Documentation of Phil's last combat patrol in iraq

Eeeeexcellent.

Won't be much longer now.

Sharing some of Phil's pics from this deployment without his permission...

Okay, maybe it's just me... but the level of suggestivity for most militaryesque pics just makes me giggle uncontrollably sometimes. And even more so given that it's my boyfriend depicted. For example.

And then there's always THIS:

Hehehe... WooHoo!!

Today's Outing

So I've been indefinitely putting off putting together a package for Phil cuz things have been so busy lately. Today I didn't have classes, though (long weeked), so Danny Boy and I went on a little outing to see figure out what we could possibly send to him over in Iraq.

Here were a couple of suggestions:

1. A designer, commemorative, diamond-tipped bullet. After discussing it in brief with the sales clerk at the jewelry shop it became clear that that just was not going to happen.

2. The absolute coolest retractable Star Wars light-saber I have EVER laid eyes upon. So much cooler than the tree branches we used to use as kids.

3. A ball that calculates how fast your throwing it. Velocity ball, or whatever. Come on... those are COOL. But I don't even know if phil LIKES baseball.

You get the picture. The list went on and on, extending all the way to miniature remote-controlled machine gun turrets. (Why is it that anything in miniature is so fantastically adorable? I even have a soft spot for a freaking miniature machine gun...) Given how cool (though impractical and generally absurd) some of the things we brainstormed to put in this package were, it's actually going to be a pretty boring one in contrast... but whatcha gonna do.

I gotta say, carepackages are incredibly difficult to make interesting...

"Why We Fight"

This evening I was coerced by my parents into watching documentary by Eugene Jarecki called "Why We Fight." Personally, I was expecting to be infuriated and upset by it since it was highly recommended to my parents by one of my brothers who I to a large extent disagree with on matters of war. I didn't want to watch it. I thought it would be inflammatory, emotionally charged, anti-war propaganda. There's a little trailer for it here, though I daresay it didn't sum up the points that interested me most very well. Also of note, Senator John McCain is featured in it talking about the United States military-industrial complex. I still want to rewatch those parts and see if I can fit what he was saying there in with what he's saying now about war. But at any rate, I must say it didn't get me near as upset and angry as I had expected. Far from it; it more had me sobered and pensive afterwards. Some of it was a bit too extremely put (use of the word "empire," for example), but certainly had a lot of information worthing thinking long and hard about. Definitely worth looking into.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go look up President Eisenhower's farewell address from back in '61...

A strange math problem...

Phil is deployed.
Mags is employed.

If they were to reproduce, what would their kids be??

(PS: I got the job!! More details later...)

Details...

So today I read "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
...and I don't have anything to say about those names. Ivan is beginning his ninth year of imprisonment with hard labor on the steppes of Siberia. It's a good one day -- as good as you could hope for in the circumstances and a good enough book to keep me happy for a day.
This was my first Russian literature experience in a while and, well, yeah. It was an experience. (sheesh. I'm sorry, I just can't seem to do any better than that today.)
Those crazy Russians what with the intensity and the details and everything mattering to the characters. Are there people out there who are actually that bloody involved in the endless minutia of their everyday lives? It's certainly appealing (and I think that's why I crave combat so much -- in that context everything matters.) Probably one of the secrets to happiness too. I don't even know how I would begin, though, to care that much about myself and my life. Maybe I'm just lazy because it's never actually been that hard.
Anyway, that all gets depressing and spirals into uselessness so before it takes over my train of thought I'm going to share one little experience of mine that all this reminded me of. (ok, "of which all this reminded me." Go to hell.)
After one of our jumps in airborne school when we were shaking out the 'chutes I happened to be next to a Marine. He was one of the few Marines in my class, very young, and airborne was the last school he had to complete on his way to being Force Recon. (for all you damn civilians out there that's the Marines' special ops unit. Among America's five most elite fighting forces.) Our task was a very simple one. The parachutes were hanging from the ceiling of a tall room where they had been left for a couple of hours to dry. We had to guide them and the parachute cord into a bag without getting anything tangled while removing any preexisting tangles, twigs, leaves or other debris. Simple, as I said, but not exactly boring. None of us had done this too many times before and we had plenty on our minds in the circumstances. My high speed Marine neighbor didn't just take it as a mindless task to get over with and get back to the stuff that was worth his time though. He challenged me to race and see who could get his 'chute packed away more quickly. I won the first time. He said that was ok, he had his system down now. He won the second time, but it didn't matter. He wasn't lying. He had found his way of working quickly, doing it right and got the job done as efficiently as possible. Basicly, he cared. I don't really know anything else about this hardcore motherfucker personally. We never really talked. I won't see him again and if I did I surely wouldn't recognize him. Just going off of that one evening though, I'd say he's probably a damn good Marine. Probably living not too many miles from me right now.
So I dont know if I got anything across with all that. I kinda wish I hadn't tried but I'm not going back now. After all, I did restrain myself from promising to post once in a while. I guess that I was just trying to say that when you're in a more or less shitty situation, keeping your mind off things can get you by, it really can. Putting your mind into your work and your life though, is always going to make you stronger and happier.

more about numbers

A quick guide to the Arabic language numerals haji numbers.
That's confusing already because we use Arabic numerals, right? Well, yes... but also no. In fact the impenetrable muddle of varying combinations of compass directions and adjectives referring to India used with or without the word 'Arabic' in order to refer to the two systems in question, as well as a few others, with technical accuracy is so far from helpful (see here and here) that I will henceforth and retroactively refer to them as "real numbers" and "haji numbers."
As with their names, the similarities between the systems are of more use to someone who wants to be hopelessly confused than to anyone who wants to learn how to read haji numbers.
Here's the breakdown: 1 is one, so that's simple enough, but you skipped 0 which isn't zero because zero is a dot while 0 is five. The Roman numeral V, however is seven while 7 is six and two is a backwards 7. A backwards 3 on the other hand is four, while three is very similar to the backwards 7 that is two, except that it's squiggly on top. This brings us right along to eight, which is an upside down V (seven) making seven officially the sworn enemy of all haji number novices. 9, mercifully, is nine.
And if that made sense to you the first time through, you should go get your head examined.

