Classic Moments in Soldiering: Being That Paratrooper

A certain cockiness is an integral part of the Airborne ethos. It was on full display in the following interaction between a colleague of mine and the Air Force crew chief on our flight to Iraq:

Crew Chief: So, have you guys had the aircraft briefing? You've all flown on a C-17 before?

Paratrooper: Yeah, we've all flown C-17's. Never landed in one, though.

Going On Leave!

After a marathon few weeks, and a brutal sprint to the finish these last few days, I'm finally going on leave for two weeks and change. Blogging will probably be light, but with luck I'll get to see many of my readers in person. I'll be touring the Upper Midwest as usual, with the main stay at home in Wisconsin and forays to the Twin Cities and across the great grey-green greasy Limpopo to see the Elephant's Child and family in the flatlands of Illinois, whence we intend to make a pilgrimage to the Fort. Those of you who are up with me on Facebook, I'll have a more detailed itinerary up there. Otherwise, if you're in the area and would like to grab lunch or something, drop me a note and we'll see what we can pull off.

Classic Moments in Soldiering: TA-50 Bomb

TA-50 is the catchall term for Army-issued gear. It has a habit of 'sploding all over one's living quarters if not stored carefully:


Since I came back from Georgia, my room's slowly been getting disorganized as I sort and pack things for the Iraq. Then today I needed some gear for the rifle range, and had to dig through all my packed crates to find it in a hurry. And now my room's a disaster that I don't even want to look at or think about. Just thought I'd share.

Classic Moments In Soldiering: The Guy Who Just Left Did It

There's a weird phenomenon in the Army, which apparently also happens in civilian life as well: people who are about to leave the unit suddenly get incredibly proactive in their last few weeks. They reorganize storage units, delete important documents, and generally just make a slew of unilateral decisions right before they leave the unit forever. At least, that how it plays out for the month or two after they're gone:

Classic Moments In Soldiering: Sketchy Booze

When the 'arf-made recruity goes out to the East
'E acts like a babe an' 'e drinks like a beast,
An' 'e wonders because 'e is frequent deceased
Ere 'e's fit for to serve as a soldier.
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!

--Rudyard Kipling, "The Young British Soldier"

Things haven't changed much since Kipling's day, and we soldiers still love our drink. In the last few months, a collective fashion for Carolina wines has hit our barracks. A buddy of mine (who we know by his nickname "Ice") recently picked up a suspiciously cheap bottle of North Carolina "Pomegranate" wine.

Me: So whatchya drinkin' on tonight?
Ice: Some of this here "Pomegranate"?
Me: Wait, how does that work? Is it actually made from pomegranates?
Ice: Hmmm... label says "real grape wine with added flavors".
Me: Wow, that sounds pretty sketchy.
Ice: Yeah.... Not sketchy enough for me not to drink it.

Classic Moments in Soldiering: Livin' It Up on TDY

I'm traveling around the western reaches of North Carolina this week, on a recruiting TDY (temporary duty). We're basically just going to high schools and talking about what we've done in the Army. I guess the Department of the Army is starting to realize that it might help recruitment to let potential recruits interact with some regularly-assigned soldiers. Personally, I think the permanent recruiters should all be contract civilians, and just have soldiers from line units rotate through on short TDYs, but that's a thought for another post. Whatever the purpose, TDY is generally a time to relax and enjoy a sort of half-vacation: you're still working, but you're away from the familiar frustrations of your own unit, staying in a hotel and eating out on the Army's dime. The timing of this trip is especially sweet because back at Fort Bragg our buddies are busy with "Clean Sweep", the biannual week-long post-wide "area beautification" effort. A buddy describes the experience:

Step one: remove dead pine needles from base of tree. Step two: replace with slightly less dead pine needles. Step three: repeat. I would go TDY to the moon, butt-@$$ naked from a slingshot, if it got me out of this.

Classic Moments In Soldiering: Your Buddy's Promotion

A friend in Iraq shares the awkwardness of promotion among peers:

"R just got promoted to sergeant. That's awesome, but kinda weird. Now I have to make sure none of the other NCOs are watching before I hit him."

Classic Moments in Soldiering: Hey, Try This!

