Screwed for the Month

So I worked my butt off all of August to find some people to enlist in the Army National Guard. Thought I had some things going, thought I could take things easy - the contracts will land in my lap like my last 6 did, right? Wrong.

Coming into the last week of the month I had only one processor - and need 2 to finish my yearly mission that ends in September. I need at least 1 to stay at mission. I'm assuming that all 5 of my readers read SFC B's and Station Commando's blogs so I won't be explaining any terms for now. Anyway I am really good at pre-screening my applicants and haven't lost an applicant at MEPS in well over a year. While I haven't totally lost the applicant, I'm not very happy with the MEPS Doc right now.

My kid had to work Monday night so he couldn't go down that night like normal. So, being the good recruiter that I am, I left my office at 1am on Tuesday morning to pick my guy up and drive him to MEPS by 5:30am. Got there at 5, made sure he knew what to expect and figured I'd be ready for another enlistment. When I'm at MEPS I try to help out our Guidance Counselors as much as possible, so I did some paperwork to help out the Senior Guidance Counselor as much as I could. I needed to get some sleep so I could survive the ride home so I went to our day room at MEPS to sleep on the couch for a couple of hours.

At noon my cell phone wakes me up and it's one of my recruiting team mates asking my why my guy isn't off the floor. I go down to our office at MEPS to find out what's going on. I'm told there is something wrong with my guy's eyes and that he'll probably need a consult - so I tell them I'll drive him myself and leave to grab him and bring him to the consult. Suddenly my guy is nowhere to be found. The front desk doesn't know where he is and medical doesn't seem to know either. Finally at 2pm - TWO HOURS LATER - he walks off the floor. At this point I know I'm not going to get an enlistment today because the doctor leaves at 2:30pm so all consults must be back by then. My only hope is that his consult is in the next day or so. Apparently MEPS realized that they haven't screwed me in a while so they made sure I wouldn't make mission this month - my guy's consult is scheduled for SEPTEMBER 14th! Over half a month away! What the hell? To make matters worse the sheet you get describing the disqualification doesn't even say what exactly is wrong with him. His physical shows that his vision corrects to 20/20 but it says he needs an Ophthalmology consult none-the-less. We're still trying to find out what the deal is from Medical so I can bring him to a civilian eye doctor instead of waiting till Sept 14.

SFC B recently complained about MEPS Guidance Counselors and I have to admit I don't have any problems like him. The GCs at my MEPS are nothing but some of the finest and most helpful soldiers I've ever had the opportunity to work with. These guys will bend over backwards to make sure that you get an enlistment. If you screw up, you'll get a nice stern talking to, but in the end they make sure your guy can process. I've honestly never had a problem with my MEPS GCs. What I do have problems with is the MEPS Doc and the rest of the medical staff. It seems that when you need an enlistment the most, they find the dumbest reason to disqualify an applicant. Kind of like the time I had an applicant temporarily disqualified because he MIGHT have an ear infection. His DQ sheet actually said that. It didn't say that he DID have an ear infection, but that he MIGHT. I kind of thought that if you have your PHD in medicine, that you'd know if a person had an ear infection or not. The funny thing is that when my NCOIC called me to yell at me about it he actually said, "Didn't you look at his ears before you left for MEPS?" My response was, "I'm sorry MSG, I guess when I went to recruiting school they forgot to issue me my PHD." I think he realized how dumb of a question that was after I gave my sarcastic comment.

So now I'm going into September 1 behind mission. I'm told I need to have my mission finished by the 15th of September. I am confidant that I can pull this off, assuming my guy isn't permanently disqualified. That means I need to find 1 more, 2 to be +1 for the year. We'll see what happens.....

School starts next week so on top of trying to process qualified applicants, I've got to go to all 7 of my schools and deliver all the school supplies. Should make for an interesting month.

-Guardsman

MSM Spin

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I have been busy with work (no enlistments for the last month! I'm such a winner) and I have been busy working on a little something for every one's enjoyment. It's not nearly done yet, but hopefully you will all like it. In the mean time I'd like to comment on some news.

I happened upon this story today and was absolutely amazed at how the main stream media can spin things. From Yahoo News:

BRATTLEBORO, Vermont (Reuters) - Some have appeared naked in a downtown parking lot. Others rode their bicycles or simply strolled the streets in the nude.

Teenagers in the quaint Vermont town of Brattleboro are raising eyebrows this summer with brazen displays of nudity. So far they haven't been arrested or ticketed: public nudity isn't illegal in the town of 13,000 people, unless it's done to arouse sexual gratification. Vermont has a live-and-let-live tradition, allowing skinny-dipping and nude sunbathing....

