The weekend, and Sara

So I'm back. This trip has been the longest 3 days since I've been in this country. This mission would normally take 4-5 days, but the unit we ran with is going home in a matter of days, and they just wanna get the mission done with. Thus, it meant staying on the road for 10+ hrs, pain in the ass when you're the gunner having the damn wind and cold bitch slapping you the whole time. lol. Thank god for Frappucino's and Caffeine Pills, that's all I gotta say. I got in a bigass argument with my PLT SGT. Of course, whether you're right or wrong, if you're the private. then you're automatically wrong. JUST LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE FOR 5 FUCKING MINUTES. STOP MICROMANAGING MY SHIT!!! ok...wuuuusssaaahhh...calm...

So it was totally awesome and surprising, We stopped back at Scannia on the way down to fuel, and so our gun truck was at the same spot outside the wire, waiting for the rest of the convoy to line up as usual, when "Sgt K" says to me. "hey, I think I see Sara." Bullshit. "No, Really" Hey, It is her.

She comes up, I'm still on the turret and she reaches up towards me, I reach to her and we kinda shake hands. I'm like "No school?" She replies "It's Friday" (lucky bastards...no school on friday lol) I see in her hand she's holding cheap iraqi cloth that she's selling. But she doesn't try to sell it to me. We're pretty much officially acquaintances now; I'd like to think anyways. I see that she's not wearing any shoes? "Where's your shoes??" she jsut shrugs her shoulders, smiling. I shake my head. (I'm going to buy me a pair of shoes and give it to her; keep it in the back seat of the humvee till I see her again) So we B.S. for a little bit, and I jump down in the hatch and grab a bunch of free munchies that I grabbed at Joe's Cafe, I put it in an AAFES bag tie it up, motion to her "Shhh" motion for her to come to the other side of the humvee, away from the rest of the kids, and I give her the back of snacks. At that point I've decided that I'd like to unofficially adopt her. lol. I'm startin to treat her like a lil sister. There's just something about her, you can tell. I've seen hundreds of Iraqi kids, from 3 years old to mid-teens, begging for food, no shame. "STA..STA" (money..money) Little kids selling porn, knives, cheap cigarettes. But there's just something about this little girl that you can just tell is different. She's NEVER begged me for food, I've never seen her beg the other soldiers. Yes, she does have stuff to sell, but I didn't see her actively trying to sell it to anyone, she kinda just lingers, small talks to the arabic civilian contractors. I'm thinking maybe that's what they're told to do. Here's the stuff...go sell it. You just have to be there. These people are no different from us. They're human beings, just like us. Most the kids are gonna grow up and do the same thing their parents do, farmer's,truck drivers, who know's. I'm just blabbing now. But ya. Now everytime I go to Scannia I'll be looking for Sara.

Political Satire

Read and laugh, or scoff. Dependin on which way you swing

http://www.juancole.com/2005/01/speech-bush-should-have-given-this-is.html

on the road again

Back on the road, where I belong. The last four days at Navistar were sooo dman boring, but relaxing. watched movies, worked out, internet, and best of all: sleep. I had the chance to go to Arifjan for Jessica Housby's memorial service, but I opted to go on a mission instead. I didn't know her personally and I've already said countless of prayers for her and her family. I'm not good at things like that. No sense for me to go just to get depressed, plus It's better for me to go on the road, it's what I'm good at. So I'm at Scannia right now, had to drive through the damn local town to get in today, a diverted path. There was a VBIED that was getting blown by EOD and It was blocking our way into the base and the CC didn't wanna wait anymore. So we take a detour and end up driving though the downtown of a town of which the name I dunno yet. I'm like SHIT! I didn't even know there was a town this big, this close to the base. So we're driving, and end up driving right past a religious march of some sort that looked like it was for Imam Hussein. Not a good thing; Americans disrupting their religious march...um..ya...it wasn't a friendly situation. Roof tops were freaking the hell outta me, perfect ambush area. Thank God, nothing happened. But ya, we got to scannia after the lil pulse raising mini-adventure.

fallen soldier

Found out the other day that a soldier was killed on a convoy by an IED. It was a female SGT part of another company in our battalion, we escort them regularly. She was killed on a newly establish route by Bagdhad that was "supposed" to be safer. So much for that. They have a memorial service for her on the 15th. It's a sad deal. Over here we see it as the lottery you DON'T wanna win. 23-year-old SGT. Jessica Housby.

Craigslist? Anyone?

So ya. I would like to take a moment out of my day to give you something to do in case your out of cool blogs to read. It's called "Craigslist" or www.Craigslist.org it's a site originally started by a guy living in the San Fransisco area. It's original purpose was for local residents to kinda network, meet people, trade things, sell cars, share possible meeting group time for different events and such. It has spawned over the last few years to a site with cities from all over the world. It's awesome. My specific rave would be a particular section called "Best of Craigslist" I don't know how to explain it, but it's insanely, uniquely, amazingly comical. It's a good break from a long day's of BS here in the future 51st state of America; http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/. Here are some examples that I think you would enjoy. These are my particular favorites:
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/phi/56305427.html
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/tor/56252649.html
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/lax/56062020.html
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/wdc/47101584.html

there's so much more..but these are sweet. If you like these, you'll love this site.

