The cheaper the crook...

 

...the gaudier the patter.

I didn't waste my time watching Felony Fats' Big Beautiful Lie-o-palooza last night. I don't, usually; these things are always polititheater, regardless of who delivers them. I might have listened to FDR, had I been around then, but I can't think of anyone else who's stood up at that rostrum worth spending an hour (or damn near two, in Tubby's case) hearing talk shit about how fucking great things are.

I read some excerpts from the transcript. The best description I've seen comes (as I'd suspected it would) from salty sailor Jim Wright: "If a psychotic off his meds gave a disassociated rambling speech to the inmates in the middle of the dayroom while being chased by the interns at the local home for the criminally insane it would look a lot like this."

Beyond that? I only got two reactions, the first being the quote from the Maltese Falcon that opens this post.

The second, though, was prompted by this line from Fatso's interminable Weave-of-the-Union: "I've always wanted the Congressional Medal of Honor, but I was informed I'm not allowed to give it myself... If they ever open up that law, I'll be there with you someday,"

This isn't the first time this draft-dodging fuck has talked up the idea that his ginormous ass deserves the nation's highest decoration for bravery. Supposedly some time earlier he'd said:

“I decided to go to Iraq. I was extremely brave. So brave in fact that I wanted to give myself the Congressional Medal of Honor, I said to my people, ‘Am I allowed to give myself the Congressional Medal of Honor?’”

There have been some Chief Executives who could have had a legitimate call on a high award for valor. This boastful bastard? Don't make me laugh.

The mere thought of this bloated nitwit in the same grid square as the MOH makes the Army sergeant that lives in my head reach for a sturdy piece of dimension lumber, wishing for ten minutes in a locked supply room alone with his criminal ass to provide him with some wall-to-wall counseling on how he isn't just not just unfit to wear the medal but utterly unfit to empty a urinal overfilled by the lowliest private in military history.

Decoration Day 2023

My first since retirement, and so freighted with a very odd feeling of ordinariness; when every day is a holiday none are.

Instead of choosing to make the long drive down to Willamette National Cemetery I left the quiet house and crossed the big river into Washington, to the little graveyard outside the old Vancouver Barracks.

The old post cemetery isn't the original burying ground set aside in the 1840s. That space was built over when the post expanded in the 1880s and as many of the bones as could be found were removed to the current location, just north of the busy street that is 4th Plain Drive.

It's a very odd little spot. There's a couple of paved loops but no parking area, giving a weird "drive-through" feel to the place. Like everyone else, I just pulled the little car off the road in as gentle a fashion as possible to spend some time with the dead.

As always in these federal plots, the identical stones testify a wide variety of shades; obviously GIs and their families, but also the legacy of the frontier post - civilians working for the Army, traders and travelers, native (probably) laborers. There's even a handful of POWs from the Second World War, German and Italian prisoners buried far from their homes.

I did the same thing I always do.

Wandered among the gravestones, nodding to the GIs as I passed, pouring out a libation in their memory. Most of those buried around me appeared to be guys who'd died between the big wars, in the 1920s ans 1930s, veterans and timeservers alike only in sharing the Army blue or khaki, or OD green. Or the tree suit I wore at the end of my time.

As so often these latter days, I felt the slow loss of the kinship I once felt with my nation and my service. That We the People had soldiers fighting overseas seemed like another age instead of just two years ago.

At the end of my stroll I found myself next to what remained of 1SG Ewart, who'd been topkick in the 1st Infantry back in the day. It seemed like an old First Shirt would be a good sort of person to entrust a cold beer, so I left mine with him and turned for home, my moment with the dead done and another lazy retired sort of day before me.

I'm no longer certain what this day means, to me and to my nation. We seem more than ever a house divided against ourselves.

Yet.

As always today;

This.

Decoration Day 2022

 I visited my Army brothers down in the Deep Southeast today, as has been my tradition this day for the past several years.

The big graveyard on the slopes of Mt. Scott hasn't changed. It was just like it always is, neat, tidy, orderly, quiet. Everything, in other words, that war and fighting are not. We like our wars to be distant and iconic, if we can make them so, and so Willamette National Cemetery plays its part.

Today was, as it always is, busy. Cars and truck-loads of families coming to visit their lost ones, "...not gone but marching far away". Older adults my age visiting parents of my parents generation, middle-aged kids of Vietnam-era parents, and young adults or actual kids who looked mostly to be grandkids or even great grandkids of the people who were there waiting silently for their living remainders.

The absence of truly young adults, the peers of the young men and women whose stone dates ended in our recent wars, was marked; at least I marked it. We've managed to make our dead disappear much as we made them disappear while they lived and fought the wars we wanted kept out of our lives.

I had to walk among the dead for a bit, not an unpleasant task on a warm spring day in a pretty garden spot, until I found one of my own generation; another platoon daddy, SFC Groome, who was only four years older than me but had done much hard service in the Gulf Wars. He'd also died a dozen years earlier, so it seemed like a good spot to stop and share a drink.

It wasn't a Bud or a Rainier pounder - when I go visit the dead I tend to drink like a grunt - but it was a fine malty draft, and after sharing I sat with him a while. I hoped he'd had a good life. I also apologized for the Iraq service his stone testified; for not being a better citizen and letting fools and knaves abuse his trust. 

I hoped that he'd had a decent tour, had time for a laugh or two, and had come home sound. And wished him a loving family to come and visit him now and then, to remember fondly his empty chair, and to keep his spirit alive in their hearts.

On the way back to the little Prius parked up the hill two lovely douce matrons asked me to take their photo; it seemed odd to want to pose over someone's grave, but they were kindly and I was obliging, so I snapped off some shots and made sure they checked their camera to ensure I'd done right. They thanked me sweetly, we exchanged courtesies amongst the orderly dead, and I resumed my climb, back to the car, then back down the hill, then back across the cloud-dappled Portland Monday to North and home.

As always on this day I felt ever more disconnected and adrift from the country that made this day a holiday for me and mine. 

Every year it seems less and less the country I'd hoped for when I was young and strong and proud in my own Army blue.

Yet.

As always today;

This.

 

Acting 1SG Lawes reads the morning formation annoucements

 Comp-ney, Atten-shun!

At ease.

Okay just one thing today, so listen up.

Bretheren. Fellow sinners.

I come to you this morning with a tale of the deepest and weightiest eschatology, a parable of the righteous and the unrighteous, and, also, of Private Black, who stands amongst you like the sheep amongst the goats.

Brother Black...may I call you brother, Private Black? Thenk-yew. Brother Black came to me, when I was indwelling in my studies which is to say I was reviewing the S-4 requests your various platoon sergeants have provided to me and, no, AT Platoon, you are not getting a fucking Reaper drone, not just no but fuck no, so don't even try that shit again. 

And thereupon rousing me from my orisons Brother Black informed me that he had received "direct divine instruction" that he need not perform the extra duty imposed upon him by the Company Commander the previous Wednesday due to a certain incident at the Flaming Mug involving a bottle of Wesson Oil and three Cambodian sisters.

Now my brothers...my heart was troubled by this.

