April 8th

OK, I actually gave up playing computer solitaire to write this so I'm hoping something good actually comes out on the page. Already well under the remotestest possibility of 8 hours of sleep, I might as well press on regardless of the 0400 wakeup tomorrow morning. Nothing like rolling out of bed into full "battle dress". In the meantime, if I get writer's block, I have the company of VH1's Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 80s. Oh the good ol' days. Little did I know when I was listening to Quarter Flash as a kid that 23 years later, I'd be writing about listening to it under these circumstances. Lest I bore you with yet more stories of Army, I'll keep the bitching to a minimum except to say that we were on the range from 0730 until 1515 today and I actually got about 2 hours of legitimate training. For the daily MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) report, we have: beef ravioli, peanutbutter and something labeled "wheat bread", an oatmeal cookie, and (of all things) fried rice and a lovely capri sun from the 2009 vintage (it was a good month). Now for the verdict: ravioli wasn't bad. I should know as I grew up on the stuff. Heated it would have been much better but just imagine eating really think chef boyardee out of the fridge. I suspect that after this little summer camp, my digestion will never be the same but then again, if I can fix it after 5 cruises on Navy ships, anything is possible. I didn't touch the peanut butter. Not worth the calories. "Wheat Bread". This is a misnomer. If this shit is wheat bread, I'm Chrissie Wellington. Seriously, it has the texture of a REALLY bad biscuit and the flavor of wallpaper paste. If you read the ingredients, it looks harmless enough but that explains the complete lack of taste. (If you would like an MRE so you can, in fact, verify my review, please let me know. I will grab a few and try to mail them to you.) It's not food. This is something thrown into the MRE to add 300 more calories (500 if you toss on the peanut butter) to hungry and desperate grunts on patrol. Read comments about breakfast the other day. The people who decided this would be good food for soldiers should be prosecuted. Oatmeal cookie. Despite the fact that I'm not a dessert eater, this cookie is pretty good. Ingredients are harmless (mostly) and the taste is good even if the texture is a hair on the dry side. Overall, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best meal I ever had at the Kalapawai Cafe and 1 being dirt, this meal was a solid 5. Moving on....Fried rice?? Really?? With ravioli? Who combinde these? Shit man, you gotta love globalism. Tomorrow, I'll look for the MRE that has Chicken Pad Thai, toastadas, wienerschnitzels and fried okra. Yummy! On the other hand, the turkey sandwich I made for myself this evening with a side of Ruffles and 2 squares of dove chocolate for a chaser was a solid 7. Best meal I've had all week. Now for some good news since I've been doing much too much bitching lately. Of the 2 hours of legitimate training we received today, 30 minutes was devoted to "Hummer Familiarization". We got an up close and personal look at an Army "Humvee" with a ride included as long as you were tall enough to ride the ride. With 65# of gear, I've compressed my spine almost to the point of being under the 48" stick but thankfully, I just squeaked under (or over in this case) the wire. So off we go on the back roads of Army Base Ft. Jackson. There are 5 seats in the humvee - driver, passenger, gunner, and two back seaters. There's not a lot of room especially when you have 5 men in full battle gear and the extra tactical gear that is loaded in the vehicle on patrol but for today, it was roomy (if not comfortable). The seats are sorta hard as one would expect which is a real pain in the ass when going over bumpy roads (ha ha..I's a cah-meeedee-an). Contrary to popular belief, these vehicles really aren't great off road. They'll do but they're no Jeep Wrangler. It was a beautiful day here in South Cakalay and rolling down the windows while driving through sand roads in the forest was definitely the high point of the day. If I could have stuck my head out the window like a dog, I would have. Anyhoo, we each got a shot at gunner and driver. I was gunner first and the first driver took off out of the lot heading for the woods. Along the way was a construction site with some large puddles. I'll post the video on Facebook when I get a chance. It's priceless. You'll love the audio when the mud hits me square. Quid Pro Quo when I was the drive and he was the gunner... :) All in all, not a bad day because I've pretty much stopped caring about laying my rifle on the deck, and stopped trying to hold up all that freaking gear. Today we also did an M16 trainer which included some indoor laser sighting and shooting which sounds boring but is actually really interesting. If my rifle fires well tomorrow, it should be fun. In any case, what's not to like about the smell of gun powder. It's the smell of....victory.