scio me nihil scire - all I know, is that I know nothing - Socrates

What is the earliest I remember being alive...
Something I try to think about from time to time...

I think, "Take a deep breath. exhale. remember - fuckin remember brain..."

... drawing a blank ...

"Well, what DO you remember about your childhood?"

I remember ...

- when I was 7 or 8, I managed to get lost in the woods behind our house - hours later I wondered if I'd ever get home... later finding my way back home to a panicked mom and dad ...

...Playing with military micro machines and a mish mash of other toys, simulating a modern day battlefield, kicking up freshly tilled dirt (thanks to my father's rotor tiller) with my feet, simulating bombs being dropped over the battlefield...

...My first swear word, and the ensuing reaction from my parents and fellow siblings - shit was not a word taken lightly in my family. The fear of eating soap was well ingrained in my memory...

...The freedom of summertime, and the late summer nights being spent with my best friends, thinking of all sorts of debauchery we could do on our own - without a care in the world...

So I do remember quite a bit about my past... The mistakes, the lessons learned, as well as the days where I struggled to define myself as a kid.

Who was I, and what did I want to do someday?

How did I end up here?

...How did I end up being ten's of thousands of miles away from home, in a land long forgotten, filled with remnants of milk and honey, now replaced with cesspools of raw sewage and burning animal corpses. Where once great kings ruled, with extravagant palace walls lined with gold, now replaced with makeshift mud huts, and walls covered in propaganda posters.

And who the fuck are these guys on the posters anyways? Not that I could care less, but they all seem to look like angry Jesus...

I mean who in their right mind would say that guy looks normal? Whatever you say Pissed off Jesus..

...back on track -

After all that time of my youth spent wasting days away, from my childhood to my teen years, from my teen years into high school. I never saw a point to it all. There was this sense I had, a sense of being that one guy that would raise his hand, and ask that question that all teachers despise... "what the fuck IS this bullshit?" - A guaranteed straight cut ticket to the principles office, and a phone call to mom and dad shortly thereafter.

...Well, mom would know about it first, then dad. Mom was always home, while dad didn't really exist until after he got back from work around noon and finished his mandatory 2 hour nap. The Garbage business made him wake up at 2 a.m. and work for 10-12 hours straight, 6 days a week. can't really blame him to be off the radar until the afternoon - not with all the bullshit my dad had to deal with.

But I kept my mouth shut, fit in, and even became president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and the President of the Swim Team... well, co-president of the swim team... I didn't like the title by myself, let alone the fact that I had to wear a speedo. I had acne all the time, and was too shy to talk to girls. We were all pervs back then anyways, but I didn't have the slightest idea what I would have done had I been buck naked with a girl on top of me... let alone what to do to make things happen.

...With a not-so-stellar performance in high school, and a mediocre job in my small, rinky dink of a home town, I opted for the quickest, easiest way out.

I guess that answers my question on how the fuck I ended up getting here...

When I joined the Army, I was still in high school. At 18, I thought I had the one answer nobody else had - A real plan to get out of this town, to give everyone the last and final middle finger, I'm out bitches, see you later. My dad didn't really support the decision I made (Pops was a Vietnam Vet, and had volunteered to get duty station of choice... by the way, he never saw action in S. Korea), so I was pretty much hell or high water on my own. My recruiters didn't bullshit me, and they pushed me to get a better job in the Army, something non-combat related (since my ASVAB scores were pretty damn good), but I insisted on being on Tanks...

I never had a second doubt about joining, not until I actually got to basic training, and realized this was a whole fucking lot more than I had bargained for.

The physical wasn't hard, nor was what they asked you to do. Sure, waking up at 4:30am every single day to a fully grown Gulf War vet breathing down your neck, screaming at your face from inches away, smoking the dog shit outta you was kinda rough... but it was the people that you were in basic with that made it difficult...

Your brain is still mixed up - thinking common sense, thinking like a civilian.

You're not allowed to move when standing at attention, parade rest, or at ease (why can't I move?)

You're no allowed to speak unless spoken to(Doesn't the bill of rights say that I have freedom of speech?)

You can't even walk when you want to walk (Do I really need to run everywhere? Is that necessary?)

Fear is a definite motivator, and in Basic Training, that is their number one motivator - Fear of failing a test, fear of being recycled (sent back through basic for failing), fear of not making it to formation on time, fear of not meeting the standard, fear of failing your battle buddy, fear of the morning and whatever the next day brought you on its big ol' platter of what the fuck is this shit... It was a wake-up call, and my ass was afraid.

