Midnight Oil....and a two sided wick

For the past few months ive been deployed to Iraq for the second time. It has its perks and its flaws. Sometimes i wonder what im doing here why im wasting my time, then sometimes I give food out to families, some pens to a bunch of school kids or something...Its a lot different from shooting them unlike last time. Its not a bad wrap.


Anyway many sleepless nights have past, I've gained a few gray hairs and couple more wrinkles around my eyes. Its said that for every year you serve in the infantry you age 3 or something. I think i can prove that someday. Onward these sleepless nights i have where i lay awake in my cot/mattress on a wire frame. My Arabian fan sits on a make shift table made of a bandanna and three sandbags filled to the brim. So I lay awake thinking when this deployments supposed to turn bad, things are supposed to be blowing up and what not. Im gonna say its over, now these people are asking for money and we are giving it to them. Instead of giving it to them why not teach them to run their businesses, markets and what not by themselves. Now thy expect it, so when we do finally leave they are gonna revolt again and again.

On to the midnight oil - I burn midnight oil like its my day job. Staying awake until sunrise is normal these days. It kinda puts some wear and tear on my young mind and body...I feel like im 50 haha. What I do on these nights well thats my secret and I love it. Or maybe thats why i have sleepless nights, anyway who cares. I think the longest stretch of staying awake out here so far is 5 days. I tell you what i crashed on day 6. I lost my appetite, my motivation, I started hallucinating, coughing up blood. Its been fun I cant say that enough. Half way done...

Two sided wick - Lets see my two sided wick I'd probably say its the fact im about to come home Tomorrow! For 18 days. Now Stephanie has mentioned it already and its a barn burner. I so happy i get to see her.. It means the absolute world to me, but the other side of the burning wick says. Well im gonna have to leave again.. That my friends is a terrible thought. Ive already left three times now. How many more will it take to be by her side shitttt!. Its hard not to think about the bad of the situatin but im doing my best. Im about to watch my brother get married, obtain a sister, see my mother, see my pop, and of course see my love... Whats not to like....

You try leaving that...I'd say my wicks burning fast I'd better make the 18 last. nifty huh.

IM LEAVING THIS TOTUREOUS PLACE TOMORROW NIGHT....by way of blackhawk....sweet

Ive turn in my rifle for a month ive packed up my things and ive cleaned myself up.. Ive packed a tooth brush two pairs of ACU's to smeellll nice and some kickass slippers...Its gonna be a wild ride...

I was going over my statistics today with a buddy...And ive found out that i have been on the ground patrolling everyday except for 15 days...thats 115 patrols + last deployment of about 380 days 495 patrols. In a desert....think people will be interested in that on a resume......DING DING....wishful thinking...

Ok enough bitching. I love my job and i have for a long time its just im 22. I've fallen madly in love with an amazing person, and ive been home for max at one time 28 days in the past 4 yrs.. Im tired very very tired. But i love it..It makes me appreciate the fact that im living to see my bros wedding.. I siked.....LETS GO.... ; )


SGT..jgs

Five day Insomnia Binge

So I was on the Internet talking to Stephanie last night for quite some time, its kind of ridiculous how much we are online. To me that's time well spent. Anyway what I'm getting at is we said our goodbyes for the night her afternoon, and then she googled my screen name. That's when you know its a good relationship right, when your counterpart googles your name. So she googles my name and finds all these super old websites of mine when i was a band guru...aka METALLHEAD. My point is I googled hers too, and saw all these pictures of her when she was a sophomore in college and jessus it looked like a blast. So that's what Ive been missing.. Then I saw her spring break pictures 2006 and guess what I said to those. "Oh hey I was deployed then too." What a bummer ha ha.

We walked down her memory lane for a good hour and it was a blast, then I realized i need to take way more picture especially when i come home.

