I wake up and go to work before 6 am every morning. Though I don't need to be there till 6:30 and even that is debatable. I live with those I work with, and the 2 minute walk is good on the gas tank. I run, do sit-ups, push-ups and pull-ups everyday, rain or shine, hot or cold. We play the 'game' of tough guy, and dawn the t-shirts and shorts in freezing weather. We get the mental torture that might be faced in any other job, but only slightly worse and for a long period of time. We do a lot for the little pay we make, and even that is stolen away from us with everyone pocket picking government program. We jump from planes, stand in formation, clean the already cleaned, and wait for the word endlessly. We complain, but for good measure. We always have the weekends to look forward to. We look forward to the promises. Made to be broken in most cases. Strike that, all cases.
Yet another day rolls along here in 2 Panther, the worlds greatest battalion of paratroopers. It might have been this way long ago. When words like honor and integrity still meant something. Now it's an institute of the selfish and the greedy. Pimps and politicians with nothing more than to gambit the mental psychy of those who 'have to' follow them. The wicked men who show hope to those already suffering under their whips. They shade the light of hope whenever it seems to be brightest. And without remorse.
Saturday there is going to be a memorial service for our fallen comrades in Iraq. A day, time, I would without question give up. They are owed it. Especially from those who are responsible. Z. War is full of hardships, and death is one of them. Harder to digest when it shouldn't have happened, or didn't have to happen. But I don't think I could point to a war exempt from this small factotum. We owe Bauer and Davis this time. I will give it to them. But the manner in which I'm being 'asked' or 'told' to go on with the days, the money donations, and the possible thievery, leads me to think SCAM.
It seems everyday there is a something you can buy to help make a donation to this wonderful cause. Even though no one will tell you that buying such things will be a donation, we came to learn a few weeks after having all of these items shoved down our throats, that the proceeds were supposedly going to a good cause. The families of the lost 2 Panther brethren. It only came up, after a battalion wide meeting, where the Z-man informed us that people had been calling the Inspector General about him (100 plus calls). He told us, in a seeming last ditch effort that the profits were going to the Gold Star families, as well as cutting down the costs of our ticket to the Battalion Ball. A non-mandatory function that is being made mandatory. Not everyone is so enthralled with the cohesion within this unit, and hopefully the stink about going was a bright enough sign to those above.
The $15 dollar t-shirt, $35 dollar deployment poster, $20 dollar ball ticket, and the many small donation-raffle-tickets made mandatory or else no one gets off work were all bought up, and if I could genuinely believe that the man at the top who I've come to known so well as a liar actually cared at all for these people this money is supposedly going to help; I could feel better about spending the dough. But I can't, and no one else can. He's the same empty promiser that we've had the last two years. Self absorbed and even more selfish than before. His preaches about pushing rocks with blocking and tackling, and leading from the front we've all seen as the propaganda that any good prom queen would use. He continues to out do himself even as his term comes to close with this place.
Like I said before, I have no problem with giving up my time to say one last goodbye to a friend, a brother and a hell of a non-commissioned officer. I don't even have a problem with it being on a Saturday. And if I had believed from the get-go that I still was going to come into work on Monday, I would've been fine with that too. But here's where the lying, the shimmer of hope, and the quenching of the fire all comes into play. But in the 'put that on your youtube' speech that was supposed to the minds of the anti-ballers, a promise was made. That because our 'off' time is valuable- Monday would be a day off. Half a week later, and this Z-guy has broken yet another promise. Something I definitely would like to put on youtube.
What if during the span of your life, at work, or at home, the second you got happy. The second a smile ripped across your face, and you could laugh not just because of the irony; What if there was someone there to pull your hair and kick you in the nuts. Tell you your dog died. Someone who was there to make you feel like shit, and force regret into your life. Knock you on your knees and force you to submit.
Some call that hell... We just call it the eighty-deuce