I was cast into the keelson-deep despair by the thought of my brother Black finding that his Lord and Savior found fault with his buffing the dayroom floor to a sort of crystalline perfection that I, too, suddenly found myself in the presence of the Almighty.

"I am but a sinner, oh Lord," I said, "but if Thou shalt enlighten me then I shall be exalted by your wisdom."

"A sinner thou art" The Creator replied, "But not as big a fucking liar as young Mister Black here, who just wants to ditch his extra duty so he and his yobo can go to the pushbutton and get drunk and screw."

"Then what shall I do, oh Lord?" I asked, and the Lord replied; "Fucking smite his young ass as hard as it will bear, and spare not the rod or spoil the private."

So, my brothers, you will see young Private Black communing with the spirits of Johnson Paste Wax and the dayroom floor all the rest of this week, and it is with a full and contrite heart I come to you saying; try. 

Just fucking try. 

That shit on me.  

And thou shalt find thyselves face-down on my desk and I will apply the rod of the UCMJ to your young asses, and in full measure shall you learn wisdom from the smiting. For sayeth the FM: the ears of a private are in his ass, and hearing cometh from a good solid kicking.

I have BEEN to the mountaintop, oh my brothers, and you do NOT want to fuck with me and find out what I found there.

Thus endeth the lesson.

Any questions?

I didn't think so.

Comp-ney, Atten-shun!

Platoon sergeants, take charge.

 

Big Iron On His Hip

 Back in November I wrote a short piece discussing the latest firearm atrocity. I had exactly the same effect on firearms in this country as every other opinion piece, editorial, blog post, and survivor plea after another nutjob takes his bullet launcher and sends another bunch of poor sods to join the Choir Eternal.

Nothing.

But today I was thinking how utterly weird the current insane gunlicking going on at the American Right is, and, in particular, how sudden it has arrived.

This isn't some sort of trace-it-back-to-the-Revolution thing. It's basically been invented out of whole cloth over about the past forty years. Contemporary with the rise of the modern GQP (hmmm...what an odd co-inky-dink, Bug Bunny would say).

The whole hyperammosexualization of firearms is only about twenty or thirty years old and how freakishly weird is the notion of living in a modern industrial democracy and wanting, NEEDing, to be strapped at all times.

I was a medic in an infantry battalion in the early 1980s. 

 

 It was legal for a GI to own a personal weapon (mind you, not many did - certainly nobody in my platoon, and infantrymen, even infantry medics, ain't exactly your soy-boy peacenik hippies...).

 

Keep in mind that this was an airborne infantry battalion. Infantry. The kind of people who, y'know, made their living with firearms.

 

And the ironclad Armywide rule was that IF you had a personal weapon, whatever the make and model, that weapon lived in your company arms room at all times 1) unless and until you signed it out to go to the range and 2) was immediately returned to the arms cage when you returned to the company area.

 

The notion that you the individual Joe would keep your bang stick leaning up against your bunk? Or your hogleg in your desk drawer? Your First Sergeant would square your young ass away most quick smart.

 

So here's a bunch of people who are thoroughly trained and experienced using firearms - whose trade is using firearms - whose first, last, unbreakable rule is that unless you're going to shoot at targets you don't get to keep and bear the sonofabitch. 

 

Period. 

 

It stays locked up with the rest of the weaponry.

But here's some idiot Joe and Molly keeping their nine-mil in the bedside drawer where their whacked-out sprog can use it to work out his testosterone issues.

 

Nope. 

 

This whole business is completely whacko.

 

And as always on this subject, I refer you to Jim Wright for a bit of bang-bang-sanity.

 

The Eleventh Minute of the Eleventh Hour

Frankly, I can't say it better than Jim Wright did, so instead of wasting your time blathering on about this, my forty-second Veteran's Day, I'm just going to hand you over to him.

I do want to emphasize Wright's point about the politically dangerous business of "heroing" soldiers in a notional democracy.

To lionize the military as we do, to exempt soldiers - because that's what "hero" does; it takes the object of that veneration out of the sordid business of daily living and makes them a shining object of veneration - from criticism and scrutiny is to make them the idols of your society. 

That's not "democracy". It is "militarism", the heart of totalitarian doctrines like fascism and soviet-style-communism.

Like Wright, I'm not vauntingly proud of what I did in the Army.

I did my time, and did it well. I had some good times, some bad time - though not as bad as the troops who had to fight real wars had - had a good laugh and came home sound.

Which is a damn "good war" all things considered.

I'm good with my past.

But I'm concerned for my and my children's future. So I want you to think - just as it made me think - about what Wright says about this day.

For as he has said elsewhere; if you want a better country, you have to be better citizens.

Acting 1SG Lawes reads the morning formation announcements

Comp-ney, Atten-shun!

At ease.

Okay just one thing today, so listen up.

Had a chat with Chief Schrum down at the TMC today. Based on this I understand that there's a hard nut of you GI Joe Real American heroes that have been passing on this Plague vaccination. 

Chief says that y'all got a shit-ton of reasons why y'all ain't gonna get a teeny-weeny little prick and no, Private Black, that is not a personal observation and I see no reason for you to give me that look. You and me, after this formation.

Notregardless, here's the straight dope, gentlemen.

There's a minefield out there.

Now on the one hand, seeing as you know that said minefield is out there but have no way of telling where it is, or how fucked up it is, or whether or when one or more of you might wander into it, you can do it one way. Let's call it...let's see...oh, yeah, let's call it the "Dumb Fucking Way".

You can just bumblefuck around until you get into it.

And once therein you will discover you have fucked around and found out. Some of you will wander out again just fine. 

Some of you won't.

Or.

There's another way. Let's call this one the "Let's Not Just Wander Into The Fucking Minefield" way.

You can accept the issue of things that will give you a better chance in case you find yourselfs in the minefield. Things like this little paper mask thing that makes you look all sexy like the girls in the Candy Striper movie that I found S&T Platoon watching on the dayroom TV again having already reminded you that said TV is in a location accessible to family members including minor dependents and their mommies and no, Specialist Gutierrez, "that's how you make children" is not sufficient justification for the three days of phone calls I got after that particular incident thankyewverymuch.

You can get the vaccination which is kind of like those big ol' EOD suits that keep you from being blown into small independent republics if the mine does go off.

These fucking things are there not just to help you but to help the people around you who can't use them, like little kiddos and your aged granny who's on chemo for the third time because she's hooked on Swisher Sweets.

And here's the thing.

Knowing all this, if you refuse to take advantage of all these useful items and get stuck in the minefield, hopefully it will not surprise you if those of the rest of us who have are a trifle unsympathetic to your ass. 

"Freedom", gentlemen, is not "license". "Freedom" is a combination of rights and responsibilities that we as citizens agree to in order to form a more perfect fucking union.

You do not have the freedom to go prancing out into the minefield and bring back a mine to the mess hall which reminds me to discuss that stuff you had the utter gall enough to describe as "vegetarian lasagne", Mess Section, at some point between now and dinner chow.

So quit dicking around, people. Get the goddamn shot.

