I feel fine.

Every now and then the things I lean on lose their meaning
and I find myself careening,
in places where I should not let me go.
She has the power to go where no one else can find me
and to silently remind me
of the happiness and good times that I know

It isn't what She's got to say,
but how she thinks and where She's been.
To me the words are nice the way they sound.
I like to hear the best that way,
it doesn't much matter what they mean.
She says them mostly just to calm me down.

And I feel fine anytime She's around me now,
and She's around me now, almost all the time.
And if I'm well you can tell that She's been with me now,
She's been with me now, quite a long long time.
And I feel fine.

I've been married for one year, and I'm spending my anniversary over 3000 miles away from my wife. People ask why I'm not going to stay in the military after my first enlistment is up, and that's the reason. I don't want to worry about if I'm going to be in another country for Thanksgiving or Christmas or my anniversary or my wife's birthday. I'll be happy when I can go home every day from work to my own house and see my wife and tell her that she's the best thing that ever happened to me. Until then I'll keep focusing on the reasons that made me decide to join the military in the first place.

The Writing on the Wall

I've heard the expression "I can read the writing on the wall" before but, to be honest, I've never understood exactly what it means. However today I had a literal experience with reading the writing on the wall:

The port-o-shitters on camp have always been, and always will be, a blank canvas for the expressionist writings of the common man. While on FEX the heartbeat of the battallion can be read while relieving yourself. Here in Kuwait you can tell if the Army sucks dick, if the Marines suck dick, or if the Air Force takes it in the ass. You can find out who's mom is the best in bed and which units are the "baddest mother fuckers." This morning after breakfast I heard the call of nature and went to the nearest plastic palace to answer it. Written in friendly block letters above the urinal was the phrase:

"SMILE, because tomorrow will be worse"

Whoever wrote that up there did indeed make me smile.

Fresh Fish

This morning the reserve battallion we were working with left camp to go back home.
A few hours ago their replacements arrived.

And they didn't send another EA...
Meaning that there are two of us here trying to get more work than any other camp (probably anybody in battallion) done. Which means that standing by and watching 2-2 fuck his way through project after project doing things the hard way, taking no responsibility for any mistakes but taking full credit for anything done correctly, isn't going to work anymore.

I told some of the people here a thought I have and I think it's true.

The more EA's I work with, the more I realize that I'm better than them at our job.

I don't this makes me look good, I think it makes all of us look bad. When a second class can't answer simple questions about work that he did 3 hours ago out on a project, but instead answers "I would have to go look at what I did today to tell you" that is unacceptable. If you want to style yourself as "Engineering Support" for projects, and look down on everyone around you because you think that you are smarter than them, then you'd better be able to remember shit that you did throughout the course of the day.

This sort of changed course from my original idea and turned into a rant, but I don't really give a shit.