Elvis wore tanker boots

Butterflies. Massive fuckin butterflies...

.... Like those huge monarch bastards you see flying through an open field... so big they might as well use static lines when landing on flowers.

Those damn things were kickin my ass like a Chuck Norris round-house kick to the stomach the day I flew out to Germany. I knew nothing about this far away land I was going to. What I knew was outdated, subjected, and polluted with personal opinion and bias stories...

Some people told me they hated it, and others said they loved it.

What the hell was I getting myself into?

As I walked into the small terminal in Medford, Oregon - I looked back at my mom and dad, smiled and waved goodbye, all the while I kept thinking...

'dude, you actually made it out... you actually made it out of this teeny, tiny, fucking wasteland of a town - freedom is only a few hours away...'

I boarded that plane with a grin on my face, and a million thoughts blazing in my mind... Throwing double deuces to my hometown and all the people that have lived there since they were born into that hole... never looking back.

The flight took around 14 or 15 hours, maybe more. - transfer here, stop there, layover at this airport... I slept through pretty much all of it and ended up opening my eyes to see that we were already there...

There was snow. Lots of snow. Fucking lovely. I was wearing tennis shoes, jeans, and a sweater. Definitely NOT ready for snow. Ramstein Air Force Base... where the hell is that on the globe?

Me dragging my bags from place to place must have looked funny as hell... skinny kid, shaved head, tight jeans, 2 duffel bags, a back pack, and a black suitcase being mushed around, clearing a path in the wet snow for everyone to follow... They tell you to pack light, but what they fail to remember is that new guys have no idea HOW to pack light.

I never traveled anywhere, and now - here I am, the human fucking snow plow - wheels did my suitcase a whole lot of good... yeah, way to go genius

On to Giessen we went, myself mixed in with a random assortment of soldiers, airmen, marines... whoever - some old, some young - as well as a few I knew from Basic Training.

Shuttled from the airport to our bus, sprinting to processing station, then slushing through the snow to get inside... to a desk, then the next desk, to your unit liaison, back to the other desk... Finally after 5 or 6 hours of constant 'hurry up and wait' directions... We were crammed onto a small bus, and taken to our units Staff Duty desk... the front desk for your unit...

Our desk ended up being manned by an old timer E5, and a private that lounged lazily at the desk. We were told to wait by the front entrance in a stairwell, the Staff Duty desk was just visible through the walkway, and there wasn't much room in there to walk around...

3 other guys in uniform were working the stairwell, sweeping, mopping, talking shit to one another... none of them wearing any rank.

Extra duty...

- Extra duty would consist of your fuck-up's, or so I later learned - those that decided to do one of the things on the long laundry list of things you were told NOT to do at your mandatory, every single fucking day prior to a weekend safety briefing -

- Whatever they did wrong, they got caught doing it... Not to say that they had probably done whatever they were guilty of beforehand (maybe many times before), they got away with it those other times...

- At one point, they got caught, and paid the piper - Article 15, Universal Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) - you fuck up, you ruck up - If you thought being in the Army was bad enough, get into trouble like these guys did - see how your quality of life improves...

... all I knew at that point was that I was nervous... I had no idea what to expect - I was pretty fresh at this game with only basic training as a reference ... when in doubt, salute, say roger, stand at attention or parade rest, and hope to God you figure out real quick what the fuck is going on...

...Shit - The Staff Duty dude is looking at me...

Staff duty dude - "Orders..."

Me - I walked up to the desk - "Roger, here u go Sergeant" ...as I handed him a nice thick stack of papers that had slowly grown to an un-proportionate size for whatever reason, snapped to parade rest... man I was fucking HIGH SPEED back then - all motivated and shit...

Dude - ....looks through the papers, then this smart ass lookin grin appears accross his face - "Ah, you're going to C-co, that's where I'm at, best damn company in the Battalion."

-Come to find out, every fucking company was the best damn company in the Battalion - it was like this retarded high school/college frat boy bravado or competition that lead to schoolyard-like brawls amongst platoons, companies, and different Battalions - Something that never made any sense to me. Dude, we're on the same team here for christ' sake.

Me - "Roger that Sergeant" (who the fuck is this roger guy anyways?)

Dude - "Welcome to 'Duke land' home of 2-37 Armor, the Iron Dukes... You know, Elvis was stationed here."

me - "Negative Sergeant, I did not know that..."

