Month 12 Day 26

I worked out this morning.  The gym is still up, fortunately.  I cut my hair.  It was a little more awkward this time because there are so many more Marines over there because MWSS is moving.

The workout was good.

We went to the RCT and turned in our ammo.  I had to borrow some more from the next team so that we can protect ourselves while we are on camp.

I sat down with Siegel and gave him my list of tasks that remain unfinished. A lot of them he didn’t really understand.   He has a tendency to speak before he listens.  Ah well, at least he is eager.

I found out that his brother was a guy who I went to the Citadel with, he was in my company while I was a knob, we were on the same scholarship, both in the honor’s program.  Small world.

I packed my stuff.  It is almost all in one giant wheely bag now.  So much of it is stupid.  Did I really needed a second flak vest? 15 different types of warming layers.  This is just stupid.  They dance around giving units special gear when they are heading into combat, but if they just kept all of this shit here, issued it when you arrive and deissued it when you leave, then life would be simpler, transit costs would be lower (my bags weigh almost 200lbs).  I suppose they think that would make us less expeditionary, but really do they think that lugging around 200 lbs of individual gear is expeditionary?  It’s not like we don’t have the room to just store the shit here, and it’s not like we don’t have the time when we arrive and depart to get it if we need it.  Maybe we could start acting like an occupation force because we are one rather than pretending that we are expeditionary when we aren’t.  Really I lug around two wheeled bags that are basically giant brown suitcases, and I carry a pack that can’t contain all of this shit. 

Anyway.  After that fiasco was done I helped one of the power guys install a small transformer in our tent that will drop the voltage from 220 to 110.  That kind of stuff is interesting to me, it makes sense.

After lunch I came back and watched Patton.  That is a whole different type of war than we are fighting here.  It really is a war, not nation-building counter-insurgency.  That kind of war, the kind where the existence of your civilization is at risk if it is not fought, that kind is the kind we should entertain.  Wars of option, they are really costly with marginal benefit.  I want to be around for those ones where I am really needed.  I think a lot more folks will be getting out if they change the retirement system like they say they will.  No more 20 years and go.  You have to save into an IRA, you can’t start drawing until you are actually retirement age.   That should make trimming the force easier in the future.  It will make wars of option like this much less tenable.  There will not be a bunch of guys hanging out hoping to save their careers in the military.

In the evening the cries for the boss to get a new air conditioner became too loud to stand.  His died yesterday, and no one knows why.  They slept last night without one.  We offered for them to stay in our tent, but they preferred to send Casbarro around to try to take air conditioners from the ANA.  Exactly the type of shenanegans we tell the ANA not to do.