Sacred Honor

Mess Night

2006-06-02T10:05:00.000-04:00

The A-Team All Stars starting lineup suits up for the night.

Wednesday was Alpha's Mess Night. It was an excellent night of fraternity and high times. For me, the highlight of the night came after dinner, when we successively toasted the Continental Marines, 19th Century Marines, Marines of the First and Second World Wars, and the Marines of Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, and the first Gulf War. We drank to those currently serving, and lastly to our fallen comrades, then finished with a stirring rendition of the Marine Hymn.

The celebration stretched late into the morning hours. Officers of all ranks mixed freely, relishing the tradition and the free-flowing libations. Celebrating our achievements and our heritage with the men with whom I've worked so hard these many months was easily one of the best nights so far of my life.

Me and my favorite Algerian.

Damn pilots.

The AC broke and the night got rowdy.

Captain Vaughn, one of our favorite instructors.

As you can see, the night ended pretty much the way it began.

Haditha

2006-06-02T08:29:00.000-04:00

Here is the opinion that I am currently authorized to hold about the "Nov 2005 incidents in Haditha."

"All Marines are trained in the Law of Armed Conflict and are expected to fully comply with its provisions. The Marine Corps takes allegations of wrong-doing by Marines very seriously and is committed to thoroughly investigating such allegations. The Marines Corps also prides itself on holding its members to the highest levels of accountability. If the allegations are substantiated, the Marine Corps will pursue appropriate legal and administrative actions against those responsible.

"The investigations are on-going, therefore any comment at this time would be inappropriate and could undermine the investigatory and possible legal process. As soon as the facts are known and decisions on future actions are made, we will make that information available to the public to the fullest extent allowable."

As a side comment, unrelated in any way to the Nov 2005 incidents in Haditha, I've never heard of anything called the Law of Armed Conflict. We've gotten law of war classes; maybe it's a new acronym that's supposed to reflect the fact that we haven't declared a war in decades.

Semisweet 16

2006-05-30T12:36:00.000-04:00

We just got our final rankings. I'm a little bit proud and a little bit embarrassed that I'm the number 16 lieutenant in Alpha Company. There are about 260 other Lts, so 16 is pretty respectable. On the other hand, at one point I was ranked number one. For about the last two months I've definitely relaxed a lot - haven't studied as much, PTed as hard, or generally been as motivated as I was at the beginning of the course. I think that being stuck here for over a year finally started to get to me. Also, once I found out that I had gotten infantry, my patience for a lot of the BS associated with The Big Suck decreased exponentially.

Anyway, number 16. Not too bad, should have done better. Kind of hard to believe that ten days from now I'll be the hell out of this place.

On an unrelated note, I've been reading some good stuff lately. I just finished On Killing by retired Army Lt Col David Grossman. It's a semiacademic study of the psychological effects of combat, with an emphasis on the effects of close-range, personal killing. Lots of good information on how to prevent and treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD,) which is a not-uncommon problem for troops returning from Iraq.

Right now I'm reading Attacks, Rommel's memoir of his experiences as a company grade officer in WWI. That this guy was not KIA is incredible on a Washingtonian magnitude. He was awarded the German equivalent of the Medal of Honor for his brilliant performance throughout the war. He wrote his memoir while a lieutenant colonel. Each tactical play-by-play account includes maps and pictures drawn by Rommel himself, and he concludes each chapter with a short synopsis of practical observations and lessons learned from the action.

Maybe by now I'm gulping the Kool Aid by the gallon, but I'm pretty sure that Attacks is my new favorite book. It's a great story, highly educational, and told with a dry, reserved German wit that sometimes even makes me laugh out loud.

Smokin' and Jokin'

2006-05-28T12:42:00.000-04:00

Admin days continue as Alpha Company slowly stumbles towards graduation. This past week continued the recent trend of government-funded playtime, beers, and the hangovers they induce.

Monday morning I administered my platoon's PFT. (My own abysmal performance would have to wait until Friday.) My "work" completed for the day, I headed down to the park for a company picknick. It was one of those weird days, reminiscent of college, where I was already hungover before the sun went down. Woohoo.

Tuesday I had to witness another lieutenant get Non Judicial Punishment (NJP.) Think of NJP as a Court Martial-lite. The commanding officer is the judge and jury, and rules of evidence are lax, but the maximum punishments are not as stiff as those that a defendant faces at a court martial.

The lieutenant in question was an acquaintance of mine from my days back at the MACE. The case was a total mess, the makings of which have been fodder for TBS gossip for weeks. Basically it centered around a love triangle between two lieutenants in the same training company (bad) and an enlisted instructor (much worse), and to top it off, the making of false official statements during the investigation.

Despite a truly cringeworthy effort on the part of the defendant to bullshit the CO, he was found guilty on all counts. Because it was only an NJP, his official punishment is minimal. In reality however, the colonel will recommend his separation on administrative grounds, he'll languish for a few months in Mike Company, and then get pushed out with a sub-honorable discharge. Sad to see it happen, but the bottom line is that this guy isn't fit for the Marines and he's just gotta go.

In an ironic coincidence, Tuesday night I had arranged for my cohort from the MACE to take the Lt. Col. out to dinner. He had to retire a couple of months ago, but they're letting him stay on as Director as a civilian. Dinner was great.

Wednesday we loaded on to buses and headed up to Gettysburg to study the battlefield. I didn't know too much about the battle before we went, but it was tactically fascinating. Unlike so many of the battles we've fought since then, the two sides were very closely matched and the outcome was anything but foreordained. The technological limitations of the time, particularly limitations in intel and comm, made for a battle in which individual commanders had a great deal of influence over the ultimate outcome.

We left the battlefield in the late afternoon and headed over to a retired Marine's place to spend the night and - stop me if this sounds familiar - eat steaks and drink beers. Four guys rented Civil War uniforms, and throughout the night performed increasingly ridiculous reenactments - Pickett's Charge with Wiffle Bats was particularly memorable. At one point in the night, all of the Staff Platoon Commanders were playing flip-cup. My roommate hid a keg out in the middle of a field, and made people say his password before they could have a beer. It was that kind of night.

Thursday we drug our stinky, hungover caracasses back to Quantico, and, well, that was it for the day. Friday was gear turn in, a task from which those of us IOC-bound were exempt.

And that was my week. Rigorous and demanding, I know. Yeah, sure, getting paid to get drunk is kind of novel and entertaining - but what an absurd waste of time. I'm so damn ready for this circus to be finished with. Two more weeks, baby. Two more weeks.

PFTerrible

2006-05-26T08:38:00.000-04:00

Only in the Marine Corps can a man do 18 pullups, 100 crunches, and run 3 miles in under 20 minutes and still feel like a total lazy underperforming slob.

Resting on your laurels - it'll kill you every time. When am I ever going to learn? Sigh...

Hacuna Matata

2006-05-19T10:10:00.000-04:00

This past week has been wonderfully relaxing. Monday we turned in our M16s to the armory. Tuesday "work" began at 8:30, ended at 11:30, and consisted of playing pickup basketball in the interim. My fireteam was so emboldened by the lax schedule that we ventured into DC on Tuesday night to attend a party thrown by some of my old classmates from law school. Fun times. Wednesday we had a book discussion of the foreign policy classic The Ugly American, followed by presentations from the international officers on their home countries. Thursday was Warrior [Family] Day. Today we had a morning class on the AK-47. Now it's 10:15, and we've been secured for almost half an hour. Not too rough of a week.

Yesterday was rewarding. My lovely girlfriend (yes, Mom, I'll put up pictures soon) took the day off of work to join other family and friends of Alpha Company in a grownup, military version of Show and Tell. She spent the day humoring me as I ran my mouth about night vision goggles, mortars and howitzers, machine guns, rockets, missiles and grenades, AAVs, helos, defensive positions, and whatever else I could think of to blather on about. She got to fire an M16, and proved herself a crack shot with the M203. Not quite as successful was her experience with an MRE, but hey, you can't win 'em all.

Monday we have a company picnic/drunken antics session. Wednesday we have a trip to Gettysburg/BBQ/drunken antics session. As far as I can tell, Thursday is dedicated to hangover recovery. And Friday is a half day going in to Memorial Day. I almost feel like I should be getting charged for leave for the last few weeks. Eh, I suppose that Captain Chontosh will be kicking my ass soon enough.

I'll put up Warrior Day pics as soon as I get them from my girlfriend.

My Lai Redux?

2006-05-19T10:09:00.000-04:00

From CNN.com:

Lawmaker says Marines killed Iraqis 'in cold blood'

Murtha apparently has already seen an internal report that says that between 15 and 30 Iraqi civilians, including women and children, were murdered in their homes by Marines on a vengeful post-ambush rampage.

Brilliant

2006-05-14T10:58:00.000-04:00

From CNN.com:

Report: Mentally Ill Troops Forced Into Combat

Here's a great idea, let's use the military to patrol the border. 'Cause you know, it's not like we're already stretched to the breaking point or anything.

15 Miler

2006-05-12T12:39:00.000-04:00

WAAAAAAARRRR FAAAAAAAAAACE!!

Done.

Whirlwind Update

2006-05-12T08:47:00.000-04:00

The last week or so has flown by too quickly for me to blog. Lots of fun times though.

Last Friday, about ten of us got together at Pully's house to eat great Indian food and enjoy good company. Turns out that Pully, who is debatably the biggest redneck in our platoon, in fact grew up in a Hari Krishna commune in southern Virginia called - wait for it - Yogaville. I couldn't make this stuff up. The Marine Corps is funny like that.

Monday was Staff Platoon Commander (SPC)Day, one of several days towards the end of TBS devoted to hanging around getting sloppy. A couple of country boys slaughtered a pig, and we spent the day in Lunga Park enjoying good times. My fireteam dominated the volleyball nets, due no doubt at least in part to our motivated "dogtags and bluejeans" team motiff. Wish I had a photo of that one...

Superman Frisbee, WHAT!

We spent the night at the park to prevent drunk driving, a solution that by Marine Corps standards seemed perfectly reasonable. Bleary-eyed and hungover, we made our way back to base Tuesday for an easy day of administrative dilly dallying. For most of us, that is. Myself and 9 other IOC-bound lieutenants had the exquisite pleasure of getting thrashed Tuesday afternoon by Capt Chontosh in a PT session from which I have yet to recover. If anyone is looking for a good PT regimen, www.crossfit.com has a pretty awesome strength/cardio regimen.

Wednesday was another admin day, full of paper and busywork. I cut out of work a little early and headed up to DC for a dinner honoring the Secretary of State. As usual, it felt just a little bit awkward hanging around with the lawyers and political types who used to be my role models and peers. The food was good and the dinner conversation untoppable.

I got back to base at about 1 AM, too tired to drag my butt from the parking lot to the barracks. I slept in the car for a couple of hours, then headed inside to get ready for our... 15 mile hump. We stepped off at 0600 and were done a little after 1100. After a little moto speech from our company commander and a couple of hours of weapons cleaning, my whole fireteam hit the rack exhausted at about 3:30.

Except for our final PFT, we're finished with TBS. Damn it feels good.

Uh, um, well, yeah, I'm playing flip cup. Whatever.

Your friendly neighborhood Algerian international officer/Louisiana fisherman.

Aforementioned country boys.

As long as I'm throwing up pics, here are a few old ones:

Rac catching a breather at MOUT.

Ted shows off the benefits of a steady 'roid regimen.

Fireteam home away from home.

*This post has been edited.

U.S. General Taunts al-Zarqawi

2006-05-04T18:22:00.000-04:00

Iraq: where the real world and The Onion collide. From CNN.com:

U.S.: Outtakes show al-Zarqawi as poor gunman

This would be hilarious if it wasn't so serious and, well, pathetic.

First, it's funny that this big evil terror mastermind is out running around in the bushes with his boys making machine gun moto videos. I can see it now, put to some catchy Arab jingle, up next on TRL. And yes, it's also funny that apparently they don't know how to work their weapons.

But what's also funny is General Lynch's response. "You may have been eluding us now for two years, blowing us up and foiling our plans left and right you fat little bearded man - but ah HAH! GOTCHA! YOU CAN'T EVEN SHOOT A MACHINE GUN RIGHT, HA HA HA HA HA! Seriously, I don't even understand how you can call yourself a leader, you silly non-machine-gun-shooting little fellow! HAH!"

And what would a statement from our side be without an assist from the unmatcheable Scott McClellan? "See? He can't even shoot a machine gun! We're winning! We're really, really winning! A lot! Democracy! Unity! Victory! Yay!"

Damn Scottie, I'm truly gonna miss ya when you're gone.

*This post has been edited.

Is.It.June.Yet?

2006-05-04T17:06:00.000-04:00

This week has been duller than dull. Today we secured at 1100, which has been about par for the week. We're stuck in an administrative holding pattern, caught in a paperwork shuffle between what we've accomplished and what's ahead.

Tomorrow my fireteam is having a party on the Potomac, complete with BBQ, a skiboat, and delicious Indian food courtesy of my lovely girlfriend. This should be awesome. Then next week it's just more admin boredom. Mexico... Mexico... Mexico...

In the meantime, here are some pictures for your viewing displeasure. They're mostly of me looking extremely sexy in my BCGs.

The few, the proud, the Marines. Well... ok, with a few exceptions.

My captain, the baddest mofo in the Corps.

BCGs and groin protectors are this Spring's hottest accessories. Look for them soon on a red carpet near you.

Me, my BCGs, and a medium machine gun with a badass thermal scope.

Malek, plotting to kill us all once he gets back to Algeria.

Ted practices for his civilian career.

If E.T. was a Marine.

Good Gouge

2006-05-01T18:00:00.000-04:00

Word floating around is that three quarters of my IOC class will be heading off to sunny Camp Pendleton, California.

Getting stationed in San Diego would make me the happiest lieutenant in the Corps.

MOUT

2006-04-30T06:58:00.000-04:00

The Band, hanging out at MOUT Town.

This past week's Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) field exercise was solid.

We spent the majority of our time in MOUT Town, a collection of about 20 cinderblock buildings of various sizes and shapes, ranging from small one-room houses to a hefty three story office building. Half the company wore woodlands and the the other sported deserts, and we spent the week working through various force-on-force scenarios. Our M16s were hooked up to fire paintballs, which to my mind significantly increased the value of the training.

The week was rewarding for a lot of reasons. Our urban training package incorporated almost everything we've learned over the past months - the orders process, artillery, machine gun, and heavy weapons employment, tactics, communications, casevacs, judgment and initiative, and so on. It was also a lot of plain ole' fun. It never got too cold, and anyway we slept inside of the cinderblock buildings.

The week had plenty of exciting combat moments that kept up the level of both morale and smack talking. One of our early attacks stalled when we couldn't get inside of a key building. The defense had set up a couple of light machine guns covering the only entrance, and the geometry of the room was such that grenades weren't viable. Every time we tried to rush them we ended up losing a fireteam or more.

We were somewhat at a loss as to how to proceed, until all of a sudden a light bulb went off in yours truly's noggin. In short order, myself and a couple of my squadmates infiltrated the problem building through the sewer, snuck up on the pesky machine gunners undetected, and shot them in the back.

Web shows his appreciation for the SMAW rocket.

Another time we were in the defense fighting house-to-house. My fireteam was on the bottom floor when an arty strike took out the rest of our squad upstairs. My weapon chose that particularly opportune moment to jam. I couldn't fix it, and I could see the enemy stacking up behind a courtyard to rush us. So my teammates tossed me all of their grenades, and I took off out the backdoor. By the time I'd made it to the relative safety of the courtyard, I'd already pulled 3 of the pins. I chucked the grenades over the wall, hunkered down in a corner, and waited the split second for them to blow before hauling ass back to our defenses. Lots of Marines had lots of similar stories to tell at the end of each training day, and spirits remained high all week long.

