2008 Weblog Awards Finalists Announced

When I started this blog over two years ago, I never imagined my audience would grow beyond my family and friends. I hardly read blogs back then, but if I did I still called them websites. After writing my first post, I had no idea I was entering a large realm of military bloggers.

Flash forward two years and I'm once again a nominee for Best Military Blog in the 2008 Weblog Awards. Like last year, the competition will be tough. Last time I was naive about going up against Blackfive and Michael Yon, both godfathers of the milblogging community. Now I know all too well their influence. But I'm more in tune with the community this year. The War on Big Tobacco is a finalist and I'm proud to call him a friend. He's also the only deployed blogger in the competition, armed with a unique writing style he likes to call sargeasmic. His female readers will confirm the effectiveness of his prose, amongst other things.

Like me, Big Tobacco realizes the importance of winning this competition. He and I are both trying to make a career out of this whole writing thing, and a blog award can only help finding a publishing agent. Even though he's relatively new to the scene, Big Tobacco has amassed a following that will be hard to beat. It should be a good competition this year.

I hope to at least bring it home for Team Enlisted this year. Blackfive and Michael Yon are former officers while Big Tobacco and I are/were enlisted men, the working class of the soldiering profession.

Voting will begin next Monday and will last one week. As polls become available, I will post the full list of nominees here. Don't forget to check back often for new posts and new banners throughout the voting process.

Loose Interpretation

"Battle Five, Battle Five, this is White 7 Romeo. Radio check, over."

"Roger out."

Besides the soft, quiet hum of the radio at my side, there wasn't a sound in the makeshift combat outpost in the heart of Old Baqubah. After an impossibly long day of patrolling in the summer heat, we bedded down in an occupied house to await the next groundhog day of patrols, weapons cache destruction and ubiquitous firefights. At sundown we had filled a filthy kitchen sink with ice to cool down bottles of water and Gatorade. Hours later, only a warm pool remained in the sink, the bottles offering little relief from the torrid wind that swirled in from the open front door. It was barely fifteen minutes into my one hour watch when my eyelids began to betray my only task: to keep my sleeping platoon safe from anyone who might come through the courtyard gate.

A faint metal-on-metal clanking sound drew me out of my lethargy. It came from the other side of the courtyard wall. Was it the intermittent rustling of an unknown intruder? Jolted out of my chair and out of my loose and sweat-soaked boots, I reached for my short barreled shotgun. Without boots and body armor, I crept slowly to the wall, my feet leaving behind moist footprints barely noticeable under the silver glow of a full moon. With my platoon resting for a few precious hours inside the house, I had but two lifelines with me. One was the ten pound clunker of a radio. The other was the shotgun I held in my hands. I racked it as slowly as possible, the sound of double-aught buckshot shells rubbing against the chamber barely audible. I thumbed the safety on top of the weapon to red. The noise on the other side of the wall grew louder and more menacing. I stepped on top of an empty barrel, one hand on the shotgun pistol grip and the other on the courtyard wall. Taking one last deep breath, I stood up and swung the shotgun over the wall and pointed the barrel at what was making the noise: a piece of sheet metal rattling in the wind against a steel cabinet. My paranoia assuaged, I stepped down off the barrel, put the shotgun on safe and walked back to the chair. My senses heightened, I listened as the metal clanking blended with the radio static and counted the seconds until my watch was over.

***

Make no mistake: the Army owns your ass even when you're not in it anymore. When you sign an enlistment contract for three, four or five years, there is a period of inactive service tacked on for a total of eight years. Once you leave active duty, you are placed in the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR). At any time and without warning, an inactive soldier is subject to recall and mobilization for a deployment. The reason is simple: in times of emergency, a pool of trained soldiers is readily available to once again answer the call of duty.

