The Life Of A Troop

Here I sit, late as hell at work with nothing to do as usual with the graveyard shift. It's all I can do to keep from falling out of my chair from drowiness. I'm on my second wind though so I thought I'd post a little somethin' for y'all. Lately I've felt a bit detached from reality, or zombified, from the weird/lack of sleep I've had over the past few days from this work schedule. BUT we got our new Marine in yesterday and thing will finally be back to normal in about a week once we break him in. And he seems alright, we'll see how things go.

I also got assigned the Toys for Tots gig this year so I'm in charge of putting all that together. I thought it was going to be a headache but it's turning out to be pretty easy actually. Still a day off would be much welcomed at this point.

Now in the midst of my late night surfing that I do to keep occupied, I ran across this post on my friend's blog. Take a moment to link over to it and read it. Welcome back. Let me say a couple of things about what it's like for a Marine on deployment overseas to a place like Iraq, Korea, etc. For starters, the military dictates what you are required to bring. It's usually enough to get by for a few months. Anything else is up to you and if you have enough room left in your seabag or MOLLE pack after you pack the requisite gear. But once you stay somewhere an extended amount of time like Iraq undershirts tear, razors dull, socks get lost.

And the military doesn't do much as far as logistics to get those kind of things to troops because they have a different priority on hand and that's winning the war. Anything else are resources being wasted, so commodities are minimally supplied by the military if at all. Under just about any circumstance the only thing the military is required to provide you is an initial issue of uniforms, a montly sustenance allowance, a place to live, and basic pay. All other expenses are incured by the soldier. So out in a place like Iraq they have no where to turn for supplies, that's why the support that people have shown for our troops overseas has been such a great thing. Another thing is, if the military had to supply those things to deployed troops the extra cost would be HUGE. It would definitely hit the taxpayers in some way. However Justin, you're "necessities" are more than welcome too. :)

My biggest problem with this war has been our exit strategy or lack thereof. We've really dug ourselves in a hole because if we pull out now we leave it worse than when we went in, the interim government can't handle the current situation. And if we stay it's just going to cause more dissent. I hope someone in the chain of command comes up with something soon cause this is starting to drag on.

Ok, well I've ranted on long enough. Post your comments if I missed something or you have a question. I'm pretty tired, I prolly left something out that I meant to say.