My captain's dad has been in the news a lot recently for his criticism of the Secretary of Defense. For a while I'd really been wanting to talk to him about it, and finally last week I got the chance to. We had a pretty rewarding and wide-ranging conversation about the future of Iraq and Afghanistan, and our responsibilities as junior officers in the Global War on Terror. My captain spent a lot of time in Afghanistan and is one of the smartest guys around Camp Barrett, so it was really satisfying to listen to him talk about our efforts in the GWOT. It also just felt good to have a conversation as a peer with this man who has been such a great leader and mentor for us over the last 6 months.

The workweek wrapped up with an outstanding, motivated police call of MOUT town, which as usual took hours longer than anyone anticipated and involved multiple obnoxious interactions with disgruntled sergeants from Range Control. We had to come back in today to do some riot control training at an FBI facility on the other side of base, which was frankly pretty lame but oh well, Marine Corps.

As of today, we're more or less done with TBS. In the next 5 weeks, the only events of note are a couple of tests, a 15 mile hump, and a PFT. Other than that we have a lot of social functions and a lot late mornings and early afternoons. I got my leave approved, so after graduation I'll be headed down to sunny Mexico for a relaxed week with my loving family and beautiful girlfriend. I'm platoon sergeant for the next couple of weeks, but the platoon commander is a pretty relaxed guy and I don't anticipate this being particularly difficult or stressful.

All in all, except for the working on a Sunday thing, I'm a pretty happy lieutenant.

Admin

2006-04-21T18:22:00.000-04:00

This week I passed 15,000 hits on my blog. Obviously this isn't anything impressive, but I feel like it's nothing to scoff at either. I imagine it's pretty obvious to anyone who's followed me over the last year and a half how much I enjoy writing here. I also very much appreciate and enjoy reading the feedback that my posts elicit from time to time.

To celebrate hitting 15K, and also just 'cause I'd been meaning to do it for a while, I've added a Guestbook feature. My hope is that this will give me a little bit more insight into the identities of the 25 or so people who drop by my page on any given day.

So sign away, and if you have suggestions on any other admin improvements for the site, feel free to let me know.

Everyone have a great weekend. We're going to the field early Monday morning for the whole week, so I probably won't post again until next weekend.

Finer Points

2006-04-21T16:40:00.000-04:00

Two things.

1. This afternoon we got an engaging lecture on Arab culture and how to interact with it. The speaker was a trilingual, Lebanese American retired Marine colonel. Suffice it to say that there aren't too many of those floating around. We're currently going through a unit on multiculturalism, the bottom line of which is don't be an ugly American jerk.

I suppose we could use more of this kind of training, if you can call it that. Obviously I am all about being courteous, respectful ambassadors of the best America has to offer. The problem is, that just isn't what the Marines are for. Marines are for fighting battles and killing bad guys, not acting as goodwill ambassadors/ beat cops/ aid workers/ baby kissers in hostile neighborhoods in shady parts of the world. As my roommate aptly put it, "We're the only ones that they can force to go over there, so we just get fucked with every odd job that nobody else wants." Lots of palpable frustration throughout the company on this one.

The other thing is, to be entirely frank - and it hurts every liberal, diversity-embracing, open-mind espousing bone in my body to say this - the more I learn about Arab culture, the less I respect it. As far as I can tell, mainstream Arabic culture seems several shades more reactionary, more oppressive, and generally simply worse than the Southern Baptist wackos I grew up around and eventually came to despise. The Arabs who seem most respectable to me also seem to be the ones least in step with their prevailing societal norms. I really wish that we weren't economically beholden to that part of the world.

That being said... it occurs to me that it would behoove me to begin to develop some proficiency in Arabic. I've heard Rosetta Stone puts out a superior product and offers a military discount. Sigh...

2. We went on a 12 mile hump this morning. The pace was moderate and the load was reasonable, so the hump itself was no big deal.

But oh.my.lord. Right now I am suffering through the worst case of chafeage of my life.

Yum, Yum

2006-04-20T18:26:00.000-04:00

Helpful hints from your friendly neighborhood MRE packing conglomerate. (Click to enlarge.)

And to think that for all this time I thought it was just a bagged nasty.

Happy Lieutenant

2006-04-19T16:02:00.000-04:00

Monday and Tuesday were both outstanding training days. Both myself and the other infantry lieutenant from my platoon were tasked for a leadership role on both days, so my learning experience was really excellent.

Monday we did convoy operations. Our mission was to deliver supplies from a rear area to a forward battalion, and I was the leader of the Security unit. Under my command were 2 Humvees with .50 cals, a Humvee with a TOW missile, and 2 squads of Marines. Along the convoy we took sniper fire, had a vehicle breakdown, and were attacked in an IED ambush.

Besides getting to tactically employ all of these assets, which was awesome, I also had the added perk of getting to sit in a nice, comfy, dry, toasty cab.

Note the two miserable individuals milling about outside in the cold rain. Also note that most of my peers were riding in the open back of this truck, exposed to aforementioned cold and rain. My roommies haven't quite let me hear the end of that one yet.

So then we went out again in the afternoon, by which time the weather had cleared up and turned into a beautiful Spring day. This time we ditched the trucks and rode in Amphibious Assault Vehicles (AAVs) instead.

In an AAV the driver sits in the front, the vehicle commander sits in the turret, and the troop commander rides behind the driver. The vehicle commander directs the driver and mans the vehicle's heavy machine gun and automatic grenade launcher. The troop commander directs the vehicle commander and commands the troops, who ride in the body. It looks like this:

Riding in the vehicle commander's seat was like standing up in a convertible on a beautiful country drive. When we were attacked, I was in command of a veritable arsenal - six heavy machine guns, four automatic grenade launchers, a TOW missile, and 30 Marines. The vehicle's comm allows you to monitor the company radio net, talk on the platoon net, and communicate with the driver and the vehicle commander over an intercom. What's more, the radios actually work, something that I've learned to never take for granted.

AAVs in Iraq operate in support of security patrols. As a platoon commander, this bad boy will probably be my ride.

Days like Monday make me yearn for the day when I finally hit the fleet and take command of my platoon. I've come a hell of a long way since OCS, and I've gotten pretty good at this whole command thing. A lot of the lieutenants around here are intimidated by and try to avoid command, but if you're good at it, it gets in your blood and you just want to do it more and more.

We slept in the field Monday night. Tuesday we did a platoon live fire range with machine guns, mortars and a support by fire position. The range gave us hands-on experience in some of the tactics that we've learned in class and out in the field. A textbook assault incorporates indirect fire assets and supporting machine guns to suppress the enemy and allow a maneuver element to close with the enemy. The range simulated a textbook assault.

Basically, it goes like this. The manuever element sneaks up as close to the enemy as it can get while remaining undetected and protected by terrain from the enemy's direct fire. Meanwhile, the support by fire element occupies a separate covered and concealed position, ideally at a 90 degree offset from the maneuver element. On signal the mortars start to pound the objective, which allows the support element to unmask from their covered position, occupy their support by fire position, and set up the machine guns. Meanwhile the assault element comes out of their covered position and begins to advance on the enemy, who are hiding in their holes from the indirect. At a certain point the mortars have to shut off because the assault unit is too close to the enemy. At or before this point, the support unit opens up with the machine guns, keeping the enemy pinned down until the assault unit is so close that they can shoot them or lob grenades into their holes. As the assault unit pushes across the objective, the support element shifts their fires so that they are always just ahead of the furthest advance of the assault. Though they did it without indirect or machine guns, a great example of this was Easy Company's assault on a German artillery battery on D-Day, which you can see in the second episode of HBO's Band of Brothers.

I was a squad leader in the assault element, and the entire experience was pretty awe-inspiring. As I directed my squad, I could see the mortars exploding, hear the machine guns roar and watch them knocking down targets just barely in front of my squad. Being on the receiving end of a Marine attack must be a terrifying way to die.

This morning was pretty awesome too. Work didn't begin until 8:30, unheard of here at TBS. Myself and another LT ran an awesome PT session this morning that incorporated MCMAP and was universally well received. The only other things we did today were to clean our weapons from yesterday and conduct this book discussion. Easy day, done by 3, and now the fireteam is off to see a movie. We've had a number of relaxed days lately. It's really nice being almost done with TBS.

Changing Tides

2006-04-19T14:41:00.000-04:00

We spent the afternoon engaged in a discussion of author Bing West's The Village, the chronicle of a Marine Combined Action Platoon (CAP) in Vietnam. The book is about how a squad of Marines integrated with local pro-government Vietnamese forces to fight the NVA and Viet Cong.

As usual, the real topic of discussion was Iraq. Lots of Marines made a lot of really excellent points. I wish that I could put up a transcript.

The most striking thing to me was the level of frustration expressed by my platoon with the situation in Iraq. If I had said some of the same things that I heard today a year ago, I would have been labeled a turncoat liberal coward - and now they seem to be becoming the consensus!

To me, Iraq seems about equally bad now as it seemed a year ago. Most of my peers are loyal Republicans. I wonder if this gradual shift in their perception of Iraq is at least partially the result of the GOP's growing dissatisfaction with the President over issues such as immigration and the ports deal. It's a lot easier to disagree with the administration on Iraq if you've already decided that you disagree with them on a number of other issues.

*This post has been edited.

Carpet Burn

2006-04-19T12:00:00.000-04:00

My week so far has been unbeatable. But before I get in to Monday and Tuesday, I've got to relate the woeful Tale of the Sink.

So I live with 3 other guys in a small, bare, cinderblock living space. We sleep in one room, work in the other room, and the two are connected by a small bathroom. From the first day that we moved in, the sink on the sleep side did not work. We were able to rig it so that we could occasionally coax it into producing a hesitant stream of cold water, but that's about it. Repeated requests to Maintenance proved entirely fruitless.

So about a month ago, the sink decides to go to all from nothing. Now we can't get the damn thing to turn off. 24 hours a day for 3 weeks straight, cold water gushes out of the tap. Nothing we do to it can turn it off. It goes without saying that Maintenance really could not care less. During the day it was mildly amusing, but particularly at night it was an obnoxious impediment to any kind of solid sleep.

Midway through last week, we wake up to discover an inch of water on our floor. Once again, we march down to Maintenance. An indifferent Lance Corporal managed to look up from his game of Solitaire long enough to tell us that someone would come look at it "within the next 5 hours."

So Maintenance did show up, and lo and behold, they did in fact fix the sink. It took them maybe 10 minutes. Now it works like a regular honest to goodness fully functioning sink, kind of like the ones that you see in millions of homes and businesses across the country. Remarkable, truly.

But now the carpet is sopping wet. And good ole' Camp Barrett has an endemic mold issue. So in comes the Staff Sergeant to tell us that we have to take the carpet and hang it outside to dry.

This piece of carpet, mind you, is almost definitely older than I am. Actually, calling it "carpet" is pretty generous. Anyway, we lugged it down the hall, down the stairs, and hoisted it onto the clotheslines.

That was a week ago. It's still out there. The thing was so nasty that carrying it I thought I might be sick. Nobody wants to put it back in our room. Nobody wants to rearrange our furniture again. It's a huge pain in the ass. What's more, the thing is clearly ruined, with massive nasty white stains all over it.

And yet, we don't want to throw it away, 'cause we haven't been authorized to throw it away and we don't want to get charged for destruction of government property. So it's just sitting out there on the clothesline. We sent up a request to throw it away on Monday.

Maintenance is working on it.

Face in the Mirror

2006-04-16T16:33:00.001-04:00

From CNN.com -

Iranian group signing up potential martyrs.

From the article:

"We will give a good lesson to those who dare to attack our country," said Ali, a 25-year-old masked volunteer, after filling out a registration form.

When asked why he had covered his face, Ali said: "I do not want to be recognized when traveling abroad to harm American and British interests."

I'll turn 25 in a few short months. If I were Iranian, I'm certain that this is what I'd be doing right now. No reason but the whims of fate that I was born here and not there; no reason but the same that Ali was born there and not here. So we hate and prepare to kill each other.

Strange to think about.

Iran

2006-04-13T10:40:00.000-04:00

The Iran saga continues.

Iran is more and more on the minds of the lieutenants around here. I don't have any more insight than any other moderately well-informed news consumer, but a few things appear clear to me.

- We're in a bit of a boy who cried wolf situation here. Iraq didn't have WMD, we went in, and now it's a mess. Now our military is overdeployed and underprepared to take on another engagement. How many other countries do you think would follow us down yet another Middle Eastern rabbit hole? Compare the impassioned rhetoric of the Bush admin back in 2002 to the relatively cautious, diplomatic course now being taken. Maybe that represents a learning curve.

- That being said, the bottom line is that we can't let Iran have nukes. It doesn't matter if their technology is for military or for peaceful purposes. Iran's president is a nut. Their country is run by whack job clerics who hate the US and the West. Even if their nuclear technology is peaceful, somebody somewhere in their government at some point down the line will decide to use the technology they have, and take it one step further and develop warheads. Then it will be delivery systems. It's bad enough that Pakistan has nukes. An unstable whacko anti-US Middle Eastern state with nukes is simply unacceptable.

- So does that mean that we'll have to invade? I really hope not. I really, really hope that we could just lob missiles at their nuclear development sites. As long as we have sufficient intel on the locations, I don't really see any point in invading them.

- If we hit them with missiles, do you think that they might counterattack us in Iraq? Maybe with Syria's help?

Actions have consequences. Ignoring those consequences in our rush to war has been kicking our ass for the last three years. Hamas in Palestine, Ahmadinejad in Iran, Al Qaeda in Iraq... at least I can take some small comfort in the knowledge that I'm employed in a growth industry.

*This post has been edited.

Una Mas Cerveza

2006-04-11T17:57:00.000-04:00

TBS graduates June 8.

Infantry Officers Course doesn't begin until July 9.

My family has a bungalow in Mexico rented for the entire month of June.

Voy a Mexico, amigos. Lo amo cuando la vida se resuelve como esto. :-)

FEX III Photos

2006-04-10T15:06:00.000-04:00

Relaxing.

The Fearsome Fivesome - Alpha Co 5th Platoon 3rd Squad 1st Fireteam All Stars

I hate the cold.

Working Hard.

0302

2006-04-10T14:35:00.000-04:00

United States Marine Corps Infantry Officers always lead the way.

Oorah.

Friday

2006-04-07T12:11:00.000-04:00

We just came out of the field from our third (and final major) field exercise. Pics will follow. We graduate in 2 months, but the bulk of the instruction is behind us. Ahead of us lies a lot of administrative downtime and luxurious, lazy afternoons. Our MOSs got sent up on Monday, so we'll find out our destinies very soon.

So tired.

On Edge

2006-03-30T12:30:00.000-05:00

This morning I lost my cool and chewed out my platoon for at least 5 minutes. They were being jackasses and they deserved it, but it was totally out of character for me and it left more than one mouth agape.

I've been on edge all week long, and I've had to give several apologies in the last few days. I think that a combination of things are getting to me. I'm finally out of my comfort zone, back in to unexplored TBS territory, and I think I must be worried about this. My squad leader is one of those people who just sets others on edge, and I think I'm absorbing his stress.