Because ain't nobody here going into the minefield after you if you don't.

Any questions?

I didn't think so.

Comp-ney, Atten-shun!

Platoon sergeants, take charge.

H-Plus-40,471,200

Seventy-seven years ago last night one of my old units, the 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment went out the C-47 doors into the dark over northwestern France.

When you look at the record the 505th has been a pretty hard-luck unit.

In Sicily the green pilots of Air Transport Command and the inexperienced Allied commanders didn't think what the high wind over the south shore of the island might do to a night drop of a cherry outfit and scattered the 505th all over hell.

After getting hammered in Sicily the 505th jumped into the Salerno beachhead; the 505th missed the nightmare that had been the German attack two days earlier but spent the rest of 1943 grinding up the Italian peninsula and getting ground up in the process.

The plan for the Normandy drop was for the '05 to take and hold the town of St. Mere Eglise. 

 

As you can see from the map, this village was a chokepoint for roads both leading to Utah Beach as well as the high-speed lateral route along the shore. So nailing it down was pretty critical.

Well, as it seemed typical with those WW2 jumps, the real thing looked nothing like the plan.

See the little black dots? Each one is a "stick", a C-47-load of GIs. The biggest cluster is actually pretty damn close to the DZ, mind, which isn't bad given the darkness and the flak, but look at the other big cluster just to the left of the oval. See the gray hatch pattern where those guys landed?

That's the valley of a tributary of the Douve River that the Germans had flooded knowing that the Allies were damn likely to throw some paratroops at them. My guess is that the WW2 guys had a "water landing" gimmick just like we had in the Eighties, but just like ours it was a whole lot more likely to work in calm daylight training than in a night full of chaos and antiaircraft fire.

A lot of guys from my old outfit never made it out of the swamp.

Enough did, though, to take the town and win the war.

The '05 got stuck into the mess that was The Bridge Too Far, as well, and then had a rough winter on the northern side of the "Bulge".

After the Big War the '05 did the usual sorts of imperial grunt work, including - alone of the 82nd, Vietnam - and has deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, where continuing in the hard-luck tradition the 1st Battalion drew the Fallujah short straw.

I can't find a listing of how many of the guys who went out the doors that night are still around. Probably not too many, and those have to be in their nineties, so they're going to be gone, too, before too long. 

So I'm not sure there's a larger lesson to this one, other than "fucked up things happen in wartime", and that's been true since Thucydides' day.

But I guess the point is; here's to the boys of the 505th.

Who's like us?

Damn few, and they're all dead.

Cheese Medal

 

Back in the day there were certain decorations that pretty much every GI considered good shit. As in, you had that in the fruit salad over your left pocket? You'd earned them the hard way.

The Medal of Honor, obviously. 

Given the number of people who had to get killed to get one - about a third of the guys who got one after 1865 (when they stopped being handed out like candy...) had to get killed to score it - that's pretty much Big Casino. That's why you always salute the Medal holder first, even if they're a slick-sleeve private and you're Chief of the Army Staff. 

Yeah, that.

From there on down there are still some pretty well-respected gongs. DSC? Badass. Silver Star? Yup, you had to go there and do that. 

Bronze Star with a "V"? Yeah, you still had to kick some ass (just a Bronze Star, without the "V"? Maybe. The Army did hand out some pretty sketchy BSMs, although we weren't as fucked-up as the USAF...)

The "service medals", like the MSM, were always accepted as a sort of gold watch or annual bonus - you got them for doing your job and being there.

Then you got down into the weeds, where things got kind of hairy.

The "Army Commendation Medal", usually called an "Arcom", was sorta-kinda...I'm not sure if "respected" is the right word. "Accepted" might be better; you usually had to be doing at least decent work to get one, but not always. Remember that units were expected to hand out awards (and still may be, for all I know) and an Arcom was not outside the "doing what you're supposed to do at the time you're supposed to do it" sort of decoration.

Below that it got kind of ridiculous.

 The Army Achievement Medal, supposedly known as an "AAM" but in my service usually referred to as the "Army Acheesement" (from the expression "eating cheese", meaning sucking up to your superiors) or just a "cheese medal", could literally be had for the asking, and for damn near anything. 

A guy in one of my outfits got one for doing an outstanding job of the extra duty he was assigned as punishment.

Nobody respected the Cheese Medal. I collected, I don't even recall precisely, something like seven of the sonsofbitches. They were "worth" more than a worthless DA Certificate of Achievement only because you got a pretty ribbon to wear, but nobody actually considered them anything of value. In fact, NOT having at least one Cheese Medal by the time you made E-4 was considered a general sign of dirtbagginess or overall useless oxygen-thievery.

If you were too fucked up to have blundered into a Cheese Medal after a year or so in service you were pretty fucked up.

Which brings me to Devin Nunes.

Tubby is said to being prepared to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to this gomer tomorrow. 

Why?

I haven't the slightest. Losing in court to an imaginary cow? Being nearly as batshit as Orange Foolius himself?

Now I don't want to kid you; despite being called the "...supreme civilian decoration..." in Wikipedia it's been handed out to actors, musicians, dead baseball stars (Babe Ruth in 2018), and Fucking Rush Limbaugh. The criteria for the award aren't exactly...ummm...strict. 

Andy Griffith has one. So does B.B. King. Poppy Bush got one from Obama, but so did Chita Rivera and she's got way better legs.

Dubya hung one on Mister Rogers. Colin Powell has two of the fuckers, one from Poppy, one from Bill Clinton. Ronnie Reagan slipped one to Louis L'Amour for writing a shit-ton of potboiling Westerns. The guy who wrote Stuart Little - the kids book about the creepy humanoid talking mouse? - got one from JFK, forchrissakes.

But Devin Nunes may be a Wingnut Too Far. You start handing this sucker out to people like Nunes, for doing Devin-Nunes-stuff?

Pretty soon you're in Cheese Medal Territory.

Just sayin'.

Fort Loser

This is me in 1984, a perky young SP-4 waiting patiently for someone to auger into Sicily Drop Zone at Fort Braxton Bragg, North Carolina.

At the time I couldn't have picked Braxton Bragg out of a police lineup or told you what the hell he'd done to get a ginormous Army post named after him. But, then I was young and stupid, as young men often are.

Know I know better.

And now ol' Braxton is in the middle of a ginormous shitstorm revolving around the way my country spent a long time treating - and in a lot of ways still treats - those of Us the People a whole bunch of the rest of We figured were more useful as property than actual people.

And, of course, if there's a shitstorm there's a Trump stepping in (and stirring up) the shit:

I'm not going to even bother making an argument about this. The nonsensical notion of naming places where American soldiers live and train for people who fought against and killed American soldiers would be so far beyond ridiculously stupid that it would create an entire dimension of "ridiculously stupid".

These names are a living monument to the racism that has poisoned the nation for so long that they simply need to be cornered as quickly as possible and beaten to death with the dispatch you'd club a cannibal plague rat.

Plus there's a whole bunch of GIs who have already made the argument and more eloquently than I ever could.

