Archive for the 'Navy' Category

Live from Afghanistan it’s Saturday night

Published
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admin
on September 14, 2008
in Afghanistan, College, Navy, Sports, Volleyball and Weather
. 0 Comments

kankleIt has been a long time my friends. For that I apologize. I have been busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest. Actually, presently, I am a one legged man looking for an ass kicking contest. 10 Days ago I rolled my ankle again. It didn’t feel too bad this time compared to the situation I had in 2000. Somehow though I just found out that I may be out of sports and everything else I enjoy (Dancing With the Stars) until about Christmas. Honestly, I am a bit bummed by it but what’s a one legged guy gonna do?

Back to more important items. We had a sandstorm shortly after I wrote my last entry. That was kind of fun. I saw the dark gray clouds coming and thought that it was a typical rainstorm. As it got nearer I noticed that it was awfully dark and ominous looking for a simple rain shower. It began sprinkling and a couple of minutes later the sand came, and came, and came. I felt like one of those worms in Tremors. We got some good pictures of the event. Check my Afghanistan gallery in a couple of days for them. I am also going to upload a video that shows the clouds of sand flying over the mountains nearby. Pretty crazy stuff.

A couple of friends from Riley and I have randomly become popular here. I suppose we most of our friends through playing volleyball. It seems that we hang out or chew the fat with at least 5 people nightly. Last night we spent time with 17 different people in a couple of hours. It is kind of getting weird, but we feel like we know everyone on base. We are to this base what Tom is to MySpace. Where do we pick up our awesomeness medals?

One of the reasons why people may know us is because we have already begun brainstorming and even following through on crazy ideas, and stunts. For instance, Doty grabbed his wooden sword that was left to him (you have to see this thing in the Afghanistan gallery) and a wooden trash can lid, donned my volleyball helmet, and perched himself up on our roof to protect our hut from dragons one night. This went on for a while before somebody called the base police suggesting that some drunken dude in a medieval outfit was going to jump off the roof. The irony of that situation was that the cop that was dispatched was our friend who found the whole thing really funny. Doty then proceeded to burst into the cafeteria and eat some ice cream like that. The puzzled looks were priceless.

One of my closest friends just so happens to be a Special Friend. See my previous post for what that means. We have been spending a lot of time together, even though he is smitten by our local Lucy Lu physical therapist. It all started when he took Jared and I to their compound to show off all of their weapons and to show us the bullet riddled Humvees that were involved in the battle that claimed the lives of 10 French Soldiers. Again, for the two blog fans I have out there, the pictures will soon be posted in the Afghanistan Gallery. Unfortunately we are in a wonder years situation as many of our closer friends will be leaving to get out of here soon.

I finally had a suit made here. I cannot recall a better deal than a custom fitted quality pin striped suit modeled to look like an Armani, a custom fitted undershirt, and a tie for 65 dollars. Needless to say I am a very happy customer. Pictures will be posted soon. I plan on getting a couple more.
So it seems as though my military career is coming to an end soon. Only one year left. I have already begun thinking about jobs in central Texas. I am still kind of torn on that situation. No matter how much I love central Texas I still feel that I belong in a cold piney environment. That seems to be when I am most happy. I suppose I will just go with the flow and see where we all end up.

I just finished the last class of my Grad school. I cannot believe it actually happened. I have to admit it came and went so fast. I can honestly see myself pursuing another graduate degree and perhaps, eventually, a post grad degree. I am happy to have my own time now to explore and pursue the random things that I find myself exploring or pursuing.

Oh yes, one other side note, is actually a bit of a disappointment for me; we had an earthquake here a little over a week ago. It registered as a 5.9. I do not know how I did not feel it. I was walking to my office when it happened. I remember everyone in the shop looking around confused as I entered through the doorway. I heard “what the hell was that?” from a few people and by the time I realized what they were talking about the whole thing had come and gone. I might chalk that up to the helicopters that fly overhead and shake everything on base. Who knows? Somehow, someway I missed my first real earthquake.

