I've been piecing together my great-uncle's life from family accounts and partially declassified Czech SNB intelligence records..

Four lines in the archive. Vietnam, Cuba, and China — deliberately missing.

He was the primary cipher operator between Castro and the Kremlin. Sole survivor of a 29-day siege at an Eastern Bloc diplomatic compound during the Vietnam War. Later stationed in Mexico, Dhaka, Berlin, and Beijing as an E3 counterintelligence operative against the CIA, MI6, and BND.

He died in 1997.

I knew him personally. The calmest man I ever met.

This is what I pieced together.

If anyone is interested I can share more details.

... it doesn't matter what happens in Vegas.

[sorry this is so long]

Pro Tip: This is not a good approach to take into a bachelor party weekend in Las Vegas. Also, beware of lawyers from Miami named Brian. They give terrible counsel.

TL:DR:

Soldier ignores leave rules, goes to a Vegas bachelor party, wins $3K, then loses most of it after getting drunk/possibly drugged and making bad decisions (including trusting a loudmouth lawyer). Barely makes it back to formation, gets hit with a random drug test, and spends weeks stressed while paperwork delays nearly get him stop‑lossed. Ultimately gets out just days before being stuck for another ~2 years—dodging both the UA consequences and extended service by sheer luck.

I am remembering this the best I can. I may not have all the technical details correct, esp with respect to recall and stop-loss. please read this in the spirit of "wow, i was crazy when i was young" that it is intended.

Context:

No shit, there I was, late-May (non-Memorial Day weekend), 2009 at Fort Stewart, GA as a pretty disgruntled E-5 ready to ETS. My unit was bumped out of the deployment cycle to be placed on stand-by national response duty. Only 10% of the unit could be away on pass at a time and we were on some recall within some number of hours. We were also approaching a stop-loss for the expected deployment in late-2009, early 2010.

We redeployed in April, 2008 after 14.5 months in Iraq. Expected to be sent again in a year. I hated the Army generally and my Battalion, a BSB (support for a combat brigade), leadership specifically. Did not want to go back under their leadership. ETS was late August 2009, so expected to be stop-loss'd for a deployment sometime in 2009. took 8 days of leave when i got back and no additional leave so i could get out in late-June once we learned of homeland security mission.

The Story:

My buddy from high school Dave invited me to his wedding in Miami in early June. Then his brother contacted me about the bachelor party in Vegas the weekend before.

Fuck yes, I said entheusiastically.

As long as I make it back to first formation on Monday morning, doesn't matter what else happens, I told myself.

Only army buddy I told was by fellow grumpy E-5 Ryan. I was at his house and his wife looks at him.

"Give OP the suit," she said, giving him what is known as a 'death stare'.

"But it's from Korea," Ryan whined.

"You don't fit in it and you aren't single. Pass it's magic along," she replied.

He agreed and dug out the Magic Suit. Shiny white material, either curtains destined to a shitty holiday inn banquet room or left over from building the space ship. Peking collar (buttons all the way up, no lapels).  Fuck it was cool.

Day of, drive 2 hours to Jacksonville and fly to Vegas. Arrive and start experiencing a euphoric high at the airport due to all the stimuli and the slot machines. Change into the Magic Suit in the bathroom then take the courtesy bus to the Planet Hollywood Casino. Feeling 11/10, looking 12/10, just know good shit is about to happen.

I am the first of the party there, so entertain myself with some slots. Fuck, I am getting that feeling just thinking about them. Loss $60  quickly, then get the big alarm. Jackpot! I win $3000. Everyone is excited and these older Asian women start petting my Magic Suit jacket for luck. The attendant comes over, starts giving me cash, and a 1099-J, for taxes on the Jackpot. I ask for a cashiers check, but apparently that is not how they roll, so I take the cash.

Mistake 1

Immediately start texting everyone I know to let them know, outside my unit, and tell them about my win. Mistake 2.

"Congrats, make sure you come home with some. LOL" was the reply I received from most people.

The rest of the party shows up and I start hitting them with the stack of $100s. Shots are in order.

Go up to the room and I start to put $2000 in my suitcase and take $1000 with me.

"OP, ARE YOU CRAZY?" Dave's cousin, a 30-something attorney from Miami, "YOU ARE DOING JUST WANT THEY WANT YOU TO DO! IT WILL GET STOLEN. I'VE SEEN IT ALL THE TIME. Much safer to just bring it with you."

Since Brian obviously knew what he was talking about, I tucked the fat roll in the pocket of the Magic Suit and we headed out.

Monster Truck Limo to the steakhouse. Nothing too exciting.
Then to a club called Body English.

"OP is going to buy some bottle service," Brian volunteered.
$600 later, we are upstairs, chilling like Macks watching the scene on the floor below.

"OP, go get some ladies to party with us," Brian said.
Since I was full of vodka red bull and magic, I knew I was the guy for the job.

Down on the floor, talk to the first girl in a "bridesmaid" sash I see. Invite her and the other girls up to hang out. They do. We laugh, we drink. I just know my girl is into me and I am going to get lucky.
"TO THE STRIP CLUB", Brian announces. Not sure why we are listening to him as he is quite annoying.

"Wait, these girls are probably going to take their clothes off for free!" I said.
"BRING THEM WITH US!" was Brians reply.

I talk to the girls and the group is down to continue the party.

"But (insert random white girl name here) is in the bathroom. We will be like 5 minutes,"  'my' girl explained logically.

"FUCK THAT. WE ARE LEAVING. LETS GO OP" says Brian, and I apologetically shrug at the girls as we walk out.

Mistake 3.

Our Monster Truck Limo arrives at Crazy Horse Too and we grab a table.

"OP, GET THE BOTTLES" you know who demands.

Fuck Brian, but I am also drunk and feeling untouchable.

Hanging out, drinking, grabbing ass.
"OP, YOU STILL HAVE A SHIT TON OF MONEY, HOW ABOUT YOU TAKE DAVE IN THE BACK WITH THESE GIRLS. HE DESERVES IT"

Double fuck Brian.
Mistake 4.

Me and Dave and two eastern European girls are in the back for a bit, they offer us shots. I imbibed. Some amount of time later, we stumble back out to the group.

"Bitches robbed me", I mumbled to myself.

And I am starting to feel pretty fucked up, more than is appropriate for the large amount of vodka I drank.

We eventually go back to the casino and head to the gaming floor where I black out and wake up the next morning in our room.
I have $800 worth of ATM receipts in the pocket of the Magic Suit from between 4 and 5AM.

"What the fuck happened?" I asked.

"OH, YOU WERE EPIC," Brian replied, "YOU WERE SHOVING MONEY INTO A HIGH ROLLER SLOT MACHINE MUMBLING ABOUT WINNING YOUR JACKPOT BACK. IT WAS SO FUNNY"

Triple Fuck Brian.

I felt like shit in a lot of ways, the magic was gone. Texts were coming in asking me about what I was going to do with my winnings. I ignore these.

Brian demonstrated that he was such a good guy by paying for my breakfast.

Eventually to the airport, flight delayed 3 hours. Arrive at Jacksonville at 2AM feeling like I am going to die and still a bit fucked up. Decide I need to book it to get back and shower before first formation.

2 miles from my house at 4AM, I see the flashing lights in the rear view.
"I clocked you at 68 in a 50 then 71, then 74. You been drinking son?" Smokey asked me.

"Not today," I replied, "flight was delayed and I needed to make up time"

Fortunately, no field sobriety and he just gives me a ticket. A $250 ticket.

Get home, sleep on my camping mattress for 20 min, then shower and shave. My face looks like hamburger and I feel like I am going to die, but I check in with my platoon sgt and get in formation. I work at a health clinic on base and leave to go there instead of PT with my unit.

But decide to check in with Ryan at the Troop Medical Clinic where he works first.
"How was it?" he asked, "looks like the magic got fucked out of you"

I relate the story, he laughs.
"Sounds about par for the course with that suit", he replies, "on the plus side, your face looks so bad I'll bet you can get a shaving profile right now"

I go to the PA, who is cool, get the profile, and she mention I look like shit. Tell parts of the story, she warns me that I may have been roofied. I chuckle.

"SGT OP, we have a random UA at the Company today," my fellow UA program administrator tells me, "get down here."
"Can you cover by yourself? I've got a lot going on right now," I told her.

"I am. You have to provide a sample"

Fuck

Ryan tells me that I should be good even if I test positive because I should be on Terminal leave before the sample results come back.

It was a stressful few weeks. Mainly because everyone at Battalion seems to be slow-walking my paperwork. So I just sit at home and play that WW2 Call of Duty game and sweat. Apparently my award isn't done. Then its my NCOER. Then my leave paperwork needs to be updated with the new date. Then the unit goes to the field for a week so no one can sign it. They get back and I need to create new leave paperwork. And the Battalion Commander goes on leave before signing it. I am freaking out because talk of the stop-loss is everywhere.

The XO signs and I am able to outprocess around July 10, almost 3 weeks later than planned. But the UA results are not back or I came up negative.

I swing by my company to say goodbye.
"SGT OP, are you really on leave?" My CO asks.
I tell her I am.

"Lucky you," she replied, "because I have an email with a list of names, including yours, to be prepared to stoploss if you are still here on July 14. Maybe next time don't file a Congressional against the S1, they can really slow things down."

Six months prior I was ordered to move out of the Barracks and secure housing due to space issues. Weirdly, never got the BAH or BAS. I kept checking every week, no explanation. Finally, call the Congressman to do an official investigation.He happened to work in a building owned by my uncle, who was also a supporter, and his staff go right on it.

Mistake 5?

Turns out that my paperwork sat in S1 for some number of weeks before just getting lost. I think someone got a write-up.

I don't remember how I felt, but shit, that was close. I was the only one of a particularly MOS in our Brigade, so no way was I going to get an exception. My unit ended up deploying in Jan 2010, got back in Jan 2011, so I would have done nearly 2 years extra including those 90 days post deployment. If I had tested positive on a UA, would have lost rank and not been allowed to do my job. That would have sucked, to say the least.

Don't fuck with S1. They can ruin your life.

I disappear for a few months, going to an island without cell service and then to europe. Made sure to be legit unreachable until my ETS date.

Tax season 2010. Owe another $1400 on the Jackpot that was in my pocket for less than 8 hours.

Total cost of 36 hours in Vegas including winnings I lost, $5500.

Value of story, probably less than that.

This is another part of my experiences during an international air force exercise at a Spanish air base. The first part was “The Great Car Registration War” and can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/MilitaryStories/comments/1thf2w3

For this story I need to provide a bit of background about some standard fighter jet operating procedures that become important later on. As mentioned in the previous post, this was an international exercise hosted on a Spanish air base. Several nations deployed their fighter aircraft there in order to train together in various combat scenarios. Our own contingent consisted of roughly 20 fighter jets and 200 personnel.

Since an exercise of this scale requires considerable logistical planning, there is something called a “site survey.” About six months before the exercise, a small delegation of ours traveled to the Spanish base for several days to inspect the facilities and coordinate procedures. Topics included things like: “Where will our aircraft be parked?”, “Which rooms can we use for our equipment?”, “What are the emergency procedures?”, and among many other things, “How does refueling and defueling of the jets work?”

Everyone understands that aircraft need to be refueled. This is usually done immediately after landing because the danger comes primarily from fuel vapors, not the liquid fuel itself. A fully fueled aircraft is therefore actually much safer than one with nearly empty tanks full of combustible vapors. However, it sometimes happens that faults are discovered only after refueling, faults that may require removing fuel lines or other components during repairs. For that reason, there is a procedure called “defueling,” where the fuel is pumped back from the aircraft into a tanker truck. During the site survey this was approved without issue: we were simply told to notify them, and a specialized fuel truck would come and recover the fuel.

