One of the things you get used to living in the deep South is kudzu. The stuff’s everywhere; it’s probably the hardiest plant in existence, surviving periods of intense heat and cold, all manner of chewing bug and animal, and it creeps up to three feet a day. I imagine if there were a camera in space over a long enough period of time, you could string together a time-lapse video of the stuff actually expanding outward. Continue reading
On one of the innumerable field ops leading up to the order to cross the line of departure into Iraq, we ranged deep into the desert of Kuwait, farther yet than we had been.
By that point, we of the Comm Platoon were used to our assigned jobs; as soon as the vehicles stopped, we raced out of them and set up the antenna hill as quickly as humanly possible. We became very efficient over time with putting together and throwing up the 20-foot-tall OE antennas, breaking only one or two of the things per op. Continue reading
About the time I herniated a disk in my back, a new guy named Joe transferred into my unit from a grunt battalion. His leg was held together by about fifty brazillion pins, thanks to a drunken sergeant who hazed him and about three other guys late one night and kicked Joe over a railing. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that hazing in the military is dead; it’s alive and well, just a little more subtle these days. Continue reading
To say that my home life growing up was anything approaching normal would be a stretch, so it came as no surprise to anyone when I announced to my folks that I was joining the Marines.
I don’t recall exactly what was going through my head when I made the decision; I do remember that I was home alone again, my parents out of town on yet another halleluiah tour of the Baptist churches in the surrounding states. At some point they had stopped insisting I keep uprooting myself to come along with them on these things, and I simply stopped going. They would be out of town three weeks out of the month, leaving me to attend school, work at the local grocery store, and sleep. Continue reading