For those who don't know, stop-loss is when you were scheduled to leave active army on a certain date, but you are instead extended beyond this date to serve a deployment. They made a movie called 'Stop-loss' apparently dealing with this topic, but I never had any desire to see it as it looks stupid.

Many people are upset over the fact that it happens, but most people knew it a possibility as they signed up. You sign up for a few years active, then a few years of IRR, which you consent upon signing that they can call you back into active duty. You serve 8 years total regardless, most people do 4 years active then 4 years IRR where as you could be called back up. Again, when you sign the contract you are told this up front so it shouldnt be a surprise. I'm stop-lossed now and it sucks, but I knew it a good possibility as we are still involved in this weird international thing ... i forget what its called ... oh yeah, War.

People know about it and still complain as if its not fair or the Army is puling one over, when they knew damn well it could happen. Alot of people as well joined after 2001 (when we first went in Afghanistan) and expected to not deploy to either here or Iraq, which is asinine. Did anyone join the Army in 1862 and expect to not be a part of the civil war. Or join in 1944 and expect to not go to Europe? I'm more ready to get out of the service than most people have ever been but I acknowledge that I signed on with this possibility. I won't deny it sucks. Deploying sucks regardless. It just bothers me when people kick and scream and don't do their job when they knew this could happen and they think they're being cheated. Especially the people who this is their first deployment. A friend of mine has spent 5 years between here and Iraq. Which brings up anothr point:

Other services, like the Air Force for example, can deploy for very short times like 4 months or even 60 to 90 days at a time. To those not in 4 months seems like a long time but compared to the 12-15 months standard army deployment its a breeze. So when you have a friend say I deployd 4 times, he may have only been over here a total of 6 months. So watch out for those guys, theyre usually the ones who work in finance or the chow hall and come home with stories about 'seeing the shit' and all this crap they didnt do.

The psychological effects of war are severly damaging, and uncurable in some peoples cases. These people volunteer for the jobs in the front and accept that risk, so don't piss on their accomplishments and disasters. If you here someone talk about beng in the army and doing alot of bullshit they didnt just punch them in the goddamn face. They're obviously too much of a coward to do anything back to you and deserve alot worse. If you would stand along the road and salute as a convoy of coffins with American flags draped over them you would never make up stories like these people do, and you would want to cause exorbitent amounts of pain to those who do.

I dont understand the reasoning behind it. If you served in this capacity in ay form you did more than 99% of the population. I mentioned finance and cooks earlier, but their job is no less important and admirable because they dont get shot at everyday. The Airman's service is no less honorable because he did less time, again hes doing more than most. The only people who can talk down to those people, not that they really do, are the ones out in the front getting bombed and truly seeing hell. And I think they have a right to because of their situations. But they dont. I detest army cliches, but the addage "one team, one fight" is extremely important. All the pieces, all the jobs are needed to do what we have to do. So when you hae people making shit up and taking away from the people actually doing it, it fucks up the whole team. And we have plenty of fuck ups already.

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Have you ever at next to someone you wanted to kill? Seriously wanted dead, not leave you alone, not go away, you wanted this mother fucker to stop breathing. And I don't mean over some bullshit like he cut you off in traffic or said you looked like a tool. I mean did something severe, like killed people you swore to help defend, and theres only one way to stop that asshole. Then imagine sitting right in front of the guy, looking right in his eyes. tension you could cut with a knife. or a machete would be more fitting.

And this is why i bitch so fervently about the gross incompitence all around. Everyones job here is to support the warfighter in one way or another. Either you shoot at the bad gus to win the war, or you keep the trucks running, feed the troops, point them in the right direction to shoot, whatever. You ae either shooting or supporting those shooting and in my opinion if you drag your ass in supporting them then you are just as bad as not shooting to keep them alive. Its easy to forget that when you sit behind a computer all day and never hear gun shots. So when you drop the ball, dont show up to work, whatever, you're allowing Joe out there to be killed. Any job. If you want to be a lazy piece of shit when you're home and fucking around, thats one thing, youre only hurting yourself. But dont do it here ass hole. I worked too goddamn hard to get this asshole to let him go back out and do the same shit to us because you didnt feel like putting a slide show together. Fuck you. Youre as bad as the guys we're shooting at at that point.