I know why I sing

Published
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admin
on August 21, 2008
in Afghanistan, Gallery and Navy
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I now know the ropes here. I have settled into my pattern of daily activities just fine. The only exception to the rule is a bazaar, massage, funeral, or nearby attack here and there. We are really in kind of a funny place here, where we hear stories of loss, and hard fought battles, and we sometimes even here them or see their remains yet, for whatever reason, we are typically untouched here. My friends come in and go, and the stories come in with them. Just a few days one of my super friends (that’s Special Forces to you non-military types) was in a heavily contested battle that was responsible for more UN deaths in one fight than any battle since 2005, and more total deaths than any since the operation began. He and his buddies were okay as they were kind of out of the game for a while, and by the time the insurgents found and surrounded them it was time to call in the air strike. Apparently the conversation went something like this”

Pilot: “Jesus you guys are surrounded. You want me to just drop them now?”
Super Friend: “Uh, yeah that would be nice thanks.”

All in all I believe we lost 13 or 14 allies in that battle. The French were hit very hard losing ten soldiers. It was a day of mourning for many people here on base. The whole battle occurred about 25 miles from here.

Me? I just pass time by playing volleyball, working out, doing schoolwork, watching movies, reading books, or growing out my mustache.

I had my first experience outside the wire recently as my job required me to take a two hour round trip. At first I was pretty nervous and looked at every passing truck with cautious eyes. After a while I was desensitized to it all and even found myself getting pretty pissed off that one of our gunners found it necessary to point his rifle at every truck driver he thought was too close. I can assure you if one of those Jingle trucks (see my Afghanistan/Random gallery for pics) was filled with explosives, it would not matter if the damn thing detonated 10, 25, or even 50 feet away, even in an up-armored Humvee. See that’s the thing here, that’s the depressing part. Yes there are insurgents, yes, they are killing more of us daily, but the battle we are losing is with ourselves. We have won over about 20% of the country and about 30% loath us. That means that 50% are somewhere in between. Pointing weapons at everyone you fear on the road will not go far in winning the undecided over. It is just plain stupidity. If we pull out and Afghanistan collapses in our wake it will be mostly due to the thoughtlessness of some of our heroes here. It is sad but it is true. It really screws with my head sometimes. I’m reminded of the flight over here from Ireland. We were flying over Kyrgyzstan and a few people noticed some villages down below. All of the sudden there were cries of “towel heads”, and “those little f’ers are laying bombs down there”. We were nowhere near hostile territory. That is the issue here too. Everyone is Bruce Willis from Die Hard, everyone is a bonafied badass, and every Afghani is our enemy. I have alienated myself a bit from many of the army people here because of my open thoughts on the matter. In a nutshell, we don’t have qualified people here. We need educated people that can flip the switch from kill mode to ambassador mode and back without anything in between. We may have bitten off more than we can chew here.

I got fitted for a suit today. Some of the Afghani locals can make amazing suits from scratch for about 60 bucks. I printed out a picture of an Armani I was drooling over and took it to the tailor. I am anxious to see how that comes out. School will be out for me soon. I can’t believe I am finishing my masters. The time came and went so fast. Unfortunately I may be forced with the epic decision of playing on the Navy Volleyball team, or attending my graduating ceremony, which is only held once a year, and which I missed this last year. I cannot wait for the cold weather to come roaring in here. Many people think I am crazy or retarded or both, partially because the mustache, but I feel alive, and happy during the winter. I think it is partly from memories of being at Texas State University on some November Saturday lying around in my dorm room when a beautiful mid day storm blasts through. The downbursts are chilling to the bone; the entire sky is gray and dark blue. I think to date that feeling is one of the best I have ever had. I think that is why I like Halloween so much. Anyways, winter should be a doozy here. Apparently the huts get down to about 30 degrees so I should be nice and hunkered down in my cold weather gear and zero degree-rated sleeping bag.

If any of you are interested check out my Afghanistan Gallery. It is password protected for obvious reasons. If you feel like checking out some of my pictures, including a crazy (blurry) picture of an Afghani riding between the grill and engine of a Jingle truck going 60mph, then call my wife or mother and ask for the password.

I should be able to post regularly now that I am all settled in. Keep all of us in your thoughts. There are a lot of young people here in Afghanistan that are in more danger than you care to know.

