I truly am innocent, this time around...

ok, I'm reading Paca's blog, and I come across the one where he goes to Amazon and he sees all these ads for women's nightwear. I had a similar experience the other day. As I am wont to do, I was running searches on google for my name, both last and first. It's interesting to see what's out there on you, but I digress. And I come across this image. Needless to say, I had to get a closer look. And needless to say, I was a bit surprised. Surprised that they knew me so well.

Down Time At AIT

Thanks Plotnik for reading.... maybe you can give me some tips for surviving the military....

But back to my late series of posts....

During AIT in San Antonio, we had some down time, mainly during the weekends. Friday, if you were good, you got an 11 pm bedcheck... meaning 10:30... running across the barrack area at 10:59 was not a very good idea... And we got an extra treat on Saturday morning, we only had to be up by 6:30 am... but then we had to clean the barrack area until around noon or 2 pm, when the drill sergeants would run an inspection and decide if we were to be released for the day or not.... so around 3 pm, after a round of showers and waiting for cabs, we were released into San Antonio, a pack of sex-crazed and drink-hungry recruits, and that's just the females. I tended to stay away from the Riverwalk area, because, dammit, I see enough green uniforms during the week, and I'd rather see civilians in normal clothes, with long hair. So I headed to the Quarry, an upscale version of a strip-mall. There, I would indulge in my love of books, music, and movies. And then, around 4:30, I'd call up a couple of cabbies that I've used and would head towards something else that I didn't get to see enough of during the week, women in various stages of dress shaking their ta-tas at me.

I could go on and on about the strip clubs, but I'll try to keep it short and just to this one post. Most of the places in San Antonio are bring your own beer, but because of this, they're allowed to be fully nude. The first place we went to was this place called Paradise, but we didn't realize that it was BYOB. I had to run out and get a couple of six packs at the nearest gas station, but that wasn't much of a problem. Paradise is the place for you if you love latino women. It's also pretty seedy, with a large majority of clientele there being Mexican. Think of the strip bar from "From Dusk 'til Dawn" and you'll have a nice picture of it, but only in a long squat building that could almost be a double-wide. I felt totally comfortable there.

Rick's Cabaret is a nicer, up-scale "gentleman's" club. It's a bit farther away from the centre of town and Ft Sam, but to those of discrimination tastes, it's well worth it. I took a buddy of mine who's marriage had fallen on hard times there, and he forgot all about his troubles, but at the expense of his wallet. It's not BYOB or fully nude, so beer is pretty expensive there, and the girls, well, they know how to work a drink or two out of ya.

Wild Zebra is a little hole in the wall where the beer is cheap, the lap dances are only $10 all the time, and you get what you pay for. The saying from the Hustler club is reversed here: 100 ugly girls, and 3 pretty ones. Competition is tough for the attention of the pretty ones, so unless you're gonna "make it rain", go for the ugly ones. They'll appreciate it more. *laughs*

Now my home away from home was XTC Cabaret. It's somewhere between Rick's and Wild Zebra, but prolly close to the Zebra than to Rick's. Most of the guys there were ex-military (surprise, surprise) and they were rather accommodating to us fellows from FT Sam. And really, I just went there to get away from base and drink a little bit, really. At first, it was just me and another guy, and then he started telling other people about it and all of a sudden, my getaway place was crowded by other freakin' soldiers. And the worst ones there were the females. I just wanted to drink my Bailey's and support the single moms.

Like I said, I could go on and on about the clubs in San Antonio. I did look forward to the week-ends because I knew that I could go, relax, drink my drinks, and look at pretty women dancing. On the other hand, I did spend a lot of money, because between the cabs, cover, beer, and the requisite wad of singles and twenties, it could get expensive. But in my mind, it was worth it because it kept me sane. Or maybe stable is a better word, since my sanity could, and has been, questioned time after time.

Reflections on Basic and AIT

Sitting here, waiting for the rain, I've decided to say screw it and just forget about the whole structure thing. I'm just gonna lump Basic and AIT all together, that way when I remember something I want to write about, I'll just write about it, instead of waiting for the correct chronological order.

OK, this post is gonna be kind of racy, so those with weak stomachs, or just don't want to plain know about this kind of stuff, go away someplace safe...