So, nope, my point here today is just to recall that not only were these sonsofbitches traitors, not only were they murderous traitors, not only were they murderous traitors for one of the worst possible fucking causes in human history but that, as officers and commanders of traitorous troops they were massive fucking losers, and that there was no bigger loser in the bunch than Braxton Fucking Bragg.

Let me give you a quick taste (and a nasty flavor it is) of the man, from his Wikipedia article:

"In June 1862, Bragg was elevated to command the Army of Mississippi (later known as the Army of Tennessee). He and Edmund Kirby Smith attempted an invasion of Kentucky in 1862, but Bragg retreated following the inconclusive Battle of Perryville in October.

In December, he fought another inconclusive battle at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the Battle of Stones River, against the Army of the Cumberland under Major General William Rosecrans. After months without significant fighting, Bragg was outmaneuvered by Rosecrans in the Tullahoma Campaign in June 1863, causing him to surrender Middle Tennessee to the Union. Bragg retreated to Chattanooga but evacuated it in September as Rosecrans' troops entered Georgia.

Later that month, with the assistance of Confederate forces from the Eastern Theater under James Longstreet, Bragg was able to defeat Rosecrans at the Battle of Chickamauga, the bloodiest battle in the Western Theater, and the only major Confederate victory therein. Bragg forced Rosecrans back to Tennessee, but was criticized for not mounting an effective pursuit. In November, Bragg's army was routed by Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the Battles for Chattanooga and pushed back to Georgia. Confederate President Jefferson Davis subsequently relieved Bragg of command, recalling him to Richmond to serve as his chief military advisor. Bragg briefly returned to the field as a corps commander near the end of the war during the Campaign of the Carolinas.

Bragg is generally considered among the worst generals of the Civil War. Most of the battles in which he engaged ended in defeats. Bragg was extremely unpopular with both the men and the officers of his command, who criticized him for numerous perceived faults, including poor battlefield strategy, a quick temper, and overzealous discipline. Bragg has a generally poor reputation with historians, while some point towards the failures of Bragg's subordinates, especially Leonidas Polk, a close ally of Davis and known enemy of Bragg, as more significant factors in the many Confederate defeats at which Bragg commanded. The losses which Bragg suffered are cited as principal factors in the ultimate defeat of the Confederacy."

So, in the course of about two years, this idiot:

1. Tried to invade Kentucky, couldn't whip Don Carlos Buell (who was a pretty conclusive nitwit himself), and ran away like a whipped dog,
2. Couldn't beat fucking Bill Rosecrans, who as a commander couldn't beat a carpet if you spotted him the bat and the carpet,
3. Then got outmaneuvered by Rosecrans, which is like winning some sort of Nobel Prize for "crap generaling",
4. Finally whipped Rosecrans in a bloody brawl but needed Longstreet, one of the best rebel officers to do it,
5. And when the U.S. finally 86ed Rosecrans and replaced him with a competent commander Bragg managed to get his ass comprehensively whipped despite fighting defensively in one of the strongest defensive positions ever held by an armed force in the history of combat (look up the "Battle of Missionary Ridge" sometime...).

Finally even Jeff Davis - not exactly a military genius - had enough of Bragg's incompetent ass and got him out of the chain of command.

This guy was a complete and utter military moron.

Taking his name off the Home of the Airborne wouldn't just be a recognition that We the People shouldn't "honor" people who betrayed our country for the notion that other people could and should be owned like a box of Cap'n Crunch.

It's be a recognition that this particular traitor was not just a traitor but a spectacularly incompetent one, at that.

Then rename the place for George Thomas, who said this:

"[T]he greatest efforts made by the defeated insurgents since the close of the war have been to promulgate the idea that the cause of liberty, justice, humanity, equality, and all the calendar of the virtues of freedom, suffered violence and wrong when the effort for southern independence failed.

This is, of course, intended as a species of political cant, whereby the crime of treason might be covered with a counterfeit varnish of patriotism, so that the precipitators of the rebellion might go down in history hand in hand with the defenders of the government, thus wiping out with their own hands their own stains; a species of self-forgiveness amazing in its effrontery, when it is considered that life and property—justly forfeited by the laws of the country, of war, and of nations, through the magnanimity of the government and people—was not exacted from them."

Now that would be a perfect, chef's kiss, sort way of correcting the history books. Fort George Thomas.

Do it.

Now.

Acting 1SG Lawes reads the morning formation announcements

Comp-ney, Atten-shun!

At ease.

Okay, listen up. Coupla things here.

AT Platoon.

I understand that, as those fucking pizza commercials keep reminding us, we are in "trying times", by which I mean both this fucking plague AND the fact that in this training cycle y'all have been down to the anti-armor range twice a day every day for three goddamn weeks. But if I get one. More. Phone. Call. from Brigade whining "Why are your AT vehicles parked in the B-Lane?" I will make it my personal business to go down to Willy's Speedi-Tow, requisition one of their goddamn trucks, and personally snatch your asses up and drag you back down to the motor pool.

You know the rules. I know the rules. And, unfortunately, so do those fucking Karens up at Brigade. So load and unload most quick smart and then park in the goddamn motor pool and walk back to the company area. Sergeant Morrow, you and me, after this formation. Am I clear? Thank-yew.

Now.

I am led to understand that there are certain individuals in this formation who are sick and tired of all this Plague Year shit. Who want to unmask, who want to slink back to the fucking Lizard Lounge so their Jody asses can get busy with rando grass widows, not that I'm being judge-mental or anything. I am led to understand that this commotion is all about "freedom", and that "your fear doesn't trump my freedom" and, yes, I see what the fuck you did there.

Let me remind you people.

We are STILL in the fucking Plague Year.

I trust that you, being the out-stand-ing airborne soldiers that I know you are, are familiar with the means and methods for the battalion in defense outlined in chapter three of Army Techniques Publication Three-dash-twenty-one.

That being said, how would you assess the behavior of, say, Private Black, here, if he proudly announced that he had no intention of digging a fighting position, that he would not submit his freedom from overhead cover to your fear of getting blown to small bloody independent republics by enemy artillery fire, and that he, in fact, intended to exercise his right to walk around the main line of defense wearing a pink tulle' tutu drawing fire whilst y'all cowered fearfully in your holes?

Anyone?

Thank you, Specialist Echevarria!

Yes. You would call him, and correct me if I am misquoting you here, Specialist, a "brain-dead fucker of whom the best portion of which ran down his mother's leg". Yes, indeed.

There are things you are supposed to be afraid of, people. Things that the fear is telling you not to fuck with, because they will fuck you up. Enemy artillery. Non-alcoholic beer. Payday loans.

The Plague will fuck you up like a one-five-five HE round. You are not brave and free if you walk around while the rounds are impacting your position, people. You are being fucking stupid and endangering your fellow troopers and compromising your airborne mission.

I trust this will be the last I hear of this nonsense. Keep your fucking masks on, people. Keep your distance. That's good practice for GIs anyway; remember - every time you bunch up you invite Mister Grenade to your party, and Mister Grenade is not really your friend.

Finally. Medical platoon.

