Saturday, March 31, 2012

Almost up to date

So the posts I've already put on here today were all older posts, some of them from a few years ago.  I suppose they may be in backward order?  whateva...  Now to actually get on with the rest of my day...

When I root I root for the Timbers!!

Sheepdogs



What I needed to learn about myself and the people I respect I learned from Lieutenant Colonal Grossman. 
LT. COL. Grossman is a propogandist that also worked at West Point.  Propoganda aside, he put a handle on something that made total sense when he broke it down.
There are three main catagories of people.  There are your wolves, your sheep, and your sheep dogs.  The sheep are important.  They eat the grass and keep the fire danger down.  They are the general population and make up most of the masses.
The wolves are the killers who live only to prey on the sheep.  They do not see it as wrong to prey on sheep, that is simply what they were born to do.
The sheepdogs on the other hand, have a bloodlust also....  But they live to PROTECT the sheep.  They love the violence that they need to unleash on the wolves, but will only unleash that violence on a wolf.
The sheep do not like to see the sheep dogs.  They sometimes look similar to the wolves.  They are a reminder that wolves are out there, and sheep would frankly rather just eat grass and pretend that there is no danger.
When a wolf comes out of the forest, the sheep huddle near the sheepdog and love the shit out of him, then when the wolf is gone, the sheep quickly try to forget about the sheepdog.  The sheepdog doesn't mind, because he just lives to protect the flock.
There are varying degrees of each of the three types of people.  A mother who may be a sheep almost all of the time, may quickly turn into a sheepdog when her children are threatened.  A police officer may choose not to take his sidearm with him when he goes to the grocery store, thereby displaying sheep-like thinking "nothing is probably going to happen today".....  When the police officer does that, he/she should look in the mirror and say "baaaaaah", because they are mentally in sheep mode.
A story is told about a police officer who is on a SWAT team in Texas who did not take his gun with him when he attended church with his family.  Why in the heck would somebody want to take a gun to church right?  A deranged man walked into the church during the service and began shooting people.  The police officer could do nothing but lay on top of his son and hope that they survived...knowing full well that he had the skills and knowledge to stop the killling, if only he had brought the proper tool.
Some people who think about the hijacked flight that crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside say "man I'm glad I wasn't on that plane".  Others say "Man I wish I had been on the plane because I could've done something".
It's up to you to decide which of those people you are...and if you choose the wrong one...look in the mirror and say "BAAAAAHHHH"

Super BadAss Bug

What in the HELL is going on?  Everybody is sick and it isn't cool at all.  It went through our family (just kinda sideswiped me so far) and is kicking our asses!!
.......It went through the kids' daycare...
.....through their school....
....through Emma's mouth....
...through Alex's diaper....
....through my work.....
....through the news....
....AAARRRRRGGGHH!!
ok...that's done.  Played my first indoor soccer game in about a year and a half last night, it was a blast.  The good news is that it's basically coed beer league, as opposed to some of the competitive leagues that I've played in before.  I think it was good to transition my way back into it like this....because even this kicked my ass (did I mention that I just had a piece of a badass superbug at the end of last week/weekend?).  The fat belly doesn't help me either.
I had a few assists and one (or two?) goals.  I get almost more satisfaction out of setting up the goal and assisting then I do out of putting the ball in the net.  I don't think that's cowardly....I'd say unselfish...but I really do like that.  There are some good players on my team, which is a nice bonus.  It REALLY is about the fun anyway.
Emma asked me to win for her, and I told her that it was all about having fun....but it sure was nice to win the first game.  Most of the other team were "pick-up" players though, as most of the other team didn't show.
I'm sore today, and feeling like a sissy for it.  Doing a new activity that you haven't done in awhile (read "exercising") really makes fat complain.  I need to keep it up to make it hurt less...but it's just getting there that's the hard part (I seem to remember that I never really got "there"...that I was always "getting there".  Hmmmm, something to think about I guess, but not for too long or I'll never exercise again).  Did I mention that I'm sore?
I know that I need to get back into better shape.  Someone I work with was slashed with a razor across his ear, arm, back, and chest yesterday.  The person who did it was a "ding", no rhyme or reason, just came out of the blue with it.  It's a good reminder for me I suppose, and a wake-up call to exercise.  I want to come home from work to my wife and kids.  And to top it off, I have the high profile job, which doesn't exactly make the best friends.  Those "best friends" may possibly look me up when they get the opportunity, or may just see me by chance on the street. 
Goes back to either being a sheep or a sheep dog....I just have to keep cognizant and ready...while walking the fine line of not being paranoid and stressed about it at all times...or making my family stress out about it.
I haven't been in a real fight in a long time...which is good.  I had my ass handed to me once (made a good accounting of myself before I was knocked out - they remember me), but the point was that I was knocked the hell out.  Kinda like this superbug is doing to my family....-did I mention that?