Fast forward to a day during the exercise. We had already been flying successful missions alongside the other nations for several days. The aircraft landed and were refueled as usual. Afterwards, while downloading the flight data, one aircraft reported an electrical fault in one of its external fuel tanks mounted beneath the wings to extend range and endurance. After some troubleshooting it became clear that the external tank had to be replaced and repaired in the workshop. Under normal circumstances this is not a major job: the tank is defueled through the aircraft, removed, a replacement tank installed, and then the jet is refueled again. Usually a 20-to-30-minute task. Or so we thought.

When we requested the defueling truck as previously agreed during the site survey, we were suddenly told things were no longer that simple. First, a specialist would have to take a fuel sample from the aircraft. The sample would then be sent to a laboratory, and once the results arrived several days later, we could finally receive the tanker truck for defueling. For us this was completely unacceptable and entirely contrary to the agreements made beforehand. Losing the aircraft for several days would have been a significant setback since several pilots would be unable to participate in the exercise. When we complained, every reasonable compromise was rejected, and the discussion ended with the rather snarky remark: “Then just burn the fuel if it’s that important.”

We didn’t need to be told twice.

Next morning, 5:30 a.m. The official exercise schedule for the day would not begin until 10:00 (long live Spanish snugness), and there was barely any activity on the base. A light haze hung over the airfield, and almost no sound disturbed the silence of the Spanish plateau.Yet four people were already awake, casually walking along the line of parked jets on the apron. Morning dew covered the aircraft with a dull shimmer while dawn slowly prepared to give way to sunrise. It was a peaceful moment right until two jet engines suddenly roared to life.

We applied as much thrust as the brakes could physically hold. The asphalt behind the aircraft dried almost instantly, and beyond it lay a strip of dry earth. Sand, dust, dead vegetation, and small stones were blasted into the air, forming a massive cloud of debris that drifted roughly a hundred meters straight into an open Spanish Air Force shelter. It took us about twenty-five minutes to burn through 1,700 kilograms of jet fuel. Shortly afterwards the external tank was replaced, and by around 7:00 a.m. we were able to report the aircraft fully mission capable again so the pilots could plan their sorties for the day.

That same morning our commanding officer was spontaneously invited to meet the Spanish base commander to explain exactly who had woken him up so early and why. Meanwhile, Spanish personnel spent a full two hours sweeping all the dirt and debris back out of the shelter. After we explained the situation, we were informed that from that point onward we would be allowed to use the defueling truck without prior fuel sampling. Unfortunately, we never needed the procedure again before the exercise ended. However, the liaison officer who had suggested we “just burn the fuel” was later observed attending a rather lengthy meeting with the base commander himself. And had there not been aircraft launching in the meantime, you probably could have heard the commander yelling all the way to the runway.

Late 1990s and I was fortunate enough to be assigned to a unit with quite a few other Signaleers. I liked to read and game on my PC, and it wasn't long before I made friends with some of the other troops with shared interests. Before long, Saturdays (especially payday weekend Saturdays) followed a pretty similar routine. Here's a typical one:

Roll out of bed about 1000 or so, dress and make myself vaguely presentable. Wander down the hall to friend's room and BANGBANGBANG on the door. "What?!" "Going out to the mall, want to come with?" "Yeah sure give me a minute. You driving?" "Fuck yes I'm driving, it's my car!" "Ok ok let's go."

Friend shares the same interests and so we hit up one or both of a) Barnes & Noble or b) Electronics Boutique, and proceed to blow most of our spendable money on either books, or computer games (plus lunch ofc). Later on books would be read, traded, re-read, and so forth. Computer games would be played, critiqued, traded, totally NOT copied onto burnable CDs with the serial codes carefully Sharpie’d onto them, some of which I still do NOT have in the CD binder that is sitting behind me as I type...

On non-mall weekends, Friend and another of his friends would haul their computers into one of the barracks rooms, set up a little LAN, and do some head-to-head gaming. Mind you, this is back in the day of tower computers, 40-lb CRT monitors, and 10Mb/s network cards, so it could be a bit of a hassle. Their tastes did not 100% align with mine, so I’d often show up and kibitz for a while until one of them got annoyed and kicked me out. A typical conversation:

Me: Hey whatcha doin? 
Friend: Playing Civ. He (Other Friend) is trying to sneak a diplomat into my city. Not happening.
Me to OF: Dude, he just said you’re not going to be able to do that. 
OF: Touch the diplomat and you’ll regret it.
Me to F: I know you’re not going to take that from him.
 (diplomat dies, nukes fly, etc.)
Me to F: Dude, you just got nuked, told you not to fuck with his diplomat.
F: OUT. NOW.

Of course I’d be back half an hour later. The times I did end up dragging my setup down the hall started around dinnertime, usually ordered a pizza or something, and went on until the wee hours of the morning. Those were fun times.

EDIT: Whoops, sorry, misread the autopost and didn't realize I shouldn't post another story so soon. Feel free to delete if necessary.

Fort Riley, 1999-ish. I am a young PFC (maybe a Specialist, it's been a minute) and it's Saturday night (red flag #1 🚩) on a payday weekend (red flag #2 🚩🚩 ). Normally I'd be in the barracks playing computer games or reading a good book, buuuut for some reason I decide I'm going drinking tonight (aaaaand there's red flag #3 🚩🚩🚩).

You might be thinking you know where this is going, but keep on reading. Four of us pile into Big J's old Chevy truck with a bench seat and drive down into Junction City, right outside Riley's main gate. The bar we find is noisy (what was I expecting?) and crowded, but hey, suppose I needed to get out, so why not!

<A few hours later.jpg>

I am so DONE for the night. Stopped drinking a little while earlier and would now like to go back and go to bed. The rest of the group is still on the dance floor having fun, so I stake out a table to myself in the back and try not to fall asleep on the spot. Eventually the group is ready to go and we pile back into the truck for the drive back. It's essentially a straight shot until we hit the curve going up the hill, then onwards to our barracks, somewhere on the back side of Custer Hill (no really, that's what it's called). Sure we've all been drinking, but it's been a while and we're probably good to drive at this point, right? Nothing at all wrong with this line of decision-making, right? Right??

Disclaimer: I do not actually know how much alcohol the four of us still had in our systems at that point. For all I know we were well under the limit and perfectly fine to drive by that point. However, I think it makes the story just a little bit better, so...

We get on the main road and head north, heads on swivels -- oh shit, that was a cop, is he turning around? no, we're good -- and carefully make our way onto base. At the time, Riley was an "open post" with no access control points, ID checks, or anything controlling access to the base. We cruise past the commissary, then one of the on-post clubs, headed uphill towards the barracks.

(It should be noted that Big J's old Chevy truck lacked certain safety items normally found in modern vehicles, namely three-point seatbelts for all passengers on said bench seat. In fact, it may have lacked belts entirely, but I think even the POV inspections of the time would have caught that.)

Everyone is a little sleepy and zoning out a bit, talking about nothing really in particular when suddenly OHSHITDEER and Big J slams on the brakes and we all suddenly slide forward against the dash tires are screeching and we watch Bambi and his whole damned family run across the road right in front of us. FUUUUUUuuuuuck....

In an instant the atmosphere changes from sleepy-and-maybe-a-bit-buzzed to WIDE-THE-FUCK-AWAKE-AND-SOBER for the rest of the drive up. Nobody said much until we arrived safely at the barracks and went our separate ways.

All in all, we probably used up a ton of luck getting home that night, and I didn't push it for the rest of my time at Riley. Like I said...you can't often count on luck, but every once in a great while, the stars align, and, well...you get lucky and shit doesn't happen.

So there I was at my first duty assignment and one of my first "jobs" was to make the coffee at the start of the shift. So March rolls around and I got it in my head to do the longest April Fool's joke I had ever done. Over the month of March I slowly switched the regular pot to decaf until it was 100% decaf the last few days of the month. Then on April 1st I switch to espresso grind. When the sup got up to do the morning briefing he was visibly vibrating, along with everyone else.

Someone in r/maliciouscompliance told me that you guys would like this story, too. I used AI for translation, as English is not my first language. I hope this is a valid exemption from the "no AI" rule, I 100% wrote it by myself. TLDR at the end.

This is a story from my time in the Air Force. We took part in an international exercise in Spain. For this, we deployed several aircraft and around 200 personnel to a Spanish air base. I myself was there ahead of the main contingent with a small advance party of about 15 men to prepare everything. One of our tasks was to register roughly 50 rented vehicles at the base gate and bring them onto the base. To do this, the Spanish authorities introduced a rule that each of us could only register five vehicles under our name. So we drove the vehicles up to the gate and then each of us gradually brought in three to five cars, including registering them in our names, which was noted on the vehicle’s access pass.

At first, this went smoothly and we were able to hand over the vehicle keys to the comrades arriving later. However, after two or three days, problems started. An official notice was issued stating that from now on, each person was only allowed to have one vehicle registered under their name. So we gathered additional people and drove to the gate to transfer the excess vehicles from one person to another. The whole process took about two hours, but eventually it was done.

That arrangement lasted for about a week. Then suddenly, cars trying to leave the base were being turned back. The guards would no longer let them leave unless the person under whose name the car was registered was actually sitting in the vehicle. We then sought talks with the local authorities and explained that we assigned vehicles according to current operational needs and that it was impossible to comply with this new rule. However, we were dismissed rather smugly with the explanation that if it was absolutely necessary, the vehicle could simply be re-registered. From that point on, it very much felt like deliberate harassment to me.

But we still had good old malicious compliance! We instructed all soldiers that whenever time allowed, they should drive to the gate in pairs and have vehicles re-registered. Either from a person who already had a car to someone without one, or, if both already had a registered vehicle, simply swap them around. Within a very short time, the guard office was completely clogged up, and the official probably had to process around 50 vehicle registration changes a day. And what can I say, after two days of the guard office being blocked by endless vehicle re-registrations, it suddenly no longer mattered whether the registered person was sitting in the car or not!

tl;dr: During a military exercise in Spain, the local base kept introducing increasingly absurd vehicle registration rules for rented cars. After soldiers were forced to constantly re-register vehicles just to move around, they responded with malicious compliance by flooding the guard office with nonstop registration changes until the authorities gave up and dropped the rule.

Someone was asking me about joint popping sounds and thought y’all might laugh at this.

I was at MEPS (US Military Entry Processing center) and they had us Duck Walk.*

I was one of the last guys to do it. When the examiner left the room I asked the guy next to me “did you hear my joints pop?”

A guy at the far end of the room said “we all heard them pop with every step!”

I was mortified, but it did t hurt and they moved me on to the next stage of exams.

*Duck Walk - hunker down, like crouching. Then walk forward without standing up.

A post in another sub reminded me of this story. So my reserve company got put on a rapid deployment and had to bring in a bunch of soldiers from other units to plus up. They gathered us all up on Fort Carson for as much training as they could. One of the new E6s was an avid fan of Stargate and somehow only found out on Carson that the Cheyenne Mountain Complex was a real military base. Which convinced him that the show was real, so in the middle of the night he takes off in another soldiers pov and head up there. He was obviously stopped but spent so much time arguing with the guards that since he used to be 10th group that his security clearance was enough to let him through that they detained him and the commander had to go up there in the middle of the night to retrieve them.

I was stationed in Ft. Polk at the time. 82nd Airborne was coming here to do a night jump with some German soldiers attached to them. My platoon was tasked to pick them up.

After HOURS of waiting, they jumped around 0200. Another two hours. I was the only E-4 (promotable 🙄) so I went to ask what was taking so long. It was a Major I asked and he was bent. They were looking for one of the German soldiers. My group started looking for him. We assumed he was hurt somewhere and couldn’t move.

