Sig talks about milblogging on Vox Veterana.

Question: What are 3 things your readers probably do not know about you?

That’s rough. Most of my regular readership is related to me by blood, marriage, or unit patch and there are few secrets between family or fire team members. Relatively few of those know that I also write mediocre military science fiction–mostly on the theory that some of the insanity I’ve seen is more believable if done by space aliens. Relative newcomers to my site and VoxVeterana may not know that I spent four years doing IT work in the civilian world after university and before donning the green.

My family knows this last one, but few others: we’re expecting our first child this next March.

Question: How long have you been blogging and why did you get into blogging?

My first blog started in early 2001 on the now-defunct Killingmachines.org (run by my friend Scott Vandehey). I had a lot of time at work and nothing better to do with it but write about how much I hated work. In 2004 (after I’d gone active for training), I started playing around with WordPress on my new laptop, and then Drupal on my test server, running from my home DSL network–you can put the geek in uniform, but he’s still a geek. I had no particular need for it; I just wanted to play with the software. Eventually I moved it over to its current host at NearlyFreeSpeech.net, started calling it SigSpace (instead of something obscurely Russian) and it’s been running much better ever since. I don’t think it turned into a “real” milblog until late 2005, when I started the mobilization for Enduring Freedom.

Early this year, T.F. Boggs asked me whether I’d be willing to contribute to his new group site, and I was happy to have yet another venue with which to inflict my views on random Intarweb people.

Question: What is your military experience?

I enlisted in the WA Army National Guard in 2003, shipping out in January of 2004 for basic, language training, and AIT. At my first drill weekend in September of 2005, we learned we would mobilize for OEF; this occurred in November. I spent the deployment doing tactical MI work while attached to a variety of combat arms units. I spent a lot of time during the second half in the turret. Since returning home in February of 2007, I’ve been on active duty orders as the Random Task NCOIC and doing some language-related things.

Question: What are some of your other favorite Milblogs?

I follow Blackfive religiously, but relatively few other milblogs on a regular basis. More of my RSS reader is devoted to media and politics, honestly, though Military Motivator provides my desktop backgrounds and I, too, am Trying to Grok. I used to follow FuzzyBunny6, but he mostly stopped writing after he got home.

Question: What has been the biggest factor in helping you create and publish a successful blog?

I enjoy my own writing. I can waste hours amusing myself by reading stuff I’ve written. If I can amuse and inform others, too–that’s a bonus. I don’t think I would do very well trying to write what I think other people want to read; I’ve done it on occasion, and I’m rarely happy with the result. I write what I want to read; if you also want to read it, feel free. If not, there’s plenty of variety out there.

Question: Do you have anything else you would like us to mention about you, your blog, or your readers?

I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of being successful before–at least, not in this context.

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Well basically the title of the posts deals with a lucky day for our battalion a couple days ago. Not a whole lot to write on, but the cold facts are this. 1 guy shot in the hand while on guard duty from a small caliber weapon. Another guy shot in the head on guard, but nothing serious, again by a small caliber weapon. A 3rd guy out in sector was shot in the head by a sniper. The round entered the front of his helmet, traveled along the top of his head, and burst out the back of the helmet. Other than a cut along his head (and Im sure one hell of a headache) he’s OK. I don’t know what made God watch down on us that day, but he sure had other plans for those 3 guys. The one that was hit in the head on guard used to be in my company and me and him are pretty cool. I haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet, but I did see him walking around the other day with his head bandaged up, so he’s doing good. This was his 3rd deployment, and this deployment he became a “fobbit” and doesn’t have to leave the FOB. How ironic, on this deployment he gets shot.

Well, I’m sure many of you heard, but there was a big soccer match that was going on I believe in Asia. Iraq had been doing good in it, as I mentioned before, they celebrated with the gunfire. Yesterday apparently was the finals and it was Iraq vs. Saudia Arabia. My squad was on our patrol shift throughout the game and afterwards, and we decided that if Iraq won, we would go out on patrol and possibly see if we could find some of these guys that are out there shooting machine guns in the air. For the record, no Iraqi is allowed to own a machine gun.

Well, Iraq ended up winning, and as expected the whole city erupted in gunfire. As this was going on, we were getting our gear on and getting ready to head out. We were waiting for the massive barrage of gunfire to die down and then we would head out. I was excited because this was about the best chance of getting in to something that we have had in a long while. I figured with everyone out shooting, there might be a person or two that got ballsy enough to take a few shots at us. To my dismay, word came that we were told not to go out. I was pissed. Things have slowed down a lot lately, and I really haven’t felt like I’ve accomplished much over here lately. Its hard, because I try my best to stay positive, especially considering how much time I have left, but this place manages to suck that motivation out of you. Especially when other around you are as positive.