Lil Christian Iraqi Girl

So after Resting over night at Scannia, we left at around 2'ish. The convoy commander decided to fill up the Trucks so we just waited outside the wire for the convoy to get back in line. Now as usual, there are ALWAYS little Haji kids buggings the Civilian contractors as well as us soldiers for food, and whatever we decide to give em and also try and sell us stuff from Haji Cigarettes to Old Saddam money. Now depending on the Convoy commander, some might not mind the kids, but most convoy commanders want the kids kept the hell away from the convoy because there have been many instances where kids begin to steal shit of the trailers and such. At the pre-convoy brief, it was put out to best keep the kids away, just to make sure they wouldn't be a pain in the ass. So slowly the trucks begin to line up after toppin off and going through the serpentine. It was a LOONNG wait because we had to fight for the fuel pump with the damn High and Mighty "think we're tough shit" NEW 3rdID guys. (much love to y'all...but stop bein such dicks!!) My truck was the middle gun truck. We're the ones that's driving around our convoy in circles keepin the kids out. At first there were about 5 kids..not a big deal..but then we stopped circlin...and in a span of no more than 3 minutes there were about a dozen of em...Me n "SPC C" were like..what the fuck?!?!! where the hell did they come from? I swear to you man...Children of the fucking corn!!! So we'd chase em down while I yelled retarded things at the kids in my turret while waving my plastic BB Airsoft gun at them. I don't really shoot the kids, but they know that I would if I had to. The kids know that obviously we wont shoot em with out guns so they tend to test us..but bust out the Airsoft..hehe...it works. I saw in the corner of my eye more kids coming up in the distance. They had backpacks and books and stuff so the obvious guess is that they're comin home from school. These kids mostly just bug you for candy. There was one girl I noticed standin in the background watchin the rest of the kids..she said "Wats up man? in really bad funny sounding iraqi-english...I said the same. I said what's up again. kinda noddin my head at her kinda in a body language way of "what you looking at" in a joking manner...then came the finger. The damn girl just flipped me the bird..lol...I was like WHAA!?!? Well Fuck you too..so I gave her the bird..albeit..not the proper thing to do to a 10 yr old...but still...and then she just like whipped her head around and walked off like she punked me lol it as funny. So we found out that we weren't gonna be rolling for another half and hour or so, and our attempts on keeping them away from our convoy was turning into a pathetic attempt of Tag. We'd chase after em and they just run to the other side of the convoy...it wasn't like a serious thing for us..we were laughing and joking while chasing the lil bastards. So we just gave up finally and stopped the vehicle close to the larger crowd of kids; where the girl with the golden finger and her lil mob were at. But I wasn't gonna gop down without a fight..ooohh no..when we stopped I jumped out of the turret SCREAMING psychotically.."I'M GONNA GET YOU, YOU LITTLE SHIT..COME HERE..AAAGGHHH" Most kids ran away, but the girl stayed her ground. She got spunk. I was like..hmm..not bad...I told her to come over to me by the truck, I then gave her the rest of my Road trip snacks and munchies..kinda like the holy grail that the kids would want. She smiled at me and said thanks. So we went and kinda hung out with the crowd of kids, bullshitted till we had to leave. The girl asked "What Your Name?" I told her mine. I asked her's. Her name was Sara. Which is pretty cool cuz that's actually one of two names I picked for my daughters; that is, if I do have girls. Sara and Mikayla. Sara means princess in hebrew. But ya. It was cool. I took a picture with her. Then we were off. We waved bye and rolled out. I wouldn't pass that memory up for a million dollars.

from the pimp himself

"Those who trade essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."- Benjamin Franklin

goin craaazzeeee

Yesterday I made friends with a fly.
Yes, I know. I got back from our amazingly boring mision around noon. I opted to clean the 50. Cal, so I went behind the connex where I was alone, set my 50 up and started cleanin. I'm exhausted mind you...just wanna get this shit done and get the hell up outta there. So here comes a single fly buzzing around me..landing on me. Adn for the record. I HATE FLIES. I've mastered a way to kill those satanic bastards. But today, I just didn't have the energy. So I pretty much said out loud to the fly. "not today, I'm exhausted" lol. At that moment the fly stops messing with me and just lands right next to my gatorade and just stays there for a good 15 seconds.

"What? You want some gatorade?"

So I twist off the cap and pour some near the fly, normally these paranoid schizophrenic bastards would zip off anytime we come near em..but this one actually came close to me hand as I pour a lil bit on the table. So I go back cleanin my 50. cal and the fly's just chillin..sippin on some gator.

So I decided to ask the fly...

"Why you guys always gotta be all up in our food and shit??"

his response

"How else am I supposed to eat? It's not like I can ask for permission"

"hmmm..point taken, what If I leave a lil something on the side of the table..THEN..will you stop landing on my plate?"

he replies... "It's a start"

so ya..there's more after that..but still...

got a mission north tomorrow..gotta get some shut eye...

When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.
-- Hermann Hesse