This week our squad, platoon, and company ratings came out. I did really well, so I should be pleased. But instead, I think I've gotten stressed out that I won't be able to maintain my standing. Tomorrow is our last graded test before MOSs are decided. Though it won't be formally confirmed for nearly a month, my MOS assignment will be made a week from tomorrow. I've become suddenly, irrationally paranoid that I won't get infantry, that all of this time and effort will have been wasted, that I should have just stayed in law school. It's a stupid thing to worry about. I'm practically at the top of my company, and practically nobody wants infantry, and there are a ton of slots for it. But as many times as I repeat these things to myself, I just get more and more paranoid. Which is stupid, and then I get mad at myself for being silly and irrational.

Ugh. I kind of need a vacation. Hopefully I'll be able to take one between TBS and IOC. We'll see. In the meantime, I'm really looking forward to the weekend.

Think We'll Invade?

2006-03-30T05:56:00.000-05:00

We're definitely ratcheting up the PR campaign against Iran. Reminds me a lot of late 2002. Think our Iraqi exit strategy will be east?

My prediction is that we'll end up lobbing a few missiles at their nuclear sites, a la Israel vs. Iraq in the late 80s. Still, it appears within the realm of possibility that this lieutenant may cut his combat teeth on the road to Tehran.

Counterpoint in Case

2006-03-28T19:28:00.000-05:00

After my recent anti female Marine post, it would be wrong of me not to note that as of today, with the majority of our graded events behind us, a female Marine is currently the top ranked lieutenant in Alpha Company. She's got almost a two point lead on her closest competitor. What's more, she's in great physical shape, has admirable command presence, and is genuinely well-liked by her peers.

We spent the bulk of our day today shooting machine guns, which was awesome. The 240G is our medium machine gun. We didn't get to shoot the .50 cal because it hasn't rained for a while here in Quantico, and Range Control was wary of fires. However, in a classic example of Marine Corps logic, we were able to fire the MK19 automatic grenade launcher, which is more or less bad ass in the extreme. We got to see a demonstration of a Combined Anti-Armor Team (CATT) and its employment of AT-4 and SMAW rockets (awesome) and a TOW missile (pulse-racingly, utterly superlatively, eye-poppingly sweet.)

All in all, a pretty cool day.

Riding in the 7 ton truck on the way to our day o' coolness. Please note that this lieutenant got up at 0430 for a day that was supposed to begin an hour later, but actually didn't get going until after 0700. The goofy look on my face is my best attempt to remain motivated.

Roommies on the 7 ton.

MK19 automatic grenade launcher + roommate.

M240G medium machine gun + me.

My roommate contemplates the deep mysteries of the MRE.

Jalapeno ketchup? I mean, seriously...

Good Times in the Tree Line

2006-03-27T06:30:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday, when we were in the field, I was the platoon commander for one of our attacks. I got this e-mail over the weekend, from our platoon's listserve:

On Lt [Me's] leader's recon, we encountered the LP/OP of the defense platoon that we later attacked. We had similar enough near/ far recognition signal plans that they thought we were one of their patrols. Needless to say, these two lieutenants were a little embarrassed that they were taken prisoner. Enjoy.

Good times, good times.

First Birthday

2006-03-26T07:47:00.000-05:00

Alpha Company spent most of last week in the field. This field exercise was physically and mentally challenging, featuring little sleep and a 10 mile hump on Friday morning. We focused on platoon-level operations, spending a day in the defense and a day in the offense.

I was kept pretty busy. The defensive platoon commander tapped me to be his second in command, which made the day much more challenging but also more enjoyable - I got to focus on tactical considerations instead of digging a fighting hole all day long. In successive attacks on Thursday, I was a fire team leader, a squad leader, the guide (number 3 guy) and finally and unexpectedly, platoon commander. I had asked my captain not to give me a billet until we got to a field exercise that I hadn't already completed back in Charlie, and he had seemed receptive to the proposition. In any case, the attack went well, even though in my typical fashion I felt the need to come up with a plan that was much more elegant, intricate, and tactically complicated than the practical capabilities of my platoon. I'm just kind of bored of doing one after another frontal assault, can you really blame me?

This weekend is pretty significant for me. A year ago yesterday, I graduated from OCS and was commissioned a lieutenant. In a humbling coincidence, this week also marks my furthest point of progress in Charlie Company.

I have learned, experienced, and grown so much in my first year in the Corps, so much more than I ever would have predicted when I first made the decision to quit the civilian world. It's been as frustrating as it has been rewarding.

All knowledge in the Marine Corps is reducible to lists, which naturally are then reduced to acronym form. How do you lead Marines? BAMCIS, of course. How do you construct engineering obstacles for a defense? FOCDPIG. Need a machine gun position? Don't forget to PICMDEEP. What if bla bla bla bla bla happens during my attack? Well, the answer will be METT-T dependent. Don't forget to SALUTE the enemy to figure out his EMPCOA in the first paragraph of your SMEAC, and make sure you get SAFE after every attack. I could go on and on and on.

Well, I don't have an acronym, but I thought I could at least make a little list of some of the things that I've learned in the past year in the Marine Corps. If I get enough of them, maybe I'll publish a little coffee table book of Marine Corps wisdom.

Two is one, one is none. Plan for redundancy in everything - batteries, equipment, personnel. Something always breaks or goes missing.

Early is on time. On time is late. Late, don't even bother. Being late is one of the fastest, easiest ways to gain a reputation for being sloppy and unreliable. If you can be the first to show up, even by just a couple of minutes, people instinctively feel that you must have you stuff together and know what's going on.

Confidence is everything. Find a way to never have to say "I don't know." Without being pigheaded, if you take a stand don't back down from it. People will follow the person in the room who seems the most confident in their plan. Confidence is contagious. Indecision is contagious, too.

Guard your thoughts, they become your actions. Guard your actions, they become habits. Guard your habits, they become your character. Guard your character, for it is your destiny.

You can do anything for one night. Your body can do a whole heaping hell of a lot more than you think it can do. Nine times out of ten, it's a person's will that fails them, not their body.

Trust your first impressions. Within 3 days in a new group, it should be obvious who are the leaders, who are the followers, and who simply need to be avoided. The time for first impressions is a dangerous but also very valuable time.

Pilots are arrogant and soft.

Your reputation is the most important asset you own. It can be the most valuable, or worthless. A good reputation opens doors as fast as a poor one slams them shut.

If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters. Cultivate integrity in the little things, and the big things will come more easily. Integrity is not an act, it's a way of life.

It is much easier to take a stand at the beginning of a chain of events than at the end. When you bend the rules just a little bit, you make it much more difficult to stand firm when chickens come home to roost.

Some people understand only strength. Others respond to kindness. You can't use the same cookie-cutter approach and expect it to work equally well on everyone. Know your audience.

Lead from the front. Lead by example. Never ever ask someone to do something that they don't know that you would be willing to do yourself.

Knowledge comes from experience and from study. If you don't have a ton of experience to draw from, then you'd better be hitting the books.

People can spot a faker from a mile away. Those who make the most audacious claims usually have something that they're trying to hide.

Get hard. Stay hard. Never look weaker than the man on your left or your right. Be the one who inspires, not the one who needs inspiration.

There's no good way to do a bad thing.

Seek responsibility and take responsibiilty for your actions. This one by itself will take you far. The more initiative you show, the more responsibility you seek, the more others will trust you and seek your help.

There's a whole lot more where that came from, but these are just off the top of my head. Most of them have sunk in pretty well for me, but it goes without saying that I still have a long way to go. Mastering the art of being a good Marine requires constant practice, constant application, and constant vigilance. My extended stay at The Basic School is a perfect study in what can happen when you relax and let your guard down even for an evening.

But I'll be out of here soon enough. By the end of April, I'll have my MOS and I'll know where I'm headed - San Diego, North Carolina, Hawaii or Japan. I'm in the slipstream again, and the current is moving fast.

Happy first Marine Corps birthday to me.

Once, Long Ago,

2006-03-17T11:45:00.000-05:00

...I can remember a time when I read books that weren't about war. I vaguely recall having a penchant for classic literature. Funny, that.

Anyway, I'm currently reading the book One Bullet Away by former Marine Recon Captain Nathaniel Fick. It's mostly about his experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq during the invasions.

I'm a third of the way through it. The parts about OCS and TBS are pretty funny, definitely brought back some memories. I'd definitely recommend this book for anyone who's thinking about becoming a Marine officer, or who's just curious.

The only real complaint that I have with the book is that it's obvious that Fick is pretty much in love with himself. There's a lot of false modesty thrown in that sometimes detracts from an otherwise well-told story. Maybe I should learn something from that. Hmm...

Everyone have a nice weekend.

Boomshakalaka

2006-03-16T16:23:00.000-05:00

Just finished final laaaand nav, I got a huuundred, I am so haaaappy, uh huh uh huh uh huh uh huh...

Back in Charlie, land nav was a huge fiasco which I ended up failing. We couldn't have mail-ordered better weather for today.

I'm this close to the part of TBS where I'll actually be learning new stuff. Full steam ahead, oorah!

Reluctantly Yours

2006-03-13T15:22:00.000-05:00

Summer is almost upon us here in lovely Quantico, Virginia. It may be Spring elsewhere, but we don't really do that season here - it's pretty much either frigid or sweltering, with little in between.

One of my collateral duties as platoon PT rep is to supervise remedial PT for lieutenants who fail on various physical events. Right now, at TBS, this is probably my single least favorite aspect of my job as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps. The same people always fail. They never get better. They always make up lame excuses, dodge responsibility, and generally makes me sick to my stomach that they wear my uniform and my rank. It's really, really, really frustrating and demotivating for me.

I wrote a long post on this the other day that I ultimately decided against publishing, because I wrote a lot of things that I'm not sure that I believe and that would probably offend a fair number of people. Instead of opining well above my pay grade, instead I'll just allow myself to make an observation.

The standards for a male Marine on the obstacle course are 3 minutes to max, 5 minutes to pass. For a female, 4 minutes to max, 9 minutes to pass. For a male Marine on the endurance course, it's 60 minutes to max, 80 to pass. For a female, 70 to max, 90 to pass.

Just for reference, you can walk the E course and still finish it in well under an hour and a half. I happen to know this because I spent a good chunk of my afternoon today doing that very thing, while remediating a female lieutenant.

Many might make the observation that the enemy's bullets don't discriminate between the sexes. Some might then draw the conclusion that holding men and women to different physical standards might be dangerous and irresponsible. Nonetheless, the physical standards for males and females in the Corps are wildly different.

And yet, it is always, always, always the female Marines who fail the physical events.

Of course not all females fail. And of course some males fail. There are about 20 females in my company and about 250 males. A typical remedial PT session has about 15 males and about 6 females.

I'm just a lieutenant. You can draw your own conclusions.

Photo Ops

2006-03-06T10:12:00.000-05:00

My dad is coming up tomorrow and he's supposed to give me his old digital camera. I'm pretty excited about this. In the meantime, here are a couple of photos from last week's field exercise.

Please note 1. The uber-tactical purple pen stuck in my flak, 2. The uber-tactical cammie paint job I'm sporting, and 3. My uber-sexy BCGs. Buddy Holly ain't got nothin' on me, baby.

Artillery seems like it would be a challenging and exciting MOS, but I ultimately decided that I don't want to pursue it for moral reasons. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of dropping huge rounds onto targets that I can't see for myself. Still, the big guns are pretty darn cool.

This is another one of those "Why I Joined the Marine Corps" pics. We fired something like 20,000 rounds in our two days at the range, so afterwards we had to go and pick up all the casings. Fun times, lemme tell ya.

Check out my high-speed mittens. These things are so awesome - a couple of weeks ago, I almost made an entire blog entry dedicated solely to how great they are. The mitten part can be pulled off and velcroed to the back of your hand, leaving your fingers free to do intricate work. They're quite warm, and best of all, they cost less than two bucks a pair at the Wal-Mart right off base. I'd say that about three out of four Alpha lieutenants sported a pair last week.

Wooohoooooo!!!!

2006-03-03T20:44:00.000-05:00

We just went down to the Hawk to get a beer, and this crazy nutso microbrew was down there doing some promotion and these two old men funneled like a dozen beers down our throats and now suddenly we have about a kazillion pitchers of free beer in our room.

Woooohoooo!

Field Days

2006-03-03T14:47:00.000-05:00

Alpha Company just came in from its first week in the field. You can read about the nitty gritty from last July here, if it tickles your fancy. Compared to Charlie, there was a lot more quality learning and a whole lot less hazing, which is about what I have happily come to expect. We continued our winning streak of absurdly, irrationally good weather. Thursday afternoon was positively warm.

I realized a week or two ago that I'm happier now than I can ever remember being. The longer that I'm in the Marine Corps, the harder and harder it becomes for me to think of anything else I'd rather be doing. Call it brainwashing if you will, but I don't really think that's what it is. I've made some true friends here, who I trust and whose advice I seek. I'm good at this job, and getting better all the time. The MOS selection process kicked off last week, so I'm beginning to get pumped up again about the idea of getting to my platoon and leading young Marines. Everything is working out well for me. And the bottom line is that I have a pretty strong hunch that I'm going to be wearing green for a lot longer than my mom wants me to.

Me and my boys had a lot of good jokes and a lot of good moments this week. One in particular stood out above the rest. Months ago, my fireteam put our heads together and agreed to allow ourselves the indulgence of nicotine when we went out into the field. So on Wednesday or Thursday, our platoon finished up the day's work early and was set loose for the night. Several other platoons were still engaged in a night firing exercise. Bursts of small arms fire punctuated the stillness of the night, as illumination parachutes threw dizzy-dancing shadows this way and that in the dense woods. The four of us stood there in a knot, enjoying a pack of smokes and the day's-end respite from our overbearing platoon sergeant. Two carried their assault rifles. Another had his light machine gun within arm's reach. My grenade launcher hung languidly over my shoulder as I relaxed against a helpful old tree. And then, affected by the nicotine and the darkness and the intimacy born of gunfire and shared hardships, we began to tell each other our granddads' stories from World War II. Long after the rest of the platoon had buried themselves deep in their sleeping bags, the four of us stood together in the treeline and drank in the camaraderie. It's moments like those that make all the rest worthwhile, that make me think that I'll stay here for a long time. Oorah.

On a completely unrelated note, my brainiac girlfriend sent me this link to an editorial that perfectly articulates my opinion of our debacle du jour.

Everyone have a nice weekend.

In the Field

2006-02-27T05:58:00.000-05:00

We're headed to the field until Friday. I've had a lot on my mind of late that I'd like to get out, so maybe I'll be able to do that this coming weekend. Hopefully the week will also produce some ill tactical pics. We'll see.

Everyone have a nice week. I know I will.

Situation Normal

2006-02-25T13:05:00.000-05:00

What a fucking mess.

It is remarkable the degree to which people will go to justify the failures of the past. We hate to admit our mistakes, and the bigger the mistake, the stronger the psychological urge to resist admitting it.

I think that's why so many of the lieutenants back in Charlie Company so ardently supported our continued involvement in Iraq. More than half of them were prior enlisted Marines, many of whom had served in Iraq, almost all of whom knew someone who had died there. Nobody wants to believe that their buddy died for a stupid mistake. The tragedy is that that stubbornness only begets even more wasted death.

Almost all of the lieutenants in Alpha came here straight from college. And almost all of them agree that our invasion of Iraq was a horrible mistake.

Anyone who tries to tell you that we're winning the war on terrorism, that things in Iraq are looking up, that we'll be out of that country any time this decade or that our policies in the Middle East are making America safer should be run out of town on a rail.

What a fucking mess.

Like Molasses

2006-02-22T17:13:00.000-05:00

Things around Camp Barrett have been pretty slow of late, which is why my blog entries have been infrequent and dull. We have class all week long, leading in to next week's field exercise which I am definitely looking forward to. We'll be in the field all week long, putting in to practice the stuff that we've been learning. Though I've done it all before, every tactical situation is always a little bit different and usually pretty interesting.