OK, I talked about the DFAC food at Basic for a bit, and about how mediocre it was... well, besides being mediocre, I swear that they must put something into food to prevent morning wood. Actually, there must have been something to have retarded sexual desire period. Prolly about 90% of guys have morning wood. I (I'm not ashamed to say) am one of those guys. Hey, at least I know it's working. But all throughout Basic, I didn't have one occasion of morning wood. Hell, I admit it, I'm one rather lusty individual, but I didn't even get random wood during the day. Yeah, it use to be a problem during school, but I'm better now, honest. There was some guys that, just to make sure the equipment still worked, would go into the latrine and practice their digital manipulation. I didn't have this problem during AIT, so I will maintain that they've put something into the food.

Just a thought before I go...

Strippers are very canny individuals... never underestimate them... 'cause one time I got taken advantage of by a deaf stripper... of course, I did deserve it 'cause I thought I was the one getting the good end of the deal... but like I said, she was rather canny and came out on top...

Recollections of Basic Combat Training, Part 4

Worst day of Basic

I'm trying to think of any really bad days I had during Basic. They all pretty much sucked, but trying to figure out which one sucked the hardest, well there's a pretty dilemma. I can think of moments of suckiness but not an entire day.

Early morning PT sucked, but there was that one morning, where my whole body ached from the march the day before, where I just wanted to quit, just lay there and do nothing until one of the drills saw me laying like a log and started the yelling. Memories of her ran through my head, and I knew that I deserved everything that I was going through. I guess flutter kicks are my bane, because they hurt like the dickens, but they allow you to look up at the sky and to hope, to realize that there might be better days, but then you have a drill yelling at you to straighten your legs and get them six inches off of the ground and you lose all hope. Hope's a wonderful, yet a horrible thing at the same time.

Another bad moment happened on a weapon range. We had to, in full gear, run/jog a mile and then immediately conduct reflexive fire drills. The point of this exercise was to expose us to the effects of exhaustion and a very rapid heartbeat on your marksmanship. I remember the run, my M-16 in both hands, a gallon of water strapped to me, my flak vest cocooned around me, my LBE flopping against me... yeah, a good time was had by all. About half way through, one of my straps came off, and my 2 quart canteen came off. Trying to fix the strap while running with ragged breaths coming out was quite the chore. On top of that, I had our senior drill sergeant telling me to hurry up and catch up with the front of the pack. And then I had the misfortune of having our First Sergeant in the back of the pack, motivating the slower movers. That was one of my prime motivations, not having him on ride me the rest of the way to the freakin' range. I did manage to stay in the middle of the pack, so not to bad for an old man, but still, those minutes on that run sucked. It seemed to stretch on forever.

Recollections of Basic Combat Training, Part 3

The DFAC (Dining Facility)

My niece has had many comments on my eating habits of late. She says I eat way too fast. I admit, I do eat rather quickly, and I'm trying to actually slow down and taste my food now. I blame the Army for my current eating habits.

I really looked forward to chow time, not because of the chow, but because they (drill sergeants) couldn't smoke us much in the chow hall. They'd generally wait until afterwards, so that they could smoke the whole lot of us at one time, without any wasted expenditure of energy on their part. Time was always a constant enemy of ours during chow at BCT. The drill sergeants would wait until the majority of the platoon was through before going through the line, and by the time they got up from eating, God help us if we weren't all outside in formation. So if you were one of the last ones to go through, you were pretty much screwed. You had to "eat your food now, taste it later."