Reality, of course, is not so simple. While the ashes of September 11th were still warm, it was pledged that this nation would fight its enemies abroad, its will redoubled in the fires of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Our government declared a global war to combat our enemies with the American people behind the military every step of the way. But a call to arms was not sounded from the White House. There was no effort to get young men and women into recruiting stations, only a suggestion from President Bush to go to Disney World instead of the mountains of Afghanistan. A wise man once said: You go to war with the military you have and not the military you want. It soon became a doctrine instead of a red flag of personnel shortage. You cannot fight a war without soldiers. With recruitment down and units constantly rotating in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan, it became clear that the demand for warm bodies far outweighed the supply. The National Guard and Reserve were tapped. Where to turn?

Before the Pentagon raided the IRR cookie jar in 2004, fears were calmed by recruiters and career counselors. If a recruit had a question about the IRR and the chances of getting recalled, the standard line given was, "Only if World War III breaks out." It was generally regarded as an absurd possibility to get recalled, thrown back into active duty and sent to a war zone. These days, career counselors have changed their tactics. Instead of characterizing an involuntary recall as a remote possibility, they will tell a soldier with a straight face that there is no escape from the looming shadow of the IRR.

***

"You might not want to pack just yet, but I would get ready."

A single sentence from my father on the other end of the phone was enough to send my head spinning, every drop of blood drained from my face. It was spring, and I had just moved from Seattle to Austin for school and began working in a warehouse for a wine distributor. All of my Army records listed my parent's house as my mailing address. Without notice, two Army career counselors on the hunt for inactive troops showed up at my parents' doorstep looking for me. They were dressed in sharp combat uniforms and wanted to discuss with me the possibility of joining the Army Reserves. If I did not, they warned my father, I would be on my way to being recalled.

"He's 11-Bravo infantry, a trigger puller," the ranking sergeant grumbled to my father. "His job is in high demand and infantry will be the first they recall." The only way to keep me from getting deployed again, they insisted, was to join the reserves with a guarantee to not be deployed for at least a year. "It'd be the smart thing to do," he said. I knew the line well, but I wasn't a trigger puller anymore. I was trying to make a home somewhere else, far from where the Army could interfere with the lives of my family. I sat alone, crumpled and defeated. What if they were right?

***

It was no accident they spoke in such a way that made my dad feel uneasy about the prospect of me going back to Iraq involuntarily. Since recalls became routine four years ago, government civilians and military counselors have used the same fear tactics to push soldiers to their breaking point with the veiled threat of recall. Other tactics are beginning to emerge, however. Not long after the two counselors showed up at my parent's door decked out in combat fatigues, two different counselors showed up again, both of them women dressed in casual civilian clothes. They were much more informal than the previous pair, keeping recall talk to a minimum yet sticking to their insistence that I take a look at the reserves. Some counselors are more nefarious. One even suggested that with the election of Barack Obama, two years is enough time to avoid a deployment since we'll be out of Iraq anyway. Shit, sign me up. Does it come with a juicer?

***

"This area is under surveillance by undercover police."

The banner, hanging low over a street a few blocks away, lets everyone know who is watching. My neighborhood is not a shining example of safe city life; prostitutes keep an eye out for potential johns within spitting distance of my front door step while stray dogs roam the streets in small, desperate packs. Drug deals are made under the few trees that line the intersection. While Lauren and I were moving in, a friendly old woman welcomed us to the neighborhood with a stern warning. "Be careful to always lock up and don't set any patterns," she said. "People on this street will watch you until they recognize a pattern, then they'll rob you," she added, her smile still intact. "Happened just last week."

I never owned a gun until that weekend. I went out and bought a pistol for home defense. I had an irrational fear of burglars since I was young, terrified to come home from elementary school by myself. Most of the time I waited for my older sister's bus to drop her off before I spent an unbearable few seconds alone. When I was brave enough to be in the house by myself, I was armed with a large steak knife, hoping the time wouldn't come where I would have to shove the tip into an intruder. It was inconceivable for my ten year old mind, the feeling of slicing open another person. Years later, I have no trouble with the thought of putting bullets into someone, sending brain matter scattering across the floor or plastered onto the wall in a fine pink mist. I'm a trigger puller after all. Or I used to be.

