Posted on 08/10/2004 1:27:53 PM PDT by Cannoneer No. 4
I never even knew what a Blog was until I read about them in an article in Time Magazine, about two months ago. I read the article and it mentioned how a lot of the soldiers down in Baghdad were writing about their experiences here in Iraq. After reading the article, I went down to the Internet caf‚, and checked them out, and a majority of them were just pure garbage. In fact nauseating. Its like they were written by armed forces recruiters, "Oh I love the Army, I'm soo glad to be here, oh, the Iraqi's love us, I feel like were doing the right thing" That kinda crap. Nobody was telling it like it is. So I said f**k it, I'm going to do one.
I was at the point in my deployment where the letters from friends and family were getting fewer and far between, and I needed something to combat the extra time and loneliness that being on deployment hits you with when you've been here for awhile. So I though doing a blog might be a fun thing to do, help kill some time.
And it worked, time started flying by once I stated this thing. I had no idea how to write or form a sentence (I still don't) but I figured what the hell, just do it. Like I said before, the Clash didn't know how to play their instruments when they started jamming, they just played, and that was the mindset I had when I started this.
At first I was getting about, 50 hits a day, then 100 hits a day, then a thousand hits a day, then three thousand hits a day, then 5 thousand hits a day. That was like a month ago when I had a counter. (Some reason it disappeared one day) Its scary to think how many hits a day I get now.
Since then, I've received e-mails from people in the Pentagon (saying: Everybody here reads it and loves it here!) a White House aide, a Wall Street Journal Journalist, several well known and lesser known journalists, a lady in Chicago asked if it was OK to do a play based on this blog, College Professors, One Professor who wants to bring up my blog in his class curriculum, Vietnam Vets, Gulf War Vets, WWII Vets, Police Officers, Authors, Literary agents, musicians, A girl in LA that wants to write a screenplay about this blog, a lawyer in DC who thinks my writing is a diamond in the ruff and offered for him and several other lawyers to help me pay for some of my College tuition when I get out, relatives from soldiers, soldiers in all the branches, soldiers in Iraq, lonely women, truck drivers, soccer moms, the list goes on and on.
It was insane the e-mails and responses I got over time. I was also amazed by how many good people were out there. Totally heart warming. And every e-mail I received was telling me how they loved my sh*t and how what I was saying was soo much better then the sh*t the media showing. I was making the war much more real to people by sharing my experiences with them. And they were telling everybody they knew about it. One guy even told me he heard some people discuss about this blog in some pub in Europe.
I had no idea it would get as big as it did, and as fast. I also knew that time was probably ticking on how long I could keep this thing up. What would Hunter S. Thomspson do in a situation like this? He'd probably "Buy the ticket, and take the ride." So I did.
I continued blogging and writing. So today I'm walking back from chow, and my Plt Sgt is outside my door waiting for me and he said, The Col. wants to see you, hurry up and go shave, I'll be back in 15 to take you down there.
My heart sank. Sh*t. I know exactly what this one is about. Its like that feeling you get in high school when you'd f**k up, and they'd call your name over the loud speaker and tell you your presence was needed in the principles office, and you know the police are there in the principle's office waiting for you. Not good.
I stepped inside my room, and my roommate was inside and he said, "Sh*t man! The B.C. was just here looking for you!!" F**k. I'm dead. I felt more scared now then I did on the 5th of Nov. The Battalion Commander AND the Col wants to see me?! All of this reminds me of the classic 80's movie, Pump Up The Volume, where the main character is in high school, and who is kind of a loner, listens to punk and skates, and does that underground radio station, which nobody at his school knows about, and it gets bigger and bigger until finally he gets caught and busted.
Nobody here in my Plt knew of my site till about a week ago. I told a couple close friends. Just last week I had a soldier tell me, yea, I just talked to my aunt, she knows nothing about the internet and she asked me about a "blog" thing that she reads done by a soldier in the Stryker Brigade. A couple days ago at the Internet caf‚, I looked over at the person next to me and he was reading my Blog, totally unaware he was sitting next to the author. So I saw this one coming.