Killing Babies

It was 1994 and I had been patrolling nightly in downtown Port-Au-Prince.  By patrolling I mean walking up and down hills, smelling shit in the air, avoiding dead bodies that were mutilated and lying in heaps of garbage, carrying more weight than I should have had to, and being glad that I was walking all night instead of all day.  I kept telling myself "good friends, guns, some occasional Black Sabbath when we were hitching a ride in a hummer, nighttime in the Caribbean…how could it be any better".
So on the 25th straight night of patrolling…the "new" Sgt Major walked with us to see what we do.  Because of this…we had done MANY more hills than normal and moved much faster.  I was smoked…but the Sgt Major was even more smoked, and we played it off as if this was what we always did.  Sweat rolled off of my brow as he asked me if this was "normal", and I actually kept a straight face when I said "what do you mean Sgt Major?  This isn't "normal", but this is what we do every night.  I'm just glad we're taking it easy since you're with us.  I wish you'd patrol with us every night so we'd get to keep taking the easy routes."
It was daylight and we were moving to the extraction point.  Along the way, a citizen waved us down and told us about a very large cache of grenades, weapons, and ammo.  He told us that they belonged to an anti-US militia group, but were presently only being guarded by a couple of guys.  He says he will show us where they are.  My LT was salivating so much that we had to re-hydrate him with an IV, and after conferring with the Sgt Major and our Platoon Sgt, we moved out to take the cache.  I want to believe that my Platoon Sgt advised against it, saying that the intel should be passed up first, but the Sgt Major and LT said "no…this is "hot" intelligence, this is a "willing" informant, and we need to capitalize and go NOW."  So we went.
We get to a hillside maze of buildings, you could almost think of as apartments, but if you've seen the beginning of Blackhawk Down where the SF guys are in the marketplace, with the stone buildings with hanging cloths for doors, winding alleys that are about 6 feet wide, and stairways leading into other portions of the maze, you have an idea of what it looked like.  We were at the top of it and the "villa" area was down the hillside into a kind of ravine.  The guide explained which doorway it was, but refused to go any further. 
My two partners and I were assigned to find a way down to the bottom of the ravine and wait there, in case anybody tried to escape out the back.  So we're conducting some building clearing down the villa and trying to get to the bottom without getting ambushed.  Did I mention how windy the alleys were??  Think of them as hallways with no roof, open to the air.  Fairly steep downhill with stairs intermixed.  We make people face the wall and place their hands up, palms to the wall as we pass them.  One lady is glancing VERY nervously at a doorway where the standard issue blanket is acting as a door…and I notice that the blanket is moving as if somebody has just been peeking out at us.  I alert my partners and we make entry.  Safety is off of my m16/203 and I am mentally already killing the Haitian inside that is preparing to kill me.  I am first through the door and am pointing my rifle at two Haitian kids, one about three years old and the other in a crib, probably 8 months old.  There is nobody else in the room, not even another doorway out.  I almost killed those babies and am only glad that I made entry and looked instead of just squeezing the trigger and sending rounds into the doorway and room.
We come back out and finish clearing to the bottom of the ravine.  At the bottom of the ravine I am standing in ankle deep water, and about 30 feet away is a 400 pound pig on a rope that is trying everything it can do to tear itself loose and get to me and my partners.  I can't tell if it wants to eat me or make me "squeal like a pig" like in the movie Deliverance.  Whichever it is, I'm thankful for whoever tied the knot to whatever the anchor is, because if it wasn't a good knot, or a good anchor, I'd be in big trouble.  The other side of the ravine is about a 15 foot cliff straight up, and people keep poking their heads over to look down at us.  I simply wait for the grenade to drop.  I contemplate (several times) just shooting the pig, because it's scaring the hell out of me, and using it as cover in case grenades start dropping on us.  There is nowhere to hide.
After we stand in the water for about a half hour, we are recalled up the exact same route that we came down.  I pass the fateful doorway and think again how close I came to killing those babies.  When we get back to base and debrief, I find out that the "informant" had made the story up.  His girlfriend had just left him for another man, and he wanted that man to get killed, so had sicked us on him.  My LT  (and all of us) bit when he put out the line.  We later were given a class about how intelligence and information works, and why it is soooooo important that you get confirmation before you do a DAMN thing.  We had just learned that point without the class, but I think they wanted to rub it in on our LT. 
I think about what I would've done had I killed those babies on a bogus mission.  Would I have gone AWOL, tracked down the guy who sicked us on his girlfriend stealer/enemy, or would I have gone after the LT, who accepted the mission without real intelligence.  I would've been killing somebody for that, the babies would've needed a sitter, and I would've felt obliged to provide it.