Twenty minutes later, I hear someone cursing a blue streak in German. I understood German. I look up and he’s hanging in a tree. He’s bent. He spoke little English so I asked him in German why he didn’t cut himself out. He was surprised I spoke German. He said he tried and dropped his K Bar.

Finally got him out, and his group was riding in the back of my 5-Ton. I went to close them in and attach the troop strap. One said in German “why is that little girl putting that up, it’s not going to do s**t.” I looked up and said in German that he was right, but it’s a safety regulation. They all stared at me.

Moral of the story? Never assume someone doesn’t understand you and never drop your K Bar. 😂😂😂

Someone in my original post asked me to upload it here so I am:

I’m officially out of the Army, so I feel like I can finally post this. I’m writing this for therapeutic reasons, to get it out of my system once and for all.

I was a female officer working as a Recruiting Operations Officer in Georgia. The Monday before Christmas in 2024, I was driving down I-75 South to BN to pick up new iPhones for two different companies because one of the companies had only one officer at the time, and I helped out when I could.

Unfortunately, on my way down, I saw a black SUV flipped on its side, wedged between the toll wall and a metal ramp. The car in front of me pulled over, and the lady got out and ran to the flipped car. I pulled over in front of her and ran to the car too.

A wife, her husband, and a pit bull were inside the car. The wife was calling for help from the driver’s seat, and the husband in the passenger seat seemed dazed. The pit bull was in the trunk. More people started pulling over to help. I grabbed a piece of metal, broke the back window, took my blouse off, and used it to pull the glass away. The pit bull made it out. Some civilians managed to get the passenger-side door open from the top and helped the wife out, but the husband (who was six foot and some change and probably 250 pounds) could not haul himself out. The wife seemed out of it, but there was no visible trauma. However, the husband was bleeding.

Once things started to calm down and the cops, ambulance, and firefighters arrived, I noticed the wife had no socks or shoes on, so I grabbed some extra socks out of my car for her. I asked if there was any family I could call in the area to come pick her up. She said no. I asked where she was going. She said Florida. I asked where she was coming from. She said Fort Campbell. My heart skipped a beat.

All the questions came flooding in.

“Are you the SM?”

“No, my husband is.”

“What’s his name?” She answered.

“What’s his rank?”

“E-3.”

“What unit is he in?”

“I don’t know.”

All I could think about was where she was going to stay that night and what my next steps would be to help her and her family. I told her I would meet her at the hospital and took half of her belongings because the cop said he couldn’t.

At this point, I had three missed calls from my command team. I called people back in the order I received the calls and told them what happened. They all told me to call them back when things settled down.

I made it to the ER and found the soldier. We talked, and I got his unit information from him. I googled his unit for the Staff Duty number, called, and left my information for his command team. His 1SG called me, and we talked for a bit before he thanked me for helping his young soldier.

His wife called me and said she was outside the ER, but the pit bull couldn’t come in, and she had a family friend on the way to get her. I went outside and told her I would stay with the pit bull until her family friend arrived. She said the friend would be there in an hour, and I sat outside with her pit bull, reflecting on what had just happened and letting the adrenaline subside.

Around 1030, I got a phone call from the BN civilian S6, Mr. W, and he immediately asked, “Why did you not show up to your 0930 appointment?”

I thought it was rude, but I told him what had happened. He said, “Ok. I understand that, but you picking up these phones is more important.”

I was absolutely baffled by what I heard. Then he proceeded to say, “I’m going to do you a favor because I have to leave soon… Meet me at 1700 to sign for all these phones tonight.”

I said no and told him I’d talk to the BN XO (who was also the acting BC at the time), MAJ P, and try to find a different plan. Mr. W said, “I’ll take you to him because he’s down the hall.” Mr. W failed to truly explain my situation, so I told him I could speak for myself.

And I did, only to be told that MAJ P agreed with Mr. W and thought the phones were more “mission critical.” I was furious. The man I was supposed to look up to as a leader, the acting commander of this BN, the officer who tells other officers to “make sure you’re taking care of your NCOs and putting your soldiers first,” was saying that picking up cellphones was more important than a human being’s life. I’m still at a loss for words to this day.

I told them I’d get there when I got there, that I was not coming at 1700, and hung up the phone.

I waited for the family friend to show up and then headed to BN to sign for 100 phones. And guess what? Mr. W was still there.

That’s not the end of it. Two weeks later, MAJ P saw me at BN and confronted me with, “Heard you’re mad at me.”

I said, “Yes, sir.”

He replied, “Ok then, let’s talk about it.”

He said he was teaching me a lesson about making a hard decision during a difficult time as a future Company Commander. I told him I didn’t understand why we say we put people first and then, when we have to act on that principle, we don’t.

Mind you, we both have deployments under our belts. I don’t know about his deployment experience, but I have seen commanders make tough decisions during difficult times. I know what it is to watch someone make a difficult decision on behalf of their company for the greater good. But having someone say that a material item is more important than a human being?

I stopped for a civilian. He was a soldier, but if I were a BN Commander, I would have at least asked in that moment: What can this BN do to help you and that soldier right now? I would have stayed in that hospital to help a soldier, an airman, a sailor, or a Marine…it wouldn’t have matter. If one of my soldiers was hurt on a base, I would expect that base to take care of that soldier until we could help him or her.

There are a few things my dad taught me growing up, and one was not to argue with a stupid person or you would stoop to their level. That’s exactly how I felt in that moment, so I walked away.

On my way out of the building, MAJ P was walking back in and yelled at me, “Are you good now?”

I said, “No, I’m not.”

He then proceeded to laugh in my face. I said, “That’s not funny,” and he yelled something back at me, but I walked out of that building because I knew it was better to leave than stay and argue with him.

I went home that day and spoke to my fiancé about making my final decision to get out of the Army. I know a lot of you are going to think this was the only instance and that I’m weak for wanting to leave the Army over this. But this is just one of a few unethical and immoral things I experienced in my short career. Really, this was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m tired of leaders not acting like leaders, especially officers.

When I consulted my NCOs about this, some told me I could be the change at that level. However, there is always someone above you who doesn’t hold the same ethical and moral values you do.

If I could have served with just my NCOs for the rest of my career, I would have stayed. I love my NCOs, and I’m really going to miss them.

Anyway, thanks for reading/ listening to my rant

I learned pretty quickly in the Army that there’s a difference between training… and real. Training has a rhythm to it. You go through the steps, repeat them, and eventually you get comfortable. But there comes a moment when it stops feeling like training. When you realize this isn’t practice anymore. I was working with the Honest John rocket, and everything we did was supposed to be precise, controlled, and by the book. Most of the time, it was. Until it wasn’t. There was a moment when something didn’t go the way it was supposed to. Not a drill. Not something you could brush off. Something real. And I remember thinking… this is exactly what all that training was for. Funny thing is, you never really feel ready for that moment.

I was recently watching the movie Apollo 13, and a scene in that movie reminded me of all this. It is nuts how your brain makes connections. This little bit came out of my brain and will be at least partially included in the book. As for that - I THINK the book is done. :)!

South Korea, near the DMZ, 1990

“I love you bro.”

Another Private told me that. It made sense, because we were in a tight embrace, holding each other pretty damn close. Not because we were in love, but because we were fucking freezing. It was early Spring in South Korea, and we were posted in a tree line on guard duty during an FTX. The rain coming down was bone chilling – it had obviously started as snow before thawing as it was falling. The temperature was only a few degrees above freezing - maybe 38 degrees Fahrenheit is all. Worse, it was a torrential downpour – monsoon season was on the way. Despite our ponchos and uniforms and long johns, we were both wet and so cold we could barely talk. We were also tired, having pulled the Zero Dark Thirty shift. It was only about 15 minutes in, and with 45 minutes to go before we woke up the next two guys, I wasn’t sure we would make it. I badly wanted to be inside of my heated APC again.

So, when Bill came over and embraced me, I didn’t fight it. I knew he was trying to share body heat, and I gratefully wrapped him up in a bear hug. The shared warmth woke us up and stopped the shivering a bit. That was when Bill told me he loved me. I knew what he meant. In the military, kind of like in biker culture, you grow to love the men around you. You would fight for them, ride with them, die for them. Taking care of each other this way was a minor thing. When you told each other that you loved them, you were saying “Thank you” and “I’m there for you” and a bunch of other shit. Maybe even that love was just gratitude for the shared warmth, but that was OK.

“Love you too bro. Ready to walk to the other end of the tree line?” We had both stopped shivering quite so much by then, and stepped off into the darkness, watching for OPFOR trying to mess with us.

It starts in Basic Training. When resting during a road march, you sit back-to-back as you eat and rest. You do that partly to train yourself to keep an eye on all directions, but also because you are tired as hell and you are holding each other up. During those marches, we would sometimes carry each other’s bag or rifle if someone was falling out. We dragged each other between us if we had to. We were starting to love each other, even if we didn’t know it yet. Drill Sergeants encourage that camaraderie.

You heard “I love you bro” a lot when we were all drunk in Juarez, El Paso or the bars on the Korean DMZ. Alcohol makes people emotional anyway. Living in such close quarters with other men, you get close to each other in a lot of ways. Telling each other that is an affirmation that we are all in this together.

Even when we are fighting, we love each other. Arguments and pissing contests happen all the time with soldiers. “You’re an asshole, you know that River?”

“So are you. Love you bro.”

“Fuck you.” But you never meant it, not really. That “fuck you” was just a salty way to say “I love you too, bro.”

The last time I heard it from another soldier, it was right before we crossed into Iraq. We were doing a final inventory and packing extra water and such on the track. The three of us were nervous and tired as we worked in the dark and the wind – the Sand Gods were gearing up to fuck with our attack into Iraq. I got the ratchet straps on my Stinger missile case secured, then climbed into the driver’s seat of the Vulcan, and put on my headset.

“Cobb ready. Give the word sarge. I love you guys, let’s get this done and go home. I wanna be home to have a beer for my 21st birthday.” I was scared, and trying to be brave and not throw up.

“Shit Cobb, that coming up?” That was River.

“Yeah, in about a month. I wasn’t sure we’d make it home in time.” As it turns out, they would make it home by my birthday, but I wouldn't.

“I got your first beer Cobb. I love you bro.” River and I fought all the damn time. We didn't get along. But we loved each other. I fired up the engine and pulled into line for departure to Iraq.

When you grow up in these hyper masculine cultures like the military and biker life, telling another man you love him is saying a lot. It’s a commitment to keep each other safe. And we did love each other, just as I love my two best friends today. They mean as much to me as my family does – they have been there for me for years – sometimes when my own family wasn’t.

Those who have been in any amount of combat know this – once the shooting starts, nothing else matters. Not the reason for being there, not the morality of it, not how you really feel about the guys in your squad. You have to love each other, or you aren’t coming home. Fighting for the man beside you is how we work as a team and make it home. We love each other because we have to, but also because we have been through it together. Those marks left on your psyche create bonds with the others who were there. It is surreal to think so much love exists in the middle of so much death and destruction.

Leaving that love behind when you ETS is hard for a lot of us. Transition to a civilian world where you have to build those bonds yourself instead of having them forced on you takes some getting used to. It is why a lot of veterans are out there looking out for other veterans. We still love each other.

And you – you reading this – I love you bro.

Thanks for reading. Y'all be good.

22ADay #Slava Ukraini! Heróyam sláva!

I was a sailor, living on a Marine Corps base on Oahu, working at a combined Marine Corps/Navy command.

One day on that Marine Corps Base I lived on I got in a left-hand turn lane, headed for base housing, where I lived. It would not change for me. It would change for everybody else but it would not give me a green light. I was trying all the tricks. I was rolling the motorcycle back and forth, I was putting the side stand down, nothing worked.

