Originally posted by vindicktive vinny
dammit. still no war stories.
i want to hear about that time the bunch of you have to wipe each other down, changing each others diapers and carefully clean each others hard to reach places with a damp cloth because there werent enough water for a proper shower.
a bunch of naked men with hard hat on and nothing else grooming each other with deadly assault rifles in one hand and a damp cloth in the other under the hot, unforgiving afghan sun.
did u want some? people always want to hear shit about chasing down taliban with knives and gutting them alive and shit and if you're stories aren't like that they're going to call you a pussy but the reality of the situation is they weren't there and there's a LOT more shit that comes with the territory of being in the military and in a hostile country that people who haven't been there just aren't aware of, although it's not necessary to experience those things in that exact setting.
for example, the first time that i was sure someone was actively trying to kill me was a real eye opener. i remember hearing explosions nearby that were shaking the building that i was in, and getting huge rushes of anxiety/euphoria/adrenaline comparable to a drug, kinda like meth except way more scary. your mind doesn't really forget those things, even if they are minor, they linger in the back and effect your perception of the world.
or seeing friends who were once strong young men with the world in front of them just mentally destroyed by combat. and the constant fear of death. when i was in afghan this guy in my unit was suicidal so they took his gun away and put him on suicide watch but when they turned their back for a minute he ran for someone else weapon and shot himself in the head with it before anyone could stop him. i rode in the ambulance after that and it smelled like brains while the corpsman was telling me what the smell was and that the guy basically made himself braindead so they had to pull the plug.
i know/worked with/were friends with a lot of people who died. i know there are more that are dead that i don't know of because i just haven't seen them since boot camp/some other place we were both stationed.
you see the evil in humanity, you realize some people are shaken and upset over almost killing or killing children/innocents and that others it doesn't bother at all, and that you are legally obligated to take orders for those people and you may be forced to do something you know is unethical by people who don't care, and it wouldn't be a problem for them to send you to jail for doing the right thing and make themselves out to be heroes still.
that's another thing about the military, the vast majority of it is made up of pieces of shit who like recognition. they do anything for people to call them a hero because they know people are naive and will think they are a hero. they use it to justify whatever they want to and act like total dickheads. i remember once we were doing this exercise on a ship and there was this massive storm that was shaking the boat but they had some flying they were supposed to do that day that the higher ups who were in charge of it really wanted to get done, so they forced them to fly in the weather anyways and i remember them going out to fly and looking scared shitless. all for some other dudes promotion. by the way, this wasn't in war, this was training, so it could have easily been called off. you get in a lot of these situations in the military though, where someone else is risking your life over something really petty.
as far as the less horrible stuff, it gets fucking cold in afghanistan in the winter. for my first deployment we didn't have any water heating for a couple of months so every shower was ice cold. temps were like in the 20s or 30s at night, and i worked night shift a lot, which means you're out in the cold for hours working in the dark. or in the summer, during the daytime working on a giant metal helicopter in 120 degree weather.
you don't really have any of the comforts of home, no privacy, no good food (the dankest shit they had was cold cut sandwiches), no freedom or ability to go places or do anything. you're literally prohibited by law to have sex or do drugs/drink. your entire life shrinks down to the people you work directly with, and various forms of death machines. there's no room for anything creative or playful or for yourself. you just sit and watch your life go by and watch people die and get hurt physically and mentally for a dumb reason.
anyways this kind of turned into a rant about the military. there's a lot of little things that happen too, like being on a bus that had to be diverted because there was an IED on the road, getting rocks thrown at you, once i was running on base and outside these two afghan dudes pulled up on the other side of the fence and were giving me that "if we knew we wouldn't get shot from that guard tower right now we'd gladly kidnap and behead you" look, coming back on helicopters with bullet holes in them, shit like that, but all of that stuff was kind of just stuff that happened. idk
The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
