G.I. Humor

Pretty typical of GI humor. I know my short tour in Kuwait, we left probably dozens of lizards walking around the desert with all kinds of crazy messages scrawled upon this scales. Not sure where it comes from, maybe the proximity of death or just having way too much time to their hands, probably a bit of both.

Having a lot of time to think while on duty these past weeks, I've come to realize what my writing teachers have been trying to tell me years ago: I have a lot of great ideas, but I never fully develop them or follow through with them.

Most of the time I know it's just a struggle to get my thoughts down before they're gone on the express train that's my thought process. I've kept copies of everything I've written in high school and I had the stuff from college on disk until the disk went corrupt (luckily I have everything in hard copy) and sure enough, everything is great rough draft stuff, what I lack is the patience to polish it and finish it. Comes down to no longer holding my intrest, I get it out and then I'm done with it and I move on.

Even before I could remember, I've been told that I wouldn't waste my time on something that I didn't see a point to it. My mother's told me that I tried one time and one time only to suck my thumb, when I couldn't figure it out properly, I gave up it and not tried again.

Oh, not quite the picture I was looking for but he's an example of the Lambda on the side of the reactive armor. I was thinking it was a British tank, but upon closer examination I believe this is an Iserali tank. I'll have to dig through my old hard drives and see if I can find a picture of a Bradley or Abrams with the Lambda on the skirting.

Sometime this week I'm gonna head to a theater and see the Shooter, hopefully they didn't butcher the book too badly. Was always curious how long it'd take for someone to put that book out as a movie. It's based upon the book Point of Impact by Stephen Hunter. Speaking of books, I've been on another reading kick, well doesn't help having nothing really to do on an 8 hour shift guarding a 12 story-700 odd feet of ship that has all of four people on it myself included.

M'k, another shift change and I've had little sleep the last few days so it's a shower for me and off to bed.

the 300

Well, just had to go see it again today, was actually trying to see the Shooter but it wasn't at the theater I went to, maybe I'll look around to see where it's playing.

While I do enjoy a good movie, and usually I'm not that critical of movies, the biggest glaring error made was the Spartans didn't fight without armor. In fact their Hoplites were the tank of their day, greaves covering the lower legs, the shield covering from knee to shoulder, a bronze curiass (breast plate) covering the torso and a bronze helm protecting the helm. Added to the fact that they fought in a close order phallanx, was like hitting a shield wall. They also didn't wear foot gear, having run bear foot from birth they had tough feet so they didn't need footwear.

The Persian army was suppose to number only 200,000 not the millions claimed. Still the 300 Spartans, 200 Acdians and 2000 other lesser and support troops did manage to hold that pass for 3 days. Inflicting an estimated 20,000 casulaties, counting amoung them the Immortals, left the Persian Army demoralized.

What wasn't discussed was that while the battle raged on land, a naval battle was going on as well. Or the fact that they fought in shifts, switching up the ones up in front taking the brunt off the attack to those in the back.

The influence of the Spartans is seen even to this day. The Roman legions method of fighting, including weapons was based on the Spartans. Having a professional standing army instead of miltia. Equiping soldiers in the same gear. Espre de Corps. Even on modern US armor units you can see a "lambda" painted on the side of the hull, lambda being the first letter for Lakedaimonioi or Spartan.

I still have to admire them, in the face of overwhelming odds, they still stood their ground and did their duty. Their rear guard action bought time for the rest of the Greek armies to mobilize and unified them.

st. patrick's day, meh!

well, technically it's the day after but a moot point. I guess the hotel's bar/resteraunt had a party and it had a pretty high attendance. So it's 2 AM and everyone's walking through the hallways being loud, obnoxious and generally creating drama. I thought of calling the front desk since there are guests here that do work on the weekends but figured they probably have enough phone calls as it is.

So I decided to go for a drive and pick up some orange juice since I go through it quite quickly when I can get my hands on quality stuff. I'm driving down I-264 doing just 5 over the speed limit which is about all I'll do and I see traffic come flying up in my rear view mirror. Doing what any good driver should do, I move as far into the right hand lane as I can and let the speed demon/idiots pass me. Half a mile down the road I see nothing but brake lights. Sure enough one of the idiots in a high centered SUV that blew past me like I was standing still looked like bounced off both cement barriers on either side of the highway and came to rest right in the middle lane.

Kind of amazing to see everyone leave their vehicles to go see what's going on despite not knowing first aid and just getting in the way. I, despite having quite a bit of first aid was relucant to leave me vehicle to help. Why? I have no obligation to render first aid and if I start to then I must continue to do so until proper authorities arrive. It was 2:30 in the morning, I really wasn't in any mood to stick around.

I've always wondered why people are in such a hurry. The speed limits are posted for a reason. Even though my Endeavor isn't that high centered, I still drive with caution because I know it's higher then most sports cars.

It's too bad the DMV's don't increase the costs of getting a license, help remind people that driving is a privilage not a right. Probably wouldn't matter too much in this undisciplined society, kind of funny how paranoid people get and over correct when they see a cruiser.

M'k, it's 4 am and I'll probably just take my grouchy self to bed, I slept nearly all day on friday and half the day on saturday, guess my body needed more rest then i thought.