Hearts Are Not Punctuation Marks

I was browsing blogs with military themes just a moment ago and I came across one that was actually quite clever. I had thoughts of adding it to my "follow" list until I reached the end of her first post. The author of this blog (which shall remain nameless) signed off each post with this signature:

Nothing makes me hate another woman faster than a heart or a smiley face in her signature. Especially in the military. (This particular blogger was in the Air Force, and I know that's not REALLY the military, but for all intensive purposes, we will call it that.) It screams that you don't want to be taken seriously one moment of your professional life. God help me if she signs military documents with that signature.

Maybe it's just the independent and strong woman that I am, but I loathe signs of weakness in other women. And I absolutely detest military women who take 2 steps back for our gender while I can barely inch forward.

I work a physical job and get dirty with the best of them. I know a lot of military women who bust their asses at work, but all it takes is one: One paper pusher girl with a pound of makeup on who looks for a man to lift heavy things for her and signs her damn name with a heart to tear down everything the rest of us worked so hard to be taken seriously on.

Whew. I just needed to vent.

And besides, Paris Hilton signs her name like that. Nothing about Paris says "professional".

Noble Dog

Picasso just so freaking cute. I had to share this.

In The Closet

I'm on 24 hour battalion staff duty right now. But since I had to report to my unit 4 hours early yesterday to do Army stuff in the sun, my shift is realistically 28 hours long. It's times like right now that I hate math.

So anyhow, I was wandering around battalion headquarters around 0300 willing myself to stay awake when I came across this little sign posted beside a seemingly ordinary closet:

What the heck is in that closet!? And more importantly, am I going to be shot for taking a picture of this sign? The closet is in the center of the building; what type of vehicle could possibly fit in there? What is the installation commander hiding? And really, am I going to be shot?

Whatever it is, it's pretty clever to hide it in a broom closet. Most people would assume this high speed warning was simply misplaced upon the wrong wall in quite possibly the wrong building. But my sharp reasoning skills at this hour have allowed me to see past that nonsense.

Something is going down at the 86th Combat Support Hospital. Something BIG. (But not so big that it won't fit in a closet.)

I'm going to down another 5 Hour Energy shot now. I've got to tweak out my brain to make it through my remaining 4 hours of duty. You know, before I'm allowed to drive my car home after being awake for approximately 30 hours. Ah Army, you put up a good front of being concerned about safety, but I'm on to you.

To Hell And Back

I spent the last 3 days in the 5th circle of Hell. Yes, I am aware that circle represents anger (according to Dante's Inferno) and it's completely accurate. I took part in my first field exercise with the 501st ASMC and it made me want to shoot myself. It's a shame we weren't given any rounds, or even blanks for that matter.

It was roughly 110 degrees with 80% humidity. And since God hates me, and I'm in an EVAC platoon once again, I spent my day outside in the blistering heat and humidity carting fake casualties around on litters.

We kept getting hit with mass casualty scenarios. Heaven forbid people get in "accidents" by themselves. No, no. Instead, 5 people fell out of a deer stand and hit their heads and walked to the clinic for medical care.

Who writes these stupid scenarios anyway?

The worst part of being slammed by mass chaos of casualties was that we didn't have anywhere to cool off in between waves of fake injured people. Instead we had this:

We ate there, napped there, hung out there and tried to sleep over night there. The one attempt to stay outside all night resulted in a terrible thunderstorm that ripped our shelter out of the ground and tossed it aside like trash. In the morning, the wreckage looked like a tornado had ran through a trailer park.

There were not any shower facilities available to us, so I was absolutely filthy the whole time. If I had gotten into water, the grease from my hair could have killed dolphins. Everyday was just another layer of sweat and bug spray that coated my skin in a thin film of gross. I wore one uniform over the 3 day exercise which I soaked completely through everyday with sweat. It smelled awful.

I sweat more than I ever did in Iraq. Terrible. Thank you Fort Campbell for making this experience possible.

NBC Suit

Saving the world, one chemical spill at a time!

Turkeys, really?

Today, James had to unexpectedly stay over night pulling medical coverage at a small arms range with his infantry company.

Being the ever dutiful girlfriend, I brought him a blanket and Subway. Somewhere in the small print in the definition of Army Girlfriend it states, "Thou shall perform all matronly tasks regardless of wilderness or wild." Seriously, you should look that shit up.

So he says to me, "I'm at range 27."

I wasn't exactly sure where range 27 was, but I'm a pretty smart girl, and the ranges are labeled from the road in numerical order. So I took off in my little red car and was on the hunt for range 27 in the back woods of Fort Campbell. And I found out range 27 is freaking far away from main post!

While on my search, I turned the stereo up and flew through the back roads. Until, that is, I saw something funny in the road up ahead of me. I slowed down. I slowed way down. Then I stopped. I was face to face with turkeys. Wild turkeys that didn't have any intentions in their bird brains to let me pass.

I honked at them, and that got them running. I took a picture of them fleeing in terror. Take that turkeys! I had a hot sandwich to deliver!

4th Of July Fireworks

Fireworks! James and I went to downtown Clarksville and watched the fireworks show on the 3rd of July. It was a pretty cool show. We were ninjas and avoided the hoards of people by hiding out on a tall grassy hill overlooking the river. We could see the fireworks perfectly and had minimal exposure to crying, screaming children.

Caught Blue Handed

Picasso has a fetish for ink pens. He'll go to great lengths to locate a pen, commandeer the pen, and devour the pen like it's a covert black ops mission. He's truly a pen stealing ninja.

Unfortunately, he gets ink all over his feet, his mouth and (my personal favorite) the carpet. There is a streak of green ink on the brand new living room carpet. And now there is a pool of blue under my bed. Picasso ate a permanent blue map marker. A week ago. And his feet are still blue. And my carpet is still ruined.

It's a damn good thing he's cute.