The first few months in the house didn't feel the least bit dangerous despite our seedy surroundings. I could usually count on a good night's sleep even with the bass from passing cars shaking the windows and nightly block parties blasting mariachi music. But the noises come back, and with it, the paranoia. Five times a night, ten times a night, I'm drawn out of sleep by sudden creaks and cracks around the house. One night, a pounding on the window sent Lauren and I five feet into the air and me scrambling for my gun. After chambering a round, I bent the blinds back slightly to peer out the window. The wind was knocking a trash can lid into the window with each powerful gust. Relieved but not yet calm, I went outside and secured the lid. It took me a long while to find the right state of mind to sleep again.

***

Hearing things on watch in Iraq. The constant torment of waiting for recall orders. Looming noises in a broken down neighborhood. All took place thousands of miles away and months apart from each other, yet they all produce the same feeling of despair and malignant desperation. The battle for peace in a soldier's mind isn't settled in the streets of Iraq or the mountains of Afghanistan. It's waged for months and years later in cycles of inner reflection that can take a lifetime to interpret. With the possibility of recall hanging overhead like a dark, lurid cloud, that interpretation is sped up until it crashes head on with a stark realization: I could be going back to face those demons once again. If my time comes to accept recall orders and inevitable mobilization, so it goes. I always told my friends that I'd ignore the orders and not show up. Why do the job I've already done, that so many have resisted for seven years? But my obligation towers above that line of selfish reasoning. I've been out of the Army for a little more than a year now. I'd have a hell of a time waking up everyday at 5:30 and my infantry tactics might be a little rusty. But I haven't forgotten how to pull a trigger if the time comes for me to do it once more. I just hope that I can face the unseen terror that hides in the night.

On Strykers

For every ten silly questions I get about the Army and being in Iraq ("Are there any hot chicks?" being the most practical), I get one good natured, serious question. One that keeps coming up is, "What is a Stryker?" I have a hard time answering that question if the person asking is not familar with military hardware. I usually describe it as a smaller tank (it isn't) or like an armored bus. More informed folks are satisfied with the answer of it being an APC (armored personnel carrier). But because it has only been in combat for five years, little is known about the Stryker outside of the military community. Hopefully I can shed just a little light on this.





Forward thinking propelled the Stryker into 21st century warfare. Its necessity rises from the philosophy that big, conventional tank-on-tank wars were a Cold War relic and unconventional, smaller wars were going to be all the rage. Egghead thinking prevailed if Iraq and Afghanistan are any indication.

The Stryker is an eight-wheeled armored infantry carrier specifically designed for urban conflict. Its thinner armor relative to the Bradley and Abrams Main Battle Tank gives it the mobility and speed needed to meet unconventional threats. Think blitzkrieg meets mujaheddin. Unlike the Brad and Abrams, the Stryker sits on top of eight huge tires, each capable of running completely flat. For defense, each Stryker is fitted with either a .50 cal machine gun or a Mk-19 grenade launcher, fed by linked grenades for automatic fire. The Mobile Gun System variant, in contrast, boasts a 105mm cannon. In combat, the armor can stand .50 cal fire but crumbles under the explosions of RPG fire. To combat this effect, a cage was built around the vehicle. Slat armor is just narrow enough to force the warhead to explode several feet from the Stryker, displacing deadly shrapnel.





Bottom center: Slat armor


The most common variant is the Infantry Carrying Vehicle, the kind I rode in for my entire enlistment. A vehicle commander guides the driver, the squad leader observes from the front, and two men in the back watch the flanks of the vehicle. With retrofitted armor, these positions leave the soldiers vulnerable from the neck up or the chest up, depending on the defilade. Inside, two benches seat three men on one side and four on the other. Situations on the ground dictated how many men could be crammed into a moving vehicle in combat. Seventeen fully armored men and one dog was the unofficial platoon record. Some have asked me what it's like to ride in a Stryker. Here's your answer:





Diehards of OPSEC, I hope you are pleased. I edited out our terp and super duper tech equipment. Credit goes to Dozer for the video. Shauu!


When the Stryker was first in combat in 2003, pundits, analysts and dudes stuck in the 80s were falling over themselves to declare the Stryker a failure. In actuality, it has risen from a strange new vehicle to a must have in combat.

