Different Shades of Gray

Well, I still did not pass the sustainment portion of the test. So for now I will remain a gray belt in MCMAP. I am not as pissed at myself today, for a few reasons:

1) I am still going to get paid
2) There is no adverse action
3) There is no reason that I can't go over the moves for a few days/weeks and take another test
4) Motrin
5) Naproxen
6) I am still the boss of my crew
7) I know that I have Marines willing to help me in my struggles
8) As far as I know nothing is broken
9) This deployment is almost over
10) I did my best

Makes Perfect Sense...

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Some more fun I swiped from Hot Cup. It figures doesn't it?

No Pressure

I failed.


I get to retake the test tomorrow night.

Funny, I didn't even get to the green belt part.

I really don't have anything nice to say about myself, it was all stupid(like "duh") mistakes.

One Possible Outcome in the States

I might get back find a permanent place to stay with a week or so. I do my job for the first few weeks, which is really catching up on all the training I didn't do in Iraq. Most of it is not my favorite things to do, but it must be done. Go on a leave period of 15 days.

While on leave travel north through DC to Baltimore and visit an old friend from when I was stationed in Yuma. Then skirt over and through PA to Youngstown, Ohio and visit with another friend from my days in Millingtion. Take a break in Chicago and shoot north and visit with my folks in Valders. While there I will probably renew my driver's license and find some of my old things that are no doubt collecting dust in the basement. After five or six days it will be time to head south again.

I might stop in Rockford and say hello to a friend I went to boot camp together, we reconnected on MySpace of all places. Then head cross ways through Ohio so I can take the mountains in West Virginia and see if the corridor is finished on I-77. On my way down, I may stop in Asheville and tour the castle there.

Once arriving back to base, I will most likely pick up my uniforms fro the dry cleaners and inspect them since it will be a month away and I will proceed to my Resident course.

Once I am done with that I will most likely take leave again and head to Yuma and probably donate my truck that is there.

Then again, I may do something completely different.

Cross Your Fingers and Toes

I will be testing out for my Green Belt tomorrow night. I am still having problems with a few moves that are similar in each of the belts.

Testing is simple really. The instructor will pick five random techniques from both the previous belts in which I can miss only one(out of the ten). After passing that I may proceed with the Green belt test with all the techniques, twenty seven or twenty eight.

I have been soliciting help from another instructor during my "off time" the last few days. The wacky part is I don't fuck up when I practice with him. So it looks like I know what I am doing. Then class starts and I fuck up.

So I have one more day of class with practicing(which is tonight), then tomorrow is the test. Worst case scenario is when being the "dummy" for the other person a bone breaks. I am not too worried, I have been in pain pretty much constantly since we started.

I guess what I am asking is, cross a finger or two in the next few days and hope I pass this test.

Thank you.

Fun with Locations

This is where the last fifty people who have visited me are from except the one person from England.

I did not know that I knew that many people on the east coast. Kind of makes it seem like the world is smaller. In theory, I could drive through most of these locations on the way to see my folks in Wisconsin. It is just a theory.

Love

I have to admit I don't talk about to many mushy items in this blog. Things here tend to be on the "manly man" side. Someone had brought up an interesting point to me and it relates to the word love.

Let's start off with I love my Mom, Dad, and my Brother. I love my Brother's family. This love is the type of love that only families really can have.

Then my degrees of love take a sharp turn downward. My amount of love has gotten smaller and smaller with each divorce and ending relationship I had. So much so, the very definition of love has lost its meaning. I sometimes wonder why I even said vows to these women, obviously it didn't mean anything to them. I wonder if there was an attachment displayed as envy and love was never a factor or they were just coveting the marriage/relationship of another and wanted to be better than someone else.

I believe that each relationship(at least the marriages) were salvageable. In each instance, I put my good foot forward(since my first marriage) to resolve the problems or difference to save the relationship. Never worked, just prolonged the inevitable that they had set in motion.

I don't consider being a Marine as a major factor since I have been a Marine first and longer any of the relationships lasted. I am sure it played a role. My order of importance has been Children, God, Country, Corps, Wife/Girlfriend and this has not changed. I have always been up front with this. I mention it because I recall a time when it was brought up as an excuse on why the marriage failed. She was upset I put her kid in front of her during an emergency situation. Wacky, I know.

