My First Entry

I am writing this blog as a way of keeping in contact with my family and friends while I am away in Afghanistan for the better part of the next two years.  And wouldn't you know it, just when I am getting ready to go it is the month that Afghanistan overtakes Iraq as having the most per month casualties in the War on Terror, well isn't that just peachy.  So it goes.

The title is a little something ripped from one of my recent platoon formations.  Embrace the Suck is a little thing that our platoon daddy came up with for us to sound off with after a particularly trying 3 weeks of training at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas.  (A place that I am quite certain God created as a practice run for when he had to conjure up HELL.)  Anyways, at our final formation, or at least the pre-final formation formation.  (No the double formations was not an error) We decided to sound off with that and let our command group know exactly how we felt about the caliber of the exercise we had just been on.  Promptly we were informed that we would no longer sound off with that and were instructed to come up with something a little less racy and raucous.  We ended up sounding off with "Sheepdogs" which I will explain later, but am I the only one who finds it humorous that an organization, such as the Army whose soul purpose is to bring death and destruction to the enemies of the United States would have a problem with the word "suck".  Just a thought.

Anyways, the sheepdog thing, I know it sounds a little pansy and just a tad bit wussy, for lack of a better term, however when you hear the story behind the name it is actually a good one, a story that after hearing even I shed my misgivings about the name.  CLICK THIS TO READ ALL ABOUT THE SHEEPDOGS.