Off on an adventure

Published
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on August 4, 2008
in Afghanistan and Navy
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I have not written in quite some time. For that I apologize. I have been roaming around the world the last few weeks, so it took me a while to get settled down enough to think about writing. I finished my training in Kansas and flew home to spend some quality time with my wonderful wife, and children. We all had a good time. Upon returning to Kansas I graduated and flew out. The plane we flew on was ridiculous. It had the capacity to seat well over 400 people, had 10 restrooms, and about 14 stewardesses. It was easily the largest plane I had ever flown on. I slept pretty well on the plane after eating a couple of really good meals. I awoke right in time to witness our flight in to Ireland. Let’s just say I now have an Irish vacation high on my list. The place was beautiful, and the beer was great. I also bought a cool hat. From there we continued our flight around the world and landed near the Caspian Sea, surprisingly close to Iran in Baku. We were on the ground shortly and headed off to our temporary post at Kyrgyzstan. The people there were very beautiful. They resembled Mongolians in that they had a distinctly Asian appearance yet spoke Russian. I really loved it there. Snow capped mountains surrounded our post, and I could just imagine riding off with Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman. It was there that my friend informed me of my final destination in Afghanistan. I was so excited I could hardly keep it in. After staying for a while it was off to Afghanistan. When I first saw the plane we were flying in on I kind of laughed and wondered where the others were since there were well over one hundred of us each with about 500-600 pounds of bags. To my disappointment that was the only plane to take all of us in. We were so jam packed in it that you could not get up or move, or barely see any part of the plane at all since gear was stacked everywhere. That was the first time I flew courtesy of the Air Force and I hope it is my last. We landed late walked around groggy eyed, gathered our gear and waited to convoy into Kabul.

Once in Kabul I realized the gravity of the situation. The base was not out in the open with casual roaming guards or anything like that. We were surrounded by walls, very large walls. I was still in some sort of high from the excitement when I laid my head down that night on a mattress that a dust mite would find dirty. As soon as I reached the pinnacle of sleep, I heard a person singing fairly close by. It was in Dari or Pashtu, perhaps some sort of booming religious song. Shortly afterwards about 4 other people chimed in and began singing. It was about that time that I realized we were all sleeping right on the other side of the wall from the city. I quietly wondered if this was common or meant anything and then fell asleep to their monotone voices.

The next Day I woke up and walked outside to be greeted by a C130 flying overhead while shooting flares. That was interesting. We had class every day for a few days so we spent most of our time catching up on any sleep we missed during out 29 hours on a plane. After a few days we were transported to where we work and we got to meet our temporary bosses and workmates. They were all very nice, and it seemed that we had struck gold with both our jobs and the base we were staying on. Many others in our tract were sent down south wear the temperature is, no kidding, 130 degrees. I also failed to mention they did so in long sleeve gear wearing 80 pounds of equipment. So I would be stupid, naive, and ungrateful to say I didn’t luck out.

Here we play volleyball with all walks of life every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It didn’t take long for us to prove our worth on the courts, as it seems now, that we are the one group of alpha dogs that play. I was presently surprised to see about 5-6 other guys that were descent though. The food here is wonderful. It is actually kind of scary good. There is so much variety; they have cake, ice cream, cookies, snacks and all kinds of other crap I should stay away from. One of the first things I noticed was the crates of bottled water just lying around. Of course there is no acceptable tap water here so every little bit we drink it straight from a bottle. Combine that with the heat, and I cannot imagine the cost of providing so much of it. I know in the first week I knocked down about 40 bottles. We will soon be moving into our huts. I cannot put into words how much we are looking forward to that since we have been living out of bags in a dirty tent now for about 10 days.

Another interesting thing here is all the nationalities that work or reside here. Aside from Americans and Afghans there are tons of other countries, militaries, and civilian and clandestine organizations that I correspond with daily. This really is a melting pot. I have made friends with a volleyball player from Fiji who is super cool, along with a group of guys from France. That reminds me, for all of you who hate France for whatever reason, I will say this; they are here fighting hard, where are you?

I got to go to my first Bazaar here a few days ago. That was very interesting. They have all kinds of crazy stuff for absurd prices. I bought some stuff for Laura and the fat one, and myself an old Russian belt. They sell old British rifles there that were made prior to 1898. I look forward to purchasing one or many of those.