You will be doing yourselves, this organization, and the nation a massive solid if you will kindly transfer those two empty shipping crates from your loading dock where they have been standing proud since, like, the last fucking fiscal year, to their forever home in the dumpster.

I spoke to Private Black about this the last time I ran into him on the loading dock and, frankly, I am not sure that I completely buy his explanation that they are part of what I believe he described as a "living art project" of Sergeant Carter's. Feel free to correct me after this formation if I am being overly skeptical, Sergeant.

Good. That is all.

Comp-ney, Atten-shun!

Platoon sergeants, take charge.

Acting 1SG Lawes reads the morning formation announcements

Comp-ney, Atten-shun!

At ease.

Okay, listen up. Coupla things here.

First.

Lemme get this out of the way most quick smart.

Night bakers. I'm positively fucking thrilled that you love your jobs so much that you want to sing on the way to work. I will simply advise you that if you choose to sing "Bath Salt" again outside the Battalion Sarn't Major's office window when said Battalion Sarn't Major's wife is dropping said Battalion Sarn't Major off at work I will personally go Willy Wonka candy semen on your asses, hit a killswitch and put an end to your personal problems. I trust I am making myself clear.

Second.

Regarding this battalion's upcoming deployment to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Despite what you current events junkies may have heard on the electronical teevee or over the intertoobz, no matter what Ahab the A-rab is paying for our asses none of that money is going to come your way, Specialist Black, so dancing on the table in the dayroom shouting "Shake mommy's little moneymaker for twenties in my undies!" is not going to make you a profit but will, controversely, result in you spending some unpaid quality time with my friend Mister Rotary Floor Buffer. Are we clear on this, hee-ro?

Outstanding.

And, no, because the desert-roamers are paying for our asses does not make us Free Companions, or The Black Company, or the Fucking White Company, or Fucking Baron von Fucking Riedesel's First Fucking Battalion of Hessian Fucking Jagers. I have personally confiscated those copies of "The Dogs of War" and "The Wild Geese" from the dayroom television because they are a bad influence on you high-velocity projectile interceptors, and I will personally advise you that if I find anyone. ANY. One. In possession of a dried ear, a bolo knife, or a "vive le sacre' mercenaire" tattoo on their ass they will be doing the most heinous form of extra duty for me that I can devise from now until I fucking retire. This in not the Foreign Legion, people. We are soldiers of the United States and will act like it, regardless of the shenanigans of those voted into office in our chain of command.

Now. Last item.

I observe that the new U.S. Space Force facility at North Post is operational. I trust that you are treating our new sister service-members with the respect and dignity that you would treat any other zoomie, squid, or jarhead.

That means, Sergeant Garcia, that repeatedly shouting "To Infinity and Beyond!" when the space cadets are doing what passes for marching in formation past our battalion area is not entirely respectful. And, though I say this more in sorrow than anger, Specialist Black, asking them if their camouflage uniforms are for fighting Wookies on the moons of Endor is entirely non-sat. That is because the hairy aliens on Endor are fucking Ewoks, not Wookies, and only a complete pop culture moron would not know that, and I dread to think that the space rangers think of you and, hence, us, as pop culture morons.

Leave the starship troopers alone, people. They got enough problems as it is.

And medical platoon.

After this formation we will fall in to the motor pool where we will closely examine the 7-Eleven you seem to have set up in the Headquarters 52 GAMA Goat. The last time I saw that many Cheetos bags in one place it took three hours to excavate the sleeping doper underneath. I note in passing that Specialist Denney is absent from this formation, and I trust that we will not be in a similar situation after you have brought that vehicle to an acceptable level of cleanliness.

Are we clear?

Good. That is all.

Comp-ney, Atten-shun!

Platoon sergeants, take charge.

Acting 1SG Lawes reads the morning formation announcements

Comp-ney, Atten-shun!

At ease.

Okay, listen up. Coupla things here.

First.

Y'all continue to ignore the Brigade Sarn't Major's directive on not wearing y'all's PT shorts whilst exercising, not in formation. Now far be it from me to suggest that our Brigade Sarn't Major is a nitpicky ding-dong with Wheatina inside his fucking brain housing group who should really have better things to do than obsess about what y'all are wrapping around your asses when you go for a jog down Ardennes Street. That would be unprofessional and disrespectful to our chain of command.

So I will simply remind you that, while possibly being the sort of thing that only a nitpicky ding-dong with Wheatina inside his fucking brain housing group who should really have better things to do than obsess about what y'all are wrapping around your asses when you go for a jog down Ardennes Street would do, that directive has the force of law in this here outfit.

I personally could not give a rat's ass if y'all sashay down the street in a pink tulle' tutu. But, after this formation, you will put the PT shorts up and wear them only when in morning PT formation so you will not incur the wrath of said Brigade Sarn't Major onto this company and the First Sergeant thereof, that being me, who is infernally tired of the goddamn Brigade Sarn't Major and who, if lectured one more time on this issue by that infernal product of an incestuous union will take it out of your ass, seriatim. Is that understood?

I thought so.

Now. Second.

I have received word from Battalion that this Division is going to be tasked to provide a brigade to march in some sort of parade in Washington D.C. Now y'all know my feelings about parades; the pleasure is fucking transient, the position is goddamn ridiculous, and the expense is completely and utterly ridiculous.

However, due to certain feelings of masculine inadequacy of certain persons in certain elected positions this parade will happen and it is entirely likely that this brigade will be tasked, given that Second Brigade in march order looks like nothing so much as a traveling leper colony, and the less said about what will happen if First Brigade is allowed out amongst unprepared civilians the better, although my hyfuckingpothesis is that there will not be an un-emptied bottle of spirits or an unmolested domestic animal within ten kilometers of their line of march.

Now. I still remember the last time we did this, and I will not have a repetition of some of the things you people thought up last Fourth of July.

No, AT Platoon, your vehicles are not public conveyances and you are not authorized to give "free joyrides" in them.

No, Medics, you are not, I say again, not qualified to perform pelvic exams.

No, Commo, you are not "DJ Slicky" and you cannot play Lady Gaga's "Sexxx Dreams" on the brigade command push. Or the battalion command push, either. And don't even think about my company net.

Yes, y'all will be issued MRE meals on the day of the parade and, no, you cannot trade them to civilians for Bonus Jacks, Whoppers, or any other sort of civilian chow. Y'all will keep your assigned weapon with you at all times, and that includes not encouraging civilian women to "touch your gun", Specialist Black. I got my eye on you, heee-ro.

And before you ask, no. I have no fucking idea what the fuck this is for. It ain't no victory parade that I can think of, 'cause we ain't beat nobody's ass lately. If it's a "thank you for your service" thing we can get enough of that at the goddamn airport. If the idea is to scare our enemies then they should really make the Navy do it, because I dunno about anyone else but the Navy scares the hell out of me, floating around the ocean somewhere with nuclear torpedoes an' shit.

But here's the bottom line, people; we are GIs, and we got our orders, so our mission is to salute and move out smartly. Including down fucking Pennsylvania Avenue for a big ol' goat rodeo, if that's what the country wants, God in his wisdom knoweth why. Are we clear on that?