Last weekend the roommies and I went on a pretty awesome road trip up to New York. Good times that I'm definitely not at liberty to blog about were had by all. Very good times.

Can't wait to get to infantry school... I'm so ready to be done with The Big Suck.

Whistle While You Work

2006-02-14T07:40:00.000-05:00

Happy Tuesday.

Blue Monday

2006-02-13T06:13:00.000-05:00

It's 20 degrees outside.

Outstanding.

Breather

2006-02-11T12:12:00.000-05:00

I'm halfway through my tenure as squad leader. It has proved considerably more challenging than I anticipated. I had to put the office in officer until about midnight almost every night, so I was pretty tired. It also turns out that the rosy picture that I had of my squad isn't entirely accurate. My own fireteam works very well with each other and is motivated and locked on, but the same is not true for the other 2 fireteams. Personality and motivation issues get in the way of mission accomplishment, which obviously drives me nuts. So it's been a challenge this week to keep the squad moving in the right direction and navigate around the many pitfalls to which peer leaders are often susceptible. It's been a strong learning experience for me though, and I've been able to give some good guidance to various individuals in my squad on how to improve their experience at TBS.

I usually guard my weekends pretty jealously, stearing as clear of Camp Barrett as I can manage. I got sucked in to leading a PT session this morning though, which turned out to be not all that bad. Oh, our rifle and pistol scores were finally averaged into our GPA, causing mine to fall a good five points overnight. Oh well. I knew it was going to happen; you can't always be number 1 in everything. The only other graded event that I'm a little bit worried about is night land navigation, a skill at which I have traditionally sucked pretty hard. We'll see what happens.

I ran a squad-level review session for our most recent test. More than half of my squad members got a hundred, so that was gratifying.

Bottom line is that things continue to go well for me here in Aloha Alpha. I'm performing at or near my peak almost every single day. I had worried that I might burn out and get demotivated after a few weeks, but that hasn't happened, at least yet. I think this is primarily due to three factors: first, my roommates, who keep me pumped up every single day. Secondly, I'm kept constantly on my toes by the demands placed on me by the leadership position within my platoon into which my prior TBS experience thrust me from before day one. Finally and probably most importantly, I pretty much idolize my platoon commander. I feel like he trusts me and that we have a pretty good relationship, and I just don't want to let him down.

I heard that this was the warmest January on record in America. Maybe it means that someday soon we'll be taking gondolas down Broadway, but for the selfish moment, I'll take it. Chalk it up to the power of positive thinking, and my determination to make the most out of my experience here in Aloha Alpha.

I'm headed back up to DC now to see my baby. Everyone have a nice weekend.

Knock on Wood

2006-02-06T18:58:00.000-05:00

I've kept pretty busy at work recently. Last week was a truly outstanding week for me. I taught MCMAP to half of my platoon, and on Thursday they were all certified as tan belts. I worked my butt off to get them ready for the test, and it was pretty rewarding to see them do well.

Last Friday a couple of Vietnam vets came and gave a presentation on their experience as helicopter pilots. One of them had a citation that was fairly awesome – after being shot in the face and losing his vision during a medevac mission, he used his Kabar to break the glass on his instrument panels, felt the dials to determine flightworthiness, and then listened to his crew chief’s descriptions of the terrain to fly 8 casualties to safety. Pretty damn impressive.

The two men told some pretty funny Marine Corps jokes. A sampling:

"How does a lieutenant plant a flagpole?"
"Hey there Sergeant, plant that flagpole!"

"Yeah, well, the Navy is only a quasi-military service."
"But isn’t the Marine Corps part of the Department of the Navy?"
"Yeah, it's the men's department."

So Captain Nichols goes down to Tunn Tavern to recruit some Continental Marines. He sets up a table in the corner of the bar and starts working the crowd. A rough and tumble young man comes up, signs on the dotted line, and Captain Nichols hands him a beer. So then another man comes up, signs, and Captain Nichols hands the new devildog two beers. The second Marine takes his beers and goes over and sits down at the bar. The first Marine leans over and says, "You know, in the old Corps, we only got one beer."

I’m a squad leader for the next two weeks. This is a pretty tough billet because you have to boss your peers around quite a bit, but ideally without being too bossy. At the end of the billet period I'll have to rank my fellow Marines first to last, counsel them on their performance, and submit the results to our captain. This is never a pleasant experience. But I enjoy being in command, and I'm pretty good at it so I’m not too worried. I had a squad meeting this morning to lay out expectations for the next couple of weeks, and my squad seemed receptive. Hopefully this will turn out well.

The weather continues to be unseasonably awesome. My personal life is a sudden and unexpected source of tremendous joy. My platoon commander is easily the coolest captain at The Basic School. My brand new boots are warm, dry, and comfy. All in all, I have to say that right now I’m one happy lieutenant.

Everyone have an outstanding day.

Playing the Numbers

2006-01-30T20:51:00.000-05:00

Alpha's MOS allocations came down today from Manpower. 25 Infantry slots and 5 Ground Intel for 122 ground assignable lieutenants. Probably a dozen or more of those are female ground contracts. So my chances for getting an MOS that I want are very good. I think there are probably more than 25 LTs who want Infantry in the company, but that number will dwindle after the field exercises, and anyway I'm pretty confident about my standing in my platoon. As usual, I'm optimistic.

We're doing MCMAP this week. I'm training half of my platoon. It's tiring, but rewarding. And of course I love getting to be in the spotlight all day long, not to mention getting to hang around Leonidas again. I'll throw up a photo or two in the next couple of days.

Warm Fuzzy

2006-01-30T18:02:00.000-05:00

One of my buddies just sent this to me. It's from the day we got sprayed with OC back at the MACE.

Can't wait to do it again over at the Men's Club.

Fraternity

2006-01-30T00:00:00.000-05:00

Me and two of my roommies, kicking back at the rifle range. (Please note the extremely motivating and undeniably sexy BCGs sported by LT Yours Truly.)

Dark Times

2006-01-25T20:31:00.000-05:00

The power went off at Camp Barrett yesterday evening. They think they can get it back up by tomorrow evening. I'm relaxing in the Garrisonville Starbucks, surrounded by about a platoon's worth of lieutenants looking for a warm, well-lit place to while away the evening hours and study for Friday's Comm test.

Today was Alpha's first land nav event. It was scheduled for 3 hours. I finished it in just under 45 minutes. That's pretty much been a theme for me since Alpha picked up. It's also why I haven't been writing on here as frequently as in the past - I've had all of this training already, I remember it all pretty well, and it's pretty darn boring. (At least I can be thankful that they did away with the godawful week of grammar classes.) The big story of Lieutenant Yours Truly in Alpha isn't about the training, but rather about the people who I've been lucky enough to meet here. The training itself gets little more than a nod and a yawn.

In other news... this man is still my boss. Sigh...

p.s. a nice little bullet from the end of the article:

A new law will let the Army attract older recruits, raising the top age from 35 to 42.

A 42 year old private? Are you freaking joking me?

Go Army!

The System Defeats Itself

2006-01-20T19:17:00.000-05:00

Well, Americans, this is where the system finally defeats itself.

If you don't have time to read the article, here's the punchline: for a fee, frequent fliers will soon be able to obtain special passes that allow them to skip through parts of airport "security." That is, of course, after a private company has sifted through their fingerprints, financial history, and other personal data and determined that they are not in fact a terrorist.

This is a Category Five Very, Very Bad Idea, for a host of reasons.

Under the voluntary program, which begins in June, travelers would have to submit fingerprints and allow officials to conduct in-depth background checks, including in some cases providing access to personal and financial histories, to prove they aren't terrorists.

I'm not a privacy freak, but the implications here for privacy rights are obvious. There is no way that these "officials," who the article later reveals are in fact officials of private companies, could guarantee the confidentiality of the information they gathered. It just is not possible. The article references the major information leak at Bank of America as one of a host of examples. Last year's decertification of Diebold's utterly screwed up electronic voting machines also comes to mind.

This idea is un-American. If I pay my bills on time, if I'm not an uppity activist in my college years, if I have a mortgage, then I get to go to the front of the line. I don't know about you, but I don't believe that it's the proper role of the government to delve into my personal life and either grant special privileges to some law-abiding citizens but deny them to others.

But those arguments, while important, pale in comparison with the sheer stupidity of this idea from a security standpoint. How hard can it possibly be to get one of these cards? I can see the commercial right now on the Bin Laden News Network: "The American Security Express Card. Don't leave Afghanistan without it." Terrorists know how to blend in to their target societies - that's why they're called sleeper cells for crying out loud.

So maybe a terrorist just behaves himself for a couple of years until he can legitimately get his own card. Or maybe he pays off the janitor at the clearance company and gets a stack of blank cards for himself and his buddies. Or maybe on the way to the airport he just kills a couple of frequent fliers and takes their cards.

There is some question in the article as to just how effective these cards will be at speeding passengers through security. If they speed passengers through, they are incredibly dangerous because of the security threat they pose. If they do not speed passengers through, they are an idiotic waste of money that only provide more opportunities for the erosion and exploitation of privacy rights. Either way, they are a horrendous idea.

To close on a personal note: On my flight back to Texas for Christmas, I wore my dress blues. To pass through security, I had to take off my shoes, take off my jacket, go through a metal detector, and be scanned and then frisked by a security worker. I was told that this was because my shoes fit the terrorist's profile because they have "soles more than an inch thick."

Our airport security measures are asinine beyond my poor powers of invective. I really hope somebody puts a stop to this card program.

Sliding Doors

2006-01-19T21:13:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I still get e-mails from my old school. If I weren't a Marine, this is probably what I'd be doing right now:

A heads-up from your SBA Social Committee...

Graduate Speed Dating

Just in time for Valentine's Day! Looking for love? Friends? Try (MYOLDSCHOOL) Speed-Dating! Meet eligible men and women from the Grad School, Med School and Law School! If you're not participating, come cheer on your friends!

If you've never heard of speed dating before, you'll get to go on 15 5-minute "dates". You'll have a score card to record who you're interested in. If the feeling is mutual between you and your date(s), we'll write you with the contact information of your matches!

When: Wednesday, February 8, 2006, 7-10pm.
7-8pm: Registration and cocktail hour with cash bar and *free food*
8-9:30pm: Dating
9:30-10pm: Social time

I've been feeling particularly self-righteous this week. This feeling is pretty much directly correlated with how badly training happens to suck at any given moment, and training the last 15 days or so has sucked pretty badly. So it was nice to get this in my inbox today when I got home from my 17 hour workday, which came hard on the heels of a 20 hour workday.

Hah. You silly civilians and your silly silly vacuous silly selves. Clearly you ought to understand that the true path to happiness and fulfillment as a human being is to march around in the woods in the dark in the rain in the wintertime carrying 70 pounds on your back for days at a time with no sleep. Cocktail hour? "Social time?" Graduate Speed Dating? Get outta here.

Work on the Brain

2006-01-17T21:45:00.000-05:00

Last night I had a dream that a platoon of Al Qaeda attacked my old neighborhood in the middle of the night. I jumped out of bed in my pajamas and immediately took charge of an intrepid squad of Marines who for some unexplained reason happened to be hanging about in my family's living room. My dad got on the phone and began to call for fire. (Maybe I had taught him how to do this? This part of the dream was a little murky.) Meanwhile my Marines executed a perfect flanking envelopment and whupped the tar out of them no-good Al Qaeda. Then we had a bar-b-q. No kidding, I actually dreamed this.

Anyway, I'm going to be in the field until late Thursday night. Work's been stressful and hectic of late, but we take it all in stride. Everyone have a nice couple of days.

Things That Suck

2006-01-16T02:51:00.000-05:00

Eh, I've always kind of wanted to see Iran anyway. (Or maybe we could just take out their leadership/civilian population with CIA airstrikes.)

I'm standing duty at the moment, which basically means that I have to walk around telling people to shut up and behave. I posted at 8 AM yesterday. I have 5 hours to go until I'm relieved. It's almost, almost as much fun as it sounds.

p.s. Since I'm sitting here with absolutely nothing to do, I thought I would surf over to Al Jazeera to see what they had to say about the airstrike. I have to admit, Al Jazeera is even more biased than Fox News. That whole website is freakin' nutso, man. Check out their hard-hitting expose on dollar bill origami.

On Target

2006-01-09T22:30:00.000-05:00

Today at the rifle range the mercury broke 60 degrees. Whatever else January, February and March may later conspire to hurl our way, I am grateful for this unexpected respite from the cold.

I got to talk with my captain for at least 20 minutes tonight about MOS selection. We were caught with some dead time at the range, and he was moving from fire team to fire team chatting up the platoon, as he is wont to do with exhilarating frequency. It's kind of tough to explain how much of a morale boost it is to have your platoon commander come over and take a genuine interest in you, but it just feels great. Things to remember when I finally get my own platoon.

I've been doing a fair amount of informal research into the whole MOS question, whether I want to do infantry or ground intel. The more I talk to people, the more it seems that ground intel turns into a pretty boring MOS pretty quickly, and that the chances for exciting missions are few and far between. Either you make it spectacularly big, or you are quickly relegated to a series of increasingly boring staff positions. I came to the Marine Corps in no small part to avoid that very fate. Consequently, I have almost entirely made up my mind to revert back to infantry as my first choice of MOS.

My captain confirmed a lot of the things that I've heard from other people, and added a few comments of his own about his experience with infantry. It just sounds more like what I want to do. Enough of my friends from college went into various intelligence careers for me to know that that field is oftentimes excruciatingly dull. So I guess it's back to grunt for me.

I'm exhausted and still have quite a bit to do before I rack out... work starts in 5 hours... oorah! :-)

Takes All Types

2006-01-08T16:23:00.000-05:00

My roommate is cleaning his M16 and listening to Avril Levigne.

Situational Awareness

2006-01-05T20:26:00.000-05:00

For all of the complaining I do about the cold weather, I would be remiss if I failed to note that the weather this week has been miraculously mild. This afternoon it got up to 51. I'd been dreading January at the rifle range ever since I found out I was headed to Alpha. Knock on wood and I'm a fool for tempting fate, but our first day at the range was a blissful non-event.

Echo company is having their mess night tonight. They invited Leonidas over as their guest, and he took it upon himself to walk around the barracks to say hi to all of the former MACE lieutenants in Alpha. So he walks in to our room in his evening dress at the same moment that I walk out of the bathroom, clad in nothing but my Christmas boxers. I wasn't quite sure what to do. I came to a sort of modified boxers-only position of attention and began to blurt out, "Attention on D-" when he cut me off in a fit of laughter. We shot the breeze for a couple of minutes, he in his formal wear, me in my underwear, and then he moved on down the hall. As much as I enjoy Alpha company, I really miss being over at the MACE.

That's about it for the moment; work starts in 8 hours so I'd better hit the sackola.

Perqs

2006-01-05T00:52:00.000-05:00

The other night I prevailed upon the First Fire Team All-Stars, aka my roommates, to hit up the local CiCi's Pizza. It's not exactly gourmet, but all you can eat pizza, pasta and salad for $4.50 is pretty much the best deal around here outside of the chow hall. Which, after nine months, has started to get a little bit old for yours truly.

Megan the Famous CiCi's Pizza Girl hooked up our fireteam with dinner for free. And then on the way out, she handed me a stack of coupons for a free meal, charging me with distributing them among the LTs of Alpha. Score. I think I'll wait until we have a crappy day as a platoon, then hand them out as a pick-me-up.