The SUV’s here piss me off. Why do we have the lamest vehicles in America? Everything here is jacked up and trail ready, and most of them even have snorkels. I suppose to the credit of the US they actually need such capabilities here to get around. I am especially jealous of the Belgian vehicles. Also, who has heard of a Ford Everest? I should be receiving a package from Laura soon. Hopefully it will contain a camera so I can begin taking my thousands of pictures I want to share with everyone. Despite my apparent safety here I have seen bodies loaded into the morgue on two straight days now. The fighting is getting intense and even local routes that were formerly safe have become dangerous.

I have to run now. Work calls. I have descent communication capabilities here so feel free to write. Who knows you may even receive a call from me some day.

PS-Sorry my thoughts are so scatterred. It has been a long time since I wrote and I had a lot to write about. Hopefully my thoughts will be better organized next time.

Saildier Boy

Published
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on June 22, 2008
in Afghanistan and Navy
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I wanted to take a few minutes to illustrate my recent life in the narmy hooah? First I have overcome my original snafu of misunderstanding the rules and regulations of army lingo hooah? Apparently it is required to replace the period ending every sentence with the word “hooah”, hooah? It should also be noted that despite the contents of the sentence it will be spoken as a question hooah? An example: “That dog over there is big hooah?”, would translate in normal English to, “that dog over there is large wouldn’t you agree chap?” An important side note is that the word “hooah” may be replaced by the word “tracking” to render the same effect and meaning hooah? Typically army types prefer to do this when giving specific or complicated instructions, or when giving mundane advice that a hyperactive black lab with Down Syndrome could follow hooah? An example of this would be, “When you get to EPA (extraction point alpha) and there has been a FFI (friendly fire incident) call in a medivac, fill out form 1187a, radio into your CBH (combat head-quarters), disrobe your IBA (individual body armor), and provide CLS (combat life saver) techniques tracking?” Another example on the other side of the spectrum would be, “If you see a rattlesnake crawling in front of you on the field, do not lean down and try to kiss it tracking?”

For those of you who are thinking about become a ground-pounder, but have not established the mental image of what one would do I offer this advice:
1)Put on the hottest long sleeve shirt over a dark, moisture soaking, cotton T-shirt.
2)Put on long thick pants over your choice of boxers.
3)Put on hot, thick, knee high socks and blousing straps to tuck in your pants.
4)Put on the most awkward belt you can find that will not stay tight.
5)Put on incredibly uncomfortable, shin high boots, and lace them up as tight as possible.
6)Strap on a ridiculously crappy gun holster and handgun to aforementioned, sagging belt.
7)Put on the largest knee and elbow pads you can find anywhere.
7)Take the largest backpack you can find and fill it with about 80 pounds of bricks and have it sit directly on shoulders.
8)Strap everything in your house sans the kitchen sink to the front of your backpack.
9)Attached a gallon of water to the back of your backpack.
10)Find a 5 pound helmet that give you headaches and strap it so tight to your chin that you talk like Mohammed Ali.
11)Grab an 8 pound rifle with about 5 pounds of ammunition dispersed through 7 magazines and strap them to the front of your backpack.
12)Wait for a 100+ degree day and run around out in the woods, duck-walking, squatting, climbing hills, and speed walking for 6 hours.
13)Follow that by running though every room of a 32 story building as fast as possible while pretending people are shooting at you.

That should give you the gist of it. Hopefully it is for you. I could see how most people would find it fun, and would volunteer for it. Me, I like the shooting, but I think I would be just as happy messing around with legacy software in a 65 degree, classified environment on a rolling ship. Maybe that’s just me hooah?

A wet dream

Published
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on June 4, 2008
in Afghanistan, Navy and Weather
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Wow. I experienced one of the most exciting events of my life this last Monday. Earlier that morning I checked the weather as I always do and saw a descent chance of severe storms. We had been in class for about 2 hours when the first wave hit. The rain came down like crazy and we were hit with nickle to quarter sized hail. We played around in it, and walked out and about and collected and ate them during a break. It looked like the worst was well passed us as the skies began to clear. About 20 minutes or so later I looked out the window to see a black low-lying sheet roll in. I was gazing at it for a few minutes when all of the sudden a huge hail storm began to pound down on the classroom. It sounded like 100 mile per hour bricks. My immediate thought was that we would not be able to hear the tornado sirens among all of the noise. I brought this to the attention of our teacher who shrugged it off. I couldn’t help but to think hail that hail that big almost always accompanied some sort of rotation. Sure enough a few minutes later a teacher came bursting in and told us all to promptly make our way to the storm shelter. On our way out I heard the tornado sirens.