It's Just a BAD DREAM Pile!!

I know that Frank Harris is going to be viewing my account... waiting to read this blog...because I told him the story already and he confirmed that I really ought to write this....
Once again Emma has been sick.  She'd been running a fever that sometimes reached over 104` and it really sucked.  She was wimpering alot and wouldn't eat much of anything.  I think we did ok keeping fluids in her, but she was just plain OUT of commission for a minute (pronounced "5 days"). 
On the second night, she spent the night with her Grandma Maggie...and vomitted in the bed - all over Grandma, her clothes, the blankets...probably the walls and ceiling too.
Because of that, on the third night Joselyn told Emma that she would sleep with her to be there for her if she "threw up" again.  Jo didn't last 20 minutes before she left the room because Emma snores...no wait....SSSSNNNNOOOOOORRRRREEEEESSSSS so loud.  I was called in to sleep with her instead.  There is a reason for this...
All my life I have snored like Emma.  When I was a kid, my mom and dad used to joke about my snoring rattling the door to my bedroom at night (I think they were joking...).  When I went to basic training for the Army, I lived in a dorm that housed 54 of us.  It only took a couple of sideways looks at me and one comment made (something like "somebody back there in that corner (now the sideways looks at me from people) snores WWWAAAY to loud and needs to learn how to shut the fuck up at night") to teach me how to not snore while I'm sleeping.  I just sleep on my side or on my stomach and that keeps/kept me from snoring.  If I started to snore...I heard it and woke myself up...lets just say that I was a light sleeper at that time out of necessity...I definately did not want a blanket party.  I knew that I could probably do ok against one or two of them at a time...but that's not how a blanket part works.  You are totally asleep when the beating starts, and don't have much time to protect yourself.  Whoever has seen the movie "Full Metal Jacket" raise your hand now.  Ok...put it down.
So Joselyn figures that it's my job to lay with her, because I'm sure that I've kept Jo up nights with my loud snoring.  Ya see...the fear of a blanket party has faded and I tend to roll onto my back when I sleep now, which means that I snore.  I know this because (not only has Jo told me ALL about it, but) I snore so damn loud that sometimes I wake myself up.  Did I already mention that?  So IF I go sleep with Emma, and in so doing get a taste of my own medicine, then Joselyn will actually get a decent nights sleep without the doors and windows rattling around her from my snoring. 
When I lie down with Emma, I thought there would be no way in HELL that I was going to get to sleep.  It sounded like she had a curtain of raw steaks hanging down across her throat and she was trying to breath by forcing air through them.  The meaty gurgle of air going into her tiny body was enough to give me the willies and probably gave me nightmares.  I was even scared that she may not be able to continue breathing all night, because I knew there must be some tremendous effort going into making her lungs work, pulling the air in through those steaks like that, and she was sick and weak at the time.  It sucked.  However it happened though, I fell asleep.
Now is another part of poor Emma's sleeping.  She rolls and flails like you would not believe.  If it was very cold in our house...if we relied on blankets to keep us warm throughout the night, she would probably freeze.  Blankets do not stay on her for very long at all because she flails so much.  When you sleep with her, you pretty much need a "redman" suit, which is protective padding worn by the recipient in hand to hand combat training.  One time, she delivered an axe kick to me in her sleep that made me see stars.  Her little heal is small and hard enough to focus all of the energy from her downward swing, straight into my belly.  