The food wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. It's like going to Picadilly everyday, but without that number of options. There was cake and pop, but we were told that if we touched any of that, that we'd have to sweat it all out. Not to say that there were times that we were tempted, but just the mere thought of having to do PT afterwards on a stomach full of DFAC food sent the hardiest of malcontents scuttling away from the dessert table. We did have one occasion where we were allowed to have cake, nay, even forced to have it, and that was our Thanksgiving dinner (which happened the day before Thanksgiving). It was good, but the goodness led to all sorts of badness the next day. There was left-over cake and some of us (not me!) was under the impression that it was ok to partake of the sugary goodness. What befell us next was right out of a scene from a Shakespearean tragedy, with plenty of name-calling, finger pointing, pointless exercising, and even a fight breaking out. Somebody had the foresight to ask the drill sergeant if it was ok to have cake, and then after getting a negative, actually said that there were recruits already eating the cake. Once outside with the whole company (normally we went in platoon formation, but since it was a holiday, there was only two drill sergeants on duty instead of the normal four to eight), the finger pointing started. After listening to that for a couple of seconds, the drill sergeant dropped the whole company and started doing "front, back, gos." {You start in the front leaning rest position (push up) and start doing them (head toward the DS). If the DS called out "back", you'd get into the sit-up position (with the head away from the DS). If the DS called out "Go", you'd get up and start jogging. And they would vary it, like thus, "Front" wait a minute, "Back" wait another minute, "Go" wait two minutes, "Front" wait a second, "Go" wait two seconds, "Back" wait a second, "Front", etc, etc. By the end of the session, you were filthy with dirt, because you'd end up rolling around in it just trying to figure out what exercise you had to be in.} The whole company is on field (all 220 of us) doing "Front, Back, Gos". After about 30 minutes of this, he calls us to a stop and says that we'll finish with our smoking if we can all do 10 push-ups together. Sounds easy enough, but they're six-count push-ups, and the whole company has to do them correctly for them to count. And if enough of the company does them wrong, well, it takes away from the count. {An 6-count push-up by the way is this: Starting position is standing, 1st count - go to the squatting position, 2nd count - thrust your legs out together and straight out and you'll end up in the front leaning rest position, 3rd count - down, 4th count - up, 5th count - tuck your legs underneath your body in one smooth motion, once again legs have to be together, and 6th count - come back up the the standing. That's one, count it, ONE push-up.} After forty minutes of being stuck between 3 and 4, some bickering started out as even more people started pointing fingers at the slack asses who weren't doing the exercises correctly, and a fight broke out, which the DS allowed by throwing them in a middle of ring of people and letting them fight under the combative rules. None-the-less, it made for an interesting Thanksgiving day.

Hmmm, this post has turned into more of one on punishment more than the DFAC. Oh well. Thankfully, the food did get better at AIT, as did our time constraints. Hopefully, I'm not bringing up to many bad memories in Alan.

Just another note....

Ok, dunno how many of you watched the 2006 MTV Movie Awards, but if you didn't, then you missed out on one of the greatest live performances I've ever seen. Trust me on this one. Here's a link to it (I hope). Enjoy.

YouTube Video Link

Recollections of Basic Combat Training, Part 2

I hate exercise. To be perfectly honest, I'm prolly one of the laziest people I know. So to wake up at zero dark thirty and conduct PT (physical training), that's pretty close to hell for me.

When I enlisted, I was around 215 lbs. Add another 10 lbs from Reception, and I was a pretty big boy. I would like to say I was big boned, but, dammit, I was fat. Why didn't any of you tell me I was that bloody big? So needless to say, PT hurt. My first PT test, I only did 11 push-ups and 11 sit-ups in 2 minutes. I didn't even finish the 2 mile run. Yeah, I know, I sucked, and I knew there was a lot of improvement that needed to be done. One of clearest memories of those mornings is this: I'm laying on my back doing flutter kicks, looking up at a full moon in a clear, South Carolina sky, and praying to the moon, to Buddha, to God, to anybody really, to make the freakin' pain stop. I also remember thinking that I deserved everything that I was getting, and that someday, maybe someone out there could forgive me and that I could forgive myself.

Talking to the other recruits, you find that the many reasons people joined up were as varied as the people. Evans joined so that he could pay for school and a wedding, Shady joined up so that he could give back something to this country, Hueng joined so that he could pay for schooling, others joined to take care of family, while others joined because it was an option of last resort. I was one of the older ones, but not the oldest one. One recruit was 41, and there was a bunch of us around the 27-35 year old range. In a platoon of 50-60, you tended to hang out with two or three people. I played the quiet game for the first half of BCT, and then started to warm up to a couple of them, particularly Shady, an 09 Lima (native translator). Marriot (petroleum supply specialist) was also another buddy, especially since our stories before BCT were pretty close. So I didn't really feel that out of place age wise, at least not at BCT. Most assumed I was in the mid 20's, which I'm rather flattered at. Guess it's those good Asian genes.