Then base security pulled up behind me and I thought "Finally! It's going to recognize someone's here and change!" It still did not recognize anyone was there, and it still did not change.

So I did what I was trained to do. I waited until it was safe and I went. Of course, Mr Marine Corps Security right behind me immediately pulled me over.

Me: "Yes, is there a problem?"

Excitable Marine: "You just ran a red light!"

Me: "No, I didn't."

Excitable Marine: "Are you calling me a liar!?"

Me: "No. I'm not. I sat at that light for over 5 minutes before you pulled him behind me. It did not recognize that anyone was in this lane and it would not change, but it changed for everyone else.

Even after you pulled up behind me, it still didn't recognize anyone was here, and we sat through another three or four light changes.

If that stop light is not operating properly I am required by law to treat it as a stop sign and go when it is safe. Which I did."

Excitable Marine: "Um, hold on a minute." (He goes back to his car and calls it in)

He comes back a few minutes later, considerably subdued: "Ok. Be careful out there."

If you ride long enough, you're going to be faced with the decision I had to make that day, more than once. If you do get caught "going when it's safe," I hope the officer who pulls you over can listen to reason, too.

I've been working hard for almost 30 years to find some of what I have lost. In the last couple of months some of it has come back. Mostly it has been a ton of research. I’ve also done some work on my fucked up brain and recalled some things on my own. Some of this ties into a story I wrote a while back called "Bodies" where I was starting to remember some shit.

I remember enough to tell a tale of sorts.

G+2 – 26 February, 1991

After the capture of As Salman and the airfield there the day before, the French 6th Light Cavalry division that we were with set up a phase line to block any attempt by the Iraqis to flank us from the west. They were done with their portion of the war, and would not advance farther. We stopped making jokes about French Surrender Monkeys after watching them fight. Those two days with the French are a different story though.

Seeing three men roast in a tank and later smelling Long Pork as we passed them isn't what fucked me up. At least, I don't think it is. Those three were actively trying to kill Mac, River and I, so fuck em. It was personal. Nearly dying to that tank fucked me up for sure though, and we are fortunate they didn't get us. That's also a different story.

It was the other bodies, the ones we didn't kill. Hundreds of them that I saw over those days in Iraq. The bodies killed by the French tanks and IFVs, then later the American tanks and IFVs. The attack helicopters. The artillery. The mortars. They got hit hard, and again later, and again later. The Republican Guard wouldn't give up. They were strewn everywhere, like the playthings of some angry god who decided to let them burn while he watched and laughed. I felt I had gazed into the face of God, and there was no compassion there. A wave of cold terror filled me, this was only going to get worse.

I wasn't wrong.

Those bodies on the ground weren't mine. I didn't kill them. My job was to drive the Vulcan and kill the assholes in the sky, but those assholes in the sky were OUR assholes now that we had air superiority. So, all I had to do was drive, stay out as much out of the line of incoming fire as I could, and try not to drive over the bodies. Because sometimes they were on the road, or just in the way as I traversed through a burning oil field. We drove around the bodies of dozens of burning Iraqi tanks. Dozens of enemy APCs and other vehicles, sometimes destroyed beyond recognition.

And near each fucked up vehicle - bodies of Iraqi soldiers.

We had some fuel delivered, and the Nasty Track was ordered near the front of the fuel line so we had ADA up during the refuel and rearm operation. A nice big target like a bunch of vehicles being fueled up would be a great win for some Iraqi pilot. I hoped we had counter-battery fire set up in case the Iraqis shelled us. The Americans were all being fueled up before the French. We were being detached and would continue fighting. No rest for the wicked. The French had fought valiantly and well, and although I wanted them with us for the rest, it wasn't to be.

SGT Mac came on the comms. "Cobb, we are the only ADA asset with this group. Cut in front of the refueling line NOW."

I smiled. "Heard." I floored the Vulcan, and we lept forward at a staggering 30 mph, driving past 50 or so vehicles lined up for fuel.

As I drove up and cut in line, a few guys yelled at us. SGT Mac got it fixed over the radio, but River and I were flipping off the other drivers anyway. Fuck you clowns - you need us up and running to protect you. As I pulled up next to the fuel tanker, I see "JP-8" stenciled on it. I looked at the PFC who was dragging the hose over to us. "Bro - what the fuck? I'm not a helicopter." He shrugged, not caring what I had to say. Logistics were such that they were having trouble getting diesel fuel in to us, but there was plenty of aviation fuel for the helicopters. The diesel engines in the APCs and other armor could easily run the jet fuel though, so no worries. I hopped down and walked off to have a smoke while we filled up. I took a minute to pee too - I had been drinking a lot of water.

The day prior, our AO had been extended another 70 miles to the east. That is why we were moving – to link up with other units and prosecute that phase of the war. We were assigned to trail a convoy from the 101st Airborne who were headed east to link up with the 24th Infantry Division. From there, we would attack east along the Euphrates River through the Iraqis to seize Iraqi battle positions along the Euphrates River as we headed to Kuwait.

A wicked sandstorm had been up all day, and was still going strong. It seemed the Sand Gods weren't done with us yet. The stormy weather, including rain and hail, the night before had been hard. For most of the drive from the area around As Salman to the east to where we were now, it had been so hard to see in that mess that we didn’t see much. Flashes from the tank barrels showed that the American M1 tanks were easily finding targets with thermal imaging anyway. Occasionally a bunker would go up in a blast of artillery fire, so the spotters were still relaying accurate coordinates. It was like watching a movie through fog or something. One second the picture was clear, then it was hazy and obscured.

By 2200 hours, task force elements ahead of us were heavily engaged with some Republican Guard units. Artillery support was called in, and the 4/41 Field Artillery tore them up. An estimated 49 soldiers and several vehicles were destroyed in the salvo, and the remaining Iraqis gave up and surrendered. This was becoming a pattern. The only ones who gave up immediately were the conscripts we encountered the first day. All of the rest, regular army and Republican Guard, at least fought some before surrendering.

As the sun came up, we were greeted with an apocalyptic scene. Burning tanks and other Iraqi vehicles were littered across the objective, bodies in them burning and bodies scattered on the ground. Seeing random body parts here and there as we drove along just became the norm. In the distance, great gouts of flame and smoke rose in twisting, roaring columns into the sky from burning oil wells. Drops of oil fell from the sky, landing on us and our vehicle. It was lightly raining oil. The ecological damage from this war would be immense.

The pace of the attack was such that Brigadier General Frazier of the 24th Mechanized Infantry was actually setting up supply areas ahead of the advance with only a few soldiers. As we leapfrogged up the Euphrates, vehicles would break off to refuel and rearm as needed as the advance moved in fits and starts, then in great bounding leaps across the desert.

Next up was Talil Air Base. We arrived outside the base around 1300 hours. Enemy fire had been coming from the base, so we had to take that out next. A series of over two dozen sorties from the US Air Force and heavy artillery fire hit the base to soften up the target. Despite 20 foot berms surrounding the facility, our tanks were able to penetrate the main gate. The fights didn't last long, and more Iraqi equipment was destroyed. I watched as more jets and helicopters were destroyed on the ground. More aircraft I wouldn't get to shoot down.

By morning of the 27th, I found myself following the drive to seize Jalibah Air Base. We parked and watched the battle as we ate a quick MRE. By now, enemy aircraft hadn't been spotted in our AO in over 24 hours, and word coming down from command indicated we had total air superiority. In other words, there was nothing for the three of us to shoot down anymore. Still, I ate quickly and never stopped scanning the sky as I did, and we damn sure never turned off the Vulcan, the gun or the radar.

The attack on the airbase was done by 1000 hours. Over 2,000 soldiers were killed. Over 80 anti-aircraft pieces and an entire tank battalion were also destroyed. Further, 20 aircraft on the ground were still sitting there, so those were destroyed as well. Watching hundreds of millions of dollars of equipment go up like that was something else. I didn't think too much about the men we watched die, that would come later. The air base was secure, we could move on. Although we were headed east, away from the United States, we all understood that the road home went east through Iraq and Kuwait, so we moved as fast as we could.

The attack to Basrah was next. As the 24th Mechanized Infantry and 3rd Armored Corps Regiment attacked east, we followed, with not much of a job left. From here on out, I would be a witness only, and not a participant. There was simply nothing else to do, but try to stay alive. As we advanced down the Euphrates River, we took sporadic mortar and artillery fire. It was largely ineffective, and was silenced quickly by our counter-battery fire, but a few rounds still came close. I was getting used to that by now. I drove, and made sure I didn't drive over a body. Not that it would have been a big deal - I was driving a 13 ton vehicle. If I had to drive over a body, I would have, but there were two problems with that. One, any UXO like a hand grenade on the body could potentially hurt our vehicle. Two, I didn't want to hose blood and guts off of my track when this was over, so I drove around the bodies.

It really wouldn't have mattered. The bodies of many of those Iraqis are still laying in the desert, sun bleached bones showing where they fell 35 years ago.

Our move east was opposed by a large force. The Adnon Infantry Division, the Republican Guard Al Faw Infantry Division, and remnants of the badly mauled Republican Guard Nebuchadnezzar Infantry Division were in place and not surrendering as most of the conscripts had days before. During this fight, thousands of artillery shells, bombs and other munitions were seized. Hundreds of wheeled and armored vehicles were destroyed. Eventually thousands of soldiers gave up the fight and surrendered to us.

Before that though, we witnessed another brutal tank battle. The M1 tanks would shoot from large distances, and an Iraqi tank would go up in huge fireball. The old Soviet tanks had a design flaw that makes it easy to detonate all of their ammunition at once. Spectacular explosions would roar into the sky, sending the multi-ton turrets into the air 20 feet or more. Watching the same thing happen later when Russia invaded Ukraine gave me flashbacks. Most of the crews weren't so lucky, and we watched men burn alive. As the battles ebbed and flowed, we were sometimes dangerously close to the action and could see bodies and body parts strewn about. Other times we were far enough away from the fighting that we could see the battle, but couldn't see details too well.

The bodies were everywhere those two days. Thankfully none of them were ours. It doesn't make it any less haunting. You just don't have a frame of reference for that sort of thing, at least until you do.

By the next morning as we commenced our attack east to Basrah and the end of the war, more horror greeted us. Burning vehicles littered the desert floor. Bodies could be seen here and there. The drive to that killing field is what I had suppressed for so many years. Watching the artillery fire hit the convoys. Watching the A-10s and attack helicopters fly up and down, strafing the convoys and slaughtering the fleeing Iraqi army. Tracers flew into the air as they fired rifles in vain, but they had no ADA assets to protect themselves. The front of the convoys were hit, as were the rear, and then they were stuck in a killing field. As the media took pictures of the slaughter there and they were released, it made the coalition forces look like the bad guys, and President Bush offered a cease fire.

I was actively hallucinating by that point. The lack of sleep, stress from four days of driving and fighting, lack of regular meals, and way too much caffeine and nicotine had fried my brain. I remember horizons backlit by fires and smoke, and so much death. The smell of it was everywhere it seemed.

Scenes like that are being repeated today, in Ukraine and Iran. I've participated just enough in war to know two things. It is almost always avoidable, and it is never a good thing, no matter the cause. I talk about rebellion and resistance a lot, but I don't want the overthrow of our government to come from force of arms, I want it to come from the voting booth and we the people.

If you have never been witness to war, I hope you never are. I may not remember it all consciously, but it is in my head, and it likes to keep me company at night. Maybe those bodies are the ones I see at night, when I wake up with the smell of oil, sand and Long Pork in my nostrils. Thankfully, after 35 long years, those nights are fewer and farther between. Sharing with you helps.