Joselyn caught one right after me, and we thought she may have cracked a couple of Jo's ribs.  Because of this, I considered bringing home cell extraction gear to wear to bed, but then figured that there wasn't any of that which hadn't weathered some feces before...and I didn't want to add Hep C to Emma's problems.  I thought about borrowing some football gear, but then I figured...she's little...I can take it.  Apparently there's something built into our systems so that we don't really remember the PAIN being as bad as it was.  That's why families have more than one child.  If the mom remembered how bad the pain was, she probably wouldn't have any others.  So I went to bed in Emma's bed without protective gear.
Come about 3:00 AM, I am awakened by Emma's backhanded blow with a closed fists.  She does it again, the knuckles making indentions in my rib cage, under the arm at just above elbow height (you know, the sensitive area where all of the nerve endings are).  She hits me about three times like that while I'm coming out of my coma, before I move over and push her away.  Her eyes are still closed and I wonder what in the HELL she is dreaming about, but I am also privately happy because whoever is in her dream is being handled by a real sheepdog.  She's obviously not buckling under and trying to run away...my little girl is handling her business and kicking some wolf ass.  I manage to go back to sleep while nursing my ribs.
The next morning, Emma has the nerve to tell Joselyn that I kept her awake all night with my snoring.  I can't believe it.  I KNOW she slept because HER snoring sucked.
On my way to work, it struck me.  The person who she had been pummelling (in her supposed dream) was me.  She was not asleep at all when she was hitting me, she just had her eyes closed because she was exhausted.  I had just been given a damn blanket party by my own daughter because I was snoring.  I survived boot camp and my regular duty station in the military without being beaten in my sleep....but I hadn't survived Emma.  I could just see her kneeling beside me, pinning my arms to my side with my sheet, hitting me repeatedly and yelling "It's just a bad dream PILE, just a bad dream!!  Quite snoring or you'll have more bad dreams just like this!"  God Help Me....

Selection

So I posted this already....but it didn't post.  So now I am supposed to remember what I had written.  SSHHHHYEAH right.  I think it was something about being ignorant when I had signed up for the Army.  Not about being ignorant BY signing up, just in the fact that they told me there were no "Airborne Ranger" contracts available and that I believed them. 
I had previously read "Starship Troopers", which is nothing like the movie, and knew that there was no way that I could join the military and not be a killer.  A military photo-journalist or phone operator I was not.  I knew that I had to be infantry.
I know that in the post that was erased I explained about the differences between the different "11" series of Infantry soldiers "b" being Light Infantry (grunts), "c" being mortarmen, "h" being dragon (anti-tank gunners), "m" being mechanized Infantry (Bradleys or other vehicles), "p" being paratrooper, "b4" being "sniper" etc and so forth...
I was initially 11x (x-ray) which meant "needs of the Army" and ended up being trained as a mortarman.  Once I got to the regular unit, I was assigned as a normal light infantry grunt.
In June of 93 I was convinced by some friends (who were leaving - they all eventually left as their time came and went) to try out for Scouts.  The tryouts weren't impossible, and I did OK in them.  I was selected.  Some scout platoons in some battallions weren't all that.  You seemed to have two extremes of Scout platoons...you were either the red-headed step children or you were the Platoon that everyone tried to get into.  1/21 Scouts was a platoon that people aspired to.
ok...it's getting late and I need to carry this on at another time....