The Full Bird Col. wasn't around so my Plt Sgt walked me down to the BC's office, and all I could think about was latrine duty, being a Pvt again, loss of pay, or worse. When I got to his office I was sweating a lot. I don't think I was sweating from the heat, I was probably sweating more from being freaked the f**k out. My heart was beating at an accelerated rate as well now.
The BC is a pretty intimidating guy, he's like Patton meets Vince Lombardi with a little bit of Knute Rockne. Total hard charger kinda guy. The kinda guy infantrymen love. As I stepped in his office (I scanned the room with my eyes for MP's), he told me to take a seat and I did, nervous as all hell. My Plt Sgt sitting right next to me. He looked at me, offered me a cup of coffee, I declined and then as he walked to his desk he said, "You're pretty well read. I can tell right away that you're a reader."
Now I'm really sh*tting in pants. First off, he knows about my writting, second, I know from numerous experiences and bump ins with Judges, Probation Officers, principles, and police officers how something like this works, they always first start off with a nice compliment, and then they fry your ass.
He said "Youre a big Hunter S Thompson Fan, arnt you?" (pause) I said, "Uhhh, yes Sir." He said, "Me too, but I thought the movie was just pure garbage. Didn't do the book justice."
As I'm sitting there waiting for the guilty death penalty sentence to come out of his mouth, he asked me if I ever read "such and such by such and such." I was soo nervous and had soo many thoughts flying in my head I wasn't even registering what he was saying, I just said, "No sir, heard of him, but never read him." And then he said, "I'll let you borrow a copy of his book sometime, you'll really like him"
Then he sat down behind his desk and on his desk he had a huge file that looked to me to be about as thick as The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich. With his right arm that had his Ranger Bat. Combat Patch sewn on it, he started turning the pages, I could see the painting of Guernica on the first page as he flipped through it, and every single page had something I wrote highlighted in bright florescent yellow ink and a bunch of weird forms attatched to it and a bunch of papers. I could feel the sweat dripping down my face.
He calmly looked up and told me that my sh*t was really good, and he liked reading my stuff, and that I was a good writer. He even mentioned something about including it in the units history and archives.
That didn't relieve me one bit, like I said, it made me more freaked out. I'm waiting for him to say the word: "BUT" followed by my punishment. Then we discussed things, and he pointed things out, and told me things. I agreed with 100% of everything he was saying, and the final conclusion from what he told me was that I could continue writing, but maybe have my Plt Sgt read my stuff before I post. He stressed that he didn't want to censor me and that I still had the freedom of speech thing, as long as I wasn't doing anything that would endanger the mission.
I totally 110% agree with him on that one. I thanked him and I told him that I of course would not want to do anything that would endanger anybody here or back home, which is of course true. He suggested that I should look into getting this stuff published and made into a book someday.
Finally I walked out of his office, with a feeling that I had just dodged a full mag of AK47 bullets. I went back to my room, and my roommate was waiting for me all wide eyed and said "Well, what did he want?!?!?! What Happened?!?! You busted?!" I told him all about what happened. And then I said, "Well, the positive thing is that, at least he knows who I am now." And he looked at me and said, "That could be a good thing, or a bad thing."
This might be my last entry, I haven't decided yet to end this, or continue this. I don't know what to make of all this yet.
"These words I write to keep me from total madness."
-Charles Bukowski
That picture comes from the official Fort Lewis website.
Here are some more websites you may be interested in:
The Tomahawk Home. This page was last updated 10/15/2003. Much has happened since then. An updated Battalion web page could highlight the achievements of the Tomahawks these last 10 months.
1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment Picture Gallery
1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment Picture Gallery 1-23 Battalion Change of Command
I hunt for news articles mentioning Strykers and post them on FR for discussion, and I keep what we call a ping list to alert interested Freepers that a new Stryker discussion has been started. With your permission, ma'am, I would be pleased to add your Freeper name to the
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Bump!
This CO sounds like one hell of a great CO!
Buuump!
