The Mass Email Update Note

There's still a part of me that doesn't want to update anyone, ever, because well... I'm here ... updating this. And so it becomes a weird sort of chore to send seperate emails to everyone. Sadly.

There was an update list. This is what they got. I thought y'all might like to see it too.

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The Army Taught Me How to Hallucinate Like a Man

Imagine the worst day of your life.

Imagine the longest day of your life, say – 4 am to 11:30 pm.

Mix in a large dry sandy bowl.

Add 2 layers of dark clothing. Toss in a hot sun.

March.

Don't forget the 20 lbs on your back.

An eight pound rifle that goes EVERYWHERE with you and can only be carried by your right hand.

Add in the newfound ability to sleep standing up.

Stir in some hallucinations.

March.

Give 45 people a revolving and mutating sinus / chest cold.

Turn the heat up in the quarters and the classrooms. ALL THE WAY UP.

March.

Crank up the soundtrack of yelling and position the speakers beside your head.

Move with an extreme sense of urgency and speed. ALWAYS.

(erm...note... apparantly I sauntered a lot. probably due to the fact that my legs no longer worked with any reliability, I was seriously considering losing my lack of will to live and heard a lot of "MOVE YOUR SLACK AND LAZY ASS, COPE!")

March.

Wear man-sized equipment that will never fit properly no matter what you do to it.

Run.

Do 100 pushups.

Do 25 more with all the equipment on.

March.

Add a pinch of slowly dawning realization that you will NEVER do ANYTHING right. Even if you do.

Resist the urge to lose the will to live every minute of every day once you realize the above.

Fold in a bucketful of flies. A tonnage of mosquitos. A bushel of ticks.

Repeat every day for nine weeks.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the bare bones recipe for basic training.

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It's divided into two parts – Basic Military Qualification and Soldier Qualification. Theoretically you can do them separately but it's usually best to get them over with at the same time.

I was holding up pretty damn good, actually, until they added an additional 20lbs to me and rucksack marched us at 5 am for 3 miles. With men sized steps. Meaning that all ten women marched 8 steps then ran for five the entire way.

I have to say this though – the women are working harder than the men. Always. And they are far more uncomfortable doing it because none of the equipment fits properly and they are carrying the exact same weight as all the men. That 220 lb bodybuilder guy beside me? Carrying exactly what my bunk buddy was – she's 5 foot 2 and 100 lbs.

Three steps from the door to our room, three steps to 'freedom', my knee gave out.

Which means I am home. Rehabilitating my knee.

Five days from 'graduation' from the first portion.

Today, I was cleared to return to the course on July 4th. Yes, USofA, July 4th.

To start over at the beginning. Not three and a half weeks in like I was when the knee packed it in. The beginning.

In July and August.

One day in the third week of May the temp hit 33. I will leave you to just imagine for a moment what July and August will be like.

You see it was so much fun the first time I figured I may as well just make it an experience an entire month longer than everyone else's.

I can however (just like Demi!) field strip a C-7 semi-automatic and reassemble it in less than a minute.

I can manually load a magazine with 30 rounds (ie: one by one with my hands) in 42 seconds.

I can do more pushups than you. I don't care who you are.

I can hallucinate through an entire day and STILL get 85% on my written exams. (bugs! I saw bugs crawling on me! In a classroom!)

I can get through a cafeteria lineup of 45 people, pay for the food, eat an entire meal consisting of a full plate, cake, cookies, fruit, 2 glasses of juice, a cup of coffee and some salad, clear out my tray and get back into formation outside the mess in 15 minutes or less.
I think I may have been one of the few who managed to GAIN weight.

And I can take full-on exception to the fact that there are people out there who want to tell me that women shouldn't be combat soldiers.

That women *can't* be combat soldiers.

Because we can. Because I can.

Because, just like abortion, men don't have the right to make that decision for us.

Cause we rocked. And we had to work harder for it then the men.

Pictures are pretty sparse but the ones I do have are at Smugmugif you'd like to take a look.

The best part of any day there is letters from 'home' so if anyone would like to write to me during my second 'try' please email me for the address.