The Stryker is the only vehicle in the American arsenal capable of dropping a fully equipped squad onto an insurgent's doorstep, and it will do it quietly. My brigade earned the nickname Ghostriders in its first deployment for their ability to sneak into neighborhoods in the silence of night, nab potential bad guys and leave unnoticed. As a weapons platform, Strykers have the ability to have three barrels and a crew served weapon pointed at any direction at any given time.





Modern COIN doctrine requires that two Stryker brigades operate in Iraq at any given time. It's a testament to the ferocious tenacity of Stryker soldiers to bring the fight to the enemy at every turn. It's no coincidence that Strykers have led in nearly every major campaign since the invasion. From Tal Alfar and Mosul in 2003-2004, to Baghdad in 2006 and Diyala Province from 2007 to present, Strykers have been in the thick of it. In Baqubah, IEDs became such a nuisance that we only used the vehicles for infiltration and exfil. Still, we were able to subdue most of the city before reinforcements arrived months later. It is clear that it isn't only the Strykers that make a difference, but the soldiers inside of them. No fight was tougher in 2007 than the battle for Baqubah, and it was conducted with a minimal amount of vehicle support. The capital of al-Qaeda in Iraq was toppled by Stryker soldiers, never deterred over the loss of the vehicle itself.

Strykers are the future of the Army, if it isn't already clear. The days of tank-on-tank warfare are over, and no other unit is better prepared to fight a sustained battle than a Stryker brigade. Yet Strykers are hardly recognized for helping to turn the tide in Iraq despite the 3rd Stryker Brigade leading in both Baghdad and Diyala Province, places that were hotly contested by both American and insurgent forces for the past several years. If anything, the early critics of the Stryker can be finally silenced as it becomes the centerpiece of American counterinsurgency operations.





The most important part of a Stryker unit


AH

That Time of the Year

It's fall again. The leaves are turning a golden brown, the Texas weather is still trying to decide what to do, and of course, the Blog Awards are full-on. Once again, faithful readers have tossed my name into the ring, so I thought I'd post this for anyone else wanting to contribute:



Click on the image above to go directly to the military blog nomination page, scroll to the bottom and add your own comment or simply click the "+" icon next to a nomination you want to second.

All the usual suspects like Michael Yon and Blackfive are listed, but more importantly are the new guys that have made a name for themselves. Big Tobacco is a must-read while LT Nixon is the most informed libertarian ever to own less than fifty guns. If I'm fortunate to become a finalist once again this year, I hope it is with those fine fellows. Then it can be assured that civility and good sportsmanship will rule the day instead of, well, this.

Voting will begin some time in December, so I'll keep you all posted.

AH

Edit 11/22: Nominations are closed. Thanks to all who nominated me!

The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day...

In my classroom, I sit toward the front, flanked by students on opposite sides of the room. Their thumbs move in a mindless text message symphony, waiting for class to start. Their hair and clothes are impeccable. As the instructor walks in and greets us, the two students don't look up to say hello. They instead respond with a deafening click-click-click-click. I almost feel like apologizing for them.

Are these the people I chose to surround myself with?

Every day that goes by is a day apart from the men of second platoon. I have replaced my battlefield peers with classrooms full of students that don't know the stories or even the names of each other. I haven't tried to make friends. Why bother? My friends are not in Austin. They're in Chicago, Brooklyn, Green Bay, San Diego. They're everywhere except here, carving out their own destinies. Our shared past becomes more of a distant memory as time goes on. In a month, we will have spent the same amount of time home as we did in combat. The last fifteen months have flown by like a fading dream. At least in war, time moved impossibly slow. You could really squeeze every minute out of a day.

Whether at work, school or home, I cannot go ten minutes without thinking of the men I came home with, or the men we brought back home. Like I've said before, every day is Memorial Day. Every day is Veterans Day. My entire being is seared by the tragedy and triumph of war, an invisible mark I wear at every waking moment. My life will be spent trying to sort out what happened out there in the desert, but today is a reflection on the men I served with, both living and dead. It's to pay respect to the uniform that millions of Americans have worn and will wear. When I'm in class and I inevitably begin to space out, I'll be thinking of Chevy and Jesse, their lives gone too soon. I'll be thinking of playing craps on the floor and poker on the table. I'll remember a time when stepping ankle deep into septic waste was barely the worst part of a day, and that first sip of cold water was always the best.





