Made it safe to San Jose

The traffic driving up here was actually went smoothly after I expected to drive through the storm of the century and lots of accidents. It did rain but not till after I was on the Grapevine and then it wasn’t too bad. Glad I missed the big one. I suffer a fear of getting snowed in while on leave or away for the weekend. It happened to me once in the 90’s but I did make it to work on time but

Holidays, it’s time to drive

I got back from 29 Palms last week and within an hour of getting in my warm home, was struck down with a cold. It was freezing out there in those non-insulated, non-heated tin shacks, in fact, I almost got snowed in on the drive home (note, it’s pretty easy to snow in a Californian), I don’t remember it ever snowing in this part of the Mojave Desert.(here's a picture of the ride home from my cell

29 Palms

I’m off in another land, another desert but this time with less internet access. I have a Sprint wireless card and Sprint seems to be the only carrier that works out here at Camp Wilson (a camp located in the middle of 29 Palms) even so, the service is really spotty. A common sight to see out here are small clumps of people that at first glance look to be smoking but when get closer and see

Mini Reunion

(I wrote this a week ago but this was the first time I've been on the internet)One of the wonders of social networking is the ability to gather people who share a common element. Before my trip to Prescott, I had told two classmates that I would meet up with them on my next trip out and left a comment about that on Facebook. Other people from my graduating class started pinging in and so we

Mario Kart Love Song

When you're trying to explain the why of playing video games to your wife, this guy does the best job I've ever seen, now if only I could carry a tune.

Thanksgiving 2008 take one

I woke this morning (actually Thanksgiving morning) to the smell of a smorgasbord of pies baking in the oven, crashed out on my mom’s couch, my nephews Corbin and Mason were sitting on the floor looking up at me. “Uncle Sean, you snore!” Yup, I’m home.My mom’s a restaurant owner, she did own a dine in place up in Seligman, a small town on Route 66 but sold the place a couple of years ago to

The Beast is Gone

Back in 2000 when I was taking my sabbatical from the Navy and working as a mechanic, I purchased a 1989 Diesel Suburban. I had a lot of tools and wanted something I could load everything up into that had an alarm system and got reasonably good gas (in this case diesel) mileage. She served me well but I admit that she did break down several times when I really needed her. Went through 2

"Tagged" as a "Bookworm :)"

One of my favorite Soldiers Angels Kathi tagged me as a bookworm (or as she says "who is the most voracious reader I know!". Guess that's saying a lot. The rules are: Pass it on to five other bloggers, and tell them to open the nearest book to page 56. Write out the fifth sentence on that page, and also the next two to five sentences. The CLOSEST BOOK, NOT YOUR FAVORITE, OR MOST INTELLECTUAL!The

Chestnuts roasting over an open fire..

…well in a toaster oven anyways. The bride has taken on upon herself to show me all of the best of the local area around San Jose. The other day we went on a cruise along Skyline Drive. It’s a road that goes along the ridgeline of the Santa Cruz Mountains in a twisty and heavily wooded path, beautiful and definitely scenic drive. So we’re driving along through these huge trees intermittent with

The Mystery Spot

Saturday, the bride and I drove down to Santa Cruz and she said she wanted to bring me to the Mystery Spot. I thought she meant someplace to surprise me but instead, we went to “The Mystery Spot”, touristy place located just inland of Santa Cruz, California. According to legend, it’s a circular area of gravitational anomaly that is 150 feet in diameter. Supposedly, there are changes in gravity,

The worst sound ever

I drove up to San Jose last Friday and one of my ways to pass time on long cross country drives is to catch up on friends on the phone. Why waste all of that time. I was on the phone with Wendy from Chromed Curses when I suddenly hear a squeal though the phone and a crash and she says, “I gotta go, someone just rear ended me!”, I said “Bye!”. A couple of hours later, I call her to make sure she

Road tripping San Jose and some thoughts about Veteran’s Day

I’ll be out of town hanging out with the bride this weekend but I wanted to put a post up with a few thoughts on Veteran’s Day before I left. I served all throughout the 90’s without really thinking about what it means to be a veteran. It was peace time and being in the military was just another job with a lot of travel perks and interesting people to meet. The only weapons I saw were at the

Remember…Remember

That the fifth of November is always my birthday.I’m actually doing a somewhat political post, since the election is over, I'm not going to sway anyones vote. As a pretty middle of the road guy, I admit, liked both candidates and choosing between the two of them was a bit difficult but in the end (well 3 weeks ago) I mailed in my vote. I liked that they didn’t seem lean heavily one way or another