I am not saying I can not love. I am just saying that I have built a pretty big wall around me and to get through will take some time.

I Had Some Time to Kill

I picked this up at ~ freshly ground & freshly brewed ~ which is Hot Cup Lutheran's blog.
Some of the questions were omitted, I am not making up new ones. Well, here goes:

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? : No
2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? I got kicked in the lower abdominal area and had a tear or two.
3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? I can't read it, so yes.
4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Honey ham
5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? Highly impossible, NO
6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? I would kick myself in the ass or sucker punch me.
7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? Does a bear shit in the woods?
8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS ? Yes
9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? Been there done that.
10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? I kind of like Pops, but only for a snack.
11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Depends if I was PTing or not.
12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? No, but I fight dirty.
13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? Orange sherbet
14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? Gait
15. RED OR PINK? Red, bloody.
16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? Intelligence.
17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? I hate to say it, the last ex-wife.
19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Digital MAR PAT, rough side out leather.
20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? Apple
21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? Rock and Roll
22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Sky Blue #76D7EA
23. FAVORITE SMELLS? Vanilla
24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? Mom
26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? Football
27. HAIR COLOR? Is this mine? Brown
28. EYE COLOR? Matches the hair.
29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? I can kind of see
30. FAVORITE FOOD? This changes on what course we are eating. Peanut Butter Squares.
31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Scary with the bad guy winning.(Realism)
32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Snatch.
33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? Olive drab
34. SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer
35. HUGS OR KISSES? Both, unless you are an alien.
36. FAVORITE DESSERT? I covered this on question 30.
39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING RIGHT NOW? Forever Odd.
40. What's ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? Nothing, air.
41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON T.V. LAST NIGHT? Rerun of the Chiefs game
42. FAVORITE SOUND? Ch53E in a formation.
43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? Stones
44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? I think here, I think here is the furthest I have been away from home.
45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? Not really.
46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? In a hospital.
48. WHAT TIME IS IT NOW? 0600 GMT +3

Question and Answer Period

It is hard to be the one with answers all the time. I don't always have them. If fact most of the time I don't have them. When it comes to the job at hand, I know my job and can help it most circumstances. If the question turns to strictly a Marine Corps question, I usually have an answer or I know where to find it. It is the everything else that I have a problem with.

Since being in Iraq for more than three quarters of the year, I have been approached with some pretty hard hitting questions. Most of the time, I can reach back to my experiences and remember what I did in that circumstance. Everytime something like this has happened, I did not have all the right answers and most of the time there were no right answers, just suggestions.

Since most of my readers are clergy, maybe some of this post will be easy to relate to. I am not complaining, I am just saying it is hard.

The Village Carpenter's Answer

The Village Carpenter's question is: If you could do your life over again, what would you do differently?


A bunch of stuff....I was no angel growing up, so maybe make the other decision would have been wiser. Not as fun, but wouldn't have limited some of my options later.


There was this girl, that I dumped for a younger, prettier model (kind of like a Barbie doll), that was a HUGE mistake. By the time, I realized it is was too late. I believe that a lot of my early adulthood decisions hinged on that mistake. Later, I met her husband which was the guy she dated right after me, they have two kids a nice house and are essentially happy.


Maybe when I went to college the first time, if I would have not had a full load and a full time job (that was also sixty miles away), I would have lasted a little longer. Maybe.

I probably shouldn't have married my first wife. I should have listened to the "adults" for my second.


All in all, all these experiences make me like I am today. Whether it is good or bad, this is me and I can't change anything from the past, just learn from it.

Way Too Early For Christmas

I have received some Christmas items suck as a tree and light and ornaments. And I said, What the Hay!" The tree reminded me of Charlie Brown's when I first started setting it up, but it is definitely a tad better than that. You all can make up your own mind. So what, if there is about forty days to go, minor.

Wacky Searches on my Blog

Seems that "lately" the most frequent searches(using that search thingy on the bar at the top of the page) are :
GIRL
GIRLFRIEND
WIFE
WIVES
EX WIFE
and
NAUTICAL

The nautical makes perfect sense since that goes with the birthday and Veterans Day. But the other five, I have not talked about any women on this blog since my six year rant and even that really wasn't about women it was about the church.