Thanks for being here.

I joined the Army National Guard in 2003, as a 71L Typewriter Monkey. Literally the day we arrived at AIT, they had us change the MOS number on all of the screensavers to 42L, and about a year or so later, had gotten rid of the MOS entirely, folding us into 42A Human Resources. I really can't blame the Army, 71L/42L AIT spent most of its short weeks on AR 25-50 Preparing and Managing Correspondence, and in the age of computers, hardly any of us were using typewriters anymore. So I spent the vast majority of my Army career as Human Resources.

In one of my many jobs as an HR NCO, I got to travel to units that were about to deploy and help all of their Soldiers update their DD 93s (Record of Emergency Data) and SGLV 8286s (Servicemember Group Life Insurance). Literally every Soldier in that unit (usually a Company, but sometimes less, sometimes more) had to sit down in front of me and I'd make any updates to their records. Too many times I had to explain to Soldiers, old, young, low rank, high rank, it did not matter, but so many times that I lost count, I had to help the Soldiers figure out if they were married or not. Before I launch into this, please note that this all occurred in a state that does not have Common Law marriages, and haven't since the early 1900s.

This is how a lot of these maddening conversations would go:

• Me - are you married?
• Them - no.
• M - so you're single?
• T - I used to be married.
• M - okay, so you're divorced (checking iPERMS) I don't see a divorce decree in your iPERMS, you got a copy of that?
• T - oh no, I never paid for a lawyer, we've been separated for XX years now.
• M - {sigh} you know that means you're still married, right? Doesn't matter how long you've been separated, no divorce decree, no divorce.
• T - {crickets between the ears}
• M - in {state of residence}, once you are legally married, and I do see your marriage certificate in your iPERMS, you are married until you are legally divorced.
• T - that's not true!
• M - look, I don't make the laws, I just relay how they work, and you are most definitely still married. get a lawyer (no, the National Guard JAGs will not do a divorce for you, but may be able to point you in the direction of a good attorney) and get a divorce, or a marriage annulment, or something, because you're still married and his/her/its information has to go on the DD93 until then.

How bad is it? A couple of years back, I went to the DAV folks to help me get a VA disability rating, and even their forms (not the VA's, but the DAV's) now have "I don't know" check box as an option for this question! So many, many times would I have to tell Soldiers (more enlisted than officers, but still had plenty of those, enough to make me question how competent our leadership really was) the basics about marriage and divorce.

If you're out, I hope you know what your status is. If you're still in, I hope you can use my handy guide to decide what your status is, and if you do reside in a state with Common Law marriages, I encourage you to read up on what that entails for your state of residence, as all of them are different. You may be married right now and not even realize it.

Stay safe out there!

I was just thinking about this today, thought I'd share.

I was stationed on board the USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN, and we were in Singapore. I was out in town one night, and I was walking back to the ship, alone. I have no idea why now, this was like mid-90s, and I had been out with shipmates, buddy system and all that.

I was walking across a long bridge and no one else, was around, except for one woman walking across the bridge towards me.

As she got closer, I could see she was dark, and beautiful, and wearing a sari. She walked right up to me, and held out her hand, so I held out my hand, expecting a handshake?

She took my hand and put it on her naked left breast. As my hand covered her nipple, it crinkled up erect. I remember wondering, "How did I miss a naked breast?" It was dark, but still…

Then she propositioned me. Oral sex. Um, no thanks. I was married, and besides that, even if I wasn't, I did not want a prostitute. I didn't know who else had been in her mouth, and I didn't ever want to know.

So I told her no thanks, disengaged my hand, and started walking, fast. And she started following me!

As I approached the end of the bridge, I saw a couple approaching. Of all the people it could be, it was people I knew.

Terry and Orathai were a couple I knew, who had gone to high school with my wife! Terry was an officer in a squadron deployed on the Lincoln, and his wife had flown out to Singapore to see him there. I'd been in their home when they'd been stationed in San Diego.

We ended up walking away together, and the woman never caught up to us. I remember thinking if I had accepted her proposition, that would have been just perfect that the next two people we would have seen would have been good friends of my wife.

Life is sometimes really fucking weird, that's for sure.

Few things have sat in my head for this long. Maybe that’s why I decided to post this. Some questions don’t stay neatly compartmentalized. Would I have done the same if I had known the facts beforehand? Maybe. Who knows. Lucky for that guy, we’ll never find out.

A hurricane was about to hit. The sky was the color of asphalt, eroded over time. I parked in an alley next to the Commander’s building to watch traffic thin out. To my right, two sailors lowered Old Glory, saving it from being sundered by the wind. The roads were already flooding, so the patrol supervisor had called us back to the station, only to be called out for service.

I flipped on the emergency lights and radioed into dispatch. The engine sputtered as it tore through the swap invading the road. I passed the Coast Guard guys, caught with their pants down, dragging their cutters to shore before the surf turns them into flotsam, wreckage lost at sea.

Securing patrol was a blessing in disguise. The rain brought a mess of problems. Aircraft become unsecured, traffic gets stuck and slides all over the road, streetlights stop working. Calls were bound to come. I prayed dispatch wouldn’t call my number.

The patrolmen filed into the precinct sloshing mud and debris through the foyer in front of the operations desk.

“Shehan, trade that keyboard for a swab and some wet floor signs” Petty Officer Marlin rasped from behind the patrol supervisor’s desk.

Shehan stared across the room at Patterson, sitting with his leg brace rested across two chairs, as the corners of her lips twisted in a smirk.

“You really want me to leave the log entries to Patterson while I mop MA1?” she said.

Patterson threw his hands out incredulously. “Fingers work fine”.

They hung in silence a little too long before Petty Officer Marlin belted out a chain of long expletives, audible from the patrolman’s lounge behind the armory, and Patterson emerged with a mop in hand.

The patrolman’s lounge—a long, thin room lined with cubicle workstations and dull gray filing cabinets—was filled with on-call patrolmen, myself included, finishing past reports and killing time, half working and half complaining, before dispatch interrupted the quiet.

“Dispatch, calling Alpha 221”.

The mention of my call sign brought silenced the ruckus. Laughter died off and arguments paused as each patrolman looked in my direction, their faces a mix of relief and concern. I rolled my eyes and pressed the transmitter on my whisper mic. “Go for 221”.

“Alpha 221 respond to the Pier 3 seawall for a vessel in distress. Caller states that a boat is taking heavy surf and striking the seawall.”

The downpour ricocheted off every surface, hammering my windshield as I approached the seawall. The heavy drumming of the rain almost drowned out the squeal of the radio as I called for a better location. I kept the sea on my right as I searched for the boat, making sure to keep my distance as the water spewed over the seawall. Visibility was cut to thirty feet, so I approached cautiously.

Soon, figures began emerging out of the spray. First one, then two, then an entire team of sailors. They were in motion. Beyond them, a twenty-foot sailboat was being hurled into the seawall. Ropes led from the boat into each of their hands as they stood in two teams, heaving against the might of the ocean as if the boat were The Kraken itself.

My vision was reduced to rain and motion as I jumped into an opening on one of the line teams. The fibers of the rope slick as I tried my best to brace my grip. Beyond my hands, I could see a figure, standing up on the seawall, stiffening against the impact of a wave. He held the end of the rope above his head, swinging it into the surf like fisherman fighting a wild catch.

Shards of fiberglass and wood peppered my face as the surf lifted the sailboat out before collapsing back behind the wall. I spit out brackish water as the line leader tossed the rope a final time. That when I saw him. One hand clinging to the railing, the other reaching out, grasping for the end of the rope.

He flashed us a thumbs up after he secured the rope to the final chock and collapsed into the cabin. With both line teams secured, we heaved. The rope ripped through my palms. Pain shot through my arms. Finally, I seized the line and jolted forward before properly bracing. The soaked faces and painful grimaces of the crew looked to me. Our tired grips would not last long. I took a final look past the column of rounded backs in soaked coveralls, clinging to their frames and saw the man, clinging to the mast as it collapsed across the bow and into the sea. I clicked my whisper mic, praying it still worked. I heard it chirp.

“Alpha 221 to dispatch, on scene. Harbor Ops has lines on the vessel. One person still onboard”.

I held the microphone up to my ear, hoping for further guidance.

“Good copy 221. Be advised all marine rescue units are secured due to sea state”

Just then, what was left of the sailboat’s mast snaped off like a crack of thunder and disappeared beneath the whitewash.

I looked back at the ropes. The teams slipping as the sea pulled against them. They were holding long enough for me to do something.

That’s when clarity hit. We weren’t saving a vessel; we were saving a man.

If the line teams can hold on long enough and time his jump carefully, we might be able to haul him ashore before his boat gets battered into salvage.

“Hold what you’ve got!” I called out before making my way to the edge of the seawall. I got a better look at the man. He was heavyset with a raincoat plastered across his back, one hand holding a tablet while the other scrounged for purchase as the deck lurched violently portside.

I hollered and got his attention. The air between us was too turbulent for commands, so I just nodded and held out my hand. He sat, holding what was left of the mast, and buried his head in his arms. I thought he had given up. Suddenly he burst forward during a break in the wave. He turned starboard side towards me and made a run for it.

The next swell lifted him just enough to bring the deck level with the top of the wall. He came up suddenly and I jammed my arms underneath his. My muscles ached and I braced myself against the line, echoing with the struggles of the rope team, as I dragged the man onto solid ground.

I stumbled back, letting him catch his balance and cough up spray. The groaning of the crew came before the sounds of whipping wind as the lines were let free and the boat was finally claimed by the sea.

The door slammed behind us, letting in a blast of humid air and the squeak of my soaked boots across the tile. MA1 Marlin leaned back, shaking his head and laughing, the kind of salty, dry laugh from an old man that’d never let me live this down. Patterson was cackling, perched on the edge of a desk like he’d just seen a clown fall into a puddle. Shehan's sympathy was quieter, the tilt of her head saying she got it without needing words.

The man we’d just pulled from the sea was still dripping and still loud. “You realize all my stuff’s ruined?” he barked. “No insurance! And I sure as hell don’t want a salvage bill! My whole life-”

“Yeah, yeah,” Marlin cut in, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes.

“Sir?” Shehan said softly, trying to thread calm into the storm of complaints.

Before it could go any further, the door swung open again. She stormed in. His ride. A woman with fire in her eyes. He tried to greet her; she didn’t care. Words were exchanged sharp and fast. She grabbed him by the arm and hauled him toward the door.

As she passed Shehan, she muttered something that made her face darken.

“He’s on the run. Child pornography charges.”

The door slammed and plunged us all into silence. The lull cut short by Patterson's snicker, probably missing the weight entirely. Marlin's salty grin faltered, and he grunted something under his breath, something about the unfairness of the world. I just stood there dripping, boots squelching against the tile.

The door burst open again before the silence could settle, and a young seaman rushed in, wide-eyed and frantic, rain running off his cover and pooling around his boots. Shehan was already moving before he even got the words out.

“Easy,” she said, guiding him toward the desk. “What’s going on?”

As she started sorting him out, the room shifted back into motion. Chairs scraped across the floor. Someone reached for a clipboard. The quiet machinery of the watch started up again like it always did, every person slipping back into their lane without much thought.

For a moment I was still on the seawall, the wind in my ears and the ropes burning through my hands, watching that man cling to the mast as the surf tried to tear the boat apart beneath him.

Then the radio cracked on my shoulder.

I keyed the mic without thinking. “Alpha 221, go ahead.”

Just like that, I was on to the next call.