Knott's Berry Farm Veteran's Day Tribute

Don't forget, from the first of November till Thanksgiving, all Veteran's and one guest can get into Knott's Berry Farm for free, addional tickets can be purchased for 15 bucks. It's a great deal hands down, just make sure you try out the Silver Bullet, it's much more fun then the silver bullet that I give out. Ask any of my Marines. Details of the Tribute can be found here. I'm going to see

Before the Sun

We rose and showed up at 5, just the 7 of us on this bonding exercise and drove down to the pier. We went on a charted trip with H&M Landing, military rate 55 bucks.The sunrise off the ocean that morning was one of the most beautiful I’ve seen in years. But I’ll let you see for yourselves.Below is my favorite picture of the dayWe pulled out past Cabrillo and went north a short ways right off the

2008 Navy Ball

I had a date last Friday with my wife to celebrate the Navy's 223rd Birthday up at the Camp Pendleton SNCO Club. I had some mixed feelings about holding the Ball at a base club but it ended up being a great show with good food and affordable drinks. Good job guys! The only think that was missing was being able to party till you stumbled back to your room. No loss for me, I’m not the party animal

Silver Lining

The bubble has burst and watching the news, they make it almost seem like we’ve reached a point of no return. After a decades of the stock market going up and millions of American's joining the ranks of home owners, the tide has turned. Words like deflation, recession, depression are catch phrases that are flowing off people’s tongues. In the midst of this, some people are breathing a sigh of

Doc in the Box on the removing of toenails

I am a corpsman but don't really blog about medicine that much, so here’s a medical post. The most common medical problem that requires minor surgery while deployed with my Marines seems to be ingrown toenails (I don't know if that's true for others but it is for me) and here’s a video I made of me in action taking out part of a toenail (yes, I screwed up and ripped it in half, but it still came

Yay, fixed my links on the side:)

but I killed my cool clock, I suppose some readers will rejoice:(

MCAS Miramar 2008 Airshow F-22 Raptor

I've seen many shows, I can't even count how many times I've seen the Blue Angels but the F-22 was something totally different. This plane did things I wouldn't have expected to see out of a Robotech cartoon. The thrust vectoring really does make a difference, while other shows showed off speed and power, this aircraft danced across the sky, making incredibly tight turns. Remember the movie Top

Zune finally adds support for Audible.com

I admit it, I like listening to audiobooks when I drive cross country and usually with my 1000 mile hauls and the cost of CD's, it can been an expense proposition. I did the Twilight series while driving 3000 miles over to Arizona and northern California which was a hundred bucks give or take. Which would have cost me a fraction of that if I could have downloaded it on my Zune which wasn’t

Miramar Air Show 2008 MAGTF Display (Marine Air Ground Task Force)

Marines showing their stuff, it gives Joe Public a small but exciting glimpse of what the real deal is like. The show is put on by regular Marines with no other special training then doing what they normally do day to day yet they pull it off perfectly each year.

MCAS Miramar Airshow and the people I worked with

Part of being attached to Third Marine Air Wing for a corpsman is the annual airshow work drive, last year, we ran a food booth. This year, we actually did medical coverage and I was the LPO (leading petty officer) for the Mini-ambulances on the east side of the flight line. Each year, months before October, we let everyone know that they can’t take leave during that this time period. Other

Books for Soldiers might close

Out of all of the military support sites out there, there is one that I hold near and dear to my heart (well two if you consider Soldiers Angels, but they’re more family because I know many of the key players), Books for Soldiers. My first trip out to Iraq in 2004, one of my buddies on a message board told me about this website that you put your info down on and they would send you free books and

Vegas isn't a place to send bloggers

because we write about everything.The USO Girls tell a good tale but they left a few parts out. Lt Nixon was as cool in person as he was onlin, Blackfive threw a bash and here's his words, next time, I'll bring my blackhawk bag. Not only did he hook us up with an open bar at the Penthouse Club but he also talked his way into staying at the penthouse at the Mirage, thanks Penthouse Magizine for

Debrief on the Milblog Conference

If there was an overall theme at the conference, it was that we do make a difference. When I looked around the room, I could see how much we had all grown over the last 4 years. It’s strange to think I’ve done the blogging thing longer then a regular enlistment. In that room, I could count off the people who have been involved in feature documentaries, appearances on radio and TV, here alone, we

My friend has passed

Last year, he was one of my greatest supporters, we talked back and forth and while he might have been the most non-politically correct foul mouthed rude blogger I have ever linked, he was also my friend and a good man. This morning Bane passed (if you click, he was definitely NSFW), fair winds and following seas brother, you will be missed.