I've been following this blog for a couple of weeks now. The first post I read was incredible. I found I was sitting on the edge of the chair with sweaty palms. There is no way I could have read it if he had been my son.
God bless him and all the men he serves with.
Its hard to explain, but I'm senescing a lot of pride with the Iraqi people now that the country is theirs again that wasn't there in the past.
I don't know if people heard but
Nabil's Blog
Iraqi sports news and my daily diaries
http://nabilsblog.blogspot.com/
Amazing Boys
The Iraqi just made and qualifies to the semi finals, when they beat Australia 1-0, I can't tell you what happened in Baghdad when the scored the goal, when they just score it the commentator just yell and shut GOAL GOAL!, and he end his yelling by crying, he cried when the match ended, because Iraq haven't qualify to this round over his whole history, and when we scored the flying bullets covered the sky, it was about 8:30 PM in Baghdad time when we scored our goal so they just stop and get back to see what will happen in the last 19 minutes but nothing changed, Iraq won and the history open his hand for them, the team which has been beloved by all the Iraqi people even the people who don't care about football they saw that game and get out to street and celebrate the moment of joy, I want to tell you what happen in MY street when the match was over, its like a hundreds people went out and holding the Iraqi flags with them and just yelling and crying in the street but of course with shooting bullets because this has become a tradition that when the Iraqi team win a match they have to celebrate by shooting bullets, I can hear the sound of the bullets now and its about 90 minutes from the time which the match ended.
Now let me describe the match: The first half:
The first half was so quite, each teams wanted it to end and the result is draw, but as I saw two failed chances to Australia, Iraq didn't do anything in the first half, except some few shy attacks
.The second half: Australia began this half very heavily they did a lot of good attacks against us but Nour Sabry the incredible goal keeper just saved a lot of shoots against us, but Iraq re arranged his forms and they start to attack and by a corner kick for Iraq Hawar Mullah Mohammed play it but the Australian defenders kick it away but Mahdie Kareem kick it back to the penalty area by his head, and the ball just came to Emad Mohammed and by a double kick he scored our goal. And we won and our Olympic team become one of the best 4 teams in the world.
WAY TO GO IRAQ.
Olay Olay Olay Olay Iraq.
Bump to keep track of this thread.
Good god! I remember officers like that. You'd follow them to tackle all of hell with just a bucket of water, but god forbid you wind up on their bad side!
Exactly! Having been there and done that, I can vouch for the preference of enemy fire over being called on the B.C.'s carpet (especially when when you're in the dark as to why but can imagine the many possible "infractions" that might have been discovered).
I even got chewed out by a Brigadier General during basic training. To this day I'm still gratefull that I was able to maintain control over my bowels while it was happening...
I know just what the kid was feeling. I would have happily fallen on a live grenade at that moment.
Will do. We don't get to talk as often as you would think. I've had 14 phone calls in 10 months...frequent e mail though. Many wives get nearly daily phone calls. I'm thinking he has a Sat phone right there and should use it! He doesn't see it that way. I could spend hours bragging about him!
Flora, I AM Willy T.s mother and I can assure you that reading the Canoneer 4's account of his meeting with him sounds true to form. He loves his job and his men and he has always been a reader. He has the greatest respect for their willingness to serve and follow his directions. If this sounds too smarmy for some folks, well I just say you cannot possibly imagine how deep his devotion is. On the other hand, when he was a child, I had a hard time getting him to clean up his room. I am anxiously awaiting the time when he and his battalion return home and I have the chance to count 10 fingers/10 toes and know that he is safe once more. Until then, God keep them 'under the shadow of his wing.' (Psalms)
You think you have to know how to write to graduate from high school?. :P
Neither, he is INDA War!
It is so good to "meet" you, FloridaMom! I have kept your son in my prayers and will continue to do so. Every so often I venture out to the traffic median on Rte. 60 near my home and tie a few more yellow ribbons around the trees for young men I've heard about or met and for all of our brave soldiers & marines.
My hope is that the ribbons will remind busy people of the sacrifices our Troops are making and that they will offer up prayers for them and their families.
There is a ribbon out there for your son.
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