Back in 1999 I knew I was getting out of the Air Force in 2000, although I was planning to go Full Time Air National Guard. I had just been made my Squadron's Unit Training Manager so I got some liberty in assigning personnel to schools. Survival School was a "requirement" for my career-field, but the Air Force expected units to pay for the training, instead of "big Air Force" adding it to the student pipeline, which made way more sense. Needless to say, money was always tight in the 90's and units were NOT sending their TACP personnel to Survival School, despite it being a "required" school.

I needed to have 6 months retainability to attend Survival School, which means I had to be finished before August 1999, or it wasn't going to happen. I managed to get into one of the 1st classes when Big Air Force started paying for the course and made it a pipeline school.

Survival School started off with a week or so of classroom, followed by a few days in the field for the survival portion. We'd have another classroom section, but I'll get to that in due time. I was a SSgt at the time and there were a few TACP airmen just out of Tech School. The cadre's initial plan was to spread the 1C4's around, but I was pretty opposed to that since there was clearly a big disconnect between reality for these Air Force Aircrews and the TACPs. I wanted to be able to have "my guys" together so I could interject as needed. For example, the Aircrews would have Air Force Survival Vests and specific gear tied to their ejection seats, which TACP should have a lot more combat-related kit. The Air Crews might have an emergency radio with a couple frequencies, while the TACPs do have much more robust commo gear and could easily access multiple frequency bands and need to know what the actual emergency frequencies were, because they can't just flip a switch to get one of the pre-sets.

The cadre agreed and I was in a group with all three of the TACPs and a Lieutenant-type (2nd Lt) to round out the group. Our group's Instructor was a Senior Airmen (SrA) and I think we were his first solo group. Now in Survival School each individual was given a single Meal-Ready-to-Eat (MRE) and the group had a rabbit. Normally the group takes care of the rabbit during the four (?) days of the field portion and dispatch it towards the end. As young men tend to do, all the TACPs were practically bragging on how they were going to "kill the rabbit". It's a thing that is needed to be done, not something worth boasting about. In retrospect I think they were trying to psych themselves up about what they really perceived as a dreaded task.

After learning how to use our issued Survival Knives, a piece of kit none of us, save that Lt, would have once we left school, the Instructor wanted us to kill the rabbit to "get it out of the way". Of course all the "brave" Airmen were not up to the task, nor was the Lt. I've probably hundreds of rabbits in my day, usually with a shotgun, but I've had to humanely dispatch a few that weren't killed outright. I go to pin the rabbit's ears back with a reverse grip around the neck, as I intend to use it's body weight to snap it's neck. It's quick, efficient, and humane......but no, I cannot do that. I'm to hold the thing buy it's rear legs and then whack it at the back of the head with a stick.

"I get it, the academic here is that a sharp blow to the back of the head is a generic way to kill anything", I tell the instructor. No, I must dispatch this animal in the prescribed fashion. Again, I iterate that this is a better method, in this particular case, and I make a point to explain I've likely killed far more rabbits than this SrA has. The Instructor won't budge, so I give this thing a strong whack....and it isn't dead. 

Now I do not know if you've ever heard a rabbit scream in pain. It sounds far too much like a small child, and a loud as hell one at that. I'm pissed. I whack it again, and again for good measure, finally killing it with (hopefully) that second blow. I go ahead and then grab the thing as I had originally intended and demonstrate how I had planned on killing the poor creature and how it would have been not only more humane, but silent...which might be important in both a survival and evasion situation. I then proceed to skin and gut the animal so we can cook it as a rough stew.

There wasn't a need to be carrying extra calories around as we were in the mountains of Eastern Washington during late June. We were surrounded by food. Wild Strawberries were in season and while foraging for berries is kind of time consuming, you can pretty much eat the whole plant, and the fields were just FULL of Shasta Daisies. I should note that I had a makeshift spear and got to within 15' of a deer, and while I could've taken the "shot" I knew I'd probably just have wounded it and while it would have been legendary, I wasn't willing to risk it. I wasn't stalking the deer, just came across it while solo, and I think it didn't have a clue what I was for a bit.

We had to do a lot of land navigation training, which for TACPs just out of Tech School it's a bit of a joke as they have a lot more training in much more difficult terrain. As such the Lt got most of the focus and the entire time we're be-bopping around the countryside I'm just harvesting handful after handful of greenery. 

Now the Instructor has a Plugger (GPS) and at one point he tells us we need to go to a certain grid and we need to head Southeast. Um, what? "Can you confirm what grid we're at?" He tells us and I tell him he's wrong, we need to go Northeast. He starts to get a bit....uppity(?), restating how he's the Instructor and we have to do as he says. Now of course after a couple decades I have to paraphrase, but I know I basically called bullshit and that this wasn't a Student vs. Instructor thing or even a SSgt. vs. SrA thing, he's just fucking wrong. The TACPs are staying out of it but the Lt is telling me I need to knock it off.

The fuck I do! "Listen....coordinates are just numbers, right? If we are at this number and the 1st half of the 2nd number we need to go to increases*, we are heading East from our current location. If the second half of that number* increases as well, then we also need to head North. If that second half decreases, the we are heading South. Last time I checked if we head North and East from our current location then we need to go Northeast. You do not need a GPS or a map to figure this shit out."

The Instructor didn't really pay much attention to my words and countered with something to the effect of, "Well then we should've crossed a small branch road heading Northeast from the road we were on." I pointed out there was one not even 100m back "that way". The Instructor stormed off to find said spur/branch while we "rested" and the Lt took the opportunity to try and admonish me, which wasn't going to work....because I was right. It could literally be figured out just by comparing numbers.

We finish that day and then have to make some individual bed-down sites where the Instructors place us. We're quite a distance apart, enough we couldn't see each other if we tried. I took the opportunity to build a nice little camp complete with a small Dakota firepit and was busy brewing some Wild Strawberry Tea when they (pretty sure the whole class was in the general area) came to check on me. It took them a moment to even notice I had a fire, which is kind of the point. "Did you actually build a fire?!" "Was I not allowed to? Nobody said we couldn't....would you like some tea. Tastes just OK, but better than iodine purified water."

I don't really remember much of the next/last day of training except that we gathered all the groups together for the night and one of the Combat Controller (CCT) guys, a Captain, was going around trying to scrounge food for one of his guys. He had this massive CCT Airman that was a fucking brick shithouse of a dude. I have no idea how he managed the swim portion, but these days in the field must have been brutal for such a muscular guy. I was able to give him my entire MRE, save for the instant coffee/creamer/sugar packet I had already eaten. I remember because the Captain was surprised I still had it, but I had been eating like a cow so I hadn't felt like I needed it. 

The next day we had to do some escape and evasion, basically trying to make it from the camp to a designated spot. I know some groups got captured and at least my group and another had not, but I don't think that was a skill issue as much as it was who-the-instructors-focused-on issue. We made it to the "extraction bus", but once everyone was safely on the bus, "captured" or not, we were all informed we were now captured and were being the resistance portion of training. All I remember is being slotted into what was basically a large wooden locker tall and wide enough to stand up and turn around comfortably in, locked in, and subjected to way too much Yoko Ono. We had bags on our heads and the "guards" would periodically check in to make sure you were still standing inside and if your weren't, well I do not know what happened but I could hear people being extracted and marched off for a bit and then returned.

This portion only lasted for a day because then we were removed from the field and taken back for a couple of days of resistance/escape classroom training. While several things from training still stick with me, I think I mostly remember the one-handed POW sign language...well at least the letter "Q". After the classroom we went back to the "POW Camp" were they had us strip down naked and went through our stuff rather quickly. It was weird because on some level they did not fuck around and on other stuff, not so much. We were highly encouraged to try and sneak various items in with us. Pretty sure they could have found everything I tried to smuggle in, but they didn't. On the flip side they were harsh with the "strip" portion of the strip search. They did not segregate the women*, but they did have them together at the end of the group, where I was. I did see some nude officers, but it was kind of surreal, more like watching a movie with my parents and some nudity comes on the screen and we all just pretend it isn't happening.

*History has proven female POWs are not treated well (understatement) and the course did not sugar coat that fact at all.

One of the items I tried to smuggle in was a fake attempt, as in I wanted them to find it. I had hit the Base Exchange and found what looked liked teacher's stickers to hand out in kindergarten. They were an inch, maybe inch and a half, and said "I did as I was told today." Yeah, that was pretty popular with the guards and I don't know it that helped me smuggle more stuff in or not. 

We all had different training scenarios to go through and most everything was being filmed. My first bit was with a "Red Cross Representative" and for the most part it doesn't matter what you do you're going to be "wrong". For example, they might throw, towards your feet, what appears to be a US Flag and if you catch it, it's miraculously the flag of our enemy and if you don't it then looks like you're standing on our flag. With selective editing they can, and will, get whatever they want...eventually. 

Now I was trying to be a smartass, because I'm me. I had gotten some info on a guy with the same name as me, and about the same age. There's a few of us. One guy is a concert promoter in NY, another a Principle in Kansas(?), and one in prison for killing a family while drunk-driving. Definitely not me! I knew of a Montana Rancher and had some of his details, so I gave bad info. They had looked up some of my file and tried to verify things and I was able to tell them they had the wrong guy. Some of it was *actually* correct, but I didn't know it was. I did not know the 1st three digits of your Social Security Number (SSN) is based one where you were "born", but not really. I didn't get a SSN until I was five(ish) so the prefix was for where I resided when I got the number, not where I was born. So between my attempts to misdirect and my accidental misdirection, I'm probably more successful than I had hoped. Pretty sure I was actually fucking up this portion, as in not doing what I was supposed to, but whatever.

Then they transitioned to trying to get me to spew out some "enemy" propaganda. They ask me to stand in the corner, pick up this wooden sign, hold it in front of me and read what is written on the back of it. Fortunately for me I can read upside down and backwards so I deliberately hold it upside down and start reading. The Instructor is telling me I'm doing it wrong and I'm all, "No, that's what it says....." He tells me to flip it over, so I do so, exposing the real message they were trying to get me to hold up. He keeps giving me instructions and I'm being the biggest moron possible. "I'm sorry, but it's just so hard to follow directions because I'm hungry and haven't eaten...." 

In the middle of all this I manage to damage a cuticle.....a fucking cuticle. Doesn't bother me a bit, but it starts bleeding, which makes the Instructor basically call a "time out" to bring in some kind of medic. I say some kind, because while the guy has a first aid kit, it's a shit first aid kit. He doesn't have any bandage tape or even simple band-aids. Really? I ask if this is "out of scenario" and he confirms it is, so I just drop trousers and flop over my pockets to where I have long strips of bandage tape smuggled in. A small piece and I'm taped up and good-to-go.....but I'm not. Now I'm "injured" and have to wear this yellow armband to show I'm injured so now I cannot do certain exercises.....again....really? It's a fucking cuticle!

I'm eventually released back to my cubby and then pulled out to go to "the box". I can get a little claustrophobic and I really expected to lose my shit when I was folded up like a pretzel and stuffed into a small cubby in a larger bank of small cubbies. The door is locked behind me and it's all I can do to keep from freaking out, at first. Eventually I realize that if I relax a bit, which is difficult but manageable, I can move my hands a bit and wiggle around some. I manage to get out a small flashlight and piece of chalk I had in my waistband. The Battle Dress Uniform (BDU) is doubled up at the waistline and there is room to stuff small items in the space between layers. I'm able to shuffle around a few degrees at a time and end up doing what seemed like a 54 point turn so I'm facing the rear of the box instead of the front like they stuffed me in. Between the flashlight and the chalk I'm able to draw a "Killroy was here" and write the date of a future class (probably not a real class date, but just not mine!) I surprise my captors when they went to pull me out of the box....totally worth it.