So today I was chilling up on the guard tower. Nothing really noteworty throughout the day until just near the end of the shift. I heard an explosion. Nothing loud, just what seemed to be a normal (I know, crazy!) explosion. I wouldn’t of thought twice about it, except that I hadn’t heard any all day, so I started scanning to see if I could tell where it came from. I couldn’t see anything from my tower, so I ventured outside and thats when a saw a plume of smoke. I radioed the other tower to ask them if that smoke was there all day and they said no. Slowly the smoke became thicker and thicker and my heart sunk. I knew what this was. Something I’ve become all to accustom to; a car bomb explosion. Suprise, suprise. Its seems endless the death and destruction they rain down upon each other.

Continue reading more (Eighty Deuce on the Loose)

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Well, the meat and potatoes of this post are going to be on what I call, 82nd Airborne Greatest Bloopers.  I couldn’t believe what had happened and in the end, it ended up being quite hilarious.  We were headed out to this one place early in the morning, before sunrise.  We were driving through this one neighborhood and we ended up missing our turn.  Well we went to loop around to come back to the road that we needed to take, but it wasn’t a route that we normally take.  It is now, a road we will probably NEVER take.

As soon as we turned on to this road I knew it was going to be trouble.  I was driving and happened to be in the 2nd vechicle in the convoy.  Even thought it was nighttime and I had my night vision on, I could easily see what we were about to drive through.  Instead of a road, there existed a pathway of shit/mud/water combination.   I slowed down on a spot that I found to be solid and waited for the 1st vechicle to get through and to give some room between our vechicles.  I knew with our heavy ass uparmored Humvee’s that there was the possibility of getting stuck in this mud because, well, it was thick.  Once there was enough room, I told everyone to hold on and I hit the gas, making sure I had enough speed to get through any potentially soft spots.  Well, along the way there was this big bump, and yeah, I hit it pretty hard.   But I figured hit the bump hard or get stuck….  and well considering that I didn’t want to have to get out and walk around in this shit mud, the choice was simple;  I kept the accelerator down.  We hit it hard and it was bigger than I expected.  It tossed our gunner around like a ragdoll, and I feel bad because he hurt his back.  Nothing serious, but he was in pain for a couple minutes.  Our LT hit and hurt his elbow.  Damn, my bad.  Well, at least we made it through.

Unfortunatly one of the trucks was not so lucky.  They ended up getting stuck, and pretty good too.  Another truck attempted to go back to them and to hook up a tow-bar and pull them out, but they ended up getting stuck.  Oh great, this is not looking good.  A third truck pulled up and attempted to pull the newly stuck truck out.  They wern’t having any luck.  I saw the other team leader from my squad out there sloshing through this shit mud, just covered.  OMG, you are truely a trooper, I mean that.  He ended up having our truck pull up and along with the other truck, we both attempted to pull one of the trucks free.  The more we pulled the more the other truck seemed to get stuck.  Nothing seemed to be working, and I can only imagine how funny this must have been to the locals in the area.  The sun was coming up now and they were waking up to the worlds greatest Army bogged down in the mud.  We were in the process of calling for a wrecker to come out when somehow we ended up pulling the right way and getting the one truck out.  I guess another truck was helping the initial truck that got stuck, and finally we had both of them free.

In the end, I think we spent almost 2 hours in that shitty street.  3 trucks were coated in this mud, and one Humvee door had been damaged when it was pulled open by another Humvee.  The funny, although its not really funny, part of this is that the other team leader who was working so hard at getting the trucks unstuck; the one who was gallantly trudging through this mud, ended up getting hit by this door flying open.  All of a sudden we just see him come flying out of seemingly nowhere in the air, feet at his waist and he comes crashing down on his back, yup, directly in the mud.  We all couldn’t help it and we just started busting up laughing.  It truely was hilarious to see, especially considering that he didn’t get hurt.  Once we got everyone safely away from that street we continue on our way.

