Each day, it's something, another Line of Duty investigation, a Hardship Chapter, More drama with the drugs, court martial packets...and probably the most absolutely nerve-racking is battle between two NCOs, Sergeant First Class both of them, about something so stupid and common "sensicle" as whether or not I should lock my door because of the sensitive documents I have in there...The current PAC NCOIC, SFC Blake, doesn't want it done...At first, it was because the section refridgerator and microwave (tiny little units) were in there...then it just got personal after SFC Wade brought in JAG and the chain of command to insist I be able to lock my door.  There were a couple of times where SFC Blake told me to go in his office and talk with him, while SFC Wade held me back...coflicting orders.  SFC Blake has a burr up his ass, and, even after I moved the fridge and microwave out of my office today, he still *insisted* I leave my door open--to the extent that he had the first sergeant himself, and the commander, tell me that SFC Blake was my boss, and I was to do as he said...

Well the kicker to this all is being brought forth just now...SFC Blaek has always struck me as someone hiding something...turns out to be adultery.  He's cheated on his wife on numerous occasions, even, in fact, having an illegitimate child with one woman.  Now he's being investigated for sleeping around with another Sergeant in the Brigade...

SFC Wade, bless his heart, can't help but gloat about this recent turn of events.  IN SFC Wade's eye, SFC Blake is a broke dick sergeant--setting Xu up for failure; having been in the army, as a specialist, for nearly four years, and not learning a damnded thing about leading soldiers. SFC Blake-- not working with or giving positive reinforcement to his soldiers--which I saw first hand on the 20K when Brock fell out--SFC Blake never did anything to encourage her, only scowling at her and demanding she speed up the pace...it was obvious SFC Blake was thinking ONLY of his self and how Brock was going so slow *he* wouldn't make his march in the alotted time...i don't think he was really even too concerned over her wellfare...reminds me of a certain Lieutenant up at Camp Lejune just court-martialed for dereliction of duty in the death of a soldier on just such a ruck march--the LT had not allowed the soldier to stop or rest and the private died of dehydration/heat stroke.  Broke the fuck up.

So yeah, I have issues with my new "boss".  But for now, I'm stuck with him.  He's due to PCS in a couple more weeks and personally, I don't know if I'll be happier to just see him leave, or be punished for these new incidents--the investigation isn't completed and CPT Lacy doesn't want to flag him from favorable action yet (SOP on investigations--keeps the soldier from PCS so justice can be met, etc.) due to his rank and the sensitivity of it...If we punish him, I have to deal with him being around longer.
His replacement, on the other hand, is wonderful. SSG Davis--she obviously cares about us and her whole take on the issue is this, I know best what i need to do as far as legal issues goes...in fact she seems to think I SHOULD lock my door...

gaaa the whole thing is nutso--particually with the Command Sergeant Major and the Colonel getting into it...I feel so hapless.

And to think, I'm just getting warmed up now...
Today I stood by LTC Davis's side, just to the right of the american colors and the battalion colors and witnessed/assisted in the punishment of three soldiers.  One soldier was stripped of three ranks...busted from Specialist down to Private, E1, the lowest you can be in the army; lost his security clearance, and is being stripped of his intelligence MOS and beign forced to reclassify. One was stripped of one rank. The other, having only one rank beyond Private (E1) strip as it was, lost hundreds of dollars instead.  All three were given 45 days restriction to the barraks complex and work complex, and 45 days of extra duties.  One SPC, the one I "met" at the motor pool a couple weeks ago, will actually have to move back into the barraks to serve this restriction, having lived off post with her now ex-husband--another entirely other subject that I won't go into for proprieties sake...

These were the minor players in the 519th Millitary Intelligence Drug scandal.  Three soldiers have yet to be dealt with--those will be courts-martials.  Those soldiers face serious jail time in addition to reduction in grade and boots from the army.

So today I stood there, the right hand man to the colonel, instructing the soldiers what blocks to initial, which to sign, which to date, etc.  Today I stood and looked into the face of that man and those women, who dared do something I find unforgivable and heinous given the position of trust as soldiers, and particually as MI soldiers...they did dope.  As a paratrooper, which two of them were, it means that when they go on a jump, perhaps they smoked pot that morning, or the night before...that soldier exiting the aircraft at 150 miles an hour just behind them is placed in a position of serious jeopardy.  It isn't the one soldier who is at risk the most, it is the soldier that is standing and jumping behind them, due to static line control.  Thoe drugged soldiers have 3.2 seconds to be drugged and blissfully unaware...after those seconds, if they can't pull it together and realize that, just maybe the chute didn't open after 3.2 seconds like it is supposed to...they're dead.  Pure and simple.  At an "above ground level" jump of maybe 800 feet, a paratroper has about five more seconds to pull that reserve parachute ripcord...if that.  If that soldier is clueless and exits the door with a loose strap or something, and becomes a towed parachutist, that trailing jumper gets smacked up in flapping equipment or whatnot.  If that soldier is clueless and drifts into another soldier's canopy, that could mean death for both in some cases.  That drugged soldier coudl steer directly over another parachute and "steal the air" causing that lower parachute to collapse and that paratrooper to simply drop like a rock...
That drugged parachutist may drop right on top of another paratrooper.  That groggy paratrooper might simply hurt or kill him/herself...a waste of training and money and a pure and simple human life--but that could very well be a best case scenario...

