Another minute slips by the hands grasp, and the hour glass loses more and more from it's top half. At this point I'm not sure if I'll ever get home. I would have rather been with my platoon over the last two and a half days. Baghdad Internation Airport is certainly hard on the mind, body and soul.
Last night we finally got a flight time out of this place, and unfortunately it was not as soon as I had hoped it would be. None the less, today I fly out of this retched place. It makes me sick to walk outside here. To deal with the people at this base deep within the green zone. They seem to have no concept, no understanding that there is a war going on.
The fat slobs that walk around here are an absolute embarrassment to the Army. Of course most of them are National Guard units, but you would not be able to tell the difference, because they wear the same exact uniform that I do despite not being a part of the US Army at all really. They are a state ran militia. I used to gripe about having to stay within so many standards, that seem to make no sense sometimes, but when you get around a place like this, I can't think but to thank the 82nd for instilling the discipline to look like a professional.
I get kicked out of the chow hall because I don't have a weapon or magazine. We are in garrison here. No sweaty or dirty uniforms in the chow hall a sign reads. A girl walks around with a pink PT belt on. A female PFC flirts with her fat 1st Sergeant, and a fat ass walks past me with a full pizza from Pizza Hut. A blonde Captain fails to understand that we just want to get out of here, and that leaving a day prior to our leave is not really going to get us an extra day of leave.
Usually I'm worried about whether the power is going to stay on all night, or if the shower will give me enough water for a combat shower, because it's been four days since I've had one. I worry about the section of the city that sits beneath the watch of my 240 while I'm protecting our base from a possible enemy attack. Here, here is different for soldiers. There are so many people here at this big FOB that don't do anything. They have never left the wire. Never been in any kind of danger. Never missed a meal, or never not had a hot shower. And yet, they get paid exactly the same as I. To deploy to an area that is much like the United States. They get four day passes to Qatar for some 'rest' that I doubt they need.
Everything here is contracted out making so many Army jobs with nothing to do. The chow hall is all ran by Indians, or Iraqis. The bathrooms are not cleaned by soldiers who use them, but by Iraqis. The force protection here is ran by Ugandans who might shoot you because you did not display your ID when you were trying to go into the PX to buy a PS3, big screen tv, 24 pack of Monsters. All worthless stuff. They complain and complain about the littlest things. "They burned my Double Whopper!"
If I had to stay here another day, around so many people with no self discipline, or respect for the uniform the wear, I don't know how I could take it. It upsets me to think that these people are living a near normal life over here, despite the fact that they are doing no work. They don't change out of PT's. They don't do a 9 to 5 or PT in the morning. They get paid to sit in their personal hooches, and do nothing. Talking to another soldier who is stationed here, he tells me how there is such an excess of personnel here, that any work that could be done here by them, there's probably 20 units that would be in line to do it before them.
Limbo continues here on my way home. My leave was supposed to start on the 16th. Today. Instead, I'm flying out of BIAP, to Kuwait, to Germany, to Dallas, and then finally California. My mask of sanity is slowly slipping.
POG- acronym - Personnel Other than Grunt
Noun. Those who do nothing, complain about everything, and get paid the same as everyone else
LEGS- acronym- Low Efficeincy Ground Soldier
Noun. Those who usually walk around with bellies that hang over their belts, with mustaches unkempt, and a look of confusion and stupidity across their face. Non-Airborne qualified.
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