Brainwashing The Flu

On the sickest day of the year, I laid in bed thinking about how perhaps this was only the eve of the sickest day. Not that tomorrow I would feel any better, but only much worse. The perpetual declining of a semi-torch lit circular staircase with no bottom entered my feverish dreams as I dosed in and out of consciousness. The dancing shadows of myself and invisible demons left me with only one conclusion. It was indeed the eve. Flu vaccinations tomorrow. I never used to hate needles. I never was scared when the doctor or dentist pulled out the towering to thin to see, silver metal perpetrator. I never thought how it resembled a number 2 pencil, but thinner and deadlier. My stomach never saw butterflies. My lungs never caught a shortness of breath. I never had sweat break at my hairline. My legs never shook, and my fingers never gripped any harder. But now, now all of that has changed. The military has made me terrified of needles. It's one of the first things you do in the military. Wake up early, after no sleep, and get needles in an out of every body part, with the whammy being at the end. The literal end, the right or left buttocks.

The funny thing about the penicillin in the butt is not the pain in which is inflicts. The funny thing is looking at 60 or 80 men, sitting in an open room on 2X4 benches, leaning to one side, the left or right. Leaning far off of the pricked and painful penicillin pinch. The days of 30th AG seem very long ago, but the trends it helped set seem to have found their permanent place in not just me, but all of us. The brainwashing beginning there can be seen in not only quick and brief flashbacks of the here and now, but in sustained everyday operations of me and other men alike. It might look out of place, or perfectly in suit depending on how you, the civilian, could view it. If you are the type that doesn't get into the hoopla of the snap crack of the militaries dress right dress, you would see what we do as utterly insane. It's only occasionally that I can still view these small things as out of the norm. However, if you've been exposed or think, 'Oh how cool! Guys in uniform,' you probably don't see it, as we don't. But there is a certain amount of brainwashing, some necessary and some ridiculoussary. JD and I have come to realize, and though I believe that two are more than enough to start a revolution; I think this train is too far and fast a rollin' for two to derail.

The biggest brainwashing that comes into play, is that people eventually forget why they do something. They do it for so long, that it becomes the thing to do, just to do it. They forget the purpose of why they've done it, and in turn the worth of the common sense stock just plummeted and you're compelled to leap off of the 30th story on Wall Street. Kuurrplatt. At first, the time is 1745. Fifteen minutes early to 1800. It's fine, and everyone strolls around right around that first time. It's not mandatory, and there's no be headings if you're a few minutes tardy. Then, you do it for so long that the brainwashing, the think for yourself no more goes right out the 30th story window with you. 1730, you find yourself down there. Why is the general question, that no one seems to be able to hear. Moooooo, right along with the heard you eat your grass and don't complain. Eventually you arrive fifteen minutes earlier to that. Your complaints go on to the deaf, and you take some thanks in at least the alfalfa is fresher. It still tastes like shit.

Those are just the first steps of the brainwashing. 30th AG and the beginning of the Army isn't the only place that can shape and mold you. Places like this, Iraq, are the epitomised brain washing site. The combat stress, regardless of bullets flying over head is enough to herald an immediate change. Imagine driving through the neighborhood at home, and every flower box or mail box could be your demise. BOOM! Never saw it coming. The changes in the way you live is perhaps the biggest to deal with. This is what time you wake up. This is where you eat. This is what you eat. This is what you clean. This is where you sit. Off-time? Here's your bed, here's the computer or telephones. Movie theater is at your bed. It's all very convenient, but in the end it brainwashes you the worst. I haven't dealt with the full flood that this effect has, but I'm standing up to my waste in water with it. Decisions. Freedom of choice. Options. All of that is very scary coming from a world like this one. It's almost unimaginable after a year of literally having one option. Sleep or MWR.

Sure, you have your little ones, the unimportant ones of which cereal cup do I want? But they don't have every option that a cereal aisle would have. You do have to thank the lord someone was smart enough to send 10 tons of Captain Crunch over, even if you aren't religious. Looking at what I can do when I get home, is simply overwhelming. Even a decision that only affects one or two days seems as looming as that needle pressed against ones arm. I can jump out of airplanes, and carry over 100 lbs of equipment, but I can't decide Vegas or Carpinteria for New Years, and quiver when a needle presents itself. I suppose that makes some sense, as adjusting back into the real world will probably be hard across the board. Assuming I don't beat my wife or children I don't have, or someone elses for that matter, some indecision about what restaurant to eat at, or where to vacation should be the appropriate amount of stress for myself. Better than a damn needle in the ass. *Shudder*


regular or h1n1? or both?

the army flu vaccine

is it for swine flu too?

it's not a flu vaccine at all

ok

it pretends to be one

but it just makes you sick

and then you get over it, and then are deemed 'vaccinated'