Back by popular ambivalence...

So I'm not to sure whether I'll get back to posting on any kind of a regular basis but that is the goal. Meanwhile... random facts about the deployment so far. By the numbers.

3: things I have run over/into while driving a HMMWV
1: things I have run over/into while driving a HMMWV and awake
0: number of the above that were small children (just in case you were worried)
73: letters I have received from my awesome and infinitely patient girlfriend
5.2: average number of packages I've been receiving every mail day recently
resulting in...
2 types of rubber ducks in my collection
6 cans of silly string
13 reserve toothbrushes
and by the way...
3: months dentists recommend you use a toothbrush before replacing it
9: months I have in which to use these toothbrushes
57: minimum number of children who have asked me for a soccer ball
3.8: average number of times an Iraqi child will ask you for a soccer ball before giving up and moving to the next vehicle in your convoy
0: number of soccer balls given to Iraqi children by anyone in my platoon
0.0: average number of soccer balls I have hidden in my pocket at any given time while on patrol
10: minutes until the MWR closes for an hour for cleaning.

Update

So I spent the last couple weeks with Phil. He's freaking amazing. I'm crazy about him.

It was a pretty intense trip. Finally met his family, caught up with some old friends, spent a ton of time together... really stressful at times... but really good.

And now I'm back in Milwaukee. And he's on his way back to Iraq. It's been 40 1/2 hrs since we said goodbye at LAX already and it feels like months. So I guess when he comes back in another 9-12 months it's going to feel like decades. Maybe time will have sped up by then.

So, right. I've been thinking about what to do with my life for the next year or so and I've decided either to move back to Cali in a couple weeks, or stay in Milwaukee and go back to school for nursing... I just gotta figure out which.

I'm gonna go flip a coin.... heads: responsible: nursing; tails: not so much: run away to Cali......

Hawaii Fantasy

So lately I've been researching flight schools, cuz Noah was talking about wanting to become a helicopter pilot once he got out before the whole second deployment thing happened. Granted, he also was talking about NOT becoming a helicopter pilot (something about impracticality? huh, what's that?), but he seemed so happy and interested in the helicopter pilot thing, that I thought it'd be worthwhile to start compiling information (yes, a year an half in advance) and seeing what's out there just for fun. And it's a nice distraction from my job search now and then.

Seriously, flying helicopters as a profession is TOTALLY COOL!!Researching this has made me rethink my career path. Haha... I'm almost tempted to steal his dream job while he's in Iraq. And then I'm going to join the "Whirly Girls." Sweet. Except not. He's suited to it and I'm not. But it's still totally sweet.

Anyways, one of the flight schools I particularly like is in Hawaii, so I used that as an excuse to research cost of living, etc., in Hawai... and wow! Totally cool! It's actually less expensive than living in CA, from what I can tell! (At least... for a year... renting) And it's easier to rent there without having to sign into a long lease cuz with all the tourists that's pretty standard. Awesome. Anyways.

I've been having a lot of fun checking these places out. It's cool to see how easily fantasies and whims could become a reality. It makes my day so much easier...

mourning

So Phil leaves for Kuwait tonight. And then in a couple weeks my boyfriend will be in Iraq.

Sigh. Life sucks.

Never Quit the Fight

A collection of articles by Ralph Peters, retired intelligence officer, about Iraq, the war on terror generally, the US armed forces and the strategic concerns that should be shaping our preparations for future war. I recommend it if you would like to see a different perspective from the usual news media coverage of Iraq, find yourself unsure of how much you really care or just enjoy thinking about these sorts of things. As suggested by the title, Peters' message is optimistic overall but not blindly or naively so in most areas. I won't say he's the pure and stainless voice of objective reason but his relative independence from the Bush and anti-all-that-is-Bush factions is a much better background for analysis, praise and criticism of that administration's actions.
So yeah. Read the book, be more informed and more certain that quitting is the wrong answer. In this war your determination to fight and win is much more valuable than all of our high-speed technoweapons.

EDIT. EDIT. EDIT.
ok. so i wrote all that before i actually finished the book. and yeah, i have to add a few things. firstly, the..mk gmltn (spluttering angry not quite finding the words)

Fucking pro abortion son of a kbh ,v. Ralph Peters thinks that killing babies is cool. bastard.
so yeah. plus once he's moved out of the military sphere he develops a bunch of stupid crap, the warning signs of which i pretty much ignored- belief in religion not in God, Darwinism, other bleh crap.'
...k
I'm tired and pissed and don't have much to say that is coherent. Basicly, I'm not really recommending that anyone go out and buy this book anymore. There's still some worthwhile stuff in there so if you happen to stumble across a copy or have the opportunity to steal one or spit on the stuid author. yeah.
meanwhile, goodnight.

One, two, three, and four hey

I'm going, I'm going, I'm going to war hey

Pictures! yay

I feel like I should post something but don't really feel like it so here are some old Iraq picures:

Night Vision

Behind the 240

Appache