Our Lady of Perpetual Downhill



Hallelujah Brethren.  Welcome to Our Lady of Perpetual Downhill.  Draw near and hear the word of the board.  Yes, my brothers and sisters, the run I'll ask you to shred is narrow.  It will be long.  It will be steep with many tempting backroads.  you will suffer and you will sweat; these things I cannot deny.  But have faith ye of small acrobatic capacity.  Shred on, my tiny calved friends, for you shall harvest the fruits of your labors.  Be diligent in your crusade down the mountain.  Do not be fooled by false jumps.  Ignore the demons pounding in your ears, screaming in your brain, "slow down.  It's too fast.  Cut across. It's too steep."  Shout out "Get behind me Satan of sloth.  Yea, though I cut through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no big air, for I have drank and I will be known."  Then we shall dig down deep within our soul and chant "Faster.  Faster.  Faster.  Faster."
And when we ascend back to the top of the mountain, we take a moment of silence, catch our breath, and give thanks to the quad chairlift.  As we gaze at the lodge below, we know in our hearts that we have risen above the slothful and degenerate.  We endure the wicked conditions on the lift, and then stand before the top of the glorious mile long nirvana.

Go now, bomb forth, enjoy, my devoted flock, enjoy.  Let your spirit be filled with the sound of slicing snow and bouncing board.  May you make every turn and bite lower edge not.  May big air come between your board and the ground.  And may your descent be hair, scary, and safe.  And I realize that some of you will not be back, but will find comfort in the lodge and solace on a pair of skiis.
And when asked of your faith you will look to the ground attempting to hide your shame.  you will stutter as you try to explain "...I, I, I used to snowboard..." but the obvious guilt of non-boarding will reflect on your face like a freshly waxed board in the sunlight.  Don't try to make excuses, no explanation needed.  For the rest of us will be here next Sunday, and the Sunday after that.  And if you show up here and find no one, you can be sure we're out there somewhere.  And we'll be praying for your soul...

STA

While I was in the Army, I attended a Marine Corps course at Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps Base Hawaii.  We participated in the same training as the Marines except for the homosexual stuff.  Although we had an Irish dude with us who wanted to try it, the Marines were pretty possessive about their gayness.
The Course that I was in was a five week course called "Surveillance and Target Acquisition".  Yes...even the Marines are such pussies that they have to find a politically correct way to say the word "sniper" that won't offend people.