Good. That is all.

Comp-ney, Atten-shun!

Platoon sergeants, take charge.

The Eleventh Minute of the Eleventh Hour

I had an incandescent rant all ready to go for today, similar to the one I put up here last November 11th. I wrote it out. I looked at it, and I just couldn't find the heart to publish it.

What's the point?

You all know as well as I do what I was going to say. War is a racket. We - me, everyone I served with, the people serving now, the veterans of tomorrow and next week and next year - are just the bailiff's men, serving our country's liens in places and on people all over the world. No, we don't do sweet fuck all to "defend your freedoms". We kill people and break shit that our "leaders" have designated as inimical to our national interests. We're the button men and women for Donnie "Five-Deferment" Trump and his crew of racketeers just as we have been for every President and every Congress since 1945.

Now there's some honor and decency serving as an imperial legionary. Not all empires are pure Evil. But to pretend that we're still the Arsenal of Democracy of Remember Pearl Harbor? To tell ourselves that the people who wore the uniforms in the 1980's and 1990's and Oughts and now the Teens are somehow like the Greatest Generation that saw off Hitler and Tojo? That's just foolish, the self-deluding mumbling of an idiot child needing the comfort of a kindly lie.

I won't pretend that I didn't enjoy my Army days. I won't pretend that I'm not proud that I was a good soldier and then a good sergeant. When my days are done I'll gladly slope off for a pint in Hell with my old pals from Division, from my Reserve and Guard outfits, and maybe if we're lucky with the hard boys of the Legio X Fretensis, and the 3rd Company of the 1st Battalion of the Légion étrangère. Here's to us. Who's like us. Damn few, and they're all dead.

I know who I am, and what I did. I'm not ashamed of it, but I'm not vauntingly proud, either. I didn't hold Bastogne or Guadalcanal. I did the dirty work of geopolitics and I'm okay with that. I served with good people, had a laugh, and came home sound, and no legionary can ask more than that.

No, it is you, my friends, my fellow Americans, who need to look into your hearts and souls and ask why you have been happy to be lied to, gleeful to parrot the nonsense taught you about "freedom" and "fighting them there", eager to pretend that you have not sent, or been willing to let others send in your name, young men and women into harm's way for nothing more than a handful of dollars, or a passing bit of geopolitics, or some fancy of "national honor", or some fantasy about dangerous enemies, where there is nothing but ruin and impotent anger that our own nation has grown from the seeds of our own ignorant hate and fear while pretending to be the victims ourselves.

I just don't have the heart to rant about this. I am just tired, and a little grieved, for the foolish waste of it all.

On this day I offer only the cold comfort that our nation's ideals promise that We the People can choose to honor our veterans by choosing not to make more of them unless it's for a truly fucking good reason.

For those of you who have come here seeking grave words hymning this day, weighted with honor and glory of the service I and mine have done and do, I have none.

Wild, wild West

Just got back from a bunch of days in the field up the Columbia, on the deserty side of the Cascades. Pretty country there but...spare. Sparse. Not much out there other than the grass, the rock, the wind, and the sky.

Mind you, that's not what I'm thinking about. I had some idle thoughts about the latest bang-bang-crazy, as Jim Wright likes to call it.

And, because I'm a callous sonofabitch and nobody got killed in Vegas or Texas who I know or remotely care about, my main idle thought was this:

What the fuck is it about these ammosexual gun-licking nuts and the Black Stick?

If I had a choice I can't imagine a less-fun rifle to own than an AR-15 or one of its clones. I mean, seriously? I was assigned an M-16 for many years. I was decent with it - a workman should know his craft, after all - but I never liked the goddamn thing.

I'd say that for me it was just a tool, like an axe or a hammer, except it wasn't nearly as useful at its trade as a hammer or an axe at theirs.

The worst part about it was that it was chock-full of fucking irritatingly tiny little parts. Sure, it knocked down and went together easy, that comes with being a modern battle rifle. But when you had it knocked down the little fucking parts had an immensely irritating way of hiding or rolling away - don't get me started on the firing pin retaining pin! - unless you had a perfectly flat, well-lit, clean place to put them.

Then it was hard to clean. And you had to KEEP it clean; if it got fouled - and all those tiny little parts were easy to foul - it tended to malfunction, usually either in the form of a clogged gas tube and a short-recoiling bolt carrier, meaning either a failure to extract, a failure to eject, or a failure to feed. Double feeds, too, which were a stone bitch to clear, weren't uncommon in a dirty rifle.

My understanding is that the early 1960's issue models also suffered because the ammunition propellant burned dirty, gunking up the inside of the rifle with soot and crap and increasing the fouling problem. I can't imagine that cheap civilian 5.56mm ammo is all that much better.

Plus, frankly, what benefit is there to have a "hunting rifle" that can crank out a round every couple of seconds? Elk aren't going to shoot back. And a 5.56 round seems less optimal for knocking down something bigger-than-human-size. It's either going to tumble and tear up the meat, or its gonna break up and scatter nasty little lead bits into your venison.

I have a Short Magazine Lee-Enfield No. 1 Mk III* that has served me perfectly well for years as both hunting and target rifle. It's fun to shoot and relatively accurate given it's long life and relatively hard use. I've debated several times whether or not to hang a rifle scope on the thing. It would make my shot group tighter, but I love the history of it and wouldn't want to just slap a modern scope on the centenarian. Yet the original Periscopic Prism Company scope and mount is an awful abortion, only 2x magnification and, worse, offset to the left of center which is the kiss of death for me, a left-handed firer.

But I've let myself get off the damn subject.

The point is, what gives? What the hell makes so many of these people crave the AR-15 in all its flawed avatars?

The impulse to kill people? I get that. Just thinking about the dumb fuckers who gave us the Fraudulency Administration makes me want to go all St. Bartholomew on their asses.

But to do that with a shoddy tool? One that makes it harder to do a decent job of work?

Who the hell needs that?

I swear. People are just weird.

Acting 1SG Lawes reads the morning formation announcements

Comp-ney, Atten-shun! At ease. Okay, listen up. Coupla things here.

First.

I've been hearing a bunch of you he-roes prancing around the dayroom talking smack about how y'all are "the best 1 percent this country produces".

I hear tell that y'all got that shit from some jarhead, and a jarhead general at that.

Now y'all know how I feel about jarheads. So hearing y'all woofing because one said something about how “We don’t look down upon those of you who that haven’t served. In fact, in a way we’re a little bit sorry because you’ll have never have experienced the wonderful joy you get in your heart when you do the kinds of things our servicemen and women do.” just means that the overpromoted shavetail doesn't know about the kinds of things our servicemen did down at the Flaming Mug last week and, yes, I'm looking at you, AT Platoon. I've got my eye on you, slickyboys.

So before you get all "Ooo-rah! We bad, we bad!" take a look to your left and right flanks. You know as well as I do what that guy next to you is capable of. We all went to high school with that guy. The dude that locked himself in the last stall in the boys' bathroom in the B-wing and had to get pulled out by the school cops?