Anyone want to join me? C'mon, you know you want to. It's fun.

My Acupuncturist Wants My Pants

Today was a little weird for me. I'm used to an extremely ambivalent attitude towards the military (more so on the navy side, sorry Sipes) and normally since I'm only wearing the uniform around other people in puke green, I've not noticed any appreciable difference.

In gimping my way to work lately I've noticed that people say 'hello' much more so than usual, I'm assuming because of the uniform. I noticed it more so today, I think, because I left work to take the bus downtown to see my hero, the man who shoves needles into me.

The bus driver kept me standing and chatting for the whole 15 minutes - he's 37 and the kids are growing and his seniority is such that he can choose his shifts and he's very much interested in becoming a reservist. So I answered a ton of questions for him.

Plus, yanno, apparantly I'm quite a cute 'killer'.

Then I spent the whole time with Barry my acupuncturist catching up on the last 10 years and talking 'military philosophy' while he poked needles in my swollen knee and caused some serious pain in my elbow (he thinks I bruised the bone - is that possible?).

He's just turned 58 (yesterday!) and, something I didn't know about him, is a jazz clarinet player. How cool is that?

He left a couple of painkilling 'tacks' in the outer fold of my ear too, which is sort of weird but kind of cool.

He thinks the uniform is ultra-cool and thinks that my pants would make him cooler. Which is the cutest thing. Ever.

Anyways, there's been a definite shift in the public's attitude. The personal opinion that I'm not supposed to express would, in a different world, be that the general public is giving too little support in the wrong places, too late.

Of course, I can't blame them for that - they're scared, they don't understand what's going on, why we're doing what we're doing and, as a group, the more casualties there are - the less they support what's happening.

Unfortunately, that lack of support for the government or the policies or what-have-you can only add to the tension that all service'men' feel overseas because, sadly, it feels more personal than that.

My reasons for doing what I'm doing have expanded in some interesting and unexpected ways since basic and I'm sure that will be an ever-evolving entity. I'm not in the mood to talk about it tonight but at some point I'll try and give you a better picture of what I mean by that.

What I really came here to tell you was about my 'blind date'.

He didn't show up.

He didn't call.

Frankly, I'm shocked (Shocked! I say) he's still single.

It was nice for a change to dress in my comfy cowboy boots and civilian clothes and wander out for a drink in a pub with a fantastic band. I got to stop subliminally watching myself march in time everywhere, I got to stop automatically digging in my left heel to provide cadence, I still walk with the back of my neck in my collar and in a different way than I used to but I remembered that I'd been home a whole week today.

I'm part of a whole different world.

And all in all, despite what I feel about politics, the government, the instructors at basic (ha!) and the massive machine that is the military, I'm proud of that world.

Update on Thursday, June 1, 2006 at 11:28PM by Jen

Just a quick additional note about cadence.... we didn't actually use any sort of 'call and answer' chant but rather dug in our left heels to provide a distinct sound.

When you march in formation there are two people in the front and back of the formation wearing 'traffic' vests, called pointers, who normally march 5 metres apart from the rest of the platoon. When approaching an intersection the drill sergeant will call "pointers out" and the front two will block off the intersection while the back two run up to the front, allowing the platoon to proceed safely. The original two will then fall in at the back of the platoon as it passes by - this leaves two always at the front.

The front left person in the platoon itself is called the right marker (the 'right' designation has to do with the side they are on when the drill sergeant is standing facing the platoon and not the fact that they are on the left of the ranks). The right marker sets the pace for the rest of the platoon. The pace isn't set by the pointers for the simple fact that they aren't always there and of course, that they aren't always the same person.

Now, because the pointers are in FRONT of the markers, they have no idea of the cadence of the march. The unique sound behind them of the left heel digging in allows them to correctly match their steps and their pace to the platoon behind them.

See?

Not like my platoon here has it down pat at the moment, since their legs are ALL OVER THE PLACE, but this gives you an idea. You can see how at some point in there some fuckwit who can't march has thrown everyone off so by the 6th rank it's all a big mess. Trust me, it's not as easy as it looks in the movies.