I had just been to the Army Sniper School at Ft. Benning...which was a sleeper...you were having so much fun that you didn't realize that you may not pass until it was too late....so I knew that I'd do ok in the Marine Corps course.
I've got some really good stories out of that course..from the Staff Sergeant (acting Gunnery Sergeant) who was leading the course (SSGT Sigmund), to the Irish dude who happened to be my partner who ranked 29th out of 29...but don't try to help him because he's a "corporal" God damnit!....what a fucking idiot.
The story I'll tell right now though is about four SEALs who were in the course with us.  That course was when I realized that Navy SEALs are just people too, and I discovered that I would bet on "ME" when figuring out if I could gut through the SEAL courses or not.
They were all cool guys and I was glad to have met them.  We did some beach stalks and some beach runs...and those guys were hogs in that enviornment.  They helped me alot....but then we went into the jungle....
In the jungle it was a total reversal.  I'd ask one of them to point North...and he'd promptly point East.  They were lost as hell in terrain reading and land navigation...so we took care of them and helped them out.  We were one big team - you know...
So we were all on a known distance range.  This is what you see in the movies where you know the exact distance to the targets because you are on a raised berm with a big "300 yards" sign (Marines measure by Yards and Army measures by Meters) next to you.  the targets are big...4'x5' pieces of paper.  The targets are counterbalanced and they are big concentric circles with a "x-ring" in the center.  After three rounds, the people in the "butts" would drop the target, then place a 3 inch red circle in the hole that your round made.  At 300 yards, all three rounds would be under the same red marker.
We kept track of our own rounds and my partner and I were on the lane on the left of one of the SEAL teams.  I fired my three rounds, then shifted and fired one round in the extreme upper left hand corner of the SEAL target, then another round in the exteme lower right of the SEAL target.
So what this did...All three of the SEAL fired rounds were covered by one marker, then there was another round upper right, and another round lower right....so the SEALs thought that they were hitting all over their target. 
I must've done this for about 8 or 10 cycles.  The SSGT Sigmund was walking the line behind us and at first stopped to try to figure out what the hell they were doing wrong.  After a couple of iterations he figured out what I was doing...but instead of coming down on me like thunder, he jumped in their asses "what the fuck squids?  You're not on a ship...you don't need to adjust for waves..." etc etc.  It was classic.  They were checking their scope mounts, banging on their rifle, tearing their guts out trying to figure out why they were shooting so poorly.  Eventually the figured it out "Stephen you mother fucker..."
They eventually saw the humor in it, but I did NOT get near any water while they were around from then on....

The Garage - Honolulu, Hawaii

So here I am...Oahu, 1993.  It's about 11:30 PM or so and I'm in a club called "The Garage".  Looking at google maps, the nearest corner is "Ward" and "Waimanu" (then head SE on Waimanu about half a block).  It was a cool club, especially to a 20 year old who managed to get served...or maybe BECAUSE a 20 year old could manage to get served there...I don't know.  It was dark, loud, and had good shows there sometimes.  I saw Danzig there...the stage was about 2 to 3 feet off of the ground, really close and personal.  It generally was a dance club though.

So on this fateful night, when I discovered that I wasn't invincible, there was an ICE-T concert at the Blaisdale Arena...which if you checked google maps like I said was only on the other side of the block and across the street. 

Now when all of the gangsters that went to see ICE-T get out of their little show, they go back to their cars, get their guns, grab their knives, take a few hits of whatever dope they happen to be into at the time, then find the nearest place to cause a problem.  In Island talk, that could loosely translate into "find a white guy to fuck up...preferably as a group."  (side note...no it wasn't me that they came looking for).

So there is a small group of us at the Garage.  One of my buddies is passed out in the car around the corner.  He had a cast on his arm and drank too much too fast, pissed that he had the damn cast, and was out early.  Another, who we didn't know was going to be there, was Sgt. Beutel from New Jersey.  He was a Sergeant in the scout platoon that I was in the sniper squad for.  I didn't know him that well because I was brand new to the platoon.  My roommate, Overstreet, was there with me.  Overstreet was soon to come over to the platoon, but wasn't there quite yet. 

Overstreet is from Bedford Virginia.  There are two things you don't do (of course I've done both of them and found out the hard way that you're not supposed to do them...if he can't beat you up then he pouts non-stop until you say sorry *** I know he's reading this and that's why I say that*** and his pouting will make you want to commit suicide over time.  I mean, it doesn't stop...)  The first thing you don't do is smear his dip from his lip all over his face, and the other is you don't knock his glasses off.

The gangster went for option two.  So somebody, I don't remember who or how it went down, let me know that Overstreet was getting kicked out and here were his glasses.  I went to head outside with Overstreet and saw Sgt. Beutel on the way.  I told him that Overstreet was in trouble and needed our help.  He said...like the punk that he was..."I don't know him and I'm having a good time in here."  I never forgot that bitch.  Anyway, I recognized that for all the talk he gave about being from Jersey he was just a punk and wouldn't help in a fight anyway, so I went outside without him.  I was just in time to see Overstreet throwing up his dukes and preparing to fight some local. 