We got moved to little POW huts as a group and this is where we were expected to form some kind of escape plan. I wasn't involved in the plan because as a yellow-band the guards tried making me look like a traitor. They handed me a dummy AK47 and expected me to "guard" my fellow prisoners. This AK was pretty impressive as it had a lot of metal and you were even able to make it look like you could cycle it. I pulled the fake bolt back (a metallic painted dowel) and inserted a stick, making sure it was noticeable to anyone actually paying attention. Every chance I had I had my "rifle" pointed at the actual guards as well. As part of my "job" if anyone had to use the bathroom I had to escort them the the actual bathroom and stand outside saying something like "All you bitches and bastards have to stand back......" I do remember the longer phrase definitely had "bitches and bastards" as part of it. I said it loudly and worth the worst inflections I could manage, I knew I was being filmed but I didn't want anyone to think I was serious.

I had two more exercises, one was an interview with me and one of the TACP airmen where they gave us some food and tried to look all benevolent. I let the Airman eat all the food and insinuated that such rich food (it was just a can of beans) was a bit much for my stomach. I do recall also mentioning how many were in our group, but not much else. The other exercise was basically another interview with the "Commandant" about being released....if we'd agree to something that was against (more like not required by) the Geneva Conventions. The one NCO I was with refused and was told to leave the room and after he left I said I'd agree to the the end-effect of what he wanted but not the actual agreement because of the violation. Someone needed to get out.....but I also did not know that a couple of the CCT guys had managed to escape according to their plan, mostly because they had to turn back to finish training.

The POW Camp ended in a spectacular fashion that was actually awesome, but since I assume they still do something similar I would not want to ruin the moment for anyone. Afterwards one of the aircrews bought a keg and we had an impromptu party where I got to do my 1st, and last, keg stand where I did ok all things considered.

I was led this way after posting in r/StoriesAboutKevin. Hope you enjoy the story.

This happened at Fort Drum. If you've never been to Drum, congratulations. You made better choices than I did. Fort Drum sits in the part of upstate New York where winter starts in October and ends when the Army tells it to, which is never. The barracks are old. The heating works when it wants to. The walls are thin enough that you can hear the man next door blink. I say this not because it's relevant to the story but because I want to establish that the barracks at Drum are already depressing before you add a human being who has decided that personal hygiene is a suggestion.

I was a Corporal at the time. I had my stripes for about four months. I was a 92G, same as now, running breakfast in the DFAC and trying to learn how to be an NCO without getting anyone killed or food-poisoned, which at the time I thought were the two worst things that could happen in the Army. I was wrong. The worst thing that can happen in the Army is being assigned barracks NCO duty for a floor that contains Specialist Pruitt.

His name was Pruitt. Nobody called him Pruitt. Everybody called him Smeagol. I did not come up with the name. It was already in circulation when I drew the duty, passed down from the previous barracks NCO the way oral traditions are passed down in cultures that have seen too much. The name fit. Pruitt was a 25B, which is the Army's Information Technology Specialist. Help desk. Network support. The kind of soldier who fixes your computer and makes you feel judged for not knowing what a driver is. In Pruitt's case, "fixes your computer" was generous. What Pruitt actually did was exist in a server room for eight hours, attend the minimum number of formations required to avoid a counseling statement, and then return to his barracks room to conduct whatever it was he conducted in there, which based on the available evidence included gaming, screaming, and the slow biological decomposition of a man who had given up on the social contract.

The noise complaints started before I got there. Pruitt played Call of Duty. Pruitt played Call of Duty with the enthusiasm of a man who believed the kills were real and the stakes were personal. You could hear him through the walls. Not just hear him. You could follow the gameplay. You knew when he died because the word he screamed started with F and did not stop for several seconds. You knew when he got a killstreak because the scream shifted to something celebratory but no less loud, like a Viking discovering a particularly well-stocked village. You knew when he was on the phone with his mother because the tone changed from rage to a kind of high-pitched whining that I have only ever heard from a grown man once, and it was Pruitt, asking his mother to put more money in his account because the PX was "basically a scam."

Three soldiers on his floor had submitted complaints. One of them had gone through the trouble of writing it up formally, which tells you the level of desperation because soldiers will tolerate almost anything before they fill out paperwork. The complaints were about noise. They were also, secondarily, about smell.

I'm going to address the smell now because the smell is what turned a noise complaint into a health and welfare inspection, and the health and welfare inspection is what turned a Tuesday afternoon into the single worst hour of my career up to that point and arguably since.

The smell had been reported as "noticeable." Then "concerning." Then "I think something died in there, Corporal." That last one was from PFC Hogarth, who lived in the room directly adjacent and who had started sleeping with a towel stuffed under his door. Hogarth was not a dramatic person. Hogarth was the kind of soldier who could sleep through artillery and eat an MRE without complaining. If Hogarth was stuffing a towel under his door, something was wrong.

I brought the complaints to my platoon sergeant. My platoon sergeant brought them to the First Sergeant. The First Sergeant decided we were doing a health and welfare of the entire floor, because you can't single out one room without it looking targeted, even when the target is obvious and actively fermenting.

The health and welfare was scheduled for a Tuesday at 1400. The soldiers were given no advance notice because that is the point. You are checking the rooms as they are, not as the soldiers wish they were. I had a team of three. Myself, Sergeant Vecchio, and the First Sergeant, who was not originally planning to attend but decided to come along because, and I quote, "I want to see what's making Hogarth act like that."

We started at the far end of the hall. Room by room. Most of them were fine. Soldiers at Drum keep their rooms in a range between "acceptable" and "I just shoved everything in the closet ten minutes ago," and both of those are passing. Some dust. Some laundry on the floor. One soldier had a George Foreman grill he wasn't supposed to have, which Vecchio confiscated with the enthusiasm of a man who had just found a free George Foreman grill. Standard stuff. Nobody was going to die.

We worked our way down the hall. The smell got worse. It was a gradient. You could track your proximity to Pruitt's room the way you track your proximity to a landfill on a highway. At first you think you're imagining it. Then you're not imagining it. Then you're breathing through your mouth. Then breathing through your mouth doesn't help because you can taste it, which is a thing I wish I had not learned that day.

First Sergeant noticed. He didn't say anything. He just started breathing shorter, which for a man who had done twenty years including two tours in Iraq was as close to a visible reaction as you were going to get.

We reached Pruitt's door.

I knocked. I announced the health and welfare. I heard movement inside. Not urgent movement. Not the scramble of a man trying to hide something. Slow movement. The movement of a man extracting himself from a position he had been in for a long time, which I later confirmed was accurate because the impression in his mattress suggested Pruitt had not changed his primary seating location in weeks.

Pruitt opened the door about eight inches. He did not open it all the way. He stood in the gap the way a troll guards a bridge, except trolls presumably have better ventilation. The smell that came through the eight-inch gap hit me in the face with the confidence of something that had been building strength for months and was ready to introduce itself to the world.

I said, "Open the door all the way, Specialist."

He said, "It's kind of messy, Corporal."

First Sergeant, standing behind me, said, "Open the door, Specialist." He said it once. He said it in the tone that First Sergeants use when they are offering you the opportunity to make this easy and when that opportunity has an expiration date measured in seconds.

Pruitt opened the door.

I want to describe what I saw in the order I saw it, because the sequence matters. Each thing I saw made me think I had found the worst part, and then I would see the next thing and realize I had been an optimist.

First thing. The floor. The floor was not visible. I do not mean it was cluttered. I mean the floor had a layer. The layer was composed of clothing, food wrappers, energy drink cans, napkins, something that might have been a towel at some point but had since become a different substance, and a pizza box that was not closed because closing it would have required the structural integrity that the box had lost approximately two weeks prior based on the condition of the remaining pizza inside it, which had developed a fur. The pizza had fur. I want to be clear about this. The pizza was growing something. I am not a biologist. I cannot tell you what it was. I can confidently tell you it was green and fuzzy.

Second thing. The desk. Pruitt was a 25B. His desk had two monitors, a keyboard with keys that were visibly shiny from skin oil, a mouse pad that had changed color from its original state to something that could be described as "human contact gray," and approximately thirty cans of Mountain Dew arranged in a pattern that suggested Pruitt had simply been placing them down when finished and allowing them to accumulate in whatever natural formation cans adopt when left to govern themselves. Some were on their sides. Some had been used as ashtrays. One had something in it that was not Mountain Dew and was not ash and I chose not to investigate further at the time. That was a good decision. I stand by it today.

Third thing. The bottles. There were bottles along the wall by the desk. Plastic water bottles, the 16.9-ounce kind you buy in bulk. Approximately a dozen of them, lined up against the baseboard like soldiers at a very unfortunate formation. They were full. They were not full of water. They were yellow. They were capped. I looked at them. I looked at Pruitt. Pruitt did not look at me. He was looking at a spot on the ceiling with the intensity of a man trying to leave his body through his eyeballs.

I want to address the bottles because I think it's important to understand what kind of commitment this represents. Pruitt's room was approximately forty feet from the latrine. Forty feet. I know because I paced it later, not because I wanted to but because I needed to quantify the laziness for the counseling statement and "he's a short walk from the bathroom" did not feel specific enough. Forty feet from his door to the latrine. Pruitt had decided that forty feet was too far to travel to urinate and had instead been using water bottles. And capping them. And lining them up. There was a system. The system was horrifying, but it was a system, and the fact that Pruitt had developed a methodology for something that should never require a methodology told me more about the man than his entire personnel file.

Fourth thing. The trash can. The trash can was next to his bed. It was a standard-issue small plastic waste bin. The kind you put a bag in and empty when it's full. Pruitt had not emptied it. Pruitt had, at some point, vomited into it. Pruitt had then, at some subsequent point, vomited into it again. The trash can had become a repository for what I can only describe as layered biological events, each separated by a stratum of fast food wrappers and energy drink cans like some kind of geological record of bad decisions. The bag, if there had ever been a bag, had dissolved or fused with the contents. The bin itself was leaking from the bottom, slowly, onto the floor, which explained a stain near the bed that I had initially assumed was a shadow but was not a shadow. It was never a shadow.

Vecchio, who had been standing to my left, stepped back into the hallway. He did not say anything. He just left. I heard him breathing through the wall. First Sergeant did not step back. First Sergeant stood in that room and took it all in with the expression of a man watching his retirement get further away with every passing second.

Fifth thing. The wall behind the bed. There were stains on the wall. I am not going to describe the stains in detail because I have limits and also because I genuinely do not know what caused all of them. Some were clearly food. Some were clearly beverage. Some were in the category of "I have a theory but confirming it would require a forensic kit and more willpower than I possess." The drywall itself, near the baseboard behind the trash can, was soft. Not stained. Soft. Moist. The biological runoff from the trash can had been making contact with the wall for long enough that the drywall had begun to absorb it. The wall was digesting the trash juice. The building itself was being corrupted by this man's existence.

I turned to Pruitt. He was still standing by the door. He had put his hands in his pockets, which under any other circumstance I would have corrected because that is a thing NCOs correct, but I was so far past uniform standards at this point that I would not have cared if Pruitt was wearing a cape.

I said, "Specialist, how long has your room been like this."

He said, "It's not usually this bad, Corporal."

That was a lie. I knew it was a lie. Hogarth knew it was a lie. The wall knew it was a lie. The wall had been absorbing evidence that it was a lie for what appeared to be months.

First Sergeant said, "When was the last time you took the trash out."

Pruitt thought about this. He thought about it for long enough that the question clearly required research.

"Maybe October?" he said.

It was already early December.

First Sergeant looked at me. He did not say what he was thinking. He did not need to. His face said it for him. His face said, I have been to war and nothing there prepared me for this man's trash can.

