I’m still alive. Which, when all things considered, it’s pretty darn surprising.

It was bound to happen. A large chunk of us are in our 30's already and beyond.

You'll never be as POG as an Admin or Bulk Fuel Marine. And especially those darn Water Dogs, so you can rest easy. Freakin idiots make Sergeant in 2 years and correct people for having their hands in their pockets. I wish I could go back to 'Stan, But a winding down war and Demilin Patrol Bases and such is not worth 4 more years in that clown show as it transitions into Peace tie, even if I got Staff if I went back.

Hey, I did my 9 years. I rate to lounge around in my underwear all day living off beer and pizza for a week or so before diving head first into the job market. also, Pro/Cons above 4.0 ain't bad, regardless of what you think. Many a times, they are base on who's kissed up to Staff Sergeant or LT more. I have combat Vs on my Nam and more on the job experience that you can't possibly fathom, and yet my average never went up past 4.3 4.3. The way it works is like this
3.9 or lower= S***bag...or NJP'd grunt Lance Corporal.
4.0-4.4= Avarage
4.5-4.6= Above avarage
4.7-4.9= the lovechild of the forbidden love affair between Chesty Puller and General Mattis.
5.0= Unicorn, will (or should) never happen.
That's your period of instruction for today, you may write that in your training jacket as counseling training. It should show up on MOL under education.
now, get back to work.

Well, How convenient. Behold, I have returned from my 9 month pilgrimage to the far off mysterious land of Mexico.... and I was reminded why I left in the first place. so yeah....'MERICA!

 All is going well with me, I guess. 1st Civ Div is treating me well, and I even got good news, and my discharge from the military was upgraded to Honorable from the OTH discharge I had and even got my rank back plus a lot of juicy back-pay. Common sense and justice prevailed on that one, score one for the Enlisted side of the house. But yeah, not going back to that clown show again.

On more forum related topics, got my dvd set of KNT in the Mail today (more or less the reason I remembered this place existed), and while I may say that I feel cheated at the quality of the translations at times, I feel like I have obtained closure on the fact that I wanted to know what really went on in that show, after all these years. Hopefully now that I'm back in a first world country and my interest in the shows has been re ignited, I'll drop by more often.

And Burke, Have a nice plate of that Mongolian Stir fry stuff they serve in DFAC 6 on Fridays for me. Unless it burned to the ground....like most things in Leatherneck and Bastion tend to do.

I tried to read 50 Shades of Grey to see why women were so obsessed about it...then I may or may not have tried to kill myself by the 5th chapter.

Man, first thing I see after finally coming back to see what's going on is this freaking War Dog here. Looking good, Young (Old?) one. I must say that is a very nice looking musket you got there. Put any round thru that thing yet? You take care now, you hear?

Well, me not liking to be outdone, I must upload something. Little sloppy, but whatever, that's what you get for using an Afghan's camera phone.

I remember the time I got promoted to Lance. Won't forget that day because I got jumped by my whole platoon.

But anyways, now that you reached the coveted "Lance Coolie", your orgie of destruction can now truly begin. May your adventure be a more pleasant one than mine was.

As for me...

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agF4ZwySW_I" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agF4ZwySW_I</a>

(If you don't get it. you are a boot)

All hail the majestic Nacho!

I find it funny how kids (ok maybe not all of them kids) Talk about fighting holes and spending days in them. I have never, in all my years, dug one. I would go around and kick boots (newbies) out of theirs and claim it as my own during training events, but never used one during actual combat engagements, either on the defense or the offense.

And, for the record, never mention the Water Support Technician anywhere I frequent. It took one encounter with one of these guys, at the rifle range nonetheless, to forever begin a personal vendetta against them....Semper Fi, Devil Dog. In Chesty's name we pray, Oorah.

MCT stands for Marine Combat Training. It's a school that non-infantry Marines go to learn extremely basic combat skills. At one Month long, they learn about tue main infantry weapons, basic patrolling, basic knowledge on IEDs and more stuff that are vital if the ever have to take the fight to the enemy in the event all the Grunts are dead.

MOS is Military Occupational Specialty. These are jobs. They are given a code, so for example, we In the infantry field have the 03XX code. A more specific job is give a code after the field, such as 0331 machine-gunner. These field range frok Infantry, Intelligence, Airwing, Cooks, you name it.

MCT sucks. Have fun learning dumbed down infantry skills that you'll never use. What ended up being you MOS, anyways?

I'm cool with the ponies as long as they aren't shoved in my face. I'm not cool with the idea of a night movement. Me and night movements don't get along since 2006 when I fell down that well in Iraq. However, we can always call in a fire mission and drop 81mm mortars and hellfires.

War-fighting? Burks, you're still full from the Warrior's breakfast!

The last guy who pulled rank on me got a trashing...but then again, that's why I was demoted in the first place.

And so it begins...

(senior Marine mode activated)

BOOT!!!

So totally was going to watch it...But then I remembered that the Hang Over 2 was out the same day...Oh, that was quite the dilemma. Took me 30 minutes to decide. Maybe Next week.

The Hajis don't care, really. The Taliban are a competely different breed from Al-Qaeda. Different motives, different motivation, different leadership and ideologies. One cell of insurgents in one area is different from another cell a few hundred, even a few dozen, miles away. This changes nothing in the way this conflict is gonna be fought in the following years.

Bin Laden is dead, but the ideology that inspired him and his followers is still alive. Nope, I would say there is still a lot of work to be done, bro.

I can't wait to see the face of the soldier who shot him.

I doubt they'll show it. OPSEC (Operational Security) Probably won't allow it.

Well this is good news. I can remember back when we started looking for the guy... Ah, memories... One for the books, to be sure.

You're telling me. I have been at it for almost 8 years.