The answer is no, I do not have a girlfriend(or wife). Girlfriends and deployments do not go together, and as my past has proven wives and deployments do not work either.

If you happen to have a pointed question just ask.

Ben Stein, August 9, 2004...A Look Back

How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today's World?

As I begin to write this, I "slug" it, as we writers say, which means I put a heading on top of the document to identify it. This heading is"FINAL," and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started. I loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end. It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the world's change have overtaken it.

On a small scale, Morton's [famous restaurant which was often frequented by Hollywood stars], while better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to. It still brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars. I saw Samuel L. Jackson there a few days ago, and we had a nice visit, and right before that, I saw and had a splendid talk with Warren Beatty in an elevator, in which we agreed that Splendor in the Grass was a super movie. But Morton's is not the star galaxy it once was, though it probably will be again.

Beyond that, a bigger change has happened. I no longer think Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant, friendly people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be treated. But a manor woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining star we should all look up to.

How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today's world, if by a "star" we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model? Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or getting trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese girls do their nails. They can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any longer.

A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq. He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world. Areal star is the U.S. soldier who was sent to disarm a bomb next to a road north of Baghdad. He approached it, and the bomb went off and killed him.. A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day,is the U.S. soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with apiece of unexploded ordnance on a street near where he was guarding a station. He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad.

The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosul even after two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists. We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers of our magazines.

The noncoms and officers who barely scrape by on military pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and die.

I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton's is a big subject. There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament....the policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no idea if they will return alive. The orderlies and paramedics who bring in people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery, the teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children, the kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards. Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse.

Now you have my idea of a real hero. We are not responsible for the operation of the universe, and what happens to us is not terribly important.

God is real, not a fiction, and when we turn over our lives to Him, he takes far better care of us than we could ever do for ourselves. In a word, we make ourselves sane when we fire ourselves as the directors of the movie of our lives and turn the power over to Him.

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters. This is my highest and best use as a human. I can put it another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin--or Martin Mull or Fred Willard--or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman, or as good a writer as Fitzgerald. Or even remotely close to any of them. But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came to be my main task in life. I did it moderately well with my son, pretty well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister's help). I cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years. I stayed with my father as he got sick, went into extremis, into a coma, and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms.

This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York. I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human.

For validity of this post visit:http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/b/benstein.htm

Veterans' Day

Please remember your past and present veterans, especially today.

Here is a link to the VA Veterans Day page.

A link to the history of Veterans' Day.

November 10th, 2007

Some of you have asked how I will spend my day, the answer is simple, with my Marines.

I will give you some of my favorite quotes:

"Where do you find men like this? They come from families like yours. From farms and villages, towns and cities across the nation...Today, the world looks to America for leadership. And America looks to its Corps of Marines."
- President Ronald Reagan, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina 1983

"Come on, you sons of bitches-do you want to live forever?"
-Attributed to Gunnery Sergeant Daniel Daly, USMC, Belleau Wood, June 1918.

"They (Women Marines) don't have a nickname, and they don't need one. They get their basic training in a Marine atmosphere, at a Marine Post. They inherit the traditions of the Marines. They are Marines."
Lieutenant General Thomas Holcomb, USMC 1943

"The U.S. Marine is a professional who stands ready to fight anytime, anywhere, any enemy that the President and Congress may designate and to do so coolly, capably, and in the spirit of professional detachment. He is not trained to hate, nor is he whipped up emotionally for battle or for any duty the Corps may be called on to perform. Patriotism and professionalism are his only two 'isms.'"
- Colonel Robert D. Heinl Jr. USMC 1970

"I still need Marines who can shoot and salute. But I need Marines who can fix jet engines and man sophisticated radar sets, as well."
- General Robert E. Cushman, Jr., USMC, 17 May 1974

Happy 232nd Marines! Where ever you may be!

RevGals: Friday 5- Extravagant unbusyness....