This exchange came as we scarfed down the goodies out of a care package that had been handed to us as we sat around the chaplain's tent today. We found a bag of peanut butter M&Ms that was already torn open, spilling some into the box, which I snatched and tossed into my mouth.

Me (chewing): Uh, this bag wasn't sealed and these kinda taste like diesel exhaust.
Sgt D (eating): Yeah, definitely diesel exhaust.
Me: So, uh, you gonna stop eating them?
Sgt D (still eating): Hmmmmm, thinkin' about it.

So we stopped eating, but we definitely didn't throw them away, because we had to offer them to anyone who came into the tent. And it wasn't like we were tricking anyone:

Us: Hey, try one of these. They taste like diesel.
Them: Awesome. (tries one). Gross.
Us: Yeah, ain't it?

It's the little things.

Classic Moments in Soldiering: Demolition Detail

There are few things soldiers do better or enjoy more than breaking things. So yesterday, when six of us were selected for an unspecified detail at an obscure warehouse on the far side of the post, we were pleased to find that our task for the day was the destruction and disposal of several dozen pieces of 'unserviceable' barracks furniture. Well, technically our job was just to throw them away, but they had to be broken down in order to fit them all in the Dumpster. Several hours of delighted smashing ensued. Good times were had by all. And somewhat miraculously, nobody was hurt, probably because we went through a good half-dozen destruction methods as each was vetoed by the detail sergeant for safety concerns. So in the future, if you ever need some major demolition done for a renovation or whatnot, remember that any soldiers you might know would probably be happy to do the job for free, or at most for pizza and beer.

Photos and video forthcoming.

Classic Moments in Soldiering: Specialist in Charge

Our detail on Thursday, the last day before the Presidents' Day four-day weekend, consisted of moving equipment from one maintenance bay in the motor pool to another, then reversing the process. Basically, the unit is moving to the identical bay next door, and moving everything from that shop into their old one. In the process, we separated out all the recyclable scrap we could find, and "acquired" anything useful for the new shop. There were also a a few classic moments in soldiering. See, the sergeant in charge was in and out all day, which led to the very dangerous situation of Specialists making judgment calls. This inevitably led to the sight of a dozen soldiers standing around a pallet crate, spending inordinate amounts of time in debate over the best way to lift it without letting the bottom open and spill unidentified parts all over the place. Because, of course, nobody knew where the keys for the forklift were to be found and a simple pallet jack would have just made everything far too easy. In the end, though, things got moved, floors got slept, relatively little was broken or stolen, and so we actually got thanked for our efforts by a famously ill-tempered Sergeant First Class.

I think this picture is probably the best summary of the day:

A dozen or so junior soldiers + no supervision + industrial cling-wrap = PRICELESS.

Classic Moments in Soldiering: The Barracks Are Never Clean

For the last two weeks here in the Rear Detachment (i.e. the skeleton crew holding down the fort for the units that are deployed), one of our main tasks as we wait to deploy ourselves has been cleaning the barracks rooms for the soldiers who will shortly be returning from Iraq. Granted, there's some satisfaction in that, because those guys certainly deserve to come home to a clean barracks room. But there's a little rule of Army life that comes into play. A barracks is never clean. Ever. There's definitely no such thing as "clean enough". So we've been taking scouring pads to each and every tile in these rooms, polishing them to an unnatural pearly white that's probably several shades lighter than the manufacturer's intended color. On top of that, we're also completely scouring off whatever nonporous finish once protected these tiles, leaving them clean and white, but positively begging to absorb the first dirt that comes along, ensuring that they will in short order be far dirtier than if we had never undertaken this job in the first place. Leave it to the Army, as usual, to make things about six times more difficult than necessary.

Like I said, this is still a noble, if unglamorous undertaking, to clean rooms for returning soldiers. But these are soldiers. How clean do they really want their rooms? Sure, give them a spotless bathroom and a clean refrigerator, but I would bet good money not a single one of them is going to note the glowing whiteness of their tile. I am, on the whole, far cleaner by instinct than my average colleague, and I can assure you the tile floor would be my last concern.

If I had more time, equipment, and ambition, I'd love to make a parody recruitment ad. "There's clean... and then there's ARMY CLEAN."

Here's a few YouTube videos along similar themes:



There's sleepy. And then there's Army Sleepy.



Here's one about cleaning, along the lines of the old "Army Of One" ads I joined under.