The List

People make lists for all sort of reasons: packing lists to make sure nothing is forgotten on a trip, shopping lists to keep from having to make that unwanted trip back to the market, Amazon wish lists so someone can pay for that Breaking Bad complete Blu-ray.

I made myself a unique list, which I have been striving to complete since 2003. I never thought I would make one of those cliche what-I’m-going-to-do-when-I-get-back-home lists, until a few friends of mine almost got killed while making a resupply run to one of our outposts in downtown Baghdad.

That wake up call finally forced me to sit down on my cot one night and jot down a few goals I wanted to achieve (in no particular order) when I got home.

Welcome to Kuwait

There’s a saying in the Army, “Hurry up and wait.” It basically means we always make a big deal of getting together and moving out as a group as fast as possible, only to end up waiting for hours before we actually get anything done.

It was mid March 2003 when we finally got orders to head to the terminal at Biggs airfield on Fort Bliss. We had been training since November and were eager to finally do our jobs. We woke up extra early so we could move out of the barracks, load our gear on the trucks, and check our weapons out of the arms room.

On March 18, 2016March 22, 2016 By Softtop SoldierLeave a comment

Vacuum from the Heavens

It was one of those few rare days when we had a little down time during Basic. Of course, down time didn’t mean we could watch TV or take a nap. We spent today’s downtime cleaning our rifles outside.

So we were cleaning and mostly bullshitting about our lives back home, when we heard a loud smack of plastic and metal hitting the pavement. We immediately jumped to our feet and ran towards the source of the noise.

Around the corner from our drill pad was a mangled husk of what used to be 2nd platoon’s vacuum cleaner. How or why this happened never entered my mind, because I could only think about what would happen if our Drill Sargeant found out.

F U

Drill Sergeants like to mess with soldiers. I think they partly do it out of boredom. I mean, they spend more time with us than their own families.

One day the Drills started messing with this 1st platoon Private who was unfortunately named “Fu”. Fu was a quiet Asian American kid with coke bottle glasses who kept his head down and went unnoticed for  the first few months of Basic Training.