I quickly assessed the situation.  Overstreet and some dude were talking shit to each other, about 10 feet apart, and their dukes were up.  There were also about 1000 other local guys standing around (beside and behind) the "bad guy", every single one of them staring hate at Overstreet.  Their yearning for independence from the US was pouring out of their eyes.

I grabbed Overstreet and directed him to our right and down the alley toward our car.  I said "We are not fighting today, we need to leave".  We began walking in single file, with him about 5 - 10 feet in front of me.  Now if you looked at google maps like I said, you can see that the cars are parked facing nose in.  As we're walking, some dude comes out from between two cars and totally sucker punches Overstreet in the right side of his head, who then goes reeling off to his forward left. 

I says to myself "self, there's nothing between you and him, and being that you're in it now anyways..."  and I dropped my fist behind me almost all the way to the ground, and came form Kansas City with it (that one was for you Miller) and punched dude right in the side of HIS head.  He went down, out like a light.

I had no idea what happened to Overstreet.  About the time when I saw the guy go out, and says to myself "self, that was a mighty fine punch", I started getting blasted in the back of the head.

Everything goes hazy from there.  It was slow motion.  I remember that anywhere I threw a punch, there was somebody there to receive it in the face.  I remember kicking a guy in the head and he fell down.  I turned to the right and started fighting somebody there.  The guy who I had kicked started to get up, so while he was on all fours I turned and booted him in the head again, and he was out.  Did I mention that I've played soccer all my life?  So after I booted him in the head and saw him go down, there was somebody on my left that needed punching in the face...so when duty calls...

It was about that time that I was hit in the back of the head (the guy that had been on my original right must not have been out of the game...that bastard).....

Overstreet told me later (the police report had confirmed by the way) that he had gone reeling from the first sucker punch, had seen guys cutting off our forward advance, and had run at them like "red rover red rover"...breaking through them and starting to run.  He saw that I wasn't with him, turned around, and saw me fighting everybody.  Wait...let me rewrite that...EVERYBODY.  He told me that he said "shit!" and ran back into the crowd.  He was fighting and by the time that he got near me everybody turned and ran...and I was lying unconscious on the ground.

back to me

I was blasted in the back of the head, and the medical report said that it was with an object (not the ground or the car that I was lying under)..but something handheld.  I remember fighting, then waking up on the ground with a big "local" face in my face and somebody by my feet.  I started to kick and fight.  The local by my face put his forearms across me and said "you betta think twice about dat son!" and I realized it was the police.  I opted to pass back out.  I awoke again in the ambulance on my way to Tripler Army Medical Hospital.

Now here we were at Tripler, and Overstreet's tests show alcohol in his system.  I had had a couple of beers (note ** the number one answer when a drunk driver is pulled over is "I've had two") but they had been over time and when I was tested no alcohol showed.  I had a concussion out of the deal but didn't miss PT the next Monday...but I DID have to go to the base "sick call" later and get two IVs because I was so messed up. 

Overstreet on the other hand...because he had shown alcohol in his system, had to go through an alcohol abuse program at Schofield Barracks.  He would fill me in after every class so that I would know what to say in case I ever found myself ordered to go...

CC Forever

I won't ever forget that humbling experience.  Any time I'm feeling froggy, that memory rears it's ugly head and helps me to tone it down a little.

Believe it...or not

and some were recovered...

Here are a few of my prior blogs that I was able to recover, just because I had them in another place.  They will follow...

I'm back...

Well, well, well.  I had to go away for awhile, almost a year... but I am back.  I'm not sure if I'll be able to recover my old blogs, but if not.... oh well.  The stories keep coming, this shit really happens to me or people in my life.  I just wanted to get started, but right now am on my way to watch the Timbers.  RCTID!!!