your mind go and just drive forward.

You're wondering why I went out for a drive?  Most of you'se are probably sick of listening to this topic, but the nightmares still haunt me.  I was watching Black Hawk Down on DVD the other day and passed out and had this wierd... nightmare.  Except the sights seemed more familiar than the movie did.  I remember sitting about a few hundred feet in my dream in the air aboard the Jessie Drake (Aircraft 6), behind the .50 caliber doorgun.  It was all too familiar, the sand colored rooftops and horizon, the taste of dust in my mouth, and all I could hear was rotor wash and explosions from the distance-- a few small arms rounds ricochets off the hull once in a while.  Then came the *THUD* at first, I thought holy shit, I'm in trouble.  Nah, the aircraft just touched down at our LZ and the ramp opened.  I was knee deep in Fallujah.

Then came the screams.  The painful screams.  The screams of wounded soldiers, Iraqis, whoever we could fit into our airborne ambulance.  Doc Schmitty was screaming at me-- I recognized Doc Schmidt, he had his M4 carbine rifle drawn out and shooting in the distance while dragging a wounded man into the hull.  I found myself outside the bird with my M9 pistol in my hand and watching the waves of troops being escorted on board, blood everywhere, the smell of blood iron and gunpowder in the air was all too familiar.  Justin was still inside seating the wounded and trying to rip open a junction box that was wrecked by small arms fire.  A Marine infantryman looked at me and said "you gotta save him bro.  You gotta save him!"  It was Mike, my best friend that I went to high school with.  Funny seeing him there, but I'll try, I tell him.  I always do.  Then they ran back towards their vehicles and continued to fire among unseen enemies.

I hear another scream, this time though it was a bit different than the others, because it came straight from my headset.  I hear machinegun fire from the distance and all I remember doing is pointing my Nine at the direction it came from and squeezing round after round until I emptied the magazine, with my teeth clenched and my eyes screaming confusion.  PacMan, the copilot, was hit by small arms through the canopy.  Still, I had no visual contact of bogeys whatsoever.  Doc is screaming at me to get the fuck back on board, we're hauling ass out of dodge.  Pacman's going critical and Visine is the only pilot left to fly the casualties back.  I'm already back inside, behind my doorgun laying down cover fire as dustclouds are flying and my express elevator to hell is on the move.  Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat.... my thumbs are sore from the .50cal's trigger, but I can see the fruits of my thumb-wrestling as objects from a distance disappear into big clouds of dust from the impact of the .50cal rounds as shados from a distance were desintergrated.  "Get some."

Tie his leg down, tourniquet his arm, give me an IV, get this freakin line to stop pissing hydraulic fluid on my patient, CPR this guy quick, hold his wound right here.... that's just a few of the things I remember Doc screaming at me about.  Justin is sitting by the port side .50cal gun staring at us at work-- you can tell he wants to help out but his job is to man that gun, our lives are depending on it.  Just a helpless look.  One of the wounded, an Iraqi soldier, looks like he's praying in some language I couldn't decipher, with a missing arm and a blank stare at my direction.  Another guy had a nasty gut wound and is screaming for his mom.  A South Korean Marine was trying to revive his fellow ROK Marine buddy, the one sitting up had a bandage covering half his head.  A female Army soldier is sitting there with a sheepish smile on her face, but her eyes looked like they were just staring into space-- I ran my hand gently across her eyes to close them, trying not to disturb her cute, final smile.  Doc is frantically trying to help out the patients, his eyes burn of determination but there's a certain gleam to his eyes-- pain.  Not just mental pain, it was physical.  He was his in the shoulder bringing a wounded on board, and there he is trying to hold back and care the wounded instead.  A real man.  Then Doc turns around and asked me why the hell did I come back to Iraq.

Huh?  Come back?  What do you mean "come back"?