Off to the rifle range in a couple of hours. Should be fun.

Munich

2006-01-03T01:19:00.000-05:00

Back to work tomorrow. Home was fantastic. Highlights included a couple of days at the beach, Mom's traditional Christmas PJs, teaching my kid sister how to shoot, my family's as-always fantastic New Year's celebration, and my introduction to the very very very pretty thing that is a Texas country-western bar. I'm recharged and ready to tackle the next three weeks on the rifle range.

Today I went to see Steven Spielberg's current picture, Munich. It's a movie about hunting down and killing terrorists, which is basically what I intend to do for most of the rest of my life. This movie is good. Actually, I think it's my new favorite. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in the moral and practical aspects of the War on Terror, which should be pretty much everyone who reads my blog.

It poses the kinds of questions that I constantly ask myself. Why are we fighting? Who? For what? Not in a superficial, "he hit me first so now I'm going to hit him back," but in a deeper sense - for what actual, practically attainable purpose, or for what worthy moral proposition, do we kill other humans? What must a person do in order to truly deserve death? Who qualifies as a combatant, and how much "collateral damage" is justifiable in a war against an enemy whose targets are civilians? If killing one terrorist simply means that another, more ruthless man will take his place, is it still worth killing him? Is it still right? What effect does close range, intimate killing have on a righteous soul? Like most good movies, Munich asks a lot more questions than it answers.

The final scene takes place in New York City. After the last line, after the narrative has been concluded, even after a post-script text informs us that most of the perpetrators of the Munich massacre were eventually assassinated, Spielberg lingers on a view of the New York city skyline, with the Twin Towers front and center. The message is clear - this struggle is not new, it is not going to disappear anytime soon, and nothing that we've tried so far has worked. I left the theater feeling somber and thoughtful.

So, go see it. And let me know what you thought.

Fighting Dems

2005-12-28T18:01:00.000-05:00

I've been following this phenomenon with great interest. Seems that Democratic military veterans are signing up in droves to challenge Congressional Republicans in 2006.

It mostly started with the candidacy of Major Paul Hackett, USMCR, in a special congressional election in Ohio earlier this year. Hackett narrowly lost in an overwhelmingly Red district. This suggested to a lot of Democrats, and a lot of Repulicans too, that perhaps the traditional strategy of pouring massive amounts of resources into a select few "winnable" races was not the best way to go for the Dems - that a broader, 50 state strategy was more desirable. The idea is that a 50 state strategy will hopefully win more races, build the party infrastructure in long-neglected parts of the country, and force Republicans to expend scarce resources (The Dem fundraising machine is currently kicking the bejesus out of its Republican counterpart) in traditionally "safe" races.

There is a massive misperception, in the general public as well as in the Marines, that Democrats and Liberals just don't exist in the armed services. This idea is obviously baloney, but the Republican party uses it to its advantage all the time, with their over-the-top and oftentimes offensive use of military imagery in their campaigns.

It would be nice if someone could explain to the American people that just because the Republican party is more likely to rush to war, that does not mean they are "pro-military." Just because the Republican party is more prone to cozy up to defense contractors with multi-kabillion dollar sweetheart projects (like the oft-pilloried Star Wars initiative) does not mean that they are "pro-military."

Having a Presidential candidate with multiple purple hearts and a bronze star for heroic service in Vietnam apparently wasn't enough to convince the public that Democrats are not wimps. FDR tried to get America into WWII years earlier than the public was ready to go along. Truman dropped the bomb and invaded Korea. JFK was as hawkish as they come.

Maybe having 35+ Democratic congressional candidates with military records will finally make an impression. I hope so.

Honor, Courage, Commitment

2005-12-20T14:57:00.000-05:00

Someone could use a healthy helping of each.

Rough days for the boss. Better days ahead for the real boss, the American people.

Merry Christmas

2005-12-16T15:38:00.000-05:00

Aloha secured at 1200 today until the third of January. The barracks are already practically empty. I'll be leaving in just a few minutes.

This vacation means a lot to me, since I've been here for so long and since it's my first Christmas since I joined the military. I look forward to seeing my family very much; moreso than I ever have in the past. I'm feeling uncharacteristically nostalgic for my old Texas haunts. Who knows where I'll be next Christmas.

I most likely won't post during my leave, so for all of you who read my blog, have a happy and safe holiday. Merry Christmas.

See a Problem?

2005-12-15T06:40:00.000-05:00

From CNN, "Iraqis Voting in Historic Election:"

...Iraqi and U.S. officials are hoping that the Sunni Arab turnout will be high, a factor they believe could help deflate the largely Sunni Arab insurgency. Voting has already been held for security forces, prison detainees, and hospital patients, and Iraqi expatriate polling in 15 countries started Tuesday.

...[A campaign official] also discussed difficulties in opening polling stations in war-torn Anbar province, and he said some polling sites have not been opened because of security reasons.

"In some areas, there are some military operations and these elections are canceled in these areas," he said, without specifying what areas.

"The elections cannot be carried out normally in some troubled areas because the employees cannot be protected. In any area where there is no protection for the voters, or the candidates or the employees, we cannot hold elections in these areas."

Can you spot the elephant in the room?

Admin Dayzzzzzzzzzz.....

2005-12-13T20:09:00.000-05:00

Not a whole lot of excitement to report from lovely Camp Barrett, Quantico. The past couple of weeks have been occupied with one after another "motivating" lecture. Symptoms of death by powerpoint were visible as early as last Wednesday. CDC officials are at this moment conferring to determine whether the spontaneous collapse this afternoon of four lieutenants stricken with the debilitating disease constitutes sufficient threat to quarentine Quantico. Standby on that one.

I've taken a couple of tests and done well on them, so my GPA is riding high. They aren't hard to begin with, and I've taken them all before, so this isn't exactly something to get too excited about. But I'll take what I can get. I've been running review sessions for my squad, which seem to be appreciated.

Still very much enjoying the company of my fire team. We're easily the most motivated fireteam in our platoon, so the synergy is pretty nice.

I am genuinely conflicted over whether I want infantry or ground intel. I am a famously decisive person, and being conflicted is pretty unusual for me, so it's rather uncomfortable. Basically it boils down to this: Ground Intel lieutenant billets are awesome, as is the initial training. But later down the line it turns into a boring staff position, and I don't think an 0203 would ever command an infantry company, which is one of the things that I would really like to do. (In fact, only about a third of infantry officers ever get their own company.) One of the platoon commanders in Alpha is a ground intel officer. At some point before I make this decision for the last time, I'm going to talk to him at length about his MOS. Also I need to do some better research on the most promising career paths into recon and force recon, which are where I would ultimately like to wind up.

I'm going home for Christmas on Saturday. I haven't seen my family since I left for TBS in early April. I really can't wait to get home for the holidays.

Oh yeah, and here are a couple of pics from the gas chamber.

Purple Haze, Marine Corps style.

Officers of Marines are impervious to tear gas.

Home Front

2005-12-08T17:59:00.000-05:00

This is pretty cool, folks. My dear mother is an active member in the featured organization.

By FLORI MEEKS
Chronicle Correspondent

JUDY Tilbury was a self-described mess during her son's basic training with the United States Marine Corps.

The Jersey Village resident supported her son's choice to serve his country, but that didn't make his absence any easier.

"It shook me to the core," Tilbury said. "I was just lost."

A year and a half later, Tilbury has made it her mission to comfort other military parents and to support the Marines who they love.

Tilbury is the founder of Houston Marine Parents, a nonprofit organization serving military moms and dads from throughout Greater Houston.

The group focuses on Marines, but it reaches out to representatives from all branches of the military.

Tilbury said she wouldn't be in a position to encourage others if a colleague from the downtown firm where she works as a legal secretary hadn't told her about www.marineparents.com.

"That site saved my life, literally," she said.

Tilbury couldn't communicate with her son, 21-year-old Cody Oldham, during his 89 days at boot camp.

But the Web site showed Tilbury his daily schedule. It taught her about the Marines and it put her in touch with parents from throughout the country.

"It helped me tremendously," she said. "I just soaked up everything on there."

She remained a 'regular' on the site after Oldham's graduation, infantry training and deployment to Okinawa, Japan, where he serves today as a lance corporal.

Tilbury spent so much time on the site the organizers asked her to form a regional support group for the Houston area in March 2005.

It was a chance to help parents who were enduring what she endured.

Tilbury hosted her first meeting later that month in her family room.

Four guests came.

"My main point at that time was helping recruit parents," Tilbury said. "Our kids made a life decision, and it affected our lives tremendously."

Tilbury hosted her next meeting in July, when 28 people gathered at a northwest Houston restaurant.

That's when Tilbury invited Rufino Gaytan, a paralegal from her office, to speak to the parents about his recent service in Iraq.

Gaytan, who is a sergeant with the U.S. Army Reserves, was on active duty between December 2003 and March 2005. He was stationed in Iraq from March 2004 to March 2005.

"The one thing troops appreciate the most, at least in my case, is when people write a letter or sent a card to say, 'I'm thinking of you,'" Gaytan said. "Just to know you're not forgotten."

Now the group's parents knew how they could help.

They started asking Cy-Fair-area schools to help them with letter-writing campaigns. The club members have been sending the letters to their children and their troops.

Tilbury said she can never thank the students enough for the sincerity of their letters.

"I have never seen anything more precious in my life," she said.

The group's Angel Wings program supports Marines who need help paying for their flights home.

Marines are responsible for purchasing their own airline tickets when they get leave.

Sometimes they don't find out they're getting leave until the last minute, making their airfare even more expensive.

Now Houston Marine Parents is collecting money and airline miles to make sure Marines can visit their families.

Another group project focuses on liner kits designed to make helmets more effective.

The U.S. Department of Defense doesn't issue them, but a Montgomery based-program, Operation Helmet, is buying them for troops for $100 a piece.

During the first of three fundraisers it has held since the group was founded, the Marine Parents raised nearly $2,000 for calling cards and liners.

The group plans to continue raising money for the liners after the holidays.

Meanwhile, Houston Marine Parents has grown to include five executive board members, nine board members and 71 general members.

That membership includes Gaytan, who said he was moved by Houston Marine Parents' mission.

"Parents are so distraught when their child is in boot camp," he said. "It's amazing to see them get pulled into the group and to get the support they need. It's the power of all of these people who share this common experience."

Susan Golpe said she can't imagine what she and her husband, Don, would do with their free time if they hadn't joined the group.

Their son, Stefan Barcik, is a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, north of Fallujah.

"We worry every day, but this gives us something positive to do," Susan said.

Don, a Realtor, has made it his mission to inform service people about the housing benefits they're eligible for after they're discharged.

"Texas is a wonderful state," he said. "If any of these kids have lived in this state, Texas offers benefits on top of the federal benefits."

Houston Marine Parents is in the process of obtaining legal nonprofit status. It hopes to start developing corporate partnerships to support its efforts.

Yawn

2005-12-08T08:03:00.000-05:00

We've been in class all week long, and surprisingly, the classes are still just as boring as they were eight months ago. Platoon-sized "discussion" groups are just as obnoxious, with half a dozen lieutenants at a time tripping overthemselves in their mad rush to spit out the textbook answer. The classes on homosexual policy (actual question: "What if we have a Marine who, you know, kinda talks gay? You know, like, with a lisp? Do we kick him out?) and Marine Corps "history" (actual quote: "The media lost Vietnam, they're always out to get us") remain just as infuriating. The gas chamber yesterday sucked just as bad.

But my fireteam is awesome. We've been hanging out together and running PT almost every day. The four of us have a lot in common, and get along well together. My squad is also pretty cool. We have a female Marine who is totally locked on and a fellow who went to Middlebury and speaks five languages. (In the Marine Corps these two things are about equally common.)

Our staff platoon commander seems pretty down-to-earth. I haven't yet had the opportunity to speak with him one on one, but I look forward to doing so soon. That's about all that's going on up here, nothing too exciting to report, wish it wasn't so cold but all in all I'm pretty happy with the way things stand.

Wanderlust

2005-12-05T13:31:00.000-05:00

Well, it's snowing, so I guess winter has undeniably arrived. I was doing a pretty good job of convincing myself that somehow Quantico would simply skip winter and roll straight into spring, preferably late spring. Unfortunately this did not occur.

I have wanderlust, and bad. I haven't been out of the country for a year now, and I haven't really truly travelled since I left Costa Rica in 2002. When I think about my life after the Marine Corps, invariably my mind turns to travel - the places I have been, the places I will go. I am happy here, now, where I am, but it would be untrue to pretend that I do not quietly look forward to the day when I return to the civilian world.

"Free, Independent and Responsible Iraqi Media"

2005-12-02T12:16:00.000-05:00

This is bullshit.

First Impressions

2005-12-01T22:31:00.000-05:00

Alpha's collective character is fundamentally different from Charlie's in a lot of significant ways. It was immediately clear to me from the beginning of the week that I am going to have a much, much, much easier time here than I did with my old company.

A whole host of circumstances add up to a company that is considerably more laid back and welcoming than the hard-nosed boys from Charlie. Alpha is nearly 50% air contracts, who as a group are notoriously casual. There are twice as many female Marines than there were in Charlie, and they give the company a gentler touch. At least half of Charlie was prior enlisted, if not more. Alpha is probably about 15%. The result is a company that is much more willing to work together to learn new things, rather than a bunch of individuals out to prove that their way is the best. It's difficult to describe, but prior enlisted officers tend carry with them a bit of a chip on their shoulder against non-priors, and that in-group out-group mentality was a constant challenge for me back in Charlie. It doesn't seem to exist in Alpha, or at least, its effects are far reduced.

For my own part, I am much more prepared for success in Alpha than I was in Charlie. Charlie at TBS was made up almost entirely of the graduates of Charlie at OCS. OCS was extremely difficult for me, especially for the first half or so, and I didn't really make the impression that I would have liked. The negative reputation that I established at the beginning of OCS followed me to TBS, and was a constant challenge for me.

This time around, I have a blank slate. Better than that, relative to these fresh-faced college grads, most of whom are a couple of years younger than me, I have a good deal of experience and helpful hints to offer since I've been around TBS for so many months now. My MCMAP black belt helps to bolster that image. If I can walk the fine line between lending a helpful hand and being the obnoxious know-it-all, I think that I can keep up the image that I have worked to craft in the past few days. I am optimistic.

My fireteam is pretty awesome. The guys are friendly and motivated to PT and do MCMAP. More than that, they appear at first glance to be notably more intellectually engaged than what I have come to expect. One of them has a 3.9 from the University of Texas - no small feat. One went to Cornell, another to Yale. I don't want to get too optimistic too quickly, but I think that I just may have stumbled in to my own private little Marine Corps fantasy land. We'll see.

Another LT from my MACE platoon is in my Alpha platoon. He's a really nice guy, as well as a prior gunny with a ton of Marine Corps experience.

Bottom line is that right now I am feeling pretty lucky and extremely motivated.

Aloha!

2005-11-27T23:33:00.000-05:00

Aloha Alpha officially kicks off in the morning. Lieutenant Yours Truly is the platoon PT rep and hopefully a squad leader, to be determined tomorrow.

I am violently ready to attack TBS. Far from being demotivated, my enthusiasm for Alpha is off the charts. There'll be a nice long run tomorrow evening... we'll see how many of my platoonmates opt in to after-hours PT, hopefully a good number. I don't plan to thrash them, but it's not going to be a cakewalk either. I just want to operate at my absolute peak for the next six months, and be surrounded by others doing the same.

GAAAAH I'm ready to do this thing. Let's roll.