Just as a point of reference, by the end of AIT, I was at 70 push-ups, 70 sit-ups in 2 minutes, and was doing a 2 mile run in around 17 minutes. Not too shabby for an old guy. Need to work on that run time, but, damn, I really do hate running.

It's really funny how memory work. Something that at that time you didn't think was important turns out to be something that somehow sticks into your memory. Sorry about the rambling nature of these posts, but it's just how I'm remembering things.

Recollections of Basic Combat Training

I have had a request for some recollections of my time spent at Basic Combat Training and Advanced Individual Training. Since I did say in a post a long while back that I would be taking requests, I guess I am obligated to do this then.

An experienced and older recruit said "I've been to prison and I've been to Basic, and prison is much better."

Before one even gets to Basic, one first has to go through Reception. Much to my chagrin, I've come to find out that whenever one goes to any new post in the Army, you still have to go to a Reception Battalion. Well, I spent my first 5 or 6 days on Ft Jackson in the Reception BN, and all I did was march back and forth between the Dining Facility (henceforth to be called the DFAC), sleep, and occasionally listen to Briefs in an auditorium. And the march back and forth was less than a quarter of a mile. So my first week in the Army, I gained about 10 lbs. The most traumatic part of Reception was the lost of the hair, which btw the Army makes you pay for your own haircut. Granted, it's only $4.60, but still, there's a principle somewhere that is being violated or something. There's a cadence that goes "They say that in the Army, the pay is mighty fine (they lied), they give you a hundred dollars, and take back ninety-nine." But back to the hair bit, it was a bit traumatic, going from all that hair to no hair at all. On the plus side, I did lose a couple of lbs when it happened.

Oh, and it was here in Reception that I realized what I had actually signed up to be in the Army. My Military Occupation Speciality (MOS) is 68W, Health Care Specialists. Cool, I'll be in a hospital or something. During a Reception brief, a sergeant asked for all 68 Whiskeys to stand up. He asked one of the females if she knew what she was, and she replied she was a Combat Medic. He then told all the other recruits to look at the people that were standing up and to carry them on their shoulders in combat if they have to, because they're going to be the ones to save your lives. He then told us to drop and give him 25. All this time I could only think of the words "Combat" and "Medic" being put together to describe my new lot in life. Excellent! My life expectancy is getting shorter and shorter as the days go by.

My first day in actual Basic training was rather memorable. They loaded us onto buses, and then took us out to a forested area. We moved (not going to call it a march 'cause at the time we were more of a gaggle) to the start of a "confidence" course. After a run through the course, I by this time have the biggest freakin' blisters ever on both of my freakin' heels. We then are marched to our barracks (about a mile or so). I thought that was the worst pain I've ever experienced in my life, but the pain was just beginning.

Just a quick glimpse into what I went through half a year ago. Still another 9 weeks of Basic and 17 weeks of AIT to recollect, so please stand by. If asked if I knew then what I know now, would I still go do Basic, I'd have to say "Yes." Without the lows in your life, how will you ever know about the highs?

A Beauty Tip I Picked Up During AIT

Ok guys, two posts in one day. I know it may be a bit much for some of you out there, so just calm down and keep your breaths at a good rate. Trust me, I'm a Combat Medic.

This is for all the guys out there, and maybe for a few girls that haven't come around to this yet. This right here (to the left) is a body sponge. By all the gods, saints, force, whatever, etc, you've got to use this. Get some body wash and rub all over during a shower, and you'll feel like a new man. Your skin will be all a-glow because it excises all the dead skin and dirt away. You'll sweat like a stuck pig over a roasting fire whenever you do anything close to exercise (this side effect will only last a couple of weeks until your body gets use to having all it's pores back), but your pores will thank you for it. Trust me on this one, it really works.

I forgot something...

The boobies here in San Antonio are quite healthy.... perky even...

especially if you like the Latino variety...

Coyote

Still Alive

Hah, I'm here posting of my own volition.... so freak you Mr Dunn...

Just wanted to let ya'll know that I'm still alive out here in the World, and one day maybe I'll come back....