We all cramped into a huge cement tunnel that usually served as a training aid for a missile silo. Cops were running around with bullhorns, lightning was striking everywhere, and the hail was still coming down, though it was now much smaller. After about 5 minutes in the shelter we began to climb out when the noises subsided. As soon as I stepped out I instinctively looked to my north east to see an absol-freakin-lutely huge funnel spinning around fiercely about 1/4 to 1/2 a mile away. It was an amazing green color, and the sight made the hair on my arms stand up. Low lying clouds were being sucked up into it and rocketed back over our heads. I am not sure I will ever see a sight like it. Apparently it touched down right by us, out in a field, and the damage from the tornado was limited to downed trees throughout the praries outside of base. The irony of the situation; I am almost positive that we ran to the shelter as it was over us, or possibly even after it past us (most likely since massive tennis ball hail had stopped falling).

Later that night we left base and drove a couple of mile to the airport. I had read reports that they received softball size hail and that all of the rental cars, and short and long term parked cars were demolished. We were all amazed by the destruction. Practically every car there was totaled. All said and done, the hail storm only hit 3 miles of scarcely populated city, but 1000+ cars were demolished according to the Daily Union. Pictures of the destroyed cars at the airport are located Here

matchbookAlso on the same day the ongoing war between chief and I regarding the merits of Georgia and Texas continued. I struck hard by handing him the matchbook shown to the left, unopened. He slowly opened it expecting something to fall out or something, and almost died laughing. So far Texas 3, Georgia 0. I also have several pictures of chief modeling his Texas T-shirt or should I say a picture of Sheehan and one of our friends holding him down after he jokingly put on his Texas shirt. I will post more pictures of that later.

Sheehan and I plan on visiting Texas next week. This will be the first time he will spend real time there. I am presently attempting to plan every meal, and every layer of entertainment. Let me know if y’all have any ideas.

WHAAAAAAAAAAT???????????????

Published
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on June 1, 2008
in Afghanistan and Navy
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I'm BatmanA lot has happened in the last few days. Unfortunately I do not have time to give all of the details, but I will try to give you a super concatenated run-down. During our M4 qual, I shot a round after shooting about 30, and all of the sudden, my left ear stopped working. It has been a few days now, and though I can hear noises, I still have a terrible ringing, and it rattles when I talk. I have an appointment with the audiologist tomorrow sometime.

Today I was cleaning up my computer when I found two unposted blog entries I made while in New England. Actually they are probably the most entertaining of all my entries so I cannot believe I forgot to post them. So I added them today and backdated them to their respective dates. You can read them further down below, or by clicking on their links immediately below.
Boston Entry
Rhode Island Entry

I will post more information, pictures and videos next week.

A new mindest

Published
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admin
on May 18, 2008
in Afghanistan, Critique, Navy, Politics and Rants
. 1 Comment

Most of you know I am in Kansas now training for my deployment to Afghanistan. Thus far we have spent the majority of our time learning about culture and the languages used over in Afghanistan. The tactical insight demonstrated in our training changed my mind about the Army and the thought process of our military as a whole. I heard things I never thought I would hear, and though there is certainly the possibility that is is all too late, I feel confident that we at least now know how best to conduct operations over in the middle east. In a nut shell we now openly admit several things;

  1. Our tactics in both wars were horribly flawed and needed drastic revision.
  2. Though we have ousted both insurgent governments we are still technically losing the war.
  3. We presently foresee the necessity of maintaining a presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan until 2013 and likely longer.
  4. What we are doing in Afghanistan is good, that is the intentions are worth the fight. However it will take a ridiculous amount of commitment from both the Afghani citizens and ours to suffer through the long process of rebuilding a country.
  5. Bush and his military advisers as a whole are completely moronic and continue to damage the campaign to this day.
  6. General Petraeus knows his stuff.

The majority of the training hammered home the idea that our priority over in Afghanistan is not to gun down Taliban and other insurgent groups, but to build rapport with local tribes and to assist in developing the security of the country by advising the ANA and ANP. Through this, the ANA and ANP will be able to police their own countries utilizing proven tactics, and eventually we will be able to pull out of the country. Since the ANA and ANP are allies with the US and essentially UN projects it is important to put an Afghani face on and policing or security issues that take place. This helps reinforce the ideal that the Afghani’s are in fact progressing and are responsible for providing security.