Here's another bit of irony; when the mother fucker who is in essence helping the enemy through the course of his inemptness, causing me to work obscene hours, calmy comes to me and asks condescendingly why I'm getting out. Seriously? that's all the better you have to do right now? How do you tactfully tell a superior that you're getting out of the military because people like him shattered your illusion of brave, honorable soldiers and turned it into an image of apalling, unsavable incompitence which you dont ever want to be associated with? The fun is, if I said that to him and stared him in the eye, his response would be "Whu dew u meen?!?!1" Mother Fucker.

The scary part is how your psyche changes when people are shootng and you have a dangerous, tangible enemy around you and you have to be on your toes, and then the lines blur because someone is so inept you think he has to be aiding the enemy. I'm not saying i'll ever do, or am considering doing anything serious. But slapping him in the mouth isn't serious right?

It's amazing the diametrically opposing relationships going on here. On one hand you have this cock sucker who is only a peg or two above the guy i mentioned at the very beginning. Then you have guys that I've only known for a few months, and I will be closer to than I ever could be with other people in other circumstances. Not like he's my friend and we'll talk forever. I'll probably never see these guys again after we leave. But the comradere and the unison of your team in an environment such as this is unrivaled. If I take nothing else from this (and there is plenty) i'll take that feeling of absolute trust, unbreakable by anything. Sure he'll steal my soda when I turn my back but a man who will run to a burning truck to pull you out get a certain trust and closeness that no one ever could. And if theres anyone you can't feel that way with then they should be at the ther end of the barrel.

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So alot of people may not know because you don't think about it unless it applies to you but we can't drink over here. At all. I can see the logic, we do dumb shit when we drink at home, get us 6,000 miles away and surround us with tanks and rifles and then add alcohol and dumb shit will happen. I'm ok with that rule, but its interesting how few people know about it.

The one I'm not ok with is the no porn rule. That's right. A fully grown man is not 'allowed' to look at a picture of a naked woman. And yes pictures of your wife/girlfriend nude are considered pornography and not allowed. Basic training is 2 months and its not allowed there either, but again I can understand its such a short period of time and the idea is to instill discipline. But a year of being away from your wife and the Army doesn't want you to jerk off? And they wonder why the rape incidents are as high as they are.

The alcohol has a direct correlation to safety and keeping people alive. Sucks for me because I can handle alcohol and not do anything dumb, but I can accept it. What is the big safety risk involved with porn? Kiddie porn is illegal eveywhere and should remain illegal here, i agree with that. But my all midget gangbang videos are perfectly legal for a US citizen but not for me. The discipline idea goes out the window because saying porn is bad is saying sex is bad. Sure some porn is bad, and we have laws against it, just like some sex is bad and we have laws against it. But its so easy to just make a cover-all rule to feel better about yourself and give yourself another bullet on your list of shit you did.

We're constantly reminded by our guys how bad the dehumanization of the enemy is. Thats where Abu Graib disasters and killing civilians come from. You no longer see them as humans so you dont treat them as such. But isn't denying the simple qualities that make us human an act of dehumanization in and of itsself? I'm sure I dont need to tell anyone, but this is a very stressful environment. Of my top 3 ways of releiving stress, 1 is in the states, and the other 2 are porn. So I have two options: 1, dont jerk off which is just insane, especially when the former surgeon general encouraged it for health; and 2, sleep with some one, and since the army frons upon cheating that really puts most soldiers in a bind.

Its all a moot point anyway; soldiers are going to do what soldiers are going to do. And I tip my hat to some of the creativity the guys have to go around the rule in question. I had a guy in the back of a truck whip out his Ipod, whip out his ... you know ... and go to town while we were waiting to roll out. You're not going to stop it and its asinine to even attempt to. Yes, if someone tries to go watch porn in the middle of a fire fight that would cause problems, but other wise theres no safety/discipline/good order issue at all. I agree the porn shouldnt be openly visible, and shouldnt be in the work area or on government computers. But if a guy has a mag stashed under his bed is that the worst thing in the world? We're over here fighting a fucking war, stop trying to take away the comfort of remembering wat we're fighting for. Fuck.