*click to biggify*

Confused Real Time Update Spewings

Urg. I have about 8 million things to tell you and I'm still so exhausted I can't even pick the top 10. My apologies if this is all utterly disjointed.

On arrival in the airport on Thursday, Vic took me to my brother's so we could call around the neighborhood for Cabot. No luck. And why would there be, really? he'd been missing for roughly 12 fucking days at that point.

My brother did come out and proceed to begin yelling at me because I admitted I was pretty angry, whereupon I was told to leave. But that's a whole other can of worms that, to be honest, isn't even on my "care" list at the moment.

I spent more than three weeks with people who impacted my life (in physical punishment terms) because they just.didn't.listen and coming home to find that just one more person couldn't listen and follow two simple directions (ie: try and keep the cats seperate and be VERY CAREFUL about DOORS) to keep the most important thing in my life safe for longer than 2 weeks.... well....

Let's not even GO to the place that holds what I think about The Executive Decision to not tell me and who on earth would ever think they had the right to suddenly NOT allow a 36 year old to make decisions regarding what is important and what isn't in her own life, after not being a real part of it for so long. Not even GO near that place.

We went back when it was dark and the traffic noise was less but again, nothing.

I was up early on Friday to go down to my unit and see a doctor in the Base Hospital who signed to give me the rest of the day off.

Seeing as I haven't slept more than four hours a night for 24 days.

I used that time to place ads in the paper, post online lost posters (cause apparantly the ones that were put up all over the neighborhood have been taken down by someone. Every Single One.) and compiling a list of links to found pets to check every day.

I did some laundrey.

I slept.

I was up again at 6 am this morning to hit the base for our last day for the summer - baseball game and BBQ - and catch everyone up on what I was doing back. The Colonel was there for a tour and I had a meeting with the CO and the Sergeant Major.

The current plan from the hospital is just to keep doing what I'm doing and see how it goes. My Sergeant (who was Master Corporal good cop but has now been promoted) is going to see if they can get me into physio, the Captain suggested acupuncture and then they are going to try to load me back into the course (ie: start over from the beginning) starting four weeks from now.

FOUR WEEKS FROM NOW.

Which, in a nutshell, means I'd be back in the heat of the summer (and if it's 33 there NOW, can you just imagine? jesus.) for July and August, with all the same instructors who've just totally ridden me for almost four weeks, even past the point of when I was no longer 'there'.

If it's to happen though, it's to happen. I just have to find a way to deal with it.

In the meantime, I now have until Tuesday off whereupon I spend the rest of my contract (until June 29th) working clerical in the Orderly Room.

And I think I left my beret in Shilo. So, currently, I get in shit anytime anyone walks by me.

I've got my sinus cold back. My hands are still so swollen that I can't make fists. They say that you know you're back to being fully hydrated when your urine is clear - HA! not for 25 days. And counting.

Right now, I plan on having a hot epsom salt bath and going back to sleep.

I keep expecting someone to sneak up behind me and scream.... "MOVE YOUR SLACK AND LAZY ASS!" or "DID WE TELL YOU TO PICK THAT UP? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?". It's disconcerting.

I'm missing my little handsome boy so much my heart clenches. I'm missing my Platoon and especially my Section, who are now two days from completion of this portion of the course. I never thought I'd be homesick for a bunch of 18 - 24 year olds but right now, they're the only people who can understand the utter shell-shock of returning to the real world.

They offered to carry me through the last few days of the course if they had to and right now? I wish they were here to carry me through these few days.


*click to biggy*

Notes from the Field - The Third Level of Hell

(NOTE: Hi all, I wrote this one a few days ago - it'll fill in some of the blanks. I'm now home - and still catless - but I will write an actual current post over the weekend as today I'm catching up on three weeks of sleep, going to the base hospital and getting ready to work in the morning)

Week Three. Having survived shack hack (ie: EVERYONE being sick) we moved right along into injury week here in lovely mosquito and tick infested hotter than a sonofabitch Army hell (especially when your fully layered up in dark green clothing, a gas mask carrier, full webbing (or tac vest – about 10 pounds) and a rifle and marching around on a parade square). The temp one day was 33 degrees.