Happy Thanksgiving

2005-11-25T18:20:00.000-05:00

Happy Thankgiving, all. I saw a cool pic of Marines playing football in Iraq, but now I can't find it. If anyone knows what I'm talking about and happens to know where it is, I'd love to have the URL.

Wicked Pyrotechnics

2005-11-21T20:36:00.000-05:00

There's a bit of a brouhaha brewing over at Daily Kos over the recent "revelation" that the US military has used white phosphorous (WP) munitions against insurgents in Fallujah.

WP obviously is a chemical, not unlike basically every other manufactured product in the universe. If it sits on your skin long enough or if you eat it, it can cause some rather unpleasant effects. From this, some who would criticize the conduct of the war have accused the US of using chemical weapons against Iraqis. This claim is bolstered by, and gains "gotcha" value from, an unearthed Pentagon memo from the mid nineties that suggests that Hussein may have used chemical weapons including WP on the Kurds. Ah hah! It was a chemical weapon when Saddam used it, but not when we use it! Neocons are bad people, and worse liars!

As queasy as I get at the mention of Paul Wolfowitz' name, I do not think there is much merit to this particular claim.

WP is clearly a chemical. It is also a weapon. It's used mainly in two ways. A WP round or two creates a huge white cloud just above the ground, marking a target so that aircraft can then more easily pound it to smithereens. My understanding is that this is the use for which WP was originally developed and intended. But it also just so happens to be extremely flammable. Drop a couple of WP rounds in with a few regular High Explosive (HE) rounds, and viola, you've got Shake and Bake, a napalm-esque effect delivered via artillery. The textbook use for Shake and Bake is against fuel dumps or other highly flammable targets.

Textbook as in, that's what they teach us here at TBS. At no point during our discussion of WP did any of our instructors say, "oh yeah, and this is also considered a somewhat shady chemical weapon." Because it isn't. It's just one more (horrific) way among a hundred other (also horrific) ways that modern militaries kill people.

A chemical weapon, as commonly understood, is something like mustard or sarin gas, the kinds of horrible blistering and choking poisons used in WWI. We have treaties banning these things, because we decided that death by chemical weapon was a particularly ghastly way to die.

But if "chemical weapon" were to mean simply "any weapon with a chemical component," then a discussion of chemical weapons or attempts to limit their use would become utopian and absurd. TNT is a chemical; so is lead. I can't think of a modern projectile weapon that does not contain a variation of at least one or the other. But when we talk about chemical weapons, we're obviously not talking about bullets and bombs.

Dropping fire on people sounds pretty nasty. So do accurate descriptions of almost any manner of wartime death. Violence is and ought to be disturbing. Violence ought to be and unfortunately is not used as sparingly as possible.

But I don't really see any difference between dropping Shake and Bake on a target and dropping normal HE rounds on that same target. If it's a legitimate target, bomb it into the stone age. If it's not a legitimate target, then it ought not be bombed at all. Propagandistic Pentagon analysis from the mid-nineties was as silly then as it is irrelevant now. WP is not banned by chemical weapons treaty; it need not be. It goes without saying that it ought not be recklessly or knowingly used against noncombatant populations. It is a potent and deadly weapon, to be used against our enemies with no greater remorse than the passing of any human life requires.

Given the opportunity to call for fire on an insurgent position, I wouldn't hesitate for an instant to shake 'em and bake 'em.

Let's Roll!

2005-11-21T17:36:00.000-05:00

Awesome training today. I'm in a fantastic mood.

For most of the day we trained Fox in their tan belt. This was borderline motivating. Teaching MCMAP to large groups is not as rewarding as teaching it to individuals and small groups who really want the training. Forcing reluctant people to learn something that I really enjoy can be obnoxious. But there were a few Marines who were really in to it, so it was worthwhile.

After we wrapped up Fox for the day a few of us went back over to the MACE to train. When I first came to the MACE I had absolutely no grappling skills whatsoever, relying pretty much solely on my ability to be heavy and squish people. WELL today for the first time I managed to tap out my mentor, who is way better than me. Then I turned around and started grappling this other LT who is at about the same level that I was when I came to the MACE - big, strong, vicious and clueless. I managed to stick him with this move that the Irishman taught me a few days ago that was just sick. I wish I had a picture, but basically I tapped him out by putting him in an absurd permutation of the splits. It was just awesome. Everyone who saw it started whoopin' and hollerin'. It was that sweet... you know, if you're a guy, and in to grappling, etc.

So ready for Alpha to kick off next week... :-)

Lieutenants Gone Wild

2005-11-18T18:11:00.000-05:00

Motivation level right now is at about at 10. Got in a good lift and whupped ass bigtime during open mat training this afternoon. Leonidas gave us a big goodbye/moto speech for our last day at the MACE. I went to his office later on to say thank you and goodbye. He gets a smirk in his eye, leans in real close, and in a conspiratorial tone confides, "You know LT, I never thought you should have been dropped in the first place." Now probably he was just saying that to pump me up. Well, it worked. That guy is a phenomenal leader.

I went over to Mike company, pulled some strings, and got the billet that I wanted for Alpha. I also got to help set up my platoon. Sweet.

The boys from the MACE are heading out to Adams Morgan in just a couple of minutes. It's been an awesome day. It's going to be an awesome night.

I think I'm gonna do shots.

OORAH!

Wave Goodbye

2005-11-17T18:14:00.000-05:00

Never, ever go out for Mexican food the night before a run.

Fun times at the MACE are drawing rapidly to an end. Today was our last big PT event with the Colonel; after tomorrow I'll be officially detached and shunted back over to the abyss that is Mike Co. Good PT today - nice little run with some groundfighting thrown in at the end. I handily tapped out another LT who has me by at least 30 pounds. It's very reaffirming when I get to see concrete positive results of all the hard work I've put in over the past months.

I went over to the pool this morning to up my swim qual from level 2 to level 1. I basically grew up in the water; I lettered in swimming back in high school. So it was with a fair degree of shock/indignation/general disbelief that I received the official pronouncement that I had failed this stupid test because my side stroke was not good enough.

Ok for the record, "side stroke" is not even a real f'ing swim stroke. Have you ever heard Bob Costas tell an inspiring story of some heartland American who grew up in poverty and overcame cancer to win Olympic gold in the 800 meter side stroke? NO YOU HAVE NOT. Why not? BECAUSE "SIDE STROKE" DOES NOT EVEN FRIGGIN' EXIST. So now I have to go back over there and waste my time learning some non-existent "skill." Grrrrrrrrrr.

Hanging around the MACE today, I spent a couple of hours reading - get this - an English translation of an Al Qaeda training manual. This just about blew my mind. Besides 60 pages of Al Qaeda martial arts, the manual contained passages on how to set up a safe house, conduct arms deals, forge official documents, and no kidding how to torture hostages. It was kind of creeping me out, until it occurred to me that compared to my training, those sand-sucking scumbags don't even come close.

Grrrrrrr

2005-11-14T22:33:00.000-05:00

Nothing quite like watching a 23 year old female Marine officer fawning all over a 19 year old lance corporal like a freshman coed on a Big 12 quarterback.

Which is pretty much how I spent my day. Gotta say, pretty damn demotivating.

Busy

2005-11-12T10:33:00.000-05:00

I've been quite busy lately. I've had a number of things that I wanted to blog about, but just never had time.

Last weekend was our Marine Corps Birthday Ball. It was in a hotel down in Richmond. Most of us MACE Lts went stag. We piled in to an SUV and with the exception of yours truly, DD extraordinaire, basically everyone got obscenely drunk. We left the ball fairly early and went to a local bar instead, where we were a smash hit. Photos coming soon. Several of them are pretty funny.

I went to see Jarhead when it opened. My friends who have been in the Corps for a while generally thought that it was a pretty accurate representation of daily life. I found the movie pretty boring and somewhat disturbing. Draw whatever conclusions from that that you choose.

I read Band of Brothers last week for a presentation I had to give over at the MACE. If you liked the movies, read the book. If you've experienced neither, you're cheating yourself. Besides the excellent case studies in various leadership styles, I found the book a stark contrast to the themes in Jarhead. BoB is all about how these men came together, bonded, and defeated global evil. Jarhead is about how a bunch of individuals were thrown reluctantly together and then sat around twiddling their thumbs in the desert for some murky and probably pointless reason.

This past week life @ the MACE has been hectic. Leonidas has us teaching all of these classes to each other, the idea being that this will help give us a leg up at TBS. We're going into Alpha at the end of the month. Some call it Arctic Alpha. I'm determined to make it Aloha Alpha. Second and fourth Fridays of the month will be flip flops and Hawaiian shirts. We'll see how that goes.

Last thing real quick before I go back to being too busy to write. I've made some fantastic friends at the MACE, much closer than any I had before in the Marine Corps. We hang out after work and go drinking together on the weekends. They're pretty fantastic fellows. This whole detour has turned out much much better than I could ever have imagined.

Oh, and I've decided to go balls out at TBS and try to win a coveted Ground Intel spot. I've always had it in the back of my mind, but assumed it wouldn't happen. But I never thought I could run a 300 PFT either, and now that's a perfectly reasonable goal. We'll see what happens, but as of now I'm officially committed to making that goal a reality.

More that I could say, but I have to run. I intended to be more eloquent and insightful than this. Oh well, some other day.

Marathon Moto

2005-11-04T06:04:00.000-05:00

Here's a few motivated thumbnails from last week's marathon. The full-sized pictures cost something like twenty bucks a pop; thanks but no thanks.

Everyone have a nice weekend.

Marathowwww my legs

2005-10-31T11:45:00.000-05:00

Been there, done that, got the royal purple mock-turtleneck t-shirt. I don't really feel the need to run another marathon ever again in my life.

It was all fun and games until about mile 20, at which point my legs began to feel as if they were being repeatedly pummeled by the angry clenched fists of God Almighty himself.

I hobbled across the finish line and promptly passed out on a patch of grass for the better part of an hour.

Check in that box. Oorah.

Now I Have Skills

2005-10-27T20:41:00.000-04:00

You know, skills. Bayonet skills, knife fighting skills, weapon of opportunity skills, groundfighting skills... girls only like guys who have skills! Anyway I passed the black belt test today, so wooha now I'm a black belt in Marine Corps Martial Arts.

On a slightly obnoxious note, the head IT made the decision that none of the lieutenants will get their IT status until we graduate from TBS, so for the time being we're "only" black belt instructors. I halfway agree with this decision and it halfway irks me. I agree with it because the honest truth is that a couple of these lieutenants are dirtbags who stand a very good chance of never graduating TBS and eventually getting kicked out of the Marine Corps. Giving them the IT status would very likely turn out to be a black eye for the program. On the other hand, the head IT for our course is a total jerk who from day one made absolutely no effort whatsoever to mask his contempt for the officer corps in general and lieutenants in particular. I'm not hung up on it though, and in the end it doesn't really matter all that much to me one way or the other.

Funny to think that as of MAIT graduation tomorrow, I will have spent as much time in official MCMAP courses as I spent in all of OCS.

We had a culminating event yesterday that was pretty demanding, but also a lot of fun. We heloed in early in the morning and spent the day humping around TBS and doing various challenging martial arts-related activies. Lots of slogging through water and muck. Our packs were filled with about 50 pounds of sand, which was tons of fun. A couple of the guys were pretty dead towards the end, but I didn't think it was too bad. Humps have always been relatively easy for me because of my longer legs. Consequently I got to do a good amount of motivating and other generally positive lieutenant-esque leadership activities. Good times.

I had a bit of a downer though yesterday. Back at OCS I had three best friends, Dean, the Latin Wonder, and the Old Dog. Dean refused his commission; he's currently applying to law school. TLW is off at logistics school now. The Old Dog went on PTAD (permissive something or other, basically extended leave that is granted for various reasons), and was supposed to pick up with Alpha. He saved my butt on multiple occasions back at OCS, and I was very much looking forward to having him around for Alpha. Anyway I ran in to him yesterday in the chow hall. Turns out that he has some chronic health problem and is getting medically separated. He's been in the Corps for 13 years, so he's understandably depressed about it. I'm really going to miss him. On the other hand, he's got a baby and a young son and he seemed quite ready to embrace the silver lining of never having to return to "that damn country."

That's about it. We've got a pre-graduation moto run tomorrow morning, which should be extremely interesting given that half my platoon is currently out getting plastered in DC. Oh Marine Corps, how I hate and love thee all at once...

Emerald Colored Glasses

2005-10-24T19:26:00.000-04:00

I took my first PFT almost a year ago. At that time I scored a 223, which is 2 points shy of the minimum score necessary to be an officer. I saw it as a great step on my way to Marine superstardom. By non-Marine standards, I was in really good shape.

Funny how one's environment changes one's perception of reality. I walk around all week long wearing emerald colored glasses. Today I would see a 223 PFT for myself or for any other officer as an utter embarrassment. Even a 250 - which is the kind of score a guy gets if he can run 3 miles in 20 minutes, do a hundred crunches in two minutes, and crank out more than a dozen pullups - strikes me as a bit on the low side. I used to have hair down to my shoulders, but never in my life has my hair felt so long as it does now on a Sunday evening just before my weekly haircut. Girls who used to be sevens, well, now they are nines. I'm telling you man, it's these green glasses we wear.

Things look good through them right now though, which is what I originally intended to blog about before the introductory paragraph took on a life of its own and attempted to run away with the entire post. Today for the first time ever I officially got twenty pullups on an officially scored United States Marine Corps physical fitness test. Ok, so what, no big deal, tons of Marines get 20 every single time, big whup. But this was a hell of a challenge for me personally, one that I have really struggled with for close to a year now, and today it finally paid off, in front of a big group of Marines whose opinions I value. This morning I ran a well-above-average 290, up 12 points from my last PFT six weeks ago. Rock on. My goal is to run a perfect 300 by the time Alpha picks up.

I'm very happy with the friends that I have made among the other lieutenants working at the MACE. Me and the Yankee have become fast friends over muscle sessions and mixed drinks, and Kid Shamrock, Wang Chung and the Old Man round out a pretty solid band of lieutenants.

We're trying to get Alpha company set up so that there is an IT in each platoon. I'm surprisingly enthusiastic about Alpha, much more so than I would have predicted earlier. I am going to be able to take a much more assertive leadership role in my platoon this time around, in part because I'll be ahead of the curve for most of the period of instruction and partly because of the leadership opportunities that the IT status has opened up for me.

Life is green and life is good. This "Jarhead" movie looks like it's going to be cool. The Marathon is this weekend, followed by the Birthday Ball the next. And I think I'm going to burn up some leave in November, try to take a nice little week of vacation. I'm happy.

Yeah, That Sucked

2005-10-21T13:42:00.000-04:00

If you've never felt it you can't understand, so there's little use in me trying to explain it to you.

Imagine that you're sitting a couple of feet away from a nice cozy little campfire. Now imagine that some psychopath runs up out of nowhere and stokes your nice little fire with 10 gallons of gasoline. Imagine the sudden roaring explosion. Imagine the intense heat blast in the moment that it hits your face.

The only thing in the universe that you'd want in that moment, the only thing you could really think of coherently, would be to dive headlong into a bucket of ice. But imagine that you decided to dive into the fire instead.

Now imagine that same thing happening over and over and over again for hours and hours.

But you can't really imagine something like this, because you'd have to be utterly insane to actually try it. Which might just say a little bit about the collective intelligence of the government-funded male pissing contest that is the United States Marine Corps. Honestly, I wouldn't wish OC spray on my worst enemy.

My face burns. Water just makes it hurt worse. I'm sitting here at this computer with a cold fan blasting in my face and a cold beer in my hand and if I weren't a grown man and an officer of Marines, I'm pretty sure I'd be crying.

