Merry Christmas & New Changes

Merry Christmas to all!!!!

In light of the new year, I've decided to upgrade my account to the new version of Blogger, now run by Google. If things are messed up, I'm sorry but please bear with me for the change over. I use a lot of custom code so I don't know how it will play with the new version of blogger.

-SGT Guardsman

What is wrong

with people? Lately I have been noticing something going in in the military that is really pissing me off and I just need to get this off my chest.

I am sick and tired of soldiers doing stupid, wrong things and NOBODY says a damn thing about it until it's too late.

I'm not only talking about the huge ones like Abu Gharib, and Greene who raped a girl and murdered her entire family, or the things that the hippies use to call us all rapists, murderers, baby killers, and all the other names they call us. I'm also talking about the little things.

I'm talking about the little things like the video of a bunch of male soldiers taping a female soldier to a pole and tickling her when she obviously didn't want to be in that situation. It's not only disturbing that these soldiers did it and laughed about it, it's also disturbing that nobody said anything to stop it. People walked by and just thought "those aren't my soldiers, who cares, I won't get in trouble." 2 guys had the right idea, they walked into the situation and realized it was wrong, then saw a camera and booked not wanting to be apart of it. Why didn't those 2 soldiers DO anything about it. They obviously knew it was wrong!

Then there is this video of an NCO in the turret of his HMMWV teasing a bunch of Iraqi children with a bottle of water. One of the kids runs at full sprint for a long time and never even gets the water. The NCO and the soldier filming it (probably a PVT) laughing about it the whole time. Are they TRYING to make more insurgents? How do they expect to win the hearts and minds of the people when they're doing stupid shit that makes those children believe that all Americans are assholes. A freaking NCO should know better than to do stuff like that. That's the stuff that PVTs do that we as NCOs teach them not to.

Then there is this video of a couple of soldiers who wait for one of their "buddies" to go into the port-a-potty then two of them run and jump on it, tipping it over with their buddy inside. I happen to find this funny in some sick sort of way but it is still wrong. The fact that 3 soldiers were involved and not one of them thought "gee, maybe this is a bad idea" disturbs me. Didn't they think they were destructing property that isn't theirs? Didn't they think that their friend could become very sick from being exposed to all that raw sewage?

There's also this picture(warning, she's nude), one of many, of a female SPC (now PVT?) in Iraq posing nude. While I find these pictures highly erotic (I'm a guy, give me a break), I also recognise how wrong they are since she's doing them in uniform. In the end it makes us all look bad. Obviously she wasn't alone when she was taking the pictures - and you know she told some of her friends about them before they started getting around (girls gotta have something to talk about when they go to the bathroom in mass numbers). Some how nobody thought "gee, this is wrong. We shouldn't do this. We could get in trouble for this."

Frankly I'm sick and tired of it. I strive every day to live by the Army Values. I know I'm not perfect, but I know I wouldn't do the stupid shit these people have done. When I was younger I might have done those things but as an NCO I strive every day to be an example for my subordinates and my applicants/enlistees alike. Every time one of these people do stupid shit like this it brings us all down another rung on the ladder.

What the hell is wrong with these people?!

As all of this has been coming to a head I've decided that I'm going to do something about it. I don't care who it is, what their rank is or who that soldier belongs to - if I see them doing something stupid I am going to do something about it. I'm going to say something, I'm going to do something, I'm going to make sure it stops. If I can stop one soldier from doing something that would have otherwise ended up on the evening news making us all look stupid I feel like I've accomplished something.

The only question I have is who's with me?

**UPDATE 12/15** Check out this video of soldiers teaching kids how to speak english for the first time..... I can't believe that nobody, especially the NCOs, didn't say anything. I can see how it's kind of funny, but oh so wrong.

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So mission is going pretty good actually. I came into the month -4 and I knew I'd have my work cut out for me. I have spent the last week pulling 12+ hour days making sure I make mission. Last week I enlisted 2 new soldiers into the Army National Guard leaving me with 2 left to go. I can do this - 2 in the first week and 5 solid interviews done I know I'm on the right track to get back on track. This week wasn't without set-backs though.

I interviewed a kid on Monday and everything seemed good to go. He scored a 73 on the practice ASVAB and had no law violations.... or so I thought. Turns out he's got a possession of cocaine on his record so he's gone for good. I had a kid no-show me on Tuesday only to apologize and reschedule when I called him - he no-showed me again on Saturday. I had another girl call me - SHE called ME - and then she no-showed me on Saturday after I drove an hour to meet her. But I've got some good things going so as long as I don't stop working and I keep my head up high, I'll get through this just fine.

-Guardsman