We're all still exhausted and I couldn't tell you what happened yesterday with any certainty of accuracy. Every night when I go to bed, it takes about half an hour before my body stops randomly flopping about. What do I mean by that, you ask? Well, you know how your whole body sometimes does the 'jerk' when you're falling asleep? Like that. Except its only one limb at a time and I'm not yet falling asleep. It's like my body can't handle NOT moving for a while since we don't stop from 4 am to 11 pm. And the limb thing is not in any particular order. It's creepy.

Week Three is stepped up EVERYTHING. I mentioned last week that we'd gotten our rifles (C-7s) - mine belongs to one of the instructors back at his home unit and since they are our best friends (along with the gas mask everyone but me carries everywhere, even the shower - more about why I don't have one later) everybody has been told to name them.

I decided to shoot right-handed even though I'm a leftie and to keep the rifles gender the same for the simple fact that it seems not to like me overly much and my feeling is that a gender change as well as a right-left orientation change would more than likely push 'her' over the edge and make my life even more hellish than it currently is.

Her name is Charlene. Since all the women here have long hair, I think it adds to the 'mystique' of everyone thinking I'm a lesbian. ha. The Master Corporal has promised to tell me the story behind the name. I'm not sure I really want to know it.....

So, yeah, there's a ton of fuck-ups here and it's a wonder that some of them are STILL here, nearing the end of the third week. People who can't march. People who are so stupid you can't believe how they actually got to be 19 without being killed under the survival of the fittest rule. Liars. People who can't be bothered to pull the first knife out of your back before they blade you again. You know what I mean.

One of the things that the staff began doing were things that, under the 'new civil rights' rules, they weren't actually allowed to do to us. So, their next option is something called 'administrative action'. Which they totally insist is NOT PUNISHMENT, after telling us in one class that it was the easiest way to make someones life shit.

The way they work is that you can get a verbal warning (which is a note in your file), then on a second infraction you get a written warning, then the third level is something called "counselling and probation". C&P is a (quote) "final attempt to save a member's career."

In one day alone they issued 17 written warnings. One girl lost a rifle and got a written (this is important, this piece of information). Losing a rifle is a chargeable, jailable offence, just so you know.

One of the guys in my section was pretty upset and wanting to go home - I hugged him. 24 hours later, written warning. No verbal, just written. Fraternization.

My knee's been a bit better, I've been powering through it but every once in a while, it will still give out. Usually when I'm transferring the weight from left to right at the end of a step.

One night we were detail stripping our weapons and I've been having a hard time with the finger strength (and Charlene's orneriness) in getting the hand guards off. No one is allowed to help me with it so I spent 10 minutes getting progressively angrier and finally managed to slam the fucking things in. But not before I started the old "crying from rage" portion of the program.

The Master Corporal (who's 24 and is like one of those aliens who lands on earth and does everything subtley wrong while he tries to learn the human's ways) asked me if I was angry with him. No. He's just doing his job. Who then? Myself. Why? Because I'm better than this. BETTER THAN THE ARMY? No, more competant than this. Is this the hardest thing I've ever done? No. Do I want to quit? No. What's my level of effort on a scale of 10? Seven. Why? Because of the things I've been unable to overcome this week. Illness, hurt, injury, never being alone 24-7.

Anyways, he loosened up long enough to give the whole section a suprisingly 'gentle' and encouraging pep talk.

The next morning - a 5 am 4 km rucksack march. That's about 20 pounds in the ruck along with the webbing and gas mask. About 2/3 of the way through - knee starts to go. I am totally bound and determined to make it though so I force myself through it and THREE STEPS FROM THE DOOR OF THE FEMALE ROOM AND FREEDOM, it gives out completely and I'm down on the floor.

A hospital visit later - I can't weight bear, it's swollen from my thigh to my mid-foot, I've got a knee brace, massive amounts of anti-inflammatories, and crutches for five days (till Tuesday).