... thinking... - when the fuck was THE KING in the Army??

I'm thinking THIS guy -


But HE was talking about THIS guy -


Dude - "Your Platoon Sergeant is on his way. You'll be going to 4th platoon. Chill out by the front door, he'll be here in a few minutes. You're going to LOVE Sergeant Rincon..." - Walking around the makeshift wooden desk as he talked, he walked outside, sucking in his old man gut as he squeezed by the private on duty... coffee mug in one hand, cigarette in the other, he brushed past me, paying me no mind...

What the fuck did he mean ... I'm going to LOVE Sergeant Rincon??

me - "Roger Sergeant" ... lookin down at my bags, as he walked past... I now notice my suitcase is drenched from being dragged through the snow... My clothes were growing mold by the minute - sweetness. At that point, I could care less - I just wanted to go to sleep. Jet lag was kicking my ass.

... 30 minutes passed, and a dark black 5 series BMW pulled up next to the front door. A dark skinned thin-set man, hunched over, in a black leather jacket got out of the car. He immediately lit up a cigarette...

(now, try to think of the next sentence in a Sylvester Stalone accent here, with a spanish twist to it... yeah, it was that bad)

SFC Rincon - "Ay yo, private, Get yo sheet, get in tha fuck-ing Kah. Its fuck-ing late, and I'm fuck-ing tired."

...holy shit... I didn't understand a single word this guy said...

SFC Rincon - "I'm not going to Fuck-ing tell you again." - at the same time he was motioning his head into small circles, staring at me right in the eyes, giving me the notion that I needed to do something.. fast..

- I moved. Quickly. Dumped my shit in the trunk and back seat, and got in the passenger seat...

There was no conversation during the 5 minute drive down the road... I don't think there would have been even if I tried -

I didn't understand a single fucking word that came out of his mouth...

All I could think was ...

Ayyyyuhhhhhyo...

... they had to be related!!!

He dropped me off at the barracks, and I pulled my bags out of his trunk. He barked something indiscernible at a couple guys near the entrance to the building... they sprinted inside, and came out with 3 or 4 guys to help with my shit...

oh, ok, he was telling them to help me with my bags...

For Fuck Sake I can't understand this dude... this is going to be rough...

I made my way inside, noticing the front glass door was shattered, completely kicked in with glass and broken beer bottles crunching under my feet. That's an effective welcome mat... Inside it smelled like old beer and mold with a small hint of vomit... an animal house.

Fuck that, this might as well be a fucking mad house...

It was Saturday when I arrived, so by the time I got there, pretty much everyone was either stumbling out in the hallway piss drunk, or in their rooms blasting 20 different types of music... You could hear guys yelling at the top of their lungs to Nirvana, random shit slamming against the doors -


....SFC Rincon paid no mind as he walked me to my room... you could tell he could give a fuck less about anything going on - he just wanted to go back home...

Country, rap, techno, rock.. it was a competition to see who could lose their hearing first, who could play their shit the loudest, who could drink the most...

Come to find out, there was no drinking age, since everyone could buy booze from the PX at the age of 18 - everyone was drinking something, except me.

- I like this place ...

- yeah, keep telling yourself that...

I met my temporary room-mate that was sharing my temporary room since they didn't have a permanent place for me or this other guy to stay in just yet...

For the first couple nights there I'd be sleeping on a sweat stained mattress, with no frame, on a freezing cold marble floor, next to a stack of porno's about 2 feet high... all of them were used... Most of the pages had been stuck together from some type of fluid... Fucking gross man...

Fucking Gross.



Home sickness kicked in almost immediately. I tried plugging in my alarm clock, only to find that the outlets were completely different... 220 watt? what the fuck?

man, this shit is turning into a turd fest real quick...

My leadership ditched me - "have fun with your weekend" ... yeah, thanks asshole.

I look at my watch... its 2 am.

I curled up into a little ball...

This place is supposed to be different. Its supposed to be something else...

...wrapped up in basic, itchy as hell, Army issue wool blankets (courtesy of the Supply Sergeant), the thump of 10 different bass speakers vibrated the walls and rattled everything metal...

...my eyes started to close...

...Tomorrow is another day... I thought...

and I drifted off to sleep...