This new approach completely surprised me. Gone are the days when we strap on our weapons before gathering the necessary intel and accessing our goals and methods of achieving them. I could only think if this had been done to begin with we would already be much more successful than we are presently. That being said we are making a difference. I can assure you that. Unfortunately for us (UN Troops) that means we must interact with the Afghani people consistently without weapons and armor since it is important to be seen as peace-keepers and not the aggressors we had originally been thought as. This necessary tactic puts us in more danger than we would have been in the “fire at anything that moves campaign”. That being said the danger is worth it. The Afghani people are a beautiful and cultured people with a uniqueness and history unlike any culture I have ever experienced or read about. My only goal for my augmentation is to associate a positive face with America to at least a handful of Afghani’s.

I have created a gallery for training so you guys can check out our picks located here. There are several in there of our training including our interaction with real Afghani nationals and of course our humvees. I have been laying low here, and thus far my only real job is a humvee driver. They are not as fun as one would think. They are gas guzzling pieces of shit that are responsible for about 60% of combat deaths in Afghanistan! Apparently it is much safer over there to travel by foot or even by four wheeler, than it is to utilize even an armored humvee.

The language and culture classes have been amazing. I have met many native Afghani’s including a Dari translator that looks exactly like my dad, exactly. Kind of scary actually. Check out the image here. While I am on the subject of the gallery I want to mention/explain the pictures of our chief . I decided early on in training that he looked a lot like a built Flavor Flav, so that is why that picture is in there (thanks Alan for bringing my idea to life). After that he began to give me a bunch of shit about being from Texas, so naturally we made him a cowboy and hung his invitation throughout the barracks. Typical boredom shit.

For those of you that are interested in the crazy balancing act that is the War in Afghanistan, check out my video gallery here There are many very educational and informative videos. This war has changed a great deal and I think the most upsetting thing to me and I would imagine to other troops is that it has almost been forgotten, pushed back into the shadows during the time of the great crises in Iraq.

Update: I am still trying to figure out why embedvideo is taking a dump on me thus not allowing me to post my Afghanistan videos to my site. They are however posted on Google Video and can be seen by clicking the below links:
Counter Insurgency Tactics
Taliban PR Tactics
Democracy And Elections In Afghanistan
Bin Laden Video
Taliban Dynamics
FOB Life

I will fix the problem and post more images/videos later. For those of you who are really interested, I recommend watching the movie the Kite Runner.

Work Life

Published
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on April 12, 2008
in Afghanistan, Gallery and Navy
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I spoke with my Nephew Cody yesterday about my upcoming assignments and he had several questions about what we will be doing and where. Basically we have been tasked with training the Afghani army in several technical disciplines. I purchase several informative books about the region and am even attempting to pick up Dari, one of the more commonly used local languages. We will be stationed in a relatively cold environment so I am looking forward to the change in weather. The whole experience should be quite an adventure to say the least. I think I will fair quite well compared to most people since I have always considered myself an outdoorsy person and have boasted several times that I could be content living out of a tent. I think this is my chance to test the waters on the sincerity of that statement.

We recently underwent several missile evolutions on our ship prior to me going on leave. I have to admit it was rewarding to witness all the 5 inch, torpedo and missile shots. One of our VLA shots is posted in our gallery under videos. You can check it out here…Cody: :) Missile Launch

I am afraid that the torpedo and 5 inch shot videos did not come out near as well.

Still here.

Published
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on March 9, 2008
in Afghanistan, General and Navy
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Hello everyone.

It has been quite some time since I have posted anything to this site. I wanted to update you guys on the recent events of my life. I don’t have too much time but I figured posting something now would be in essence a show of good faith. First and foremost I am in all likelihood going to Afghanistan. Presently I am slated to deploy on April 28th of this year, and am scheduled to work over there for a year. I am excited about the opportunity to improve myself financially and even about the nature of work but I absolutely dread the time away from my children. The good news is that I would be going over there with my best friend.

Bike Afghanistan!We have already made plans to go create/ride mountain bike courses around Kandahar. We are even in the process of ordering “Bike Afghanistan Sweatshirts”.