More....

..."We have a nuclear power plant a few miles away and a ridiculous war in the Middle East, countries getting bombed," said Ian Bigelow, a 23-year-old who had gathered with some of his friends outside a bookstore. "So why's it such a big problem if we chose to get nude?"

This article had seemingly nothing to do with Operation Iraqi Freedom, but SOMEHOW they managed to sneak it in there! How do they think of this stuff? Is some newspaper editor looking at the story going, "Hmm..... nude teenagers in Vermont, huh? Any way to connect this with the war?" So the reporter goes out and pays some kid to say it on the record?

That's got to be what happened in my opinion. I refuse to believe that a bunch of teenagers were sitting around one day and suddenly one of them says, "I don't like the war in Iraq - I'm going to go around nude for a while all because of the war.... and nuclear power.... and Israel bombing Lebanon. Yeah! That's why I'm going nude! It's lawful anyway, anyone want to join me?"

Anyway, I don't think that Ian Bigelow practices the "live-and-let-live" attitude that allows his nudity law. If he did, he wouldn't really care about a nuclear power plant or any wars would he?

-Guardsman

World Trade Center

Having seenUnited 93 and been very happy with the movie, I figured I'd give World Trade Center a try. I went to the movie theatre with a lady friend of mine (no, she's not my new girlfriend), paid $13 for the two tickets (yeah, I know, you people in NYC are paying $13 per ticket) and sat down not quite knowing what to expect.

To tell you the truth, I figured since Oliver Stone created it, it would be full of his usual anti-America political mumbo-jumbo. I knew going into the movie that I would either really like it, or want to kick Oliver Stone's ass! I watched the movie ready to nit-pick everything about it but was pleasently suprised there was no political twist on the movie at all. The movie is not really about the attack itself - but about the way it has changed all our lives. I'm going to stop talking about the movie because I actually recommend that all three of you reading this (or is it 4 if Gordy is still reading my blog?) go out and see it if you haven't already.

I will end with an example of the movie's message. Carlos Mencia really said it best in his pre-Mind of Mencia days:

True, isn't it?

-Guardsman

NEWS FLASH - Missing Egyptian Students NOT Terrorists.

By now every one of my 2 readers (Hey fellow recruiters!)(Hat tip: SFC B) have seen the news about the thwarted terror attack in London.

You both probably saw yesterday's post (if not just scroll down) about the missing Egyptian students. I found an interesting AP video that really got me thinking in relation to the recent attack in London. Watch the video then come back to me.

So Mrs. Shannon Mahoney says that the students are on "vacation" and would rather party in New York City then go to classes in Montana. Surely there is no need for concern.

Cathy Conover says she's "relieved that those students are safe" - Wait a minute Cathy, aren't 5 of them still at large??? But she still says there is "no indication that there is any security concern." After all, they're just out to have a good time while breaking many U.S. and international laws - no harm no fowel right?

One student even said he was glad the FBI is investigating this, but is concerned that they're doing it only because of their national origin.

Well Billy, lets think about this for a second.

Lets look at the names of those 11 students who went missing:

• El Sayed Ahmed Elsayed Ibrahim, 20
• Eslam Ibrahim Mohamed El Dessouki, 21
• Alaa Abd El Fattah Ali El Bahnasawi, 20
• Mohamed Ragab Mohamed Abd Alla, 22
• Ahmed Refaat Saad El Moghazi El Laket, 19
• Ahmed Mohamed Mohamed Abou El Ela, 21
• Mohamed Ibrahim Elsayed El Moghazy, 20
• Ebrahim Mabrouk Moustafa Abdou, 22
• Moustafa Wagdy Moustafa El Gafary, 18
• Mohamed Saleh Ahmed Maray, 20
• Mohamed Ibrahim Fouaad El Shenawy, 17

Now, just for fun, lets look at the list of the 19 terrorists in london:

• Umir Hussain, 24
• Muhammed Usman Saddique, 24
• Waheed Zaman, 22
• Assan Abdullah Khan, 22
• Waseem Kayani, 28
• Waheed Arafat Khan, 24
• Cossor Ali,24
• Tayib Rauf, 21
• Ibrahim Savant, 26
• Osman Adam Khatib, 20
• Shamin Mohammed Uddin, 36
• Amin Asmin Tariq, 23
• Shazad Khuram Ali, 27
• Tanvir Hussain, 24
• Umar Islam, 28, (born Brian Young)
• Assad Sarwar, 25
• Abdullah Ali, 26
• Abdul Muneem Patel, 17
• Nabeel Hussain, 21

Am I the only one who notices something strikingly similar?

