Lawrence!!!!!!

We had a tough week. We lost a couple of good guys. One of whom was gonna go to my station. One had family issues and one knows that he can't take the Spanish. Both of them made their own decisions and I will not criticize them. It's tough to see them go though.

On the upside we had shower remedials on Friday after hours. When the other classes were already going home and having chow, we got to go do exercises on the gravel road, after sprinting a half mile, and then be timed on how long it took to wash off the dirt and blood and get back into full uniform. When we failed to do it in 8 minutes we got to do it again. Luckily there were only 2 reps of this enjoyable Friday activity.

No wait...That wasn't the upside. Oh yeah! The upside was that one of our recently departed comrades had this guy for a roommate. This poor soul!The usual jokes were played on him, but in the end he was a welcome adopted member of our class, (though he has a class of his own) by virtue of his association with our recently departed friend. One of our favorite pastimes of late had been to call out his name loudly and obnoxiously as a class anytime we saw him on campus. This was at first met with chagrin as he felt singled out by all this attention. And the last thing anyone in a military style training camp wants...Is to stand out. You would think that since his connection to our class is no longer with us this foolishness would have ceased. And you would be so very very wrong. If anything our cat-calls have grown louder and more energetic, in remembrance of our fallen hero.

He has learned how to deal with it however, and now responds with little more than a wave and an indulgent murmur, "at ease 638."

The above picture was taken during one of these exchanges while we had thanksgiving dinner bar-B-Q as a class. Here is the alternative non-avian meat product we chose to grill. The turkey just wouldn't fit.

Simon Says

Anybody remember what the punishment was for losing at Simon says? Cuz, I am pretty sure it wasn't extra push-ups.

We are to the portion of the academy where we have P.T. every day and the intensity is picking up. We are running longer and faster and we are spending more time in the mat-room moving our bodies up, down and side to side endlessly. Our instructor has many amusements. One of which is that he will wait until we are so tired by a particular exercise that we stop looking at him and he will alter the exercise to see who is not paying attention. This is amusing for those of us who have learned to watch him even while lying quivering and broken in a pool of our own sweat and drool. For those who have not...not so much.

One of his other favorite amusements is so similar to the aforementioned game of my youth that I would scarcely be able to avoid laughing...If my abs were working anymore that is. In the academy all orders are given with what is called a preparatory command followed by the command to "move." So when we are finished a set of push-ups and are holding the very painful pushup "rest" position, we anxiously wait the command to get "on your feet." But like in Simon Says, if you hear the preparatory command and execute it before the command to move, you are wrong. Unlike Simon says however, when you are wrong you are not excused from the game until the next round, which would indeed be a welcome punishment. Instead you incur the wrath of the pushup gods most sorely, and are most cordially invited to join in the P.T. festivities with increased vigor.

Picture a Mexican Austrian accent that bites off each word in a growl. And it goes something like this.

Instructor: Dowwwn!!

Trainees(screaming): Zero!!!

Instructor: Dowwwn!!

Trainees: One!!!

etc. etc. etc.

Instructor: Dowwwn!!

Trainees: Fifty!!!

Instructor: On your feet!!

shuffling of feet as foolish tired trainees get to their feet, accompanied by an undercurrent of grunts and groans from those trainees recognizing the ploy for what it is.

Instructor: Negative!! Negative!! That was a Preparatory Command only!! @$#*$%&*# How long have you been here!!

slapping sounds of semi-comatose trainees falling to the mat like freshly gutted fish to do their penalty push-ups .

Instructor: Down!!

etc. etc. etc.

Another recent amusement is to bring along various implements of torture for the run. Giant ropes, rubber M16's, and medicine balls. Medicine balls are my favorite. We run in two columns and pass them over our heads to the man behind us as we run. When the ball gets to the end of the column, the last man must sprint, screaming with the medicine ball over his head, to the front of the line and start the merriment all over again.

Being the newer, kinder and gentler patrol we have a gator (six wheeled mini truck with a stretcher in the back) following us in case one of us dies on the run. In "the old patrol" dead trainees were just left to rot in the sun as an example to future classes. Last week the gator mysteriously stopped running... At the furthest point from the end of the run. hmmmmm The instructor driving it looked at us and shook his head. "No gas," he stated simply. "Good thing we got all these bushy tailed trainees here with nothing else to do," he grinned.