That's him.

The joker that useta take polaroid dick pics and put them in the romance novels in the library?

That's him.

And don't get me started on surfing the fucking storm drains on their sleeping mats, am I right, Blackie?

The "best 1 percent" my rosy red ass.

The civilians are too fucking busy shoving their tongues up your collective fourth-point-of-contact to remember this, but y'all, at least, should know that y'all are the same jocks, nerds, stoners, wierdos, brainiacs, goofballs, and just regular American dipwads they went to high school with only now y'all wear the same colored clothes. Raisin' your right hand didn't suddenly make any of y'all smarter, braver, more honest, or less likely to fuck up a wet dream and yes, I mean you, night bakers. I saw your fuckin' mess hall this morning and we gonna have a little come-to-Jesus chat right after this formation.

Y'all are good troops, and that's what you're supposed to be. But don't let that make you think that you're some sort of national gold standard. That's how good troops end up getting waxed in combat.

Y'all get free food and clothes, y'all get to get all-expenses-paid vacations to the shitty parts of the world to fuck up things there. Don't let that make you kid yourselves about what a bunch of special fuckin' snowflakes you are just because some goddamn gyrene general who probably hasn't actually seen one of y'all in his natural environment since he was a itty-bitty lieutenant. Those fuckin' star-warriors run around in a little general-officer bubble and they have no more idea of what y'all are really doing out here than a cow knows about the fuckin' Council of Trent.

So. Get over yourselves, people. Like I tol' ya last week; thinking you're all better than civilians is a straight-up dick move, and I won't tolerate that shit in my company, regardless of what the Old Man tells you about how awesome you are.

OK.

Second.

Rumor has it that the Brigade Sergeant Major is gonna be in the company AO this Friday. Y'all know that dick as well as I do, so I highly recommend that you ensure that those "extra" toolkits find their way to SSG Reye's garage, Commo, and Medics? The quarter-ton y'all keep "forgetting" to turn in? That sumbitch needs to go live in the woods starting Thursday night.

Oh, and I will be doing a walkthrough tomorrow at fourteen hundred hours and if I find more pogie bait in your walllockers I will go medieval on your ass. Are we clear on that?

I thought so.

Comp-ney, Atten-shun!

Platoon sergeants, take charge.

Acting 1SG Lawes reads the morning formation announcements.

Attention! At ease. Okay, listen up. Coupla things here.

First.

All this horseshit about how kneeling during the playing of "To Anacreon in Heaven" is somehow spitting on the graves of soldiers?

Get over it. There hasn't been a single fucking American soldier who served, fought, was wounded, or died for "freedom" since 1953 (and that was the freedom of the people of the Republic of Korea, people, know your fucking history).

There are a handful of living veterans of Korea and WW2 who might qualify and you're welcome to ask them THEIR opinions, but all the rest of us fought for "national interests"; we helped secure a tank of gas, or navigation through the Panama Canal, or for diddly-shit Great Power games in the Middle East.

The U.S. of 2017 uses armed force like any Great Power, people.

This isn't 1776.

Grow the fuck up.

Second. I've seen fellow GIs get all whip out their DD214 on people who haven't served to beat them over the head with the "right" to be all pissy about people protesting the fact that coppers are WAY more likely to kill your ass if you're not White Like Me.

That's a dick move, brothers.

Those despised "civilians"? They're OUR FUCKING BOSSES.

If they want to protest, or shout at us, or dance naked in the streets...our job, our ONLY fucking job, is to salute and move out smartly. THEY are the true "guardians of liberty", not us. We're here to keep the outside out. THEY are there to make the "inside" truly free, truly just, true to the promise of "liberty and justice for all"...or not. It's up to them, and not us to lecture or hector them about what they do or how they do it.

S&T Platoon. Imma see your ass in the motor pool after this formation and we're gonna talk about your fucking Conex.

That is all.

Platoon sergeants, take charge.

Service in the time of Trump

I never really feel anything but a mild irritation on this day. THIS today the irritation is less mild and is overlayered with a sort of sour contempt.

A large minority of my fellow citizens has chosen to put over me as my nation's Chief Executive a man that I would have done my best to chapter out of my Army had he come through my training unit when I was under the hat; a compulsive liar, a man who shirked his own service then boasted that prancing around in some sort of silly military school uniform was "just like serving", a bully and a con man and a thief.

This man, and his party, will over the next four years attempt to destroy the America I grew up in. They will attempt to reverse, repeal, and destroy the liberal and progressive and egalitarian and regulatory acts that have changed the face of this nation since 1929.

I've been Chief Executive-d by knaves and bastards before. I despised Dubya, had little but personal contempt for Bill Clinton and his wandering penis, thought Ronnie Reagan was a bloviating idiot. In a sense I tolerated them and the people who elected them because their elections owed more to We the People's ridiculous optimism and poor education and, sometimes, their venality and greed. They promised us "stuff" and we gave them power. That's how people are and that's how "leadership" has always been since the days of bread and circuses.

I'm not pissed off that my nation has elected this con man because he promised change in the form of doing the awful things to the sorts of people and things they hated, and people responded to that with unfounded optimism and poor education (and some venality, greed, a smidgen of racism and sexism and hate).

No, what irks the shit out of me is the fucking stupid of it. Bone-stupid. Thermonuclear stupid.

It was such a...cheap, obvious, lame-ass con. From the fucking idiotic Wall to the impossible promises of those millions of beautiful jobs it was a con so visible and so clearly ridiculous that only a real simpleton would have believed it. But millions of simpletons fucking did. I hate to think that so many of my fellow Americans are Just That Stupid that they'd buy a Gilded Age thinking they were getting a raise and a week's vacation at Sandals. But, apparently, they are.

Goddamn it but I wish I had their e-mail addresses so I could run one of those Nigerian oil-minister scams on them. I'd be a fucking millionaire.

I remain stubbornly proud of my service and the ideals of my country that led me to that service.

But of the country itself, its "leaders", and many of its people, I am today less proud than ever.

Worth a thousand words

This pretty much says it all.

Look at this fathead; standing on his beater-ass Dodge p-up on a road in eastern Oregon, all camo'ed up with what looks like his ballistic vest, boots and K-pot like he was going in to clean out Fallujah.

The American in me wants to take a piece of dimension lumber upside his helmet for being a dumbass seditionist supporting armed treason.

The drill sergeant in me wants to lock his friggin' heels.

"Sweetbabyjesussonofabitch what fucking dumpster did you dive in to get that outfit, precious? Did you wanna play Army like the big kids, or were they just our of warm clothes down at the Rescue Mission? And who taught you how to lace those boots, hero, your baby sister? Have you ever SEEN a can of boot-polish, slick, or was your plan always "Rub my boots in the dirt"? Or did you rub them on your ass, since you look as dark and dirty as a fuckin winter day?

Fasten that goddamn chinstrap, you sorry oxygen-thief, and what did you shave with, a cue-tip? Have you EVER shaved, or did your mommy teach you not to play with sharp objects? I've seen less hair on my dog's ass, sweetheart, and unless you feel like finding my boot in yours I suggest you get a goddamn shave, lace and polish those boots, and square that helmet away and all in about ten picoseconds or you are likely to have a fucking close encounter with a fucking cattle prod..."