This sucks man. Hope everyone is having a nice day. I'm gonna have to go through this hell again at infantry school.

TGIF... more or less.

2005-10-21T03:10:00.000-04:00

Dear Civilian Friend/Relative of Mine,

Today at approximately 1300 aka 1 PM, while you are IMing your fellow students in Tax class, or doing some very very important white-collar paperwork, or killing time surfing the 'net (and wondering when I'm going to write another substantive blog post,) or shooting the breeze at the water cooler, or making yourself a sandwich, or trying to fix the copy machine, or considering taking off the rest of the afternoon and starting the weekend early...

My fellow MAITs and I will be getting sprayed with pepper spray.

TGIF'ingF.

Regards,
Me

p.s. The first person who says "hey, you chose to sign up for this!" can meet me on the playground after school. I'll be packing pepper spray.

Rocky VI

2005-10-18T15:15:00.000-04:00

I heard Stallone's making another Rocky. This has little or nothing to do with my own life, but it is pretty cool.

Life in the MAIT course has been grinding. On the PT front, I've gotten what I wished for and then some, and then a whole lot more. It's an unusual day when we don't PT for at least 2-3 hours, and it's not lazy PT either. Usually we do some variation on a cardiac strength workout - tons of reps back-to-back, switching off between upper and lower body exercises so you can get your heart rate up and build muscle at the same time. Most of the guys have lost weight, though on my own part 2nd Lieutenant Toothpick had none to spare in the first place.

Our workout today was pretty interesting. They put our squad in the mat room, cranked up a strobe light and fog machine, and blared Arabic music and gunfire over the speakers. Then they proceeded to utterly thrash us for the better part of three hours. (If you're feeling bored at the office, here's a little time-killer for ya' - go grab a couple of 10 pound weights and a stopwatch. Now see how long you can hold your arms straight out to the sides. Now while you're at it, go 'head and call over one of your coworkers and get them to scream demotivating crapola an inch from your face. C'mon try it, it'll be fun I promise.)

You definitely begin to see what other Marines are made out of. I'm fortunate that the few who are truly craptastic happen to be in the other squad. As a result, their whole squad will have the exquisite pleasure of repeating today's exercise on Saturday morning. Fun times.

Stay motivated.

P.S. Check this out! Paul Hackett for Senate, baby!

Midweek Moto

2005-10-11T19:41:00.000-04:00

Goodness Gracious

2005-10-10T21:04:00.000-04:00

I would like for everyone out there in cyberspace to be aware that on last Thursday morning I received a tremendous blow to a certain very sensitive organ of my body, of force sufficient to cause said organ to become and to remain, even at this writing some five days removed, approximately the size and color of a rather well-apportioned glass of Merlot.

How are you today?

Go Army

2005-10-03T22:09:00.000-04:00

For the second weekend in a row, I trekked up to DC to participate in a mass demonstration of tens of thousands of people, bringing together Americans from all over the country and shutting down miles of downtown streets.

11.2 miles, to be a little more precise. Which is kind of a strange distance for a race that bills itself as "The largest 10-miler in the country." About 12 percent larger, I suppose?

Apparently there was some kind of bomb scare that forced a last-second route change. From a runner's perspective, it made for a bizarrely long Mile 9. But all's well that ends well, and thankfully the threat failed to materialize.

I made the run in boots and utes, with a flak jacket for good measure. This was a total blast. Every 20 seconds or so someone would run past yelling "Oorah Marine!" to which of course I would respond with some moto of my own. I met about a thousand random people, including a guy I knew in undergrad and my CO's drill instructor from 1977.

In a few days they'll post photos from the race. If there are any good ones of me, I'll throw them on here.

Meanwhile back at Quantico, things have been going really well. Today at work we learned some incredibly sweet moves for getting off the ground. Though its real-world combat effectiveness might be questionable, grappling is ridiculously fun, and moreso now that I'm beginning to actually get the hang of it. I'd never done it before I got to the MACE. I think that when I'm finished here, I'd like to take up jujitsu.

In the meantime I may have picked up another hobby. I've been hanging out a lot lately with one of the other LTs in my platoon, an Irish-Korean kid who's possibly the most fiercely nationalistic American I've ever met. He's a New Yorker and talks so fast that when I first met him I thought he had a speech impediment - he simply doesn't have the patience for conventional grammatical structure. Listening to him is pretty hilarious. I get along with the Yankee better than any LT since the Latin Wonder, who'll be off to Logistics School when Charlie graduates this Thursday.

Anyway, the Yankee is an avid weightlifter. I oftentimes find myself kind of bored in the evenings, and spending an hour or two lifting weights and shooting the breeze seems as good a way as any to kill some time. It's also kind of in keeping with my ongoing and completely unexpected transformation from a normal guy into a PT fanatic. It's a good hobby for a lieutenant, especially a future infantry commander.

Well that's about it for now, except to note in closing, what the hell. I'm not the smartest guy in the history of the world, but shouldn't a Supreme Court judge at least be... a judge? Call me crazy...

Child's Play

2005-09-28T17:04:00.000-04:00

I'm far from the first to remark that for a group of ultramacho image-conscious supercompetitive overtestostoroned men who fancy themselves the ultimate warriors, Marines spend a heck of a lot of time acting downright goofy. Two pretty funny examples of that today.

As part of an "agility drill," our instructor had our squad doing cartwheels across the LZ. Imagine 15 grown men attempting to cartwheel down the field, careening off course, falling on their asses, running in to each other, collapsing in laughter... it was pretty hilarious. One of the guys is a pretty roundish Mexican fellow, and he couldn't cartwheel to save his life. The best he could do was a sort of modified somersault, accompanied by a full soundtrack of "oooh! ahh! ouch! oh!" Another sergeant is this really lanky guy who didn't seem to understand the difference between a cartwheel and a handstand. He kept trying to walk on his hands, with predictable effect. Maybe you had to be there, but god it was funny.

A few minutes later a CH 46 touched down on the LZ. Marines have a love affair with helicopters. Everyone was grinning from ear to ear, pointing, whooping and hollering and generally carrying on. Even our instructor couldn't help himself. "That's the sound of freedom, boys!" The wash blew our gear all over the place and just about knocked me over. Good times.

Oh yeah, and today on a whim I hopped up on the pullup bar and holy crap,

I FINALLY

GOT MY 20!

OORAH!

Anti-Demonstration

2005-09-26T19:08:00.000-04:00

I went to last weekend's antiwar rally.

CNN says that a hundred thousand or more demonstrators marched on the Mall. I had not intended to be one of them. Though there is no rule against participating in these kinds of activities, there is strong social and institutional pressure not to do so. I prudently concluded that it would be much wiser for me to avoid career risk and general workplace-related unpleasantness by spending my Saturday far away from the goings-on downtown.

And then I remembered who I was, and so I had to go down there. I'm an American with protected First Amendment rights, and I'm a person of conscience, and to avoid taking a stand for what is right because of petty personal concerns is the hallmark of history's smallest minds. Sacred Honor, right? And so I went. (Ok ok ok also, I just like being in the middle of a good fight. Can't help it.)

Though I have lived in DC for almost all of my adult life, before Saturday the closest I had ever been to an organized protest was at the President's first Inauguration, when I was probably about half a mile away and entirely unaware of its existence. The organizers of Saturday's rally were quite clear that the only item on the ideological agenda was opposition to the war in Iraq. And so I headed down to the Mall to see what I could see. It is fair to say that I was somewhat naive. And by "somewhat," it is fair to say that I mean "almost utterly."

On paper, the idea was simple and appealing: a massive demonstration by Americans of all ideological stripes, united under the single banner of opposition to the war. The problem came, as it tends almost invariably to do, not from the the demonstration's conceptual framework but from the addition to that framework of a human element.

To wit: taken as a whole, protesters are weird.

This statement needs some qualifications. There were tens of thousands of people there. There were thousands of normal people there. I would say that between 40 and 60 percent of the demonstrators were basically normal looking characters - which means that between 40 and 60 thousand of the demonstrators were quite inoffensive. I had a good chat during the march with a nice woman named Suzi who was a doctor and whose mannerisms and views reminded me quite a bit of my own mother. She and her friends were about as soccer mom as you get.

But when you scanned the crowd, you didn't really see Suzi and her friends. And you certainly couldn't hear them. Because everywhere you looked, you saw legions of extremely strange individuals. And unless you were walking around with your hands cupped firmly over your ears - and, in many cases, even if you had been - everywhere you went, you heard extremely strange things being said.

I don't really know where to begin to describe the extent of the asinine, juvenile, pointlessly offensive, self-absorbed, politically oblivious, counterproductive, muddle-headed, chemically altered and generally just plain stupid behavior that I witnessed on Saturday afternoon.

I guess I could begin with the two guys standing next to me on the crowded Metro on the way to the protest, carrying on a shouted conversation about how so-and-so was a fucking racist shithead asshole yada yada yada bla bla bla and aren't we so righteous and isn't he so fucking evil, etc etc... totally oblivious to the three young children standing within arm's reach. (Eventually their conversation got so loud that I took note of it even over my IPod. The little girls' father thanked me profusely when I told our two enlightened heros to shut their mouths. Sometimes being tall and imposing and military-looking is really helpful.)

Or maybe I should begin with the myriad of compelling and cogent political messages to which I was exposed throughout the day. "Oppose Agent Orange Animal Testing" was only slightly less inspiring than the sign which loudly advised me to "DROP BUSH! (AND ACID)." I spotted at least three distinct Communist parties, and twice that number of anarchist "syndicates" (or whatever the hell you call a group of anarchists. I guess they can't really have parties, can they?)

And I would be horribly remiss if I failed to note the profound and stirring political statements made by Loud Angry Over-Pierced Lesbians Banging Drums, Wacko Scripture-Shouting Schizophrenic Dude, the Black Panthers, Yell-At-All-The-Riot-Police Guy and the undisputed queen of the whole lot, Topless Woman. God, no wonder Ann Coulter does so well for herself. All we lacked were three rings for a circus.

I was also struck by the ridiculous amount of profanity that laced the air and graced their posters. I am a Marine. I do not have delicate ears. It was offensive.

So to my mind this creates two parallel but distinct sets of problems, one personal and one political.

Sporting my clean-cut military appearance, rocking my loafers, khakis and - yes, I went to the march looking for a fight - a USMC t-shirt, I stuck out like a sore thumb. There was one girl there, about my age, who was literally dragging an American flag on the ground behind her as she walked down the street. I saw plenty of other things that I found offensive to the point of being repulsive. The widespread and baseless hostility towards the riot police was revolting.

I would like to openly and visibly oppose this war in a manner calculated to bring about its termination. Attending an anti-war rally seems on its face to be a fairly straighforward action to take in pursuit of this goal. But I do not think that it is right for me to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with these bizarre and offensive characters. A micrometer under the surface, we are not after the same goals and we do not hold the same values.

But how ironic is that? That I would willingly stand in the face of the institutional pressures that would silence me - but then allow myself to be silenced by the very voices of those opposed to those institutions? Why should I let some mohawked anarchist weirdo define my political voice? He marches for his (stupid) reasons, I march for my own cause, and anyone who is too stupid to tell the difference between us just by looking deserves to wallow in their own myopia.

...except that that's not really the way that it works in the real world. Too many people are too incapable of careful thought to catch the differences. And what it ends up looking like is that I'm walking around supporting some idiot anarchist/communist/hippy/whatthehellever. I don't want to be perceived as supporting that kind of stupidity. I don't even want to be loosely associated with it.

That's my personal tension. Having been disabused of my romantic notions of what a peace rally would be like, I seriously doubt I will go to another one of these things. If more normal people went, or fewer weirdos, then I would go. I think that instead I will write letters to the editor, or something along those lines.

The political point to be made is that I don't know if events like this one are good or bad for the peace "movement," if such it can be called. On the one hand, there was a massive demonstration in the nation's capital, which must show that opposition to the war is strong. On the other hand, the images generated by this demonstration are of strange looking people doing strange looking things. Sixty percent of Americans now oppose the war in Iraq, but I am quite certain that a much higher percentage of Americans oppose a lot of the behavior that I saw exhibited at that rally. To the extent that the anti-war position is associated in the public mind with the type of people who came out to this protest, we are in trouble. Their extremist behavior detracts from the public message and paints a bullseye the size of a Blimp on the entire movement - and there are plenty of war supporters out there who are all too happy to take an obliging shot at an easy target. The fight against the pro-war faction entrenched in our government is already difficult enough. These supposed advocates of peace make it that much more difficult by needlessly marginalizing what should and could be a simple and compelling message.

Today Cindy Sheehan and a number of others were arrested for civil disobedience outside of the White House. This kind of behavior to me just seems senseless. The civil disobedience of the 50s and 60s had a point - protesters violated laws that were unjust in order to bring attention to their injustice. There is nothing unjust about laws that say you must have a permit to protest outside the White House. The riot police creating a human barrier between frenzied pro- and anti-war demonstrators are not the same as the brutal racist policemen of the old South, and treating them as such is a horrible insult. Getting arrested for being a nuisance does not make you one of the cool kids, and it does not make the public more inclined to take you seriously.

What would be really nice would be if the Democratic Party would quit being a bunch of spineless quiveling cowards and actually step up to the plate and do something that they haven't done in I don't know how long - lead. But I'm quite sure that that is altogether too much to hope for, and so for want of a real leader we're stuck with this befuddled Sheehan character.

On an unrelated note, today I carried another Marine over rough terrain for more than a mile. He weighed more than 200 pounds and I also wore a pack. This martial arts course is freaking awesome.

The 14-Year-Old Lieutenant

2005-09-22T18:01:00.000-04:00

According to my extremely scientific and precisely calculated Cool-O-Meter, the coolest thing I have learned so far in the Marine Corps is how to direct artillery fire. There is something utterly and undeniably cool about being able to talk into a box and cause loud fiery balls of destruction to hurtle from a clear blue sky. If you disagree, you are wrong.

I learned how to do the artillery thing a while back. But today, I learned the second coolest thing I've learned so far in the United States Marine Corps. I know that this is cool because I have seen it done in several very cool movies, notably The Matrix, which was a very, very, very cool flick. And if you disagree - yep, you guessed it - you're just wrong.

Today I learned how to dodge bullets, and that is pretty freaking cool.

Put a pistol to my chest and I will mess you up. Put a pistol to my back and I will break your arm and then I will mess you up. So now you have been warned. So if you go sticking pistols at me, don't say I didn't try to tell you.

We got to practice our newly acquired bullet-dodging skills with pellet guns, and these moves really truly work, and they are awesome.

And by awesome, I mean really, really, really, really cool.

Smoked

2005-09-20T19:59:00.000-04:00

It appears likely that any efforts on my part directed towards insightful observation or lucid prose are for the time being doomed to rather ignoble failure, a fact for which I humbly apologize Dear Reader. I will make a great effort to resume said efforts upon the completion of my current period of instruction.

'Cause this MAIT course is freakin' smokin' me. I am totally absolutely utterly wiped out, the kind of tired that seeps into your bones and is utterly immune to all attempts at weekend recuperation. I'm sleeping close to ten hours a night and waking up tired. Apparently tomorrow morning we're doing some sort of Marquis de Sade-inspired workout involving multiple 40-pound sandbags. Sweet.