Milblogging: The New Cadre of War Reporters

I’m watching Greyhawk, JP, Toby Nunn, Bouhammer and Christian from Military.com who embedded they’re getting the nitty gritty of what it’s like to blog from the ground and what they went through.

It doesn't stay in Vegas

Panel #3 Live DoD Bloggers Roundtable

Hosted by Jack Holt from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Ward Carroll of Military.com and John Dovovan of Castle Argghhh with special guest, the Honorable Pete Geren, Secretary of the U.S. Army. Secretary Geren just stated that as far as the internet, he’s roadkill. A constant theme this year panel after panel is the upper leadership of the military services are starting to

Panel #1 Are Milblogs Still Relevant?

With Ward Carroll of Military.com, Phil Carter of Intel Dump and Obama for America, Matt Burden of Blackfive, Greyhawk of The Mudville Gazette and CJ Grisham of Soldier’s Perspective. They talked about the future of Milblogging where Milblogging has changed since 2003 and the invasion of Iraq. These guys are mostly the big names in the milblogging community, Matt is a “Rockstar” and has a

What goes on in Vegas gets blogged about

Thursday started out with a phone call from Sherri asking for a ride from the airport, her roommate LL had missed her flight and she was homeless and needed a hero come and pick her up. I rolled out of bed and grabbed a quick shower. She and I spent the rest of the day meeting people, moving them back and forth the by the store to buy a fridge full of recreational drinks.LL finally landed and we

Blogworld Morning Post

After a wild party at The Penthouse Club’s VIP room last night, it was an amazing time. Open bar at one of the best clubs in the city, how can you beat that? Thanks for the support Penthouse!This morning wasn’t as fun, we all came in stumbling in this morning to the Milblogging track at the Blogworld and New Media Expo, well many of us did, I only had 3 drinks last night because I knew I wouldn’t

Panel #2 Milblogging as a Community

A look a how the Milblogging Community was built. A panel discussing focusing on mostly military support people and how they tie in with the Milblog community. Panelist include Melinda of SpouseBUZZ, Beth of Soldiers’ Angels, Mrs. Greyhawk of The Mudville Gazette and Milblogs, Karen of Parents Zone and Sarah of SpouseBUZZ.

Blog4Tix and Vegas

If you're in Vegas Thursday and Friday sign up for Blog4Tix, they're giving out free tickets to Blue Man Group, Mamma Mia, Siegfried & Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat and the Roller Coaster at NYNY. Unless someone wants to go with me to a night show tonight, I'm going to probably just chek out the Roller Coaster or the Secret Garden tomorrow. All they ask is for a blog post afterwards,

BlogWorld & New Media Expo and the 2008 Milblog Conference

Myself and several thousand regular Bloggers and Milbloggers will be will be trekking across a vast desert (without people shooting at us) by plane, train and automobile till we arrive at a small southwestern town called Las Vegas this weekend for the BlogWorld Expo. Yes, it’s that time of year again for the 3rd annual Milblog Conference (small joke, the last one was May 07)where we have

Ike Live Coverage

Like a moth to the flame, I can't stop watching. I found this link that streams 4 of the local TV stations from Houston an Galvestin live in one place. Plus the usual stuff at weather.com and CNN. John from Blogs of War has been live blogging all night. Some crazy stories coming out of the area, live and unfiltered.Perhaps my wife has a good point with her hurricane fear.

I cut the cord

No, not that cord, I mean I’ve gone all of the way and switched over to cellular wireless internet.  My days of stealing WiFi signals are now over and I’ve signed up to Sprints mobile broadband service.  After all of these years of complaining about finding internet service while on the road and the crappy quality of unsecured wireless signals, I’ve taken the fatal plunge.  From my apartment,

Long Road Home

I pulled back into San Diego after 3 weeks of leave, 3000 miles on my new car and 500 on the truck. During the long drive, I finished the entire Twilight Series, it’s strange to think that the two biggest selling Mormon authors write SciFi and Vampire novels.Anyway, it’s back to the grind, my wife is going to grad school in another part of the state which gives me some time to sink into the job

Road Tripping

Spent a couple of days in Prescott with my son Collin, selling one of my trucks a 98 S-10, I put it on craigslist and it was sold half an hour later. That’s what you get for putting it on for 500 under low blue book. I sort of fell into another truck a couple of weeks ago, a 97 Toyota Tacoma which I picked up for a steal, thanks Sandy. It wouldn’t pass smog in California, so I got a special power