Ever seen college kids moon an attack helicopter? Didn't think so


These memories rushing back will not take place in a dimly lit bar outside Ft. Lewis or on a sweltering rooftop deep inside Diyala Province. They'll be within the confines of my own mind, tucked away in a classroom full of delicate, protected students that tend to forget we're still at war, that men are still not coming back home with their limbs and their lives intact. Veterans Day is not just for us, it's for everyone to remember, lest we forget the cost of war. Today I'll be thinking not just of the men I served with, but my family as well. My grandpa in the Korean War, my uncle in Vietnam and my father off the coast of Beirut and Grenada will all be on my mind.

If you're a veteran or a family member of one, please leave a comment telling a favorite story of yours.

AH

Election Night Open Thread

I hope none of you have been looking to this blog as a source for news regarding the presidential election, as I tend to write about politics with a focus on military matters. I exhaustively covered the GI Bill issue, and I've touched on foreign policy a number of times when it pertains to the United States military. But tonight in an AoD first, I'd like to hear your thoughts on what it means for the future of active duty military and veterans when one man is elected president tonight - Barack Obama or John McCain, either through the lens of domestic policy or foreign policy. I'll be sitting here with plenty of Blue Moon on hand to witness history.

Feature in the St. Petersburg Times

For all you AoD readers in the Tampa Bay area: pick up a copy of the St. Petersburg Times this afternoon. The Thing I Carried is in the feature section, likely buried somewhere near the back. And if you're wondering what I have to do with Florida, well, me too buddy. If you want to contribute to the death of newspapers (or simply don't live in America's Wang), you can read the full article here.

AH

And now, an important message

I received a bit of feedback from my post about the feelings of coming home from a deployment, but a couple of emails asked for advice on the flip side of that coin - how to deal with a returning soldier. I've never set foot in an FRG meeting so I'm not familiar with the concerns and worries of wives and girlfriends of a deployed soldier. In any case, I hope this benefits the kind women who inquired and those out there that have unanswered questions gnawing away at them. Following are questions sent by women who have a romantic link to a deployed soldier, answered here not just for their benefit but for everyone in the same predicament.


How often do soldiers want to receive letters? (especially if you have rare access to internet/phone.)

The answer is simple: all the time, especially if contact by phone and internet is limited. Forget mp3 players, DVDs and X Box 360s- letters from home, and especially from a woman, provide the ultimate comfort and peace of mind to a soldier in a war zone. No matter how long a deployment feels, they're ultimately finite. The link back home must remain strong to keep a soldier's head level, and writing letters to them is instrumental. When a young lady named Lauren was writing to me, I treasured every letter sent, reading them over and over. They came with me everywhere. As long as there has been war, there have been letters sent from home to the men fighting as a delicate reminder of what was left behind.

Ideally, what do you want to hear from your friends?


This is a tough one. All my loser friends from home couldn't be relied upon to send an occasional e-mail while I was deployed. My only friends were to the left and right of me in Iraq. But if you're a better friend than what I had, let them know what you have planned for their return. If it's a party, a get-together with other friends, a getaway to a favorite spot, whatever. It provides something to look forward to, a familar setting for a place that will seem a world of difference when the soldier returns. A year, fifteen months, however long the deployment is - a lot has changed in society. Familiarity is key to reintegration. When I left, the coolest thing cell phones did was flip open. When I came back, phones had keyboards. It was incredible, strange and confusing all at the same time.

Be sure to keep them up to date with news. Toward the end of my deployment, we spent anywhere from 3-10 days in the urban wilderness of Baqubah. When we came back to the base, sweaty, filthy and exhausted, the only news we caught was at the dining facility, which was permanently set on Fox News. I could only rely on Bill O'Reilly and Fox & Friends for news, which is like relying on a prostitute to give you safe-sex tips. Let them know what's going on in the world using whatever means you like - phone, emails or letters.