Sally, from RevGals, is writing in my official capacity of grump!!! No seriously, with the shops and stores around us filling with Christmas gifts and decorations, the holiday season moving up on us quickly for many the time from Thanksgiving onwards will be spent in a headlong rush towards Christmas with hardly a time to breathe.... I am looking at the possibility of finding little gaps in the day or the week to spend in extravagant unbusyness ( a wonderful phrase coined by fellow Revgal Michelle)...So given those little gaps, name 5 things you would do to;

(In the Marine Corps spirit, my list is slightly askewed)

1.to care for your body

100 crunches in two minutes, 20 dead hang pull-ups, and a 20 minute three mile run.

~

2. to care for your spirit

Praying for baby Jesus on his birthday, Christmas, and remembering God was a Marine as well.
~

3. to care for your mind

Engaging in the illustrustrious history of our fine Corps and teaching the up and comming generations in the pride and honor to be a Marine.

~

4. to bring a sparkle to your eye

November 10th, need I say more, I think not.

~

5. to place a spring in your step

Singing cadence while going about your daily business.

~

.... and then for a bonus which one on the list are you determined to put into action?

Every one as my fellow brothers and sisters in arms have done before me.

______________ ______________

The Marines' Hymn

MARINES' HYMN

From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli,

We fight our country's battles in the air, on land and sea.

First to fight for right and freedom, and to keep our honor clean;

We are proud to claim the title of United States Marine.

~

Our Flag's unfurled to every breeze from dawn to setting sun.

We have fought in every clime and place, where we could take a gun.

In the snow of far off northern lands and in sunny tropic scenes,

You will find us always on the job, the United States Marines.

~

Here's health to you and to our Corps, which we are proud to serve.

In many a strife we've fought for life and never lost our nerve.

If the Army and the Navy ever look on heaven's scenes,

they will find the streets are guarded by United States Marines.

Do Feel It?

Do you feel it coming?

The emails and conversations have been leaning hard toward our birthday. For those of us that are Marines or former Marines our birthday is November tenth.

On the 10th of November in 1775, the Continental Congress passed a resolution, which said in part:

"...Resolved, that two battalions of Marines be raised, consisting of one colonel, two lieutenant colonels, two majors, and other officers as usual in other regiments; and that they consist of an equal number of privates with other battalions;

that particular care betaken, that no persons be appointed to office, or enlisted into said battalions, but such as are good seamen, or so acquainted with maritime affairs as to be able to serve to advantage by sea when required;

that they be enlisted and commissioned to serve for and during the present war between Great Britain and the Colonies, unless dismissed by order of Congress; that they be distinguished by the names of the first and second battalions of American Marines..."

On November 10, 1775, Robert Mullan, the proprietor of the (Tun) Tavern and son of Peggy Mullan, was commissioned by an act of Congress to raise the first two battalions of Marines, under the leadership of Samuel Nicholas, the first appointed Commandant of(the Continental) Marines.

Litttle Things that I Hate in the Blog World

I hate it when I visit a blog (or website) and they have a "Cost of the War" ticker.
I hate it when I visit a blog and they have a " Iraqi deaths due to US invasion" ticker.

I think it is "fucking" stupid. Of all the people it shouldn't piss off is me, according to most of those I have spoken to about their tickers.

I really can't write what I want to say. I have rewritten this post about two dozen times, not because I am trying to be politically correct. I have rewritten it because I am bound by the contract I signed under my own feel will and I am not allowed to say or write certain conclusions or hypothesis about my country men and women.

Oh, I understand, open your eyes ...various people that working against the system. Those people are not reading this, those people do not vote, those are the people who complain all the time and do not do anything about it.

The great thing here is not that you agree, you don't have to, "we" live in a free country.

Sandstorms and Post Cards

Today, there is another sand storm going through, it not the first I have seen, not the second, it probably is the thirtieth or more. I could take a picture but it wouldn't turn out because the sun is down. Sandstorms are bitch to prepare for, because they just kind of pop out of nowhere. So I keep a whole bunch of stuff for sandstorms with me all the time. It just sucks.

I did receive a post card from Fran I Am today. It is a picture of water fountain in Barcelona. (Just to let everyone know, I would reply if I had an address.) I am actually one of those crazy people who keep most, if not all, of the mail sent to me. I even have a wacky filing system. So lets say you wrote me a letter when I was floating around the ocean in 1996, odds are I have it somewhere.

So today's verdict is: it sucks there is a sandstorm but I am happy because I received a post card from Fran I Am .