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I hate to shatter peoples' illusion but mine was sharply shattered and I made a much bigger commitment to get to this point. I won't flat out say anything bad amout people in the military, especially specific people, because that goes against our whole ethics and what not.

But think about it logically. Soldiers are humans. In theory better trained, more disciplined and loyal humans, but humans all the same. One standard of human beings is that we fuck up. All of us. So logically soldiers are bound to fuck up. My problem is the quality of the average human, which I think correlates to the same in the military. Sure I may be more cynical than most but I think for good reason. The average person will stab you in the back. Its expected. We're wired to survive, by whatever means. Nowadays its almost required to step on other people to ensure that survival. No matter how good a 'friend' you might think they are, ultimately it comes down to "you or me". SImple human nature, applies to all humans.

It sucks enough being anywhere, but its really unnerving here. And I dont want to focus on just the negative. As much (if not more) as people can amaze you by the scandalous shit they can do to their fellow soldier, they can do FOR their fellow soldier. If you don't buy it just read one Medal of Honor story. But its a simple fact: as amazing as these people were, there are their equivalent opposing force that are just terrible people. And again, I go back to the average person who is not at either extreme but I think closer to the more nefarious extreme than the admirable one. The people who can only derive respect by condescending soldiers because of their rank, not merit. The people who fuck up and stand there silent when everyone is punished for it. The people who remove your name from a product to send it up as their own. The people who hold a grudge at you for calling them a dick and a useless waste of a uniform for doing it. Its everywhere. Fuck theres enough people outside making life miserable that I shouldnt have to look over my shoulder for the people 'on my team'.

Before joining I saw people in uniform and thought they were like a higher class of humans. That was quickly taken away. The simple truth is we're another group of human beings with, in theory, and admirable goal. Alot of people join for very selfless reasons, and alot of people for selfish. I'm a mix of the two so im not trying to condemn anyone here, I just think people are loyal or admirable based on their nature, upbringing, experiences and you can't be taught it, likewise you can't just expect people to have these qualities because its expected of them. Sometimes a selfish person can have a selfless person do something amazing and change that selfish persons' whole perspective. I hate sounding so bitter and cold but I've found thats' how you have to be or else you'll get proper fucked.

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Subject says it all. Its averaging 120 degrees which really blows considering i prefer the cold. but thats tolerable.

The intolerable part is being surrounded by people shooting at you. That part gets old quick. Surrounded by people who want to kill you for being white ... high school all over again. And a cowardly enemy at that. shooting at us from behind their women and children. Fuckers.

Part of what scares me is some peoples' mentality of "kill 'em all." I love that album as much as anyone but it completely defeats the purpose of us being here if we follow that 'logic' and I use the term very loosely. If we went with that inane plan we could do it from home and I'd have no reason to be over here.

And speaking of inane, while these guys are shooting at us and my guys and I are trying to stop it, we get major movements pushed back because our ppt slideshow is missing a horizontal line to separate text more clearly. are you fuckig serious? and if it was one remote instance I'd let it go but its all over the place. because one guy wants to look a smidge better for his superior he pushes other peoples hard work back to give the bad guys more time to prepare. who's side are you on?

It is amazing to see some of the positive we are doing over here besides blowing bad guys up. Its hard to see the purpose of the war until you're here. All themedia bullshit is exactly that. Afghans have built us statues to show their thanks but you wont see that on the news, just the bad shit. Why is that? I refuse to believe that people only want to hear bad. I refuse to believe we've sunk so low as a species. Then I look around and realize ... yeah we probably have sunk that low. God I hate human beings.

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Almost forgot about this bad rod. Gotta see the last update, probably a year by now. And its probably not the first year lapse I've had here to show how long I've been 'on'. But it is always fun to look back and see what pissed me off enough to write something on the internet. And it seems ALL my entries are about something, or more often, someone pissing me off.

But on a lighter note; the following is the easy fix for anyone like me who has alot of music who needs sorting:

Step 1: Get the song "Wolf & Raven" by Sonata Arctica (from the Silence album)
Step 2: Put the song in your folder with all other music
Step 3: Hit Ctrl + A (select all)
Step 4: Ctrl click "Wolf & Raven" (deselecting the song)
Step 5: Hit delete

There. All solved as you know have the only song humanity needs to progress and survive. Don't say I never did anything to better the world

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