Unfortunately my trip to Afghanistan hinges on the possibility that I may have lung cancer. I am presently undergoing testing to determine what gives. Other than that I have been working, mountain biking a ton, playing with the stock market, reading, and teaching Jade Jiu-Jitsu. Again, I plan to post more soon.

Boston - Free drinks, freezing my ass off, and another murder mystery

Published
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on November 5, 2007
in General, Navy, Rants and Weather
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I did not expect at first to enjoy Boston the way I did. That has got to be one of the most navy friendly cities in the states. The first couple of nights out, I didn’t pay anything. Food, drinks, bar tabs etc were all picked up by some random patron. I heard the phrase, “Thank you for serving” about 500 times in 5 days. On the first night we went to a Boston Bruins hockey game courtesy of our ships MWR department. The game was fairly boring though it was cool that our friends performed the colors ceremony. When we walked in we just grabbed some seats about 14 rows up from the ice. We noticed in route to the stadium that the seats given to us were up near Alpha Centari. So there we are sitting in these expensive seats 14 rows up from the ice, when an announcement is passed on the jumbo-tron. If you sit in row such in such, you automatically get your seats upgraded to an ice side row. Sure as my sister’s deodorant, it was us. I should also mention that there were about five or six 10 year olds sitting behind us. At one point of time during the game a fight broke out. All of the sudden we all heard five or six high pitch voices yelling fight, kill him, kick his balls, etc at the top of their lungs. We got a good laugh out of that, we really did.

We left the game due to boredom and decided to check out some of the bars close to the arena. There were several and we chose the Best bar, or some bar with some such name. There were about 7 of us in uniform in there just chewing the fat, drinking, and watching an endless video tribute to Larry Bird. We had all eaten and had several beers, when an older man came up and spoke to one of my friends. He whipped out about 200 bucks and told the waitress we were taken care of. It was at that very moment that I figured out Boston was going to be the sleeper of our trip. Most of the night followed in similar fashion until eventually I just decided to leave a pub and help my friend find his way back through the subway system to the ship. The local rumor was that MIT students helped design the mass transit system in Boston. I found one particular system amazingly simple, effective, and efficient. The city buses would ride around on the outskirts of the city normally, as would any other bus in any other city. Once they approached a downtown area with a diameter of say 5-7 miles, they would go underground, attach to an electrical cable and turn basically into a one car subway with tires. The network of tunnels underneath the city was impressive. Oh if Texas would ever learn.

Earlier that day a group of friends and I went to the Samuel Adams tour courtesy again of our MWR department. That was very entertaining. I am not just saying that because I somehow managed to get trashed there for free. It was a good tour. I found out they hold the record for the strongest beer in the world at something like 29% abv. They actually entered it as a joke in a konyac taster’s competition and won it. The judges were pissed. Samuel Adams has a tendency to win every beer tasting competition they enter in. It’s no wonder too. They are dedicated to beer. Every employee there no matter what their craft, must have a home brewery. Crazy. They even have a trophy for winning the most awards.

Now, the transition from the companies I endorse to those I want to burn down. Fuck you Papa Johns! You can go to hell and fucking die, you fucking communist, Nazi pizza chain. I think I am going to start a chain message saying the owners are French or something. When I was on duty I could not leave the ship or for that matter my post. This translates to 24 hours straight of work in the same room. 3 small meals are not enough I assure you to sustain a strapping, half asleep, young lad for that long. I decided I would call Papa Johns and have them deliver to the pier so my shipmates and I could eat a late night meal. I called…..here is the kicker……..5 hours before I wanted the pizza delivered and had them assure me that it would be there at 8:45 promptly. I could not give them a return number other than my mobile which meant if they wanted to get a hold of me they would be screwed. So 8:30 rolls around and I go outside to wait for my wonderful pizza. 9:00……9:15……Call Papa Johns, talk to manager, driver on way……9:30….still waiting….. 9:45……..10:00, try to call again, phone dies…..waiting….borrow phone, call again…..get angry….driver on the way now.. .will get free large pizza whenever I want later in the week. I get my friggin pizza at 10:30, which was an hour and a half late and 6.5 hours after I called it in. My supervisor was steaming pissed that I was out there that long. So the next day rolls around and I am thinking I will make it up to her by getting that free pizza for all of us to eat. I call it in, go outside to wait for the driver, and he never showed. I called the manager and he said he came, and nobody was there to pick up the pizza, and that he would not come back. I had been outside waiting for an hour this time, and I assure you nobody came. You can go to hell and die you pompous pizza pricks.