Everyone breaks down at different intervals in basic, sometimes the hardest guys there never break - sometimes they would. There's a phase where you get so demoralized, so tired, and so worn out... your mind goes blank. The only thing that kept me sober in that drunken madness is going to my happy place. When that was gone, I had nothing left but those piss yellow colored walls, that itchy as hell wool green blanket (U.S. logo facing down thank you very much), and your brothers in the bunk above you or below you, to your left and to your right. Your battle buddies... your closest friends in the world. Shit, you might as well be married to those guys.

You reveal your deepest darkest secrets, although not always on purpose...

You sleep together, well not literally - we're not fuckin homo's (not that there's anything wrong with that - 'Seinfeld'), but you're in the same bay, inches from one another...

You shower together - and I do mean shower together, and it is as disturbing as it sounds... imagine 6 homo-phobic mother fuckers in the same shower together... no stalls, no curtains, just a meat locker. Jesus Christ I hate taking a shower in the same place as other dudes. Its just, gay. No if's and's or but's - no pun intended. I find nothing enjoyable about having to see some dudes junk.

... But most importantly, you experience everything together as a platoon. You realize that the strength of the platoon hinges on that one dude that's weaker than everyone else - The lowest common denominator.

That ONE GUY that the recruiter just HAD to push and push to join the Army. He'd be that medium weight, fat fucker, that had no place in the Army in the first place, and more than likely he was a good guy that you'd see workin at Wal-Mart, greeting people as they walked in the door. The Army didn't care who he was - if he fails, we fail, and everyone has the right to fight.

The 'ONE GUY' wasn't really bright by any means, and probably had a bit of a speech impediment since childhood - making it nearly impossible for you to NOT crack a smile when you asked him a serious question... You could say that those 'weak links' gave you a bit of a challenge during basic... yeah, I'd say - a challenge is something that you can hurdle over, go around, move, push, or kick start...

- We had Blersch -

As the name implies, he wasn't all there physically or mentally. I kept imagining something like Sloth from the Ghoonies ... You now, mentally handicapped but trainable... something like that.


Blersch couldn't do 15 push-ups in 2 minutes, he couldn't run 2 miles in under the minimum standard, and don't even think about sit-ups - his back was so jacked up from having a crooked spine, he could barely even get up without hurting something...

This fucker was so deformed he couldn't even walk straight. But yet, we managed to push him through it, pulling, draggin at times, even carrying his excess weight on our backs...

I tell you what, he was happy as hell to pass basic, and I think we were better for getting him through it... Granted, for fuck sake, I would never want to be stationed with the guy... give that dude a rifle, are you fucking kidding me? Hell no. Give him a rubber ducky (fake m-16) and tell him its real - he'll be just fine with that.

I could go on about Basic, but you know the gist of things - Google it if you want to know more. That shit was 10 years ago, and like all 'old timer's' say, basic gets easier and easier over the years, and 'You didn't know what hard was when you went through'.

Whatever, who gives a shit. Basic is basic - its what the real Army wishes it was. You get real sick and tired of basic training stories after a while...

Looky here joker - Unless you blew up wildlife, or someone lost an arm at the grenade range, spare me the expense of telling me what I already know. I could fucking care less.

....

After finishing up basic, you go back home for a few weeks of well deserved leave, you learn that your girl that said she loved you before, now wants nothing to do with you *COUGH COUGH* - Tiffany* - ... you really don't have a whole lot of money saved up, and you're probably still driving your parents car wherever you wanted to go... I didn't drink, I didn't smoke, and I didn't hang out with the 'IN' crowd.

I just wanted to get the fuck outta that dank, sink-hole of a town. It was a place where dreams were made, and crushed. A place where a person would have aspirations for bigger and better things, visions of fuckin grandeur, only to pile on a mountain of debt while working a mediocre job, with a 10% tithe, mandatory to pay to your local church.

I was destined for Germany... Europe... A place where my friends and family told me that everyone was an alcoholic, and that little had changed since WWII, and all the people there were neo-nazi's... something along those lines I guess.

... I remember what I heard from Drill Sergeants - "You're going to have sex with prostitutes at the red light district, you're going to drink heavily as it's legal to drink on base when you're 18, and you're going to learn to hate the Army... "

.... the "field" will have a whole other meaning while you're there.

That's where I would find out what life was all about, where I could finally realize that I hated the Army, "sin" without being held accountable for my actions, and finally stretch my legs of my youth...

I needed to go someplace where I would make life-long friendships and burn bridges...

... but that, my friends, is for another day...