The cleanup was Pruitt's responsibility but it was my problem, which is the barracks NCO experience in a sentence. I supervised the cleanup. Pruitt was given gloves, trash bags, and cleaning supplies. He was told he had until 1800. He was told the room would be reinspected. He was told that if the room did not meet standard, consequences would follow. Pruitt said roger. He said it the way a man says "roger" when he intends to comply just enough to avoid the immediate threat and not one fraction of an ounce more.

The cleanup took the entire afternoon. Pruitt filled nine trash bags. Nine. From a single barracks room that was smaller than some walk-in closets. The bottles went first because Pruitt seemed to understand on some level that the bottles were the thing he most needed to not be seen carrying down the hallway in front of other soldiers, so he double-bagged them and made the trip quickly and without eye contact. The trash can was another matter. Pruitt picked it up by the rim and the bottom stayed on the floor. It separated. The structural integrity of the plastic had been compromised by the contents to the point where the bin came apart in his hands and what was inside made contact with the carpet and the smell that had been contained, relatively, by the walls of the bin, was now free.

Pruitt gagged. Pruitt, the man who had been sleeping three feet from this object for weeks, gagged at its contents when they were presented to him outside the context of the bin. Somehow the bin had been acceptable. The bin's contents on the floor were too much. There is a psychology paper in there somewhere and I hope someone writes it because I don't want to think about it any harder than I already have.

The carpet in that section had to be replaced. I put in the work order. The work order required a description of the damage. I wrote "biological contamination from extended contact with waste material." The facilities sergeant who processed the work order called me and asked what that meant. I told him. He was quiet for a moment and then said, "I'll mark it priority."

The drywall behind the bed was patched. Not replaced, patched, because replacing it would have required opening up the wall and nobody wanted to know what was behind it. The patch held. I checked it before I left Drum. The patch was holding but the wall around it had a slight discoloration that I chose to believe was normal aging and not residual contamination. I chose to believe that because the alternative was thinking about Pruitt's trash can again and I had done enough of that for one lifetime.

Pruitt received a counseling statement. Then another. Then another one about two months later when the smell started coming back, because of course it did, because Pruitt had learned nothing from the experience except that he needed to lock his door more often. His chain of command handled the pattern. More counseling. A corrective action plan. Room inspections every Friday for eight weeks, which Pruitt passed because Pruitt was capable of meeting the standard when someone was going to check. The rest of the time, Pruitt returned to his natural state the way water finds its level.

Pruitt PCS'd about five months after the health and welfare. I was not involved in where he went. I did not ask. I did not want to know because knowing would have meant feeling sorry for whatever NCO was about to discover that the Army had mailed them a man who treats a barracks room like a composting experiment. Somewhere out there, a sergeant opened a door and smelled something and thought, this seems wrong. That sergeant was correct. That sergeant was meeting the legacy of Specialist Pruitt, and I am sorry for that sergeant, but I am not sorry enough to have kept Pruitt at Drum for one additional day.

I think about Pruitt occasionally. Not with the kind of complicated, keeps-you-up-at-night thinking that some soldiers leave you with. With Pruitt it's simple. Pruitt was a dirtbag. Pruitt was not broken. Pruitt was not struggling. Pruitt was not confused. Pruitt was a man who had decided, consciously and with full clarity, that other people's standards did not apply to him and that the forty-foot walk to the latrine was an unreasonable ask. Pruitt had a GT score high enough to be a 25B. Pruitt could troubleshoot a network switch. Pruitt could not be bothered to throw away a pizza that was growing a civilization.

Some soldiers you lose sleep over. Some soldiers you tell stories about at cookouts. Some soldiers you hope found their path and figured it out and landed somewhere that made sense for who they are.

Pruitt, I hope you ETS'd and found an apartment with a landlord who does inspections. I hope you discovered that the civilian world also has trash collection and that it occurs on a schedule. And if none of that worked out, I hear the Air Force has openings. They've got their own maid service over there. It's just an Airman in a tutu, but it's more than you were doing for yourself.

The bottles, man. I still think about the bottles. Forty feet. The latrine was forty feet away.

10 or so months ago I wrote that the world was 71% water, this story is gonna be some experiences on the 29% that isn’t.

Being in the navy post covid was weird, I raised my right hand and swore allegiance to the Queen her heirs and successors March 5^th of 2020. 8 days later I’m at the Canadian Forces leadership and recruit school sitting in a common area with the 58ish other platoon members sitting waiting for our instructors to come explain what was happening. They come up and explain that this flu thing that was going around has the school closing for an indefinite amount of time and that we would be going home and leaving our Kit behind. I flew home that Saturday in an almost empty plane. I went home and felt the oddest sense of imposter syndrome. I was home but I hadn’t completed the first step towards this career I thought I was starting.

 We didn’t know what was going on for months, It was May before we even heard from our instructors, “stay put don’t do anything stupid, more to follow.” More to follow would become the motto of my existence. I had decided to move in with my sister and her husband in their house which had an in-law suite, this let me have the ability to isolate but it also meant that as an 18 year old who couldn’t drive I relied on my feet. I used to walk 8km one way for a slice of pizza and a can of grape crush. I walked so damn much I started to jog just to get my pizza faster. That summer I ran a lot, ate a lot of pizza and played a ton of COD. I had nothing to complain about really I was making what to me at the time was stupid money.  

 It was august before we started getting word of a return to training, while waiting we did a lot of pushups on camara. they tried to assign homework but nobody really had the heart to follow up on it, bit of a weird time when nobody knew what was going on or for how long this would go on for it really broke the whole system down especially getting to see just how technically illiterate the people teaching us were. It took until mid September for my flight back. From there we restarted training, dealing with all the growing pains that came from dealing with the post covid environment. And to really drive the nail in the coffin they charged us a fee for keeping our kit while we were away, they didn't even bother to dust it.

Author’s Note,

I wrote a couple stories here around a year ago and I was planning to write a lot more, unfortunately life has a way of finding ways to kick you while you’re down, I lost a shipmate during a routine evolution, my wife and I were expecting until we found out at 12 weeks the baby wasn’t viable. I was in a dark place and I didn’t know what to do, until a mentor and friend saw something was up and got me the help I needed. So I guess what I’m trying to say is look out for each other especially now.

On a positive note I am currently 9 weeks into the newborn trenches and the military induced sleep deprivation is nothing compared to this.

Background; I personally served in South Korea's Force Reconnaissance unit ten years ago and wrote about my experiences.

Below is an excerpt from a book I wrote (without AI) about military service in South Korea.

I am sure many can relate:

I wake up from my dream of wine, brown turtleneck sweaters, beautiful white breasts, and brown leaves crushed underneath converse sneakers.

 I pry open my eyes surrounded by twenty or so other marines all cramped together like sardines. If you sneeze, your snot lands on the back of another person’s head. As a civilian I was so fastidious my friends mocked me. I would always carry around an embroidered handkerchief to blow my nose and brush my teeth before every meal. I would wipe tables in restaurants with a wet tissues before ordering food. Now I am nonplussed by others spit and snot, and drink from other’s water canteens without a second thought. I go from drinking bottled mineral water to drinking shower water. From eating organic fruit displayed in the fresh produce section to picking out rotting persimmons on the side of the road during long summer marches.

There are no such things as bunks—we sleep on the floor, like POWs on a Japanese hell ship during WWII. It is summertime, so we go without underwear, and instead do our daily PT run with piss and cum stained to the front and shit stained to the back of our red shorts. Underwear is for special occasions, like when we go to religious services in our class-A uniforms.

We tolerate this because we crave to be marines. We sacrifice our relationships, comfy Army jobs, university scholarships, and mom’s kimchi-tuna stew. We crave something deep inside the heart of any insecure teenager who was bullied in high school and found solace in League of Legends and Overwatch. We want to wear tiger-stripe camouflage uniforms and handle every weapon from mortars to M-60 machine guns to Vulcan anti-missile equipment and self-propelled grenades and hear the earsplitting roar as artillery shells make our eardrums bleed. We want to rappel from beat-to-shit Navy helicopters and set barbed wire and make booby-traps out of hand grenades and do rifle PT until our spines pop. We want to sleep in a ditch soaked to the bone wearing a poncho, hoping our gunnery sergeant will not sneak up on us and smash our skull in with a helmet or burn our forearms with cigarettes.

We want to belong—so desperately—to belong. To enjoy the simple comfort of a warm cot, to stay in our barracks on a Friday night watching a softcore porno. Pumping iron shirtless, dancing to Avicii, Sia, and Katy Perry while talking for hours about LCP. And then when everything is done and over with, we will return to our jobs and parents and look them in the eye and say “I volunteered and served honorably in the marines for 21 months. I am born again a Korean man.”

For the record I'm not a big drinker and drinking "on the job" wasn't my thing, but it felt like an appropriate title.....

I was an Enlisted Terminal Attack Controller (ETAC) in the 90's and I was stationed in Germany and my 1st Army unit as an ETAC was 1-77 Armor. We were "in the box" out at Hohenfels Germany and it was definitely a bit of a learning curve. I've posted about my.... "interactions" with the S3 before, but this is a different, unexpected, "interaction".

1-77 had been doing rather well at HoHo, and I'd like to take some credit for any of the success, but this was during the time frame where the Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) guys were still pretty much red-headed step-children. The Air Force didn't care too much about us and the Army seemed frustrated because we were generally useless. If it wasn't actual/real-world operations they couldn't give a damn about air support. The problem (IMNSHO) was that the "Big Army" couldn't plan training worth a damn. Instead of plussing up the enemy, even notionally, just to have the Air Force take the enemy off the board before/during the battle, the OPFOR would just be appropriate for the size of the Army unit in the box. Basically we were expecting the supported army unit to run through the motions of requesting Air Support and not getting any, or if we did, they'd be combat ineffective. In my opinion all we were doing is training Army Officers to see Air Power as useless. It also didn't help that the Air Force is quick to divert/cancel training missions to begin with.

Anyway, hopefully enough background. Since 1-77 was doing so well they kept upping the stakes. I had a 3-ship of A-10's loaded with 4 AGM-65s each scheduled for the battle and I do not remember the details, but I felt pretty confident they were going to show. That should realistically be 12 dead pieces of enemy armor as the Maverick missile is damn-close to a 100% kill ratio, and that's not even counting the 3 GAU-8's that were literally designed to kill armor. We had a big sand-table walk-through of the upcoming battle and they had every tank commander there. I couldn't even see the sand table, or who was leading the walk-through, because of all of the lower-ranking officers crowding around this thing. When they get to the Air Force portion of the brief, someone remarks something to the effect of "I bet the Air Force doesn't even get three Armor kills tomorrow."

I responded, "I'll take that bet....a case of beer. Better be Heineken...and cold." A lot of the Officer's laugh and there's a bit of motion at the head of the table. Officers move aside enough so I can access the table and I'm able to see who I'm betting against.....it's the Brigade Commander. Sure I was being cocky, have to defend the TACP (to these guys we were the Air Force), but the Brigade Commander......I'm not that cocky. Still, even with the severe downgrade on results, a 3 ship of A'10's loaded like they were scheduled to, I should get one Armor kill per A/C.

I don't really remember the battle, but I do recall my relatively shitty BDA (Battle Damage Assessment). They gave me 2 tanks, and a Hind. Seriously?! When I went to the After Action Review (AAR), which was held "in the rear", I was a bit embarrassed and even a little pissed. I was planning on sending my driver (I had an assigned track driver) to the Class VI to get the beer, but the Brigade Commander showed up with a cold six-pack. He handed to me and acknowledged that I didn't get three tanks as expected, but since "they" pretty much refer to the Hind as "a flying tank" that he'll consider the bet technically won and he'll split the difference with me, just don't drink any of this outside of the track.

When we got back from the AAR and setup up for the night, my Airman, the Driver, and myself had two beers each. The best beer I ever had in the field, hands down.