A long and extremely profanity-ridden mile and a half later, the gator mysteriously roared to life again. "No gas?" a trainee asked.

"Not a drop," the instructor replied innocently. "Plenty of diesel though."

It really is a lot of fun. No sarcasm at all. I do truly enjoy the creativity they show in our workouts. It could be a lot worse and a lot less exciting. We are practicing with the electro-shock knives a lot more and practicing our strikes and submissions quite a bit as well. Hope everyone is well. Half way point is on Friday!!!!

An open letter of apology to Ashton Kutcher

The Guardian.

I saw it. I liked it. I have apologies to offer. It has been my general opinion that Mr. Kutcher would have absolutely no ability to act his way out of a paper sack...If he were to ever find himself in a paper sack and acting were somehow the key to exiting the afore-mentioned sack. This Saturday I saw The Guardian. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

First and last impression is that this is very high budget recruiting tool for the U.S. Coast Guard. I would be curious to see it their recruiting numbers had been down preceding this films conception. I would not be surprised to find that recruiting was lacking and that it will certainly go up after this movie. It very effectively showed the U.S.C.G. flag and colors for an enormous bulk of the film. The end credits raise this not so subtle recruiting ad to all new heights as the rock and roll background music pounds in rhythm with the spinning rotors of rescue choppers and bouncing C.G. cutters. Gratuitous is the term, I believe.

The second aspect of this film that stood out was the gratuitous paramilitary training portrayal, which accounted for more than half of the movie's running time. I was particularly interested in this portion of the film because I am enrolled in a paramilitary training program right now. I am a member of a training class that has now lost 12 of our original fifty trainees to assorted real and imagined physical ailments. These have ranged from stress fractures and kidney failure, to delusions of rare diseases which cause toxin build up in seldom worked muscle tissue. I personally believe that at least 7 of our 12 losses were primarily "mental-weakness" related. (Translation: They wimped out and faked an injury) This is a result of the intentionally inflicted artificial stress that our instructors try to make a constant feature of training.

The best example of this is the opening scene. The opening credits roll as a large group of wide-eyed recruits roll up to waiting stone faced instructors. I exchanged significant knowing glances with the trainees who went to the movie with me. And when the first instructor boarded the bus and began yelling out his impossible expectation that the bus be empty and immaculate in 15 seconds; we burst out laughing, having heard those exact words just 7 weeks before when we had arrived at training, just as wide-eyed, in our own little bus.

I was not overly offended by the improbable twists and turns of the plot that forced the main characters into reliving past traumatic moments a little too conveniently. This is the stuff of Hollywood. I would have been more bothered if the wise old retired mentor (Kevin Costner) had not luckily been present to head a rescue mission, when his star pupil with whom he had shared his tears, beers and bar-fights, found himself trapped in a sinking ship. I could have done without the sub-plot concerning the divorce of Costner's character. IT IS POSSIBLE TO HAVE A TOUGH DANGEROUS CAREER TO WHICH ONE IS DEDICATED AND STILL BE A SWEET HUSBAND WHO CONSIDERS HIS FAMILY AS WELL AS THOSE HE BRAVELY SERVES PROFESSIONALLY. Some day someone will make a boring film where this is appropriately portrayed.

I have procrastinated the apologies long enough. Ashton, I apologize to you. I have always been baffled by your fame and popularity, and frankly I have been incredibly annoyed by every character you have ever portrayed in any film I have seen you in. Only now do I realize that this may have been a mark of your true acting prowess. Your character was supposed to annoy me, and you did your job so well that I began to associate those feelings of annoyance with you in general. Having now seen you play a role that was not heavily seasoned with inane exaggerations of your character’s unabashed idiocy, I see that you can in fact act your way out of a paper sack were that to become necessary. This is fortuitous because I will no longer be forced to kidnap you and imprison you in such a sack to prove my point. In short I am sorry Ashton. I misjudged you. While I will still avoid the vast majority of your inanely ignorant films, I truly enjoyed your performance in this film and hope to see you again in a film where "Dude!!!" does not constitute fully half of your character’s dialogue.