Two Weeks Back

It was around 8 Monday night when we got off the plane, I came back in a smaller group of 25 people who weren’t part of the greater bulk of Marines who filled the rest of the flight going back to the states so when we hit the ground, the rest of them were making a formation while we milled around for a second then broke for the crowd. My wife was standing out of the gaggle like a pink jewel and

One of my Martial Arts Videos

Out of 20 or so videos that I strung together to make the entire video, it will give you a taste of what I put together. These guys were going though the Tan, Gray or Green belt course and it was no joke. Sgt Luna was our instructor and I've never seen his like, great job brother. Video and pictures taken with the Canon S3 I purchased at the beginning of the deployment.PS. Hellboy II rocks!

I'm home

and there is no place I'd rather be in the world right now and I think the picture speaks for itself. Thanks for the support.

Kuwaiting Take 8

Once again I’m hanging out in this hot and sandy place, we flew in early one morning and I said to Swear, “it’s not too bad today” and he replied with “it’s only 8:30 in the morning” and I said “Oh”. One of my Marines had injured their back during the unloading process so I made a trip over to medical where they kindly provided some medical care and on my dime, I took her over to Taco Bell for

My first feature length film

As my time draws to a close out here, I had one more project to complete. The book form cruise book fell though because we couldn’t get enough people to buy them to make it economically feasible. So, the cruise book staff voted to make another DVD and me, being the DVD guru with a brand spanking new laptop to handle it was put in charge. We had less then a month.First I needed to gather a game

Running on Fumes

One thing that is good about being out at war is that I don't have to fork over a large pile of money to fill up my gas tank. That's all going to change before too long and I'll be back in the land of pumping gold into that tank. In fact, I'll be paying more then most because I drive a diesel. I remember back in the early 90's, if I wanted to make a weekend road trip to Arizona, 20 bucks worth

Making a Video

The hardest part of making a unit video for me is the first step, coming up with the music and theme then bending my mind around that idea. Once that’s done, everything else does start falling into place, the gaps get filled in and there’s a sense of accomplishment as sections get done till finally, a finished product. With a good enough idea and the proper eye and ear candy, the video can take

My brain has stopped adding words together

I’ve hit the slump of the deployment along with many of the Marines and Sailors that I work the only difference is this is the first time that the slump has shut down my writing cold. I would put an idea on paper and try to expand on it and would end up having monosyllable conversations with myself. As painful as it is to have a conversation with one of those people, it’s worse to read it. I

A ticket to 1408

Just got done watching 1408 and I’m thinking it might be truly the spookest movie I’ve seen in years, John Cusack is the man. It’s going to give me dreams when I go to sleep. I’m not going to get into it more but to say, watch it, I would highly recommend it, yes, highly.No good deed goes unpunished, I got dimed out from several different sources to put together the video that’s going to run

Playing with new toys

Sorry about the blogging hiatus, I’m in the process of shutting down my old laptop and getting my new one spun up and backing up everything twice. This is the first laptop that I’ve actually maxed out the RAM and it books. I’ve taken it though it’s paces and haven’t been able to find anything that really slows it down. Even when it had 2 gigs of RAM, editing a half hour movie only caused a few

The Little Black Bunny of Doom

Going to war has always been a somewhat mythical experience, legends often rise up and just as many are dashed to the ground (well really, mostly just rumors and stories). One such tale I've heard over the last couple years (since 2006) as been of a black bunny who comes out at dusk and goes up to strangers and allows them to pet him. Yeah, right, in the middle of war zone with some sort of

Break down.

I’ve complained about my laptop for the past year or so, battery had gone out on it, the fan was making strange sounds and it was having problems processing anything. So I cleaned out the fan, added another gig of ram and got the biggest battery they make for my model and why? A while back, being the unit photo dude, I was asked by one of my higher ups to make up a mid deployment unit video

Head in the Sand, Eye on the Lens

Sorry about not raising it up, I’m in the middle of working on the unit midterm cruise book video and the project has taken up a rather large footprint on my brain. By virtue of being the guy behind the camera, I tend to get caught in the side jobs of putting all of the pictures I took together into a cohesive whole. It’s a little bit of pressure on me because it’s not one of those jobs someone

Sean Dustman, Columnist?

A couple of weeks ago, I received an email from an editor at the Navy Times asking me to do a column on their back page called Backtalk. I thought for a couple of days, wrote up a post and a couple of days later, submitted a very edited version of that post with some pictures. They liked it and it