What do you NOT want to hear from your friends?


Don't ask obtuse questions like "how hot is it?" and "did you kill anybody?" It's offensive and flippant. Let them know how things are going in your life, but don't approach it as something they're "missing." They know. Don't press the issue.


What can a friend do to bring her soldier out of his darkness, besides consistent messages of support and willingness to listen or just sit with him?

Let them decide when to open up. It's not something to coerce out of him. He knows you'll listen intently with empathy and support. That's not the issue. The issue is him being comfortable enough with what he has seen and done to talk about it openly. It takes time, and unfortunately everyone is different regarding this issue. War does not leave anyone untouched, physically or mentally. Something about him will change. Your best bet is to recognize that and do your best to understand why the change happened. It could take six months or six years for him to come out of his shell. Be patient.


From another inquirer:


Is him wanting to be alone to decompress and adjust normal for someone coming home from war, even when you have loved ones who want to be with you?


This is a position of extremes. A soldier will either want to be surrounded by loved ones immediately, or he'll want to be alone to sort out his feelings. Everyone is different, so there's no real solution to this if he wants to do something contrary to your wishes. He knows what's best for him to do, so go along with it. Just be sure he doesn't get on that slippery slope of alcohol abuse. It happens like clockwork to returning units, and the first line of defense is other soldiers and loved ones. Keep an eye on him but don't be intrusive.

Hopefully this provides at least a shred of insight for those looking for answers during trying times. If you want answers to your own questions, either leave a comment or email me at hortonhearsit at hotmail dot com.

Also, this is my 100th post. Thanks for keeping up with me dear readers. It has been rewarding beyond belief to stick around this long.

AH

The Thing I Carried

Out of the Army and into school. That was the simple two step plan that many of us adopted before we deployed in the summer of 2006. Nearly half of my platoon would be getting out if and when we made it back home from Iraq. We focused the best we could when it came to preparing for the mission, but there is no helping the excitement in the prospect of starting a new chapter of life on the government's dime.

In the run-up to the deployment, a lot of guys were buying their own equipment to take with them. It is generally accepted that government issued equipment is inferior to what you can go out and buy yourself. The assault pack was one of those things. It's just like a backpack except with a sweetass name. The only problem was the zipper sucked something fierce and it held no more than what a high school backpack could carry. I'm the kind of person to carry backups of everything. Extra knives, batteries, carabiners, socks. I needed to haul a lot more than what the issue assault pack could carry.

Jesse hooked our whole squad up with aftermarket equipment. His dad's company sponsored us with thousands of dollars to buy magazine and utility pouches, vests and other luxuries. Jesse budgeted himself enough to buy a new civilian assault pack. He didn't need his old one, so he gave it to me.

"You can use it for the deployment, but you have to give it back to me," he said. "But if you decide to reenlist, you can keep it."

"You'll definitely be getting it back," I replied.

I made the secondhand assault pack my own. It was worn out after one deployment but still held together fairly well. The bottom corner was tearing. Jesse had written his Hawaiian name, Keawe, in thick, black lettering on the front. I sewed on a nametape to cover it up. I wrote in small print 24 Nov 2007, the day I was getting out of the Army. It was below a message Jesse had written - For those who would NOT serve

In Baghdad, I carried my assault pack everywhere we went. It was becoming a routine to leave our base in Taji and spend up to a week in smaller bases in the heart of the city. We began to live out of our assault packs, bringing whatever we could stuff in there. Mp3 players, books, movies, chess sets, snacks. I carried all of Lauren's letters with me so I could read them over and over. The rain had stained the notebook paper blue and red.

Jesse was always asking me when I was going to get a girlfriend. On the day I was going on leave, Josh told him I had a girl writing to me in Seattle. While my platoon went out to check out insurgents loading weapons into a car, I stayed behind and told Jesse the unlikely story of our relationship. "Damn dude, good luck with that shit," he said.