On the lighter side of things, my wife arrived on the day of the 3rd, and I could not wait to see her. We had some marital issues about a month earlier but I had found myself getting closer to her since the conflict. I did not know what carrier or even what flight number she was on, but I decided I would again put to use the mass transit system and try to find her as she arrived at the airport. I also knew where her layover was Cincinnati. Once I got to the airport I went from carrier to carrier looking for incoming flights from Cincinnati. In the third building I walked in I saw that a Delta flight from Cincinnati had just arrived. I looked up and saw Laura walking out the door. I snuck up on her and gave her a hug. I was extremely happy to see her. Our time together consisted of exchanging music, shopping at cool stores, and laughing like 6 years olds. In an odd way it was almost like we just met. Everything went pretty damn good with an oddly familiar exception.

On the day of the ceremony a man was murdered, apparently right outside our room while we slept. Let me first explain a couple of things. I have a knack for staying at hotels on the night a violent event takes place. Here is a rundown of my stays at my last three hotels:

1 - Arriving in San Diego on our first night in town a drunken man is confronted by two cops right outside our door. I do mean right outside our door too. We awoke in a terrible confusion. He then decided it would be a good idea to fight the two officers, who, as I would have done too, beat the piss out of him against our room for what seemed like 15 minutes. My favorite part of that night was the following exchange,
Purp: “Help me somebody, call the cops.”
Cops: “We are the cops asshole”.

2 - Now fast forward to Norfolk Virginia where I am awoken at 9 am by the sound of all hell breaking loose in the room next to me. There we loud thuds and pounding and screams every few seconds. At one point of time I though the picture hanging above my head was going to come off the wall. I called the operator and told them to call the cops. They showed up 30 minutes later. The beating was still in progress, the screams had stopped 15 minutes earlier.

3 - So, now with some history you may understand why I might have reacted funny, when Laura and I stepped outside our room to see crime tape and cops everywhere. I suppose smiling to myself and saying “not again” was uncalled for. Needless to say we were questioned.

L and I decided on our last night together to go check out Cheers, since we both grew up watching the show. It was entertaining getting there (guessing 5 miles as crow flies, 35 miles, and 1 hour for us). Laura decided to let her right leg go swimming on the way back from the bar. I will let her explain that to you someday if she wishes to do so. The gift shop was very cool, but we were very disappointed that the bar looked nothing like the one depicted in the show. They did make a second Cheers which was actually a replica of the one on the TV show, but we were not up to another navigating adventure, so we decided to go back to our hotel. The blood was still on the floor. I proposed a new motel 6 motto, “We’ll leave the light on for you to see the blood”. It seemed like L was only around for a few hours when it was time for her to go. I won’t bore you with the intricate details of the rest of our time together. I will just say I needed her to be with me then, and it reminded me why I married her to begin with.

How can I forget? I cannot believe I made it through this whole segment on Boston without discussing the Commissioning Ceremony yet. Holy hell was that a doozy. Okay, so let me try to do this justice. Take a whole mess of captains, admirals, generals, and other persons who have distinguished themselves in the military, add Senator John Kerry, 2000 spectators of which the average age is like 80, a tropical storm with sustained winds of 50 mph and gusts up to 65, 4 inches of rain, 44 degree temperature (outright), and myself dressed in only my dress uniform with no jacket, no thermals and no otherwise useful clothing items. It was a beautiful disaster. I stood at attention for those two hours, while the storm gutter drained the rain from the roof down my back. I shivered and shook violently, I was hypothermic, I loss feeling to all four extremities, and a smile never left my face. If that was an omen for the ship I need to get off and soon. I have never been that cold in my life, and I don’t think I have ever been outside for that long during weather that bad. It truly was a site to behold. Not many umbrellas survived. Laura bolted about 20 minutes into the ceremony and sat in the car…I can’t say I blame her. Afterwards I had to literally wring out my clothes I stopped shaking a full 45 minutes after the ceremony. My legs and ass were actually cramping from all the convulsing. I had trouble walking. The smile never left my face.

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