The next day we were chilling at our outpost.  Me and a couple other guys were in the middle of playing an intense game of Axis and Allies, when we started hearing a bunch of gunfire.  We went outside to check it out and it sounded like the whole city was shooting at once.  I’ve never heard that much gunfire here.  Apparently, in a celebratory fashion like a couple days ago, the locals were celebrating another victory by the Iraqi soccer team by shooting thousands upon thousands of rounds in to the air.  I even heard a couple machine guns shooting.  Wow, you have got to be an idiot.  Do they not know these bullets come down somewhere and as our interperator pointed out sadly, “A lot of people are going to die today.”  He was referring to the bullets coming back to earth and I guess, its pretty well know that this kills a lot of people.  Could you imagine something like that in the US?  I know people do that kind of stuff on New Years, but it doesnt even come close to comparing to the volume of fire over here.

The whole time, we just sat outside listening to it, and in a way hoping that some dumb moron would get the balls to shoot at us during this, but it never happened.  The next night, some guys drove by an Iraqi Police (IP) checkpoint, just a block over from our outpost and began shooting at the IPs.  There was a short little gunbattle, but it was very load because of how close it is.  Man, things going on just right around us, yet our lives continue to exist and boredom.  Its so crazy how this war can be.  Just have to maintain the train of through to ensure that we are ready 100% of the time, for that once chance when things do hit the fan.

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A Soldier’s Mind, a great milblog, is having an essay contest called “The Price of Freedom”: http://soldiersmind.com/2007/07/08/the-price-of-freedom/.

Five winners will receive a copy of Lone Survivor: The Eyewittness Account of Operation Redwing and The Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10. The essays will be sent to soldiers in Iraq at FOB Warhorse, and they will chose the five winners.

Go to A Soldier’s Mind to learn more: http://soldiersmind.com/2007/07/08/the-price-of-freedom/.

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Well I haven’t made a post in a few days, at least not much about what I’ve been doing lately. So I’ll talk a little bit about the last 2 big patrols we went on. They both ended up being long and tiring patrols. Not to mention its starting to get really fucking hot here. I think the temperature the past few days have been around 115+ and its been partially cloudy and extremely dusty. Its not as bad as I thought it would be a couple months ago, but it definatly sucks, no lie about that.

So the other day we ended up starting our patrol time off by participating in a company mission. Usually company missions are accompanied by Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police, which this one was. The Army works with us and usually does the meat and potatoes of the mission and the IP’s work with the MP’s doing the cordon and whatnot. The nice thing is that our job is not to actually do these mission. We are there to help, advise and make it go quicker, but not actually do it ourselves. I’ve noticed that in the last 5 months or so that we’ve been working with these guys that they have been getting better and more effeciet. We’re normally not out there as long as we used to be and we are having to do less and less as they take on more of the responsibility and become better at doing these things.

This mission was to clear out a local cemetary for some stuff that the IA had intel on. The weird thing is that the cemetarys here are not like the US. Back home, for the most part, we bury our dead below ground. Not here. They build these concrete or brick coffins above ground and its just full of these tomb type of things. Really weird. Anyways the IA went around doing their thing and we pretty much didn’t have to help them at all. We just went behind them and kind of spot checked their work. One thing that was kind of creepy was that every now and then one of these tombs would look like someone was getting in and out of it, so we would have to open it up and see if there was anything in there. God, I was totally worried about seeing some 1/2 decayed corpse but fortunately off all the ones I opened, I never saw one. Spent most of the time trying to weave my way around the cemetary and trying my best to leave it exactly the way I found it. At least here its easy to not walk on peoples graves.

The rest of the patrol time was pretty uneventful, with the exception of the stay round story I already put up here. Sucks for us. Good I’m sure in the eyes of those back home. Its hard to stay motivated and not get complacent when your constantly going out and nothing is happening. Its so funny though how the news paints this picture like this place is the Wild Wild West. If you actually came out here, you’d be totally shocked how little actually happens. Wish I had experienced the war earlier on and had something to compare to, but from what I hear it seems to be a lot better than it used to be. That wouldn’t suprise me.

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Charity for Charities

You vote. Joe gives $2,000 to military charities.

Vote August 5–20.

Vote for your favorite charitable military organization from August 5–20.  Joe will donate $2,000 to the charities with the most votes. Nominate your favorite charitable military organization now or anytime after the voting begins.

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View My Milblogging.com Profile

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Since I started this blog, I decided that I wanted to blog, specifically about my experiences here. I’ve read many other blogs that talk about the latest news and whatnot, and I decided that I did not want to do that.

But something has come to light that, at least in the milblogging world, that is making huge waves everywhere. It has captured my attention and emations and therefore I feel it necessary to share it with you all. It has to do with some stories submitted my a supposed “Scott Thomas”. He claims to have experienced and partaken in some stories that, in my opinion go far beyond reality and even basic human dignity that its disgusting.