Honestly. These people.

The Army I Knew: M*U*S*T

If you remember, last time we heard from young Doc Chief was in the winter of 1987 when I had reported to my Army Reserve unit, a combat support hospital in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

In 1987 the 99th Combat Support Hospital (USAR) MTO&E was what was known as a "MUST" unit.

The acronym stands for "Medical Unit, Self-Contained, Transportable", and stood for the physical type of facility that was used to house the patients in the wards as well as all the medical, surgical, lab, and administration of the hospital.

The heart of these things were long rubberized half-pipes that were inflated and then supported by compressed air, sort of like ginormous kiddie pools laid out on their sides. Here's how it is described in the Wiki entry for "combat support hospital":

"MUST...contained all necessary functions to provide care for 250 beds, including 2 intensive care units, 8 medical wards, emergency room, 4 operating rooms, orthopedic room, laboratory, X-ray and pharmacy. It consisted of hard containers which housed the operating rooms, laboratory, X-ray, and pharmacy. Inflatable shelters were used to provide double wall insulated areas for the patient care areas of the hospital.

These "inflatables" required a power system called a Utility Pack (also known as a U-Pack or power station) to provide utility services. The U-Pack provided electricity, heating, air conditioning, compressed air, vacuum, and hot (and) cold (running) water. At 250 beds the hospital required 8 U-Packs. Each consumed 30 gallons of jet fuel per hour. After several years of using inflatables they were abandoned in the mid 1980s, largely due to the weight of the inflatables, and the amount of fuel required just to keep the tents from collapsing."

The other problem that this entry doesn't mention is that, just like the kiddie pool, the inflatable "buildings" would DEflate if you put a hole in them by, say, shooting rockets or mortars at them.

Can't imagine how THAT'd happen, eh?

The MUST system was more than twenty years old when I met it, and had been deployed to Vietnam with somewhat mixed results, including the whole "collapses when holed by shrapnel" thing.

(Nice little article about one of the Vietnam MUST units here at the 25th ID page, by the way, and here's a link to the 45th CSH page that provides some PDF documents by Garrett, the MUST system manufacturer...)

By the late-ish Eighties these things were almost out of the RA inventory; the DEPMEDS system of hard shelters was first fielded sometime around 1984.

What was true then (and is probably still true today ) is that the USAR was the poor, raggedy-ass, neglected-when-forgotten-and-beaten-when-remembered stepchild of the regular Army.

Without the powerful lobby that the state National Guard organizations had and have the Reserve had to make do with and mend whatever hand-me-downs they got from the regulars. The MUST system was one of these hand-me-downs and remained in place for at least as long as I served with the 99th CSH and probably much longer.

I have to say that I thought the the MUST was actually sort of ingenious, in a Sixties-Space-Age-y-Tang-and-dehydrated-meal kind of way.

The ORs, labs, and other technical facilities had their own containers that would travel and arrive ready to go. The containers had a pair of wheeled dollies that you'd shove up against the ends, lock in place, and then raise the container off the ground ready to roll, a very neat gimmick.

The ward units were, even in peacetime and stateside, something of a nightmare and that was without the whole "collapses when holed by shrapnel" thing.

Hard to move, physically demanding to set up, and once inflated a bit of a maintenance headache, but for all of that they had a couple of huge, immense, unbelievably, incredibly wonderful advantages.

They were usually warm.

And dry.

And clean; it's hard to express what an amazing feeling it was to go "to the field" and remain clean.

I had been living a bit of a pampered life as a medic in Panama, running the Evacuation Section and having a six-wheeled house to live in. The line medics lived like grunts, which means like domestic livestock only without the pampering.

But the notion of sleeping on a cot, and taking a daily shower with actual hot water? That was unspeakable luxury, and one that I'm not embarrassed to say that I took to like a Republican presidential candidate to wog-bashing, hippie-punching, and slut-shaming.

So for all their drawbacks I got okay with the MUST gimmick most quick smart.

The thing that was harder to adapt myself to were...well, the "soldiers" of the Army Reserve circa 1987.

Because at the time it was unusual for prior-service people to come out of the regular Army and want to keep serving part-time. Most guys who ETSed just wanted to be actual civilians again; it wasn't that we worried about going to war, as Reservists and Guardsmen do now. Most of us had just had our fill of playing soldier and wanted to grow our hair and beards and lie around getting fat.

There was little in the way of institutional memory from Vietnam left in the USAR by the late Eighties and there was little in the way of new-hewn experience coming in from the Regular army, so the vast, seething primordial mass of USAR soldiers of the day were, very often, "soldiers" only in the sense that they kept tree-colored clothing somewhere in their closet to wear once a month.

Don't get me wrong; they were good people. They wanted to serve, and they wanted to soldier; that alone set them apart from most Americans of the time, who could have cared less - the Army just wasn't the sort of place where an ambitious, real up-and-comer, sort of person could be found in January 1987. The ones who DID want to soldier went on into active duty.

Many of the people who made up the Reserves had gone to nothing more than the Basic and Advanced Individual training - the same I had gone through back in 1980 - and it showed. They wanted to soldier; they just just didn't know how to soldier.

The only net positive about the USAR's combat support hospital staff - for me, anyway - was that about half of them looked, and as often as not smelled, far better than my former battle buddies.

Because they were women.

The notion of serving along with female troops wasn't really a problem for me.

For one thing, I didn't expect them to look like this:

We'd had female medics in Division, and I'd had a lot of female pals in the maintenance outfit of the 210th Aviation Battalion in Panama. Good troopers, most of them.

I expected female troops to soldier and was seldom disappointed. It sure didn't hurt that they were both less-inclined to dick-wave and more-inclined to bathe and wash their uniforms regularly than the hairy-chested types I'd been serving with.

The Reserve female troops, though, had the same problems their male counterparts did; most of them had only the sketchiest idea of what actual soldiers did and how they did it.

I wasn't Sergeant Rock, exactly - I'd scampered off Active Duty just to get the fuck out of the Pearl of the Pacific, remember - but I sure as hell could tell that these people weren't exactly ready for prime time.

As an E-5 buck sergeant I had barely clambered onto the lowest branch of the NCO tree. In an infantry unit I would have been considered capable - barely - of supervising three or four privates...but under the constant supervision of my squad leader from his august dignity of E-6 staff sergeant and the benign (but ruthless) authority of my E-7 platoon sergeant.

But in the land of the blind, or the Eighties U.S. Army Reserve, the one-eyed man - or the prior-service buck sergeant - is king.

And so it was that I found myself in a very peculiar position of having the least rank but the most actual military knowledge and understanding of any of the NCOs in the 99th CSH, and in the completely unauthorized but ridiculously-badly-needed position of "Assistant to the Chief Wardmaster".

(Next; The Unspeakable in Pursuit of the Untrainable, or, (seriously, no shit for-real-this-time, I promise) Lucy in the Sky With Diamond Earrings)