The Beginning

My journal from the first few days of deployment. Beware, it is unedited.



Monday, November 7th- I spent the last night in the United States sleeping on the floor of my empty apartment. The day before I hung out by a small lake on the outskirts of Fort Bragg with a buddy and his wife. I'm not sure if it was the right way to spend the day, as I had a load of things I still needed to do and I was seriously rushed this morning. Oh well.

Tuesday, November 8th- Our civilian airliner left Pope Air Force Base at roughly 0440. It was a fairly comfortable aircraft, save for the rear echelon motherfuckers (REMFs) that hogged all the business class seats on OUR aircraft. I will not allow a bunch of fucking non-combat privates to take seats that belong to hard-working troops that have seen the elephant ever again. We stopped for a a few hours in Germany, drank some coffee and tea, then left for Kuwait.

November 10th- "Fuck you." I'm not sure what ellicited that somewhat sarcastic response from my mouth, but I remember I said it very eloquently as I took another puff of my cigar. LT K chuckled quietly, then took another puff of his own cigar. Tonight we actually had some free time to hang out and pretend not to be in charge of this whole complicated operation for 20 minutes. I decide that when I go on Rest and Relaxation Leave I will go somewhere that encourages drinking. I'm not sure what spurred this thought, but it seems like a good idea at the moment.

November 11th- "Go find me some [M]203 targets. I want some cool-ass shit!" -The CO
Myself and another Lieutenant drove around the Camp today searching for objects that would make good grenade launcher and machine gun targets. Items found (and pilfered) included sinks, toilets, doors, traffic cones, and one large water heater. It's not a good idea to tell two vindictive LTs to go find things to shoot with heavy weapons and leave it at that. Because we *will* find stuff, regardless of the situation. We had enough M249 (light machine gun) rounds to nearly saw the water heater in half. It was a pretty good day. In Kuwait we use Mitsubishi Monteros (called a 'Pajero' here) instead of Humvees. That's fine with me, as now we have stereos in the vehicles and Kuwaiti radio really isn't all that bad. Cheers.