i am NOT on my way to D.C.

when i was a fresh graduate from basic training and had just showed up at A.I.T. i got some great advice that served me well throughout my military career. basic is where they break you down and build you back up. "soldierization" is what they call it, turning a group of civilians into a group of soldiers. A.I.T. is your "advanced individual training" where you get your training to perform your specific job in the military. but it's also the transition from the tightly controlled environment of basic training where you're watched closely all the time to the more relaxed life of the everyday army. when you're not deployed and you're not out in the field training, it's not much different from a 9 to 5. and alot of young soldiers are fresh off the bus. they've never lived alone before, etc. so A.I.T. is kind of a safety net.

anyways, the drill sergeant had us all in formation and told us that we'd have no problems while under his tutelage or in the army if we could follow two basic guidelines. "be where you're supposed to be, when you're supposed to be there" and "pay attention and do EXACTLY what you're told to do, no more, no less". you don't have to be in the military to know how important timeliness is to us. heaven forbid you don't show up on time for first formation. heaven forbid a group of soldiers doesn't move out on a mission on time.

my company commander was former active duty tabbed out infantry. so everything i just said about being on time went double. definate fits of rage if we weren't hitting the road on time. when we got to iraq and were doing our transition with the unit we were replacing the people we were replacing told us that they didn't get so hung up on time. that things happened at a slower pace in iraq, and that if you were a couple minutes leaving, to just take it in stride. our bosses didn't like this. but on our third or fourth mission with these guys we were slow getting started. about an hour down the road we came up behind another u.s. convoy that was slowing down, then stopped. they'd spotted an i.e.d. on the road. just a few minutes after we stopped, we started taking incoming mortar rounds. nothing close. they'd been targeting the area where we would've stopped had we hit the i.e.d. and didn't really adjust well to our new location. they just fired off a couple rounds really quickly then got the hell out of there. had we left on time, we would've been in front of the other convoy and probably wouldn't have spotted the i.e.d. in time to not get hit by it. over the first couple of weeks in country we had several similar "situations".

needless to say, we were converts. we still set a mission start time, and still tried our best to meet it, but if something happened we just kinda assumed it was for a reason. we didn't yell and scream and chastise someone for screwing something up and making us late. that was because we took it as God or "fate" intervening on our behalf and because we wanted people upbeat and positive before we went out the gates, possibly into combat. we wanted everyone to think he was a heartbreaker and a life taker, a real badass. we'd undermine that if we chewed on him for awhile and called him a shitbag for forgetting where his gear was or for not setting up the vehicle right.

it will probably rain here this weekend and might snow. because of that i decided to drive to the airport instead of ride the motorcycle. i figured i'd leave the scoot tucked in safely in the garage. it's been awhile since i'd driven the galaxie and it's about 30 minutes to the airport so i thought that'd be a great chance to get her out on the road. about 1/3 of the way there the radiator blew a seam and the vehicle overheated. i called someone to pick me up and they showed up early enough that there was a good chance of getting me to the airport on time to catch my flight. we set off and got most of the way to the airport when i confessed that i was freaking out a little bit. between everyone bailing out, their replacements bailing out and then the car it just really put me in the iraq "maybe someone's trying to tell you it's okay to be late" frame of mind. so i decided we needed to turn around and get the car and i came home and called it a night. i called the airline and can't get another flight to d.c. until late sunday night. basically i'd get off the plane for a couple hours then turn around and come back. so now the weekend in d.c. is canceld and i feel kind of foolish.

anyways, that's the recap of tonight's adventure.