Hmm.... could it be that they're all MUSLIM MEN?!

But hey, lets not jump to conclusions here. These students are just going out and having a good time in NYC just like they did back in the old days when they went to Jihadist University. Right?

And to that unnamed student in Montana, I HOPE the FBI is investigating this because of their "national origin" - they have every reason to.

But then again, maybe I'm just a right-wing-crack-pot.

-Guardsman

What is wrong with the FBI?

I was going to do a post on how wonderful my girlfriend is - but she dumped me today so I figured I'd do a post on something that really pissed me off today.

The FBI is either naive or just trying to hard to be politically correct. Lets start with the story that started this thought of mine:

Yahoo News
MINNEAPOLIS - Three Egyptian students who were being sought for failing to turn
up for an exchange program at Montana State University were taken into custody
Wednesday, more than a week after they arrived in the United States.

One student was arrested in Minnesota, and two others surrendered to authorities in New Jersey. They were among 11 students being sought by law enforcement after they failed to attend a month long program on the English language and U.S. history and culture in Bozeman, Mont., the FBI said.

Eslam Ibrahim Mohamed El-Dessouki, 21, was taken into custody in Minneapolis on an immigration violation. Two other students — Mohamed Ragab Mohamed Abd Alla and Ebrahim Mabrouk Moustafa Abdou, both 22 — surrendered to police in Manville, N.J., after hearing media reports that they were wanted, FBI spokesman Steven Siegal said. Eight students remain at large. They arrived in New York on July 29 as part of a group of 17 students. Six students reported to Bozeman on time.

The missing students pose no terrorism threat, the FBI said.

Let me say that again - "The missing students pose no terrorism threat, the FBI said."

What is WRONG with this? Lets look back at September 11th, shall we? Oh yeah - one of the hijackers entered this country ON A STUDENT VISA! 2 others were approved on student visas AFTER entering the United States! Maybe, just maybe, we should start watching people with student visas from Muslim countries a little closer?!

Am I the only one who's appalled by this?

And don't start giving me that "It'll violate their constitutional rights" bullshit - Why does the constitution apply to people who aren't even citizens of this country?!

Well, that's my 2 cents - let the flames begin.

-Guardsman

Why

Well, it's been a while since my last post. You wouldn't believe how busy I've been. I've enlisted 3 new people since then, had a family reunion, took a week off to spend time with a friend from Ireland, worked a county fair, and found time to spend with my girlfriend! I planned to do a new post, but there was a lot of changes I wanted to make to my blog before I did another post. I'm not done yet, but I think it looks damn good!

I figured I'd do my second post as to why I blog.

I decided to blog for many reasons. It just seemed like a good way to get things off my chest for one. This is a way that I can talk about anything I want and leave it out there for anyone to comment. I haven't done that yet, I know, but eventually I'll be blogging more regularly. I'm kind of new to this blogging thing, but I'm not a complete newb. I run another blog for my brother in all actuality. He does most of the posting, I just do the graphics and all that jazz. You can find his blog here. Now you're going to look at his blog and say "Wow, that looks nice - why does yours look so crappy?!" Well his blog is featured on military.com and gets lots of traffic so I spend a lot of time making it look nice. My blog has no readers right now, so you lucky few who have some how stumbled upon my blog aren't so lucky to view a crappy looking blog. Maybe when my brother gets back from deployment, or if I get a lot of readers I'll start making it look better.

I get my inspiration from many places. I read a lot of blogs. The one who really got me interested is Military Recruiter. It's unfortunate that he had to shut his down, but he had his reasons. Who knows, maybe we'll see him again some day. Other bloggers that got me interested, and I read often, are Station Commando and SFC B. SFC B you can now claim that you have 7 readers. Jack Army, Blackfive, and others are places I get inspiration from as well.

I don't get my inspiration from just other bloggers however. I am a man who has dedicated his life to defending freedom, democracy, and the American way. I see that America is under attack from psychopathic sickos who kill in the name of Allah. I just wish more of America can see the same thing! I also see that America is under attack from within it's own borders. I'm not only talking about terrorist cells or the huge illegal immigration problem - I'm talking about politics. I sit at home and watch every day as America is crumbling from the inside out because of the liberal left and the main stream media. They are destroying America for what they call "freedom" and "political correctness". Basically, I see this as my way of doing my part to defend my country from their preferred form of government - socialism. Hence I blog in hopes that somebody will be educated by my writings in between my rants of why I love and hate my job, what's going on in my life, and anything else I find interesting enough to post about.

By the way, if you haven't guessed it by now, yes, I'm a conservative. (And damn proud of it)

-Guardsman