Ammo, We Don't Need No Stinking Ammo...

Here we go folks, fasten your seatbelts. This is going to be a wild ride.

Not really...

Well our date of departure just got pushed back another 4 or 5 days. Really, why wouldn’t it? I hate this place, so that means we definitely need to stay here longer.

Whatever sucks the most!

So here’s a funny one. Just another case of the military’s, wait check that, this company’s complete inability to get anything done right. But they’ll probably fight you to the death saying that it was someone else’s fault.

We all know that every company in the Army is alloted ammunition. Makes sense right. War zone, Taliban wackos, and exploding roads. This is a country that requires ammunition to function.

So we loaded up all our ammunition for the trip to this other camp that we are headed to. Put it all on pallets and in boxes so that it could be loaded onto trucks and driven over there. So far so good.

Then the pallets and the boxes get loaded on the trucks. Alright, this is going well.

Then the trucks drive over to the place where we are going to spend the rest of this deployment...I think.

Holy jumping, fucking shit balls! We managed to get our ammunition from point A, to point B without any fuck ups and/or catastrophic incidents. (Someone call the newspaper.)

All that’s left is to unload the trucks and put the ammunition into a proper storage area and the operation will be a complete success!

So that happened. One problem.

We weren’t the ones who unloaded the ammunition!

Well, I don’t know if I ever told you this one before but I probably did. There is an old cliche in the military about theft. Or as I personally like to call it, “Redistribution of government resources.”

THERE IS ONLY ONE THIEF IN THE ARMY, EVERYONE ELSE IS JUST TRYING TO GET THEIR SHIT BACK!

So someone else decided to unload our ammunition. Some dick actually thought to himself, “Hey look, bullets! We need those. I think I’ll just grab an entire company’s worth of ammo and stick it in my armsroom.”

This is the kind of stuff that really makes me laugh! So I’m sitting there and the platoon daddy walks up and you can tell by his face he has been spun into a level of pissed off that is rarely seen this side of hell. (This is before I knew what the hell was going on.)

So he tells me this story, and the first thought that ran through my head was, “Was I supposed to be watching ammo when I was on guard the other day?”

Well given the fact that he hadn’t ripped my balls out through my mouth, I figured I was in the clear. So he lays this whole situation out for me, I listen and as soon as he leaves...I fall on the ground and roll around laughing for a good 2 to 3 minutes.

So here we are, smack dab in the middle of Afghanistan, with no fucking ammunition. I mean I got the stuff I carried here with me, but I think it would be nice to have some extra. You know, for emergencies.

Well, whatever. Nothing I can do about it. This is way above my pay grade. Have fun with all of that.

So what else has been pissing me off lately? Oh, I got one. I don’t know how much you all know about military uniforms. But there’s this thing called a combat patch. When you have been with a unit in a combat zone for 30 days or more you get to wear the combat patch. Basically its your unit patch, but on the other shoulder to show everyone that you have been to a combat zone. They don’t really mean a whole helluva lot, I mean the fobbits up in Bagram get them, so who gives a shit right.

I wear them sometimes, and I sometimes don’t. Usually, I wear them if I had to put them on for some formation and I never took them off. I mean ours has two separate parts so they are a huge pain in the ass to put on. But like I said, who gives a shit?

Well I found out who gave a shit. Some Colonel! Of course, who else would think of this shit. Some guy who got here a week ago and has been riding a desk in some air conditioned, carpeted office is going to get all butt hurt over what patch is on your arm.

Why? Because the one we were wearing was from a unit that he isn’t in. We got here a long time ago, and at the time the unit in charge of our section of this country was the 101st Airborne. This guy is from the electric strawberries from Alaska, or the 25th Infantry Division.

Now all I can really say, and this is a totally personal opinion, one patch is gay, and the other is not. I’ll let you judge...




So that was the patches, and here is what the sir did. He told our leadership that when they come to his meetings that they have to wear the electric strawberry and not the 101 patch. Really? You’re a Colonel. Don’t you have like plans and shit to make. Tell me that there is something much more pressing that you have to deal with! I mean really, please tell me that you don’t have time to worry about this.

But I digress, I still got the 101 patch on, and now that I know it aggravates the Colonel I think I am going to make sure that I wear it all the time.

Alright, so now I’m done. Life should be pretty boring for the next few days, then again they may throw me for a loop. Either way...be good.

Later,

I love you Mom...

P.S. What's the worst thing a soldier in a combat zone can ever say? Don't worry guys, I saw this on a movie one time!