Two weeks later, Jesse would be cut down by small-arms fire in Baqubah. He would survive some time before passing away. I could not possibly avenge him; I was two thousand miles away. I heard about his death in the most undignified way; a Myspace bulletin read in an internet cafe in Rome.

Coming back to Iraq after leave, I looked at Jesse's assault pack a lot differently. I still carried it with me everywhere, but I treated it a lot better. I no longer tossed it off the Stryker into the dust. I didn't shove it into small spaces on top of the vehicle. In the outposts where we lived, I used it as a pillow.

The assault pack is not an assault pack anymore. It's a backpack. I no longer stuff it with extra grenades, ammunition magazines or packages of Kool Aid. It now carries textbooks, calculators and pencils. I started my first classes a few months ago to fulfill the plan two years in the making. I imagined it to be a seamless transition into civilian life. Boy, I was fucking naive, even when I came home. I saw some guys falling apart from PTSD, getting drunk or doing drugs to drown it out. I thought I made it out okay, relatively.

With my unassuming tan backpack at my feet, I break out in a sweat if I even think about mentioning Iraq in the classroom. I let it slide nearly every time, yielding the topic to daftly opinionated classmates. I feel like a foreign exchange student, confused about the motivation of my peers. I literally carry the burden of readjustment on my back, not wanting to let go my past but anxious to get to the future. Fractured into part war veteran and part journalism student, who I am speaking to determines which part of me is actually there in the room. To many, my past is my best kept secret. For all they know, my parents pay my tuition and do my laundry. I can be honest here. It's terrifying to be honest out there. Perhaps it's best that way.

For those who would NOT serve - it's faded now, not easily read unless you look closely. I secretly wish that another veteran will read it, see the dangling 550 cord hanging from one of the buckles and ask, "what unit were you in?" At least then I could be myself with someone that carries the same load on their shoulders.

AH

Blogs of Note

I've never been a big reader of military blogs. I started this one two years ago when I barely knew what a blog actually was, and I never thought there was a military subsection. The first time I ever heard of the biggest one, Blackfive, was from a Playboy article I read at my outpost in Diyala Province.

Now that I've been out of the deployed loop for awhile now, I've started to read more and more milblogs to satisfy my hunger for first person perspectives in Iraq, Afghanistan and the home front. The media has fallen flat on its face on covering the wars, from the bird's eye view to the grunt's eye view. Milbloggers have become the best reporters in the field, for good reason.

I've always thought it was a good thing to be proactive and spread the good word, so today I'll be starting a feature called Blogs of Note. Every so often, I'll link to deserving blogs, hoping to boost their traffic just a little. I'll try to keep it varied, from infantryman to sailors to just regular folks.

This week: Fobbits Need Ice Cream Too

For the uninitiated, fobbits are the miserable soldiers on a FOB (forward operating base) that are deployed for no clear purpose other than to guard gates, buy 50-inch TVs at the base exchange and take pictures of the desert sunset. If you do not leave the security of the wire on a semi-regular basis, congratulations, you're a fobbit.

Fobbits Need Ice Cream Too is written by Joe, a junior enlisted soldier in the National Guard. He's infantry, but the merciless gods that assign units to their area of operations had Joe's unit based in Kuwait. His job is simple: take outlandish amenities like ice cream, X Box 360s and folding lawn chairs across the border into Iraq to feed the never ending appetite for fobbits from Striker to Marez. They provide security for KBR truckers, usually Iraqi nationals that are working hard to run up Cheney's severance check. As any anonymous junior enlisted soldier would, Joe rails against the lazy assholes who depend on him to deliver their absurd spoils. He has no love for incompetent leaders above him or the pogue units that rule Kuwait with an iron PT belt. I found myself laughing hysterically at all the ridiculous things he goes through (endless formations because of graffiti are among the highlights. The offending word? Breastmilk.).

Joe is getting great buzz within the community for good reason. He's not swayed by politics or concerned with telling the most dramatic combat story. He recounts day to day life in combat, trials of incredible highs and devastating lows. If you want to immerse yourself in the view of the common grunt, look no further.

Money Post: Donkey IEDs, Flat Tires And Ramadan

AH