Me so sleepy baby. Me go to bed for long time.

p.s. Reading Jefferson is the most intellectually rewarding experience I have stumbled upon in months. In his Autobiography he writes about his personal interactions with Madison, Adams, Franklin, Henry, Mason, and all the others. It kind of boggles my mind to think that these guys were able to just hang out together over beers.

p.p.s. I'm vaguely considering attending a peace rally on the Mall this weekend. Or rather, I would consider it if it were not guaranteed to be in the best case populated by obnoxious dirty inarticulate sheeplike leaderless underground-music-listening dead-ended drug-addled neohippies (or, in the alternative, prepster Benetton Revolutionaries, MAKE ME PUKE) and in the worst case, to lead inexorably to my professional downfall. Still, I feel quite risque even to consider an appearance at such an event. Though various Marine leaders speak constantly of the importance of taking a moral stand even in the face of popular disapproval, somehow I kind of doubt that this is what they have in mind.

One Down, Six to Go

2005-09-16T17:53:00.000-04:00

Today we ran the stamina course and I ended up pushing about half of my squad members up one hill or another. All four of the guys who were having trouble with the ropes on the O-course got up them today, in no small part because I've been going out there with them every day at close of business to work on technique. Bottom line is that I have a ton to offer to the other guys in my platoon, most of them recognize and appreciate this, and this course is turning out to be a total blast.

On an utterly unrelated note, Republican birds are finally, finally coming home to roost. Santorum alone is down by almost 15 points. Imperial hubris and aristocratic disdain are on their way out my friends. I'm reading a collection of Jefferson's works and letters, helps me remember the ideas and ideals that this great country is built on and what it's actually capable of representing to the world. There's a strong wind stirring, people. Change is in the air.

I'm in a fantastic mood. Everyone have an awesome weekend. I'm off to MAIT happy hour.

Careful What You Wish For

2005-09-14T18:52:00.000-04:00

I haven't had a workout this intense at least since OCS.

Then again, during OCS PT we never got hit with pepper spray.

My body is in so much pain right now.

Back in the Ring

2005-09-12T17:44:00.000-04:00

The Martial Arts Instructor Trainer (MAIT) course kicked off today. There are 30 Marines, 1 captain, 8 lieutenants and 21 enlisted, mostly sergeants but a couple of gunnies and one corporal. This course is supposed to be a lot more physically challenging than MAI, which I found to be disappointingly easy. Sergeants Yogey and Molly are back again from MAI, and I look forward to getting to hang out with them a lot over the next two months.

We ran a PFT this morning. Though I failed to max the pullups, I did get more than I ever have before. I am certain that I will max them next time. Sgt. Molly motivated the hell out of me on the run, and as a result I beat my personal best time by a full minute.

Five weeks ago my PFT score was 257. Today I ran a 278. Semper Fi.

Focus and Drive

2005-09-09T12:00:00.000-04:00

I dreamt last night of the last hours of Nicholas Berg.

There's a lot wrong with this country and with the Marines, and I have no problem talking about either. But don't think for a second that I've lost sight of what brought me here in the first place.

Almost Like a Real Marine!

2005-09-08T21:04:00.000-04:00

One of the persistent complaints of almost everyone associated with TBS is that lieutenants aren't "real" Marines. The enlisted bitch about dumbass "boot" LTs on a pretty much nonstop basis. The LTs themselves bitch about being "Lance Lieutenants," "3rd Lieutenants," and a host of other less printable nicknames. It's pretty obvious that senior officers just stand back and get a good belly laugh out of the whole production. From living conditions (unlike "real" officers, we don't get a housing allowance so we have to live on base,) to our daily routine (determined almost to the minute by the whims of The Schedule) to the rigid, formal manner in which we interact with our platoon commanders (who are barely one grade our seniors), as a TBS lieutenant we are constantly reminded that butterbars aside, we aren't yet really truly Marines. For crying out loud, sometimes I can't even find a damn parking space within half a mile of my barracks.

I don't necessarily object to the halfway house nature of TBS. I understand how it kind of serves its point. But here's the thing. Working at the MACE, I've gotten a glimpse behind the wizard's curtain. I'm sure this comes as no surprise to all the prior enlisted guys, but newsflash to the rest of you LTs - TBS is profoundly abnormal.

I'm not even talking about the enlisted guys who - surprise, surprise - actually do talk to you about stuff more interesting than which box to check in Item 12, Line 3, form Alpha Juliet Foxtrot 236XK7. I'm talking about the lieutenant colonel who I bullshit with every morning while we're both running around in boots and utes. I'm talking about the captain and the gunny who stand around laughing their asses off about some idiotic line from Wedding Crashers.

I don't want to take this realization too far and do what I'm famous for doing, which is to say, get careless and cocky and wind up in trouble. But I will say that seeing a major just doesn't freak me out the way it used to. Shoot for that matter, there are so many lieutenant colonels, colonels, and even generals in and out of the MACE that it doesn't even seem remarkable. I've quit saluting captains from a football field away, like I used to do and like I see other LTs doing every single day.

And I think there's a little wink-wink-nudge-nudge acknowledgement from the captains' side as well - a subtle recognition that oh, look, this lieutenant gets it. I had to go visit my old platoon commander this afternoon on some leftover business from Charlie. We ended up shooting the breeze for close to half an hour, which previously would have just been unthinkable to me - 'cause I was pretty terrified of this guy, for reasons I'm not quite sure of at this point. That we were able to have a nice chat was due almost entirely to my finally being able to relax a little bit and just talk to this captain yes, as a captain, but really basically just as a person. Sheesh, I used to date a captain for crying out loud. I'm not really sure why I let myself get suckered into this "captains are scary" con job.

Bottom line is that there's a time to stand on formality, and a time to relax and let my nonexistent and entirely metaphorical hair down a little bit. I'm just now learning that contrary to what life at OCS and in Charlie taught me, the latter time lasts a whole lot longer than the former. It's a nice realization.

Oh yeah, I also registered for the Marine Corps Marathon today. Not that this is saying all that much, but I think there's a good chance that I might be the single most motivated lieutenant in all of Mighty Mike.

Pulls Up

2005-09-07T21:32:00.000-04:00

As I walked past the pullup bar this evening, for no particular reason I decided to see how many I could get. I hadn't done a max set since my last PFT at the beginning of the MAI course. (I've been doing pyramids instead.)

I knocked out 17. I'm having an I-love-me moment.

That's three more than I've ever done in my life, and only three less than I need to max out the PFT. And I'd already done an upper body workout earlier in the day. Hell freakin' yeah.

After almost a year of fretting about my pullup performance, all I ever actually needed was to do hundreds of 'em every day for weeks on end. Who knew?

Potpourri

2005-09-07T16:36:00.000-04:00

The Army Ten Miler (aka the Army Marathon) is coming up in a just a few short weeks, with the Marine Marathon soon to follow. The MACE commander, who as far as I can tell knows everything and everyone in the Marine Corps, was able to get me a spot in the Marathon even though it sold out months ago.

Getting to work under Leonidas just about makes this entire saga worthwhile. He's been in the Corps for close to 30 years. In a lot of ways he reminds me of a couple of men who I knew long ago in my days as a Boy Scout - very experienced, very wise, and yet very humble. This guy can out PT and outfight anyone at the MACE, and he's almost 50. If I can maintain a professional mentoring relationship with him after I leave the Martial Arts Center, then I honestly believe that this sidetrack has been worthwhile.

One of the many tasks Leonidas set for me was to write out a personal budget. I'd resisted doing this of my own accord for the same reason that everyone else does - I didn't want to own up to just how crappy my financial situation actually is. As it stands, if I were actually going to live within my budget I'd have a whopping 32 bucks a month in the "Misc. (Entertainment, books, GF, travel, etc.)" category. So I guess I'm going to have to do the classic Marine thing and get a weekend job. I'd like to say that there's a larger point to be made here about how the government should pay servicemembers better wages, but I don't really have much ground to stand on for that particular argument. Freakin' student loans... ugh.

Humans are Humans

2005-08-31T21:25:00.000-04:00

Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.

-Thomas Jefferson, American Revolutionary

Today a thousand or more Iraqis on their way to their house of worship were killed in a horrible accident. The stampede was caused by rumors of a suicide bomber in the midst of a packed and nervous crowd.

I showed the story to my roommate. He was dismissive. "Serves them right for not doing more to get rid of their terrorists." He later backtracked and equivocated, but the bottomline sentiment was that it wasn't that big of a deal and anyway who cares, some of the dead were probably terrorists anyway.

I asked him if the same logic held true in New Orleans - that at least some of the dead were probably real jerks anyway, so who cares who else died or why or how. He got goofy and changed the subject.

There is so much ignorance in the world.

Back to School

2005-08-30T12:15:00.000-04:00

Our Commander unexpectedly gave us yesterday off. Coincidentally, Monday also happened to be the first day of class back at my old law school. I thought it would be a fine oportunity to finally head over there and find out my grades from last fall.

I ran in to a lot of old faces, and had a nice chat with one of my profs. My emotions were a mix of jealousy for the lifestyle I left behind and relief that I also left behind the 1000-page Income Tax Law tome sported by several of my former classmates.

My grades were top third, which was a pleasant surprise. It is nice to know that that door remains open to me, should I ever choose to walk through it once again. As a veteran and with my GI bill money, there are going to be a lot of really interesting and affordable educational options available to me if I should one day choose to return to my academic pursuits.

On the downside, Back to School means that it won't be too much longer before the temperature begins to drop again here in lovely Quantico...

Basement Sale at The Flea Marketplace of Ideas

2005-08-28T12:24:00.000-04:00

Two stories today on MSNBC that turn my stomach. The first is about the demonstrations and counterdemonstrations outside of the President's Crawford ranch. As far as I can tell, Sheehan seems a little bit on the loony lefty side, but so what, she's entitled to her opinion and I haven't seen or heard anything to suggest that her actions or statements are illegal, inappropriate or offensive.

Across town, the pro-Bush, anti-Sheehan demonstrators accused her of

"giving hope and encouragement to our enemies." The crowd, which organizers said topped 3,000 but appeared closer to 1,500, chanted "Cindy, Go Home" and compared her to Jane Fonda, whose visit to a North Vietnamese gun site in 1972 earned her the nickname "Hanoi Jane." "Cindy-Hanoi Jane," read one of the signs at the rally.

In one heated moment, members of the pro-Bush crowd turned on what they mistakenly thought were a group of anti-war protesters, cursing them, threatening them and tearing down their signs. A police officer rushed the group to safety.

I guess all I really have to say about this is that I sure am proud to be spreading the ideals of democracy and freedom of speech to oppressed peoples around the world. We Americans give them such a good example of how to use their newfound freedoms.

The other story is so vile that you wonder if it's not a hoax. It's about a church in Tennessee whose members hold anti-gay demonstrations at soldiers' funerals.

SMYRNA, Tenn. - Members of a church say God is punishing American soldiers for defending a country that harbors gays, and they brought their anti-gay message to the funerals Saturday of two Tennessee soldiers killed in Iraq...

The church members carried signs and shouted things such as “God hates fags” and "God hates you."

What.the.hell.

At their funeral.

Wheels Turning

2005-08-27T22:20:00.000-04:00

This post is likely going to turn out to be pretty long and rambling, as I have a number of disconnected ideas floating around in the ole' grey matter.

Last week a fellow from Crucible Security came to the MACE to teach us a few moves. He also showed us a short clip about Crucible and their training. Crucible is a medium-sized player in Iraq's private military industry. The best known firm is Blackwater, four of whose employees were famously killed and mutilated in Fallujah in early 2004.

I've had a lot of conversations about mercenary work with other lieutenants. I honestly don't know how I feel about it. On the one hand these guys are fighting the insurgents right alongside of the US military. At the end of the day, who really cares if it's a Marine's or a mercenary's gun that puts a bullet in Joe Terrorist's head? On the other hand it's obviously quite a bit more complex than that. Countries are bound by the Geneva convention. Troops and soldiers are accountable to the nations they serve. Mercenaries aren't really accountable to anyone. The entire idea of killing for money just feels wrong, even if there are people out there who really do need to be killed. Blood money...

That's basically what it all boils down to - huge steaming piles of cash. My adventures in higher education left me with a mountain of debt. In nine months or a year as a security contractor, I could pay off a debt that otherwise is going to follow me around for most of my life. The idea is powerfully tempting. Hopefully after I do a tour or two over there I'll be better equipped to evaluate the moral viability of pursuing this option.

Speaking of which, I found out yesterday that one of my old platoonmates will deploy in March as a combat engineer, which means that he'll be in Iraq while I'm still in... Quantico. Charlie's Infantry Officers Course is going to kick off about a month earlier than scheduled. Watching those guys do their training is going to be pretty tough for me.

Time to switch gears a little bit.

Until recently, my interaction with enlisted Marines was basically limited to my experiences at OCS. In my Martial Arts Instructor (MAI) course I got to know several enlisted Marines pretty well. I was really fortunate to have the opportunity to learn so much from these guys. The old dog in the pack was an 18 year veteran gunny who works in intel. I picked his brain every chance I got about his experiences with young officers, what works well, what doesn't. He was a quiet guy, but you could tell from his eyes that nothing slipped past him and from his tone of voice that he knew what he was talking about. Listening to him, I soaked up a lot of knowledge and maybe even a little bit of wisdom.

The other sergeants were fascinating to me in large part because their leadership styles were so distinct. One was the classic bulldog who you obey out of fear. Another was kind of goofy, the guy you don't want to let down because he's your pal. Another was just so damn good at everything we did that you had to listen to him 'cause you knew he was right. Each of the others played a slightly different variation on the leadership theme, and I got so much out of watching and interacting with them.

They had all been to Iraq, and most had seen combat. I will be frank - the thought of leading men like these is honestly kind of frightening. I don't care how much training I get between now and then, there is just no way that I am going to know more about what we are doing and how to do it than a veteran. This leads into a larger discussion of the entire rank structure of the military.

Two or three of the other lieutenants in my platoon just stank. They couldn't lead their way out of a paper bag and even if they could, nobody would follow. They had little confidence and less competence. In contrast, a couple of these sergeants were just brilliant. You could tell from the first words you heard them speak that they were tough, smart, competent Marines who knew how to command.

I will probably come back to this topic as I make my way through the Marines, and my opinion may well change the more I learn. But from what I have seen so far, the rank structure just stinks. I can't think of a single good reason why one of these piece of crap LTs should be put in command of one of these solid enlisted Marines, or why I should make more money as a boot lieutenant than they do with 4 or 6 years of experience, or why a man twice my age should have to salute me and call me "sir." It feels arbitrary and fraudulent. Who cares if I went to college and these sergeants didn't? How the hell does four years of binge drinking make me somehow more qualified to be a leader? For that matter, half of these lieutenants went to third-tier schools that nobody has ever even heard of, and yet that piece of paper somehow makes them qualified for command? The whole officer-enlisted concept is based on an aristocratic culture that no longer exists in the Western world and for that matter, shoot, never existed in America. So what gives? Why don't we just all start out as Privates and get promoted based solely on merit?

A couple of the sergeants will be going through the upcoming Instructor Trainer (MAIT) course with me. I am pretty excited about getting to spend more time with them, 'cause they are just awesome guys and awesome Marines.

Switching gears one last time.

I very much enjoy writing this blog. I know that it has value for myself, and I honestly believe that at least some of the things that I write about are independently important and a worthwhile contribution to our national dialogue.

I leave the Comments sections open on my posts because I enjoy reading others' responses to my thoughts and experiences. When appropriate, I like to reply. I understand that some of my opinions are controversial. I also understand that some people who know me personally don't like me all that much. I'm ok with that.

I encourage discussion and thoughtful dissent. But if you choose to post in the comments section of my blog, I ask that you please keep your remarks civil, that you refrain from personal attacks, and that you do not mention anyone's name other than your own. Thank you.