The Price is Fucking Right

Ready to fight. 2nd Squad 2nd Platoon. DEUCE DEUCE!


The days of the COP are long behind us at this point. We relinquished our responsibility for it at the end of July. I think for the most part I miss the COP. It was a place to go and get away from all the bullshit that goes on here at the FOB. I know one thing we didn’t get mortared at the damn COP. The beginning of this month hajj was mortaring the shit out of us at all hours of the day and night. They are getting pretty damn close. One day I was running like hell to the bunker and I can hear the round sailing through the air so I know it’s gonna be close and BOOOOOOOOM! That shit blows up like 50m away from us. Just the other night one blew up down by the phone center and wounded some soldiers. I was pretty glad that my beloved wife and I were having a bad day and we mutually decided it be better if we spoke when both of us weren't so grumpy, and we said goodbye about an hour before that round impacted. 2 Soldier’s that had only been here for 2 weeks decided not to make a run for the bunker and paid in full for that mistake. Mortars suck!

I want to send out props to the genius that came up with the word ‘fuck’ it just fits everything and it pretty much describes Iraq to the K. Its always ‘fucking hot’ , and fucking sucks, fucking smells, is fucking gay, fucking stupid, fucking pointless, fucking lost …. I could go on forever. As soldiers holding detailed and intelligent conversation we repeatedly call on this great word to describe everything. Like going into the chow hall and seeing the mainline serving something that looks like it was scraped out of a shit trench the simple description is “Fuck NO!”

Well since the COP we have been in disarray. We don’t really have a schedule, its constantly changing. At the COP we knew who was patrolling and who was on guard duty and who had to burn shit and so on and so forth. At the beginning of the month we had gate guard which was good times, coupled with serving as gas station attendants. These missions call for us to sit in the trucks for 8 hours or more at a time. Oh the joy of conversation and how it helps the times pass by. We talk about everything from music, food (it will always turn to food at some point) , and other Soldiers in the squads family members, other Soldiers, and how if we were in charge how we would win the war in Iraq. On guard duty you always seem to have an idea that fixes everything. Our recent genius innovation is that when we get back we are going to score tickets to the Prices Right and roll up in there as a squad, on the way we will stop in Las Vegas but since Garrison is to young he will either have to stay in the car, go to Circus Circus, or just hang out at club Jenna. We talk about this so much like it will really happen. I think half the time we are so fucking bored that we can actually see ourselves there in the audience. We talk about who will listen to the crowd about bidding and who will just go with their gut feeling. You know you’ve made it if you get to spin that wheel. That would make the whole trip worth it just to spin that damn wheel. It doesn’t matter if Bob is retiring and Drew Carey is the new host as long as we get a chance at that damn wheel. A new twist was thrown in when Hancock got back off leave and we found out he was going to get married, we are going to have the wedding out there too and sponsor it through a web site we figured that Garrison can do so we can raise money for the trip and the wedding.

Another source of new found fun is the Google game. Soldiers are full of shit all of the time and every soldier has a piece of information that they try to spit like they are overly intelligent, or something crazy that they heard like an urban legend or something. Now when these nuggets of information come spewing forth and it sounds too good to be true or maybe to far fetched to be true, or causes an argument, the immediate solution is GOOGLE. Fuck it we’ll Google it and by the end of the mission or shift we have a list of things to Google. Garrison is our official Googler. The next day the bullshit will be dispensed. For instance, we had a running argument that just writing your name on the ACT was worth 14 points, the argument was that Picard only scored like a 16 or a 6 or something on the ACT. To settle it we put it to Google and low and behold you don’t get points for just writing your name on the test!!!

Where the fuck was I going with this again??? Oh ya!! We left the COP and we are now in a new zone. This zone is like the Wild West and a lot of bad shit happens there. Boy we sure got excited the first day we went there. We did a lot of walking and it was hot, guess what kind of hot? [Now everybody sitting in front of your computer play along and say it aloud with me FUCKING HOT!] No you’re not crazy you’re just reading the Angry American. Shame on you if you didn’t play along. Fortunately nothing happened but that too can be misleading. Some Soldiers can get a false sense of security that nothing happens and one day you’re fucking off and before you know it an EFP will make you a contestant for wheelchair basketball. I think the funnest thing we’ve done in a while is go on this 14 hour mission that I won’t give you specific details on but lets just say we were in the heart of Indian country. Last time our battalion was in this place they had a huge, long fire fight blowing up all sorts of shit. The place is mainly full of squatters people that just kind of settle down in a mud hut and a shit trench. The kids love to throw rocks at the last vehicle in the convoy. The men of Deuce Deuce were pretty fortunate though. We took a cue off of some PSYOPS guys that the Iraqi’s like music. My truck has a PA system and Kum has an IPOD speaker system so we let old hajj rock out to some gangster rap and Justin Timberlake, and when we were the last vehicle nobody through rocks at us. They seem to really like AKON ‘Smack That’. Iraqi’s old and young were soon bobbing their heads and dancing and smiling as we drove by. It was pretty damn funny.

June as you well know if you watch the news and July were really bad months for us and it has quieted down some. Except for the mortar attacks, I hate those fucking things. It is actually pretty unnerving and no one really knows what to think or expect. We all just hope it stays on the low. A couple of high points Setzer finally got promoted to Specialist which was long over due. He is a fantastic leader and deserves to wear the rank of a Sergeant but I’ll take what I can get at this point. Now I just have to wait for my other high speed team leader Droll to get promoted which should be going down this month too. Once again long over due. These two Soldiers have been leading troops in a combat environment since we got here. The rest of the guys of the Deuce are doing great and have exceeded my expectations of junior Soldiers but that is for another post. Thank you for your support. Have a great day. What kind of day [say it aloud with me] FUCKING DAY!!!!!
RUARKOUT!!!!!!