The stories were origionally posted in the New Republic, but the Weekley Standard has done a great piece on this supposed ‘whistle blower’ entitled Fact or Fiction.

Here’s an example of one of the sick stories this guy tells.

We were already halfway through our meals when she arrived. After a minute or two of eating in silence, one of my friends stabbed his spoon violently into his pile of mashed potatoes and left it there.
“Man, I can’t eat like this,” he said.
“Like what?” I said.
“Chow hall food getting to you?”
“No—with that fucking freak behind us!” he exclaimed, loud enough for not only her to hear us, but everyone at the surrounding tables. I looked over at the woman, and she was intently staring into each forkful of food before it entered her half-melted mouth.
“Are you kidding? I think she’s fucking hot!” I blurted out.
“What?” said my friend, half-smiling.
“Yeah man,” I continued. “I love chicks that have been intimate—with IEDs. It really turns me on—melted skin, missing limbs, plastic noses . . . .”
“You’re crazy, man!” my friend said, doubling over with laughter. I took it as my cue to continue.
“In fact, I was thinking of getting some girls together and doing a photo shoot. Maybe for a calendar? ‘IED Babes.’ We could have them pose in thongs and bikinis on top of the hoods of their blown-up vehicles.”
My friend was practically falling out of his chair laughing. The disfigured woman slammed her cup down and ran out of the chow hall, her half-finished tray of food nearly falling to the ground.

As expected milbloggers have lashed out and attempted to dissolve these fictious stories. Blackfive and The Mudville Gazette have some excellent pieces with responses from many milbloggers (to include myself) on what they feel about these stories. Make sure and check them out.

I’ll include my responses in a comment on this posting. All I hope is that this is resolved and that is fucking moron will be exposed for the liar and loser that he really is. And I hope there is a sever ass kicking awaiting him once he is discovered.

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Highlights From Milblogs Around the Net

• Prosthetics are improving and getting more high-tech. [DefenseTech.org]
• Citizen Marine Sergeant Jeff Hunter is awarded the Silver Star. [American Ranger]
• “I believe the entire New Republic story (Shock Troops) to be a fake.” [Vox Veterana]
• 10 Ways Camp Striker is better than Las Vegas. [A Soldier’s Perspective]
• Over 6000 confirmed enemy kills in Iraq and Afghanistan since June 7, 2006. [Semper Gratus!]
• Another military scam.  This time asking for bogus donations.  [Gazing at the Flag]

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OK, well I’m going to make this a short entry, because I dont have much time but I just wanted to get this little story out there because it scared the hell out of me today. So my last post I was talking about how I almost got hit by Iraqi drivers twice with a 3rd close call. Well, wouldn’t ya know, today I almost got crushed by a Iraqi driving pickup truck. Jesus! This is starting to get a little old.

Basically we were walking along this road durring the busy “rush hour” type of Iraqi traffic. The sidewalk became impassable so we moved in to the street to bypass this one part. I was walking in between a parked utility truck and a pickup truck stopped in traffic. There wasn’t much room to fit, so I went to make it quick but sure enough just as I was about to squeeze through, the dude started moving, and to top it off attempted to turn right, which would of crushed me. I immediately started pounding on the guys door and window (thankfully it didnt break) and proceeded to yell at him for almost crushing me. Wow, and I thought drivers in Arizona were bad.

Later on durring the day today we had taken a break at our outpost that we go to. Just before we were getting ready to leave I got out to smoke a cigarette and was sitting on the front of the Humvee by myself. All of a sudden I hear a loud THWAP!! sound on the ground literally a foot away. I look down and see a dust cloud from whatever had impacted there at a high rate of speed. I jumped up and looked around thinking someone had thrown something at me, but there was no one in sight. My next thought was sniper round. I ran around my vechicle attempting to hide from whoever. Thats when I realized how stupid that was because I would of heard the snap or pop of the bullet’ s supersonic speed.

Apparently a gunner for another truck had seen the impact too and me run away and asked what the hell it was. I went over there and explain that I had no clue, but that it had me freaked out. He suggested that it might be a stay round.

That totally makes sense! I asked around, and between what people said, and an old episode of Myth Busters I’ve seen, I’ve decided that what that probably was, was a round that had been fired in the air somewhere, and had landed almost on top of me. The Iraqi Police and Iraqi Army fire warning shots in to the air ALL the time, and so those rounds have to come down somewhere and I think I happened to be unlucky (or lucky??) enough to be right next to one. I’m not certin about this, but I am certin that no one had thrown anything. Definately had me a little nervous for a while. How crazy!?!

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