Which basically means I get driven everywhere but still am made to hobble a lot and just watch while the rest of the troop drills, marches and gets "training" push-ups, etc. And I don't have to carry the gas mask since it interferes with the crutches.

On Tuesday they are either going to do an MRI and decide if I need surgery or clear me to attempt the rest of the course (rifle range and then four days in the field where you run around 23 hours a day and sleep for one).

Later that same afternoon - my commanders decided to slap me with a C&P - passing right on by a verbal and whooshing by a written warning. For what? LACK OF MOTIVATION.

Nice.

Demoralizing.

I'm learning though - when they asked me if I had anything to say all I managed to get out was "I'm sorry if that's what you see, it has not been my intention at all."

But you can bet that whatever you say will be held against you at some point. One guy here has SEVEN warnings of some type or another. And yeah, I go directly to counselling and probation for perceived lack of motivation and the stupid cow who lost a rifle gets a written warning. And she's an officer cadet who is supposedly held to a far higher standard than us grunts.

Nice.

The guy who STILL can't march and is last at everything? No warnings of any kind. And he's an officer cadet. Responsible someday for my life.

There're THREE couples here now. Well, four if you count the fact that they've decided that the 18 year old I tutor and I are lumped in there - ie: the only two people who hang out who AREN'T trying to get laid.

And I hug someone. Fraternization.

It's the game, I know. They push you and push you and see how you react. They find the most insignificant things and make you pay while they leave the big stuff alone so they can see if you can handle it.

Apart from the shock of the injustice and the way they've been treating us - out of seven instructors there are only TWO who don't hammer me every single time they see me, whether on their time or my free time, 24 hours a day there's pretty much someone standing behind me waiting for the second I do something wrong - I've been alright. I'm still hanging in there. I refuse to let them win the game.

It's hard though, kids. The hardest thing I've ever done. (cause I lied to the MC when he asked me that) and it probably will be the hardest thing I EVER do.

And they may be sending me home next week because of my knee but I'm going to do my best to get as far as I can and it won't be my decision. I'll be behind on drill and my fitness level will have tanked by then but I can only do what I can do. (you should totally see my biceps – HOLY SHIT!) The rest is up to the universe.

We're on two days "off" right now and everyone gets to go to the 'big city' except me since I'm on medical (it's the old mom thing "if you're not well enough to go to school then you're not well enough to play with your friends"). I'm actually not allowed to go ANYWHERE for the time off - not even to the store on base. Everyone has to be back by 5 pm every night and there is a zero tolerance policy on alcohol consumption. We'll see how many of these young'uns pass THAT little test.

It's almost 11 am and at one I have to go to weapons draw and pick up Charlene so I can practice for my practical test - I'll be doing it sitting down instead of standing up and tomorrow we have a big inspection but other than that I will be in my happy place - typing away on my mobilepro until I have to give it back tomorrow night, reading my book, elevating and icing my leg, enjoying the silence of the barracks and smoking my Camels WHENEVER I WANT.

I've taken some pics but haven't got time to upload (we got our cameras back a few days ago) (I'd say sorry but I'm no longer allowed to - "Don't Say Sorry, JUST DON'T DO IT AGAIN!")

Quote of the week:

-If you need to puke in your gas mask there's a valve below your mouth. Puke in that direction and then blow out really hard and most of it will go out through the valve.

Most of it, Master Corporal? Won't it all come out?

Of course not. All you do is lick the rest of it back up. ...... DO YOU THINK I'M KIDDING?

Field Notes - The Second Level of Hell

What can I say? It's like childbirth - you forget it after it's over but during it you'd give everything you own for an epidural. Or five.

At the end of the day - you've blacked it all out. Two hours after I cried on parade and promised myself I'd request to go home as soon as we got back to the shacks - I'm calm and determined and utterly blank on what was so bad that made me so angry that I teared up.

It seems that they have a talent for knowing when you are at your lowest point and then slamming you over and over and over. I don't hate them but fuck man, I wish they'd just go the hell away for even just 10 minutes.

I have a strange sense of pride that there are now FIVE smokers instead of just me. HA! Recruitment is a fantastic thing, kids.