As for the Insomnia...Its been 6 days now and I've had about 7 hours of sleep with the most consecutive time this afternoon. And that's only because I crashed....COMPLETELY DESTROYED. But at night I find myself not going to sleep after visiting with Stephanie. I kind of just wander around our compound looking up at the sky wondering what a normal life would be like. But isn't this my normal life, maybe I'm just not meant for a desk. I'm thinking of all these huge decisions to make in the next yr or so...and its not driving me crazy I love it..Each night I'm surviving off of single hours of sleep. Not a good nights sleep to say the least. But when i do sleep its the best dream you could possibly imagine where no one questions what you are doing no one puts in their two cents. Ugh I;m rambling again. A lot of ppl on this side of the lake say I use the Internet to much, I say well its not my fault Iraq has pulled me so far away my love it tends to make me sick sometimes that i have to settle for a video box for a few hours when all I can think of is what the hell I'm gonna say when i see her.

Back to Insomnia - I wander mouth dry, muscles fatigued, mind weary. Questioning everything I've ever done. This is a daily occurrence for at least 15 minutes..So what 15 times 365. So that's 5475 minutes out of the 21st year of my life dedicated to thinking of what I could be doing....MAN 4 days of thinking that's intense...

Insomnia draped in a little MOON dust.

The best part about Iraq is the stars/moon here's a picture of a good friend of mine..Palmer, a big Brooding black man with a semi-pessimistic outlook on life. I'd say that makes him work just a little harder then most people. Well this is a picture of him with night vision on up against a moonlit backdrop..Pretty damn sweet picture right. I get lucky from time to time.

MooN Dust a floating. Imagine all that being sucked into your lungs. And sometimes you feel the grit in your teeth...That's better then smoking ha ha.

What I'm getting at is, it's so hard to sleep soundly at night when you so far away from all you know when in turn this is becoming all I know. And its frightening, sometimes I want normalcy. But then I realize if it wasn't for 4 yrs in the army at the tender age of 22 and two deployments to a desert forgotten about commercial airlines "they forget to fly over Iraq sometimes ha ha" I would have never run into my driving force I've given up once before "You Know" but its all looking up. And so I say if it takes another 2 deployments and another lifetime to run into her again. I say bring it on. You are worth every second...I promise you that.

8 Days and we get to say we...not I

Introduction....

Days go by and I try to find things or ways to explain my constant battle in this destruction riddled country....naaaa just kidding all that crazy stuff come later. First I have to make sure you are interested enough to go on.

Anyway I was just introduced to the wide world of blogging by the most wonderful person I've ever met. You may know her as Stephanie, she something else huh. Anyway I tend to describe things better in words about what I'm going through or what I'm feeling. Pretty strange for a guy you think, you cant even imagine the rest of it. So through the days of worrying and the constant fight to go on out here in the desert. This is round two of my career in the military its probably going to be a short career considering I'm only 22 years old and have more gray hair then your grandfather. At the tender age of 19 I was deployed as an infantryman to Iraq in small town/city called Bayji. That deployment was something else.. What average civilians would call stupid I called invigorating everyday mortars would rain down on our little compound south of the city. Rockets, tracers, bombs, And suicidal maniacs trying at all costs to take my small life at that time.........Intrigued yet hardly....


ROUND 2

This time around the deployment is far from interesting...I sit around constantly pondering what the fuck I'm doing in this crazy country, wasting my time with census missions, Humanitarian missions, rebuilding things these people could careless about lets put it this way...If its not green in the form of small papers that are worth these peoples family they don't care. Anyway again I sit here draining my energy walking miles upon miles through desert and jungles trying to find small farms south of Baghdad to issue micro grants for a small amount of money so they can waste it on whiskey and ammunition to sell to the supposed insurgents that we haven't seen yet this time ah well KEEP ON TRUCKING...I live for this shit...it makes a snickers bar and a Pepsi all worth it ten fold at the end of the day....

LEAVE t-Minus 9 and counting



Here in about nine days I'm gonna receive a small token of appreciation from our govt.. By way of 18 days to rekindle what Ive lost over the months with the ones I love.
During these 18 days ill visit friends, family, and Of course the one reason I'm over here doing the dirty work Stephanie. You have no idea what its like to look into a small video box the size of a dollar bill on a nightly basis....not that I'm complaining...its just making the real thing so anticipated..its so close I can taste it...we have so mucch planned from concerts to weddings to An all American baseball game...All while being intoxicated and surrounded by FUNNN....To the two of us its our vacation our time to shine our time to love...Its gonna be Badddddassss....And that's just the beginning.