Then we have live fire exercises, or, dear lord above, real combat situations...I won't even begin to describe those in too many wasy or details, except to say, there are oftentimes scenarios where soldiers are laying down as much suppresive fire as the weapons will allow...DIRECTLY over their comrades heads...Food for thought then: an M60 machinegun is capable of firing 800 7.62 mm rounds in sixty seconds...

I looked these soldiers in the face, trying to find the human within them, the wise old sage we *should* all be destined to be despite the truth of it...In one, I think, I may have seen hope for it--that chewing tobacco soldier as a matter of fact.  For one, I saw nothing better than regret and sorrow.  For one, I saw abstract fear and that was about all.

I stood there and gazed into eyes blinking with vigor in some cases, deathly still in others, and imagined my own ass chewing not too long ago--by the same man that sat there before those soldiers then, sat to my left then.  Here was  commander that, no, was not a bleading heart, but one that, nonetheless, cared more about his soldiers than anything else, and it was plainly apparent in his counseling of the two "worthy of being saved soldiers".  In the one stripped of everything...he was not angry with him, did not one in the entire two and a half hours with all of them together, raise his voice...but he made it clear his opinion on the young soldier standing before him.

As it went on, I imagined myself back in my old life-imagined myself in Arcata California, hanging out with Tim, with Greg, with Elizabeth or Christa and Eric or the guys in Spank or any of them...thought long and hard about what a change the army has made in my life--what a hugely positive influence it has been on not just my image, but my morals, my attitudes, and my actions.

Last night while I was starching a set of BDU's, to touch them up a little because they were slightly wrinkled, I was thinking about how positive the army experience has been overall, how well I've fit into the army mode of life.  I was asked earlier that day what I was going to do when I got out--be a lawyer? a paralegal?  I'd said no, I was planning on being a teacher...and it was the strangest thing, because it didn't seem like me saying that.  I didn't feel fully possessed of my own destiny or my own voice when I said that...like subconsciously I had thought it wasn't what I wanted...this was a more powerful thought to me than it has really been in a long time...

And it made me think again, that perhaps the army wasn't such a bad place to build a life...Let's face it--my prospects for marrying anyone while I'm in the army (if my current unit is any indication) is bad if anything.  I don't really have any friends since Dan and Mig left--I haven't spoken to Johnson in ages, Joe and I never go out, Navarro I never really relate with...Schrek I just don't like a whole lot.  Griffin, well, he can be awfully boring most of the time...Smith is cool but I don't like to hang out with someone so young all the time...Its just that here, I'm so much "above" the other young soldiers becasue of actual age and bearing it seems.  I have to be carefull about my peers, as if the whole underage purchasing thing wasn't enough of a lesson on that...I simply don't make friends easily to start with...so...My roomates a cool guy, and we can hang out on occasion, but he's mostly into Church involved or populated activities...That girl we did the article 15 punishment today...she was  pretty cool gal--I wouldn't mind making a friend of her but with what happened and other circumstances surrounding it, it's just not possible. 

Right now, it's not so bad I guess...I have so much work to do as of late--tonight I was at the office until 1930.  I actually ended up eating part of an MRE and borrowed some money from my roomie Leland for BK (He buy, I fly)...

The point though is this--the whole career army idea sometimes doesn't seem so bad.  There a large deal of security involved with being in the army--knowing I have a job for pretty much as long as I want, knowing I have a pension set up.  Knowing that, if I work hard, I *will* be rewarded for it somehow eventually.  I don't know too many other soldiers that have two AAMs after only a year and a half in service. 
Sometimes I just don't know if I'd be living up to my potential however.  And there's the question of getting so sucked up into it that I...I dunno.  I see so many of these higher ranking soldiers, CSMs, officers, 1SGs and I just don't know if it befits me--even with all the potential all my command sees in me--I just don't know if I want that life...I sometimes feel like that would just be the easy way out of all my choices, like it would be giving up, that there is so much more out there for me than the armed forces...even that I would be dissapointing my family and what friends I have from old...I joined the army of my own free will, to experience it, to see places, to have a steady job away from college for a while...I never imagined myself as a career soldier, not really...

It's just hard to imagine life as a civilian again, so very hard right now to even know if I *want* to be a civilian again.

Friday night was cool...SSG Peterson was throwing a party to celebrate his promotion to Staff Sergeant. Much of B Comapny, 519th MI, was there so I got drunk and hung out with them for several hours.  We played touch football and smoekd cigarettes and talked for hours about the army and the purpose of it and this and that and everythign else as well.  It was good to be in such an envireonment again...human companionship is such a wonderful thing.  I just seem so much like I hide myself from all the best chances or something--I don't know.  I been keeping to myself for so long it's often just the easy thing to do.

The days have been so long--staying late, going in early, cutting lunch short...  The weekends are a blessing these past few weeks--catch up on sleep, unwind, toss a few back.  Today the company had a formation--I was pulled out as the soldier with the most squared away uniform...BDU's crisp and starched, boots highly shined, beret still nearly brand new...My reward: a day off...to be worked out with SSG Davis and SFC Wade--would have been today had I nto all the article 15s...notified the one soldier of his summarized article 15 today too...But it looks as if I should be able to get friday or monday off in today's stead.  It will be such a wonderful long wknd--especially wioth the Korn concert saturday.  This wknd I plan on seeing the sunrise out over the ocean--prolly at the Wilmington beaches.  I've been here at Bragg quite nearly a full year and still have yet to see that sight--the ocean peepping up over the Atlantic.

And with that, it's 2300 and I really hafta sleep now...it's been a long recap of emotions, thoughts, and memories...

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