Week Two seems to be the week you start to dislike some of the people you spend all your time with with a disconcerting and frightening intensity.

My section-mate and I are pretty quiet and don't really participate in the "Stockholm Syndrome" discussions about the males and the staff. (Sadly, most of them have no idea what Stockholm Syndrome is).

We've all had bad colds this week and I've been taking a lot of shit for being so uncoordinated. Even more so with a sinus cold and a hacking cough.

We basically learn from 5 am to 10 pm and, for example, in drill we learn a march step, then another - usually 3 or 4 in 40 minutes - then the next day we're expected to be able to do it perfectly when they yell out the command. With other classes and no time to practice as well as all the rifle stuff now (which works the same as drill), no notes, no handouts and no sleep - well, I'm not sure how everyone else does it but me? fuck.

My left side has started to collapse at inopportune times. We have a physiotherapist (Asian medicine ) in our section so he's been working on my leg for me. Apparantly my kneecap is loose - I guess it's from the accident since we never actually checked it over and apart from achy knees I've never had much of a problem with them.

There aren't really good days and bad here - it's much more like 2 good hours, 4 bad ones, 5 good minutes, 20 bad ones etc.

There's been a lot of 'training' that no one is allowed to actually do so that just creates more shit flowing downhill when someone higher up finds out what's been done to us. Although I'm not going to go into that. At all.

Week 2, then, is no voice, sinus headaches, snot, loss of the will to live, nosebleeds, blisters and a collapsing knee.

Rifle PT, rifle drill, rifle cleaning. And a bayonet. ick.

Interestingly, we are the first basic training to be told that what we are learning to do is "kill people". Officially.

There really is just too much happening in such a short time with no free time or alone time, for me to tell you 1/100th of all that's been happening.

This week was first aid course and testing, general military knowedge testing, sexual harrassment and since we have 10 classes a day - tons of other stuff I can no longer recall.

Next week we have our saluting test and rifle testing.

The best lines of the week:

-"Isn't stupidity a safety issue, sir?"

-"1912?
"1917?
"1914?

"This is not the Price is Right, troops, get it RIGHT!"

-(when asked about hand to hand combat)
"Don't be bringing your pinkie to my gunfight."

-"I'm going to EAT YOUR SOUL!"

-(heard when the video system accidentally switched to the music video channel)
"Is THAT what it looks like out there?" (we haven't earned tv yet)

-"Look proud, troops, there's not many people in this country walking around carrying a restricted weapon."
"I believe that's PROHIBITED weapon, Master Corporal"
SHUT UP POZNANSKI!

Fast Facts

-it costs 90K to send one of us through BMQ and SQ (basic and soldier qualification)
-within 3 to 4 years 75% of my class will be in or have been in Afghanistan

Encouragement Pre-Post 4. The Things I Take With Me.

Also from CJ, from an old comic book.

Encouragement Pre-Post 3. The Things I Take With Me.

A few years ago I had given my friend CJ in Calgary a few of my old TinTin books that I'd had since I went to England when I was 12. He runs a video store called Instant Video on 4th Street SW and he and his girlfriend have turned one room of it into a little shop they call...erm... something to do with a turtle. Painted Turtle, maybe?

Anyways,they make little interesting things and sell them. When I visited earlier in April, CJ presented me with two journals he'd made and asked me to choose one so that he could give it to me.

This is the one I picked.



The day before I left I took it back to him and said (he's a great artist and a very witty fella) that he'd have to draw a picture for me so I could take it on Basic Training with me. Not that I really want to *gasp* write in a journal, per se, but I think they'll take my little computer away from me for the first month.

Anyways, in all the hullabaloo I forget to go back and pick it up so he kindly mailed it to me - with the caveat that he did the work quickly since he thought he only had an hour or two.

At the top of the page is dogtags that say "Good Luck" followed by...

Movies you should see...

Force Jen from Navarone
Thin Redheaded Line (sometimes blonde)
Apocalipstick Now
GI Jen
Catch-36
Jenhead (alright I'm done)

(the 36 is reference to my age in case you missed that)

Below that is his drawing...


Man, I love him.