Saint Patrick's Day, A New Commander, And Taco Night...

What a great day! It was St. Patrick’s day, which is one of my top three holidays. Any day where drinking and debauchery is encouraged is my kind of day. However, the fact that I am here where there is no drinking and little debauchery, is kind of depressing, but I’ll get over it.

Then it was also taco night, which is easily my favorite meal here in beautiful, sunny Afghanistan.

But on the greatest gift ever was laid upon my doorstep today. I don’t know how many of you have seen the movie “Cocktail” with Tom Cruise when he was a bartender. But there was another character in there named, Coglan. And he had these laws that he would spout off with in any given situation. Now one of the laws was this, “Anything else is always something better.” Which I think is a fitting rule to use for the situation I find myself in. As you all well know my opinion of my commander is decidedly shitty. I couldn’t care any less for the man than I already do. He has managed to make everything here suck to one degree or another. Maybe I am wrong about some of it and its not all his fault, but the fact remains that most of it is and he is a convenient target for my malice.

However, now the dynamic has changed. Instead of all of this being just a bunch of soldiers bitching about their commander it is now a battalion level decision to remove him from his command and send him to some paper pusher job where he can’t screw anything up.

St. Patrick’s day became all the more wonderful for me when our new commander stepped off the helicopter today and strode into the FOB and hopefully will change all of this shit around here for the better. Now I could be wrong and this guy could be just as big a douche bag as his predecessor, or he could turn out to be a great commander. That remains to be seen. Regardless, he is not the commander we have now and at least for a little while I can hold onto the hope that he will actually be the commander that everyone wished for. Either way, its like Coglan said, “Anything else is always something better.”

So tomorrow, after a 12 hour shift in the towers, we have to go to some meeting with the first sergeant. I don’t know yet what it is about, but I’d be willing to bet that it is to introduce us to our new commander. It never ceases to amaze me though, that they could reach down into their bag of tricks and pick the absolute worst time imaginable to have a meeting. Here you go kid, work 12 hours then you get an hour and a half to eat and shave and what not, then you have to come sit in a meeting. Which, given the fact that our first sergeant is a yapper, will probably take up most of your afternoon, when you should be asleep because come midnight you better be right back in them towers.

Regardless of all of that, because basically that is just the Army way, beat them down, and keep beating them down. But it is what it is, I can take it, so what the hell.

So between St. Patrick’s Day, Taco Night, and one new Commander, my day was golden. Between the revelations of the past few weeks and today, I don’t know if I can contain my glee.

Oh and please stay tuned. I have found a new way of passing the time. A pal o’ mine and I have started a little “photoshop war”. For those of you who don’t know, photoshop is a computer program that enables you to take any picture and alter it in any number of ways, and to even combine portions of one photo with another. And the hilarity ensues. I’ll be posting the pictures for all to see in the coming days, but until then here is a sampling. Enjoy!

I am done now.

Later,

I love you mom...