"Chris," Doc says.  "We tried so hard to get you and the other guys the fuck out of Iraq, there's no reason for you to be back here."  Yeah, says Justin, Visine, a barely conscious Pacman, and some of the wounded.

"We died out in Fallujah, remember?  You saw us."  Yeah, I remember.  Doc died from his wounds days later from wounds received from a mission, I was with him at the time.  Pacman never made it back, he died on that flight back... I was there.  Visine died in a helicopter crash along with Justin.  Mike from earlier that asked me to help his buddies live... who was my best friend in the world since elementary school, was killed over there.  The wounded and casualties on board, I recognized them as the ones that ones that we couldn't save in the end, the ones that died midflight that we tried desperately to save.... I remember every last one of them-- the Marines, soldiers, the Iraqis, the Korean guys, all of them.  Even Jessie Drake, the bird I was riding on, was the aircraft that crashed out in that fateful accident that took the lives of 30 Marines and a Sailor in early 2005.  I remember it all.  All too well.

Mike just kind of appears out of nowhere from behind me, "Get outta here man, we'll be fine," he says.  Wasn't he supposed to be on the ground fighting the insurgents?  "You got a whole life ahead of you, don't worry about us, we got your back.  Just forget about us.  You have to move on.  Don't ever come back to Iraq again."

I'll try.  I always do.  I wake up in cold sweat, my sheets drenched in my own perspiration, its my own bedroom again.  It was just a dream.  A recurring dream all too familiar in different variations, same theme.  I volunteered to go back again, but my request was denied from above.  I was pissed off even more at my Marine Corps, but I always thought to myself one could only wonder if this answer from above were really from Mike, Doc, Pacman, Justin, Visine, and the other guardian angels that told me "we got your back".  Just move on with your life, Chris.  Move on, but never forget.  Its whats best for you.  Its what they want, they got your back.

I keep telling myself its time to move on, but I think a part of me is still out in the Sandbox.  The same part of me that died along with the others.

Just drive.  Enjoy the night lights, artificial horizon, and how paying for your own car is all worth it.

Who likes snow which causes classes to be canceled?  Sure, why not.

I used to call in "snow days" at work, even though I am fully aware that no such thing exists at most workplaces.  However, "buried in my own driveway in some out-of-reach suburban court where snow plows couldn't reach us in time" works every time.  Sorry boss, but I don't get to drive an armored tracked vehicle with a giant shovel up front for the sake of a bit of snow.  Besides, if I could get my hands on that kind of vehicle, snow wouldn't be the only thing that I would be plowing down on the streets.  Heed my warning, slow driver.

And who strongly dislikes the commercialized overplay of Valentines Day?  Sure, why not.  Its just like any holiday, where corporations across the world could capitalize off human beings' shallow wants and needs, tailored to a specific "holiday" where we can buy all kinds of useless shit that nobody really cares about (unless you're going to get laid for sure).  Just say "no" to Valentines' Day like a venereal disease.

Because you see, the initials for Valentines' Day is 'VD'.

As a reservist, most of the time spent away from the military makes me think to myself, "hey, its not so bad.  I'm doing this country a favor.  I only have to deal with it one weekend a month, two weeks a year."  I start to believe that too, until I actually show up to drill weekend.  And then I am quickly reminded why I'm so excited that I only have 10 months left on my contract before I get out.

I speak for every enlisted guy and girl that I'm getting extremely tired of being treated like an 8 year old child.  Even my friend Patrick, who just got commissioned last month as a Second Lieutenant in the Marine Corps thought maybe going from Corporal-don't-know-shit to This-LT-still-don't-know-shit, maybe he would get treated like an adult for once.  No, he gets captains up to Mr. Big Cheese with the shiny chickens on his collars treating him like an 8 year old child instead of the usual grouchy old Staff non-commissioned officers.

So in a sense, the men and women defending America are really a bunch of mere 8 year old children.  We as Americans are sending a bunch of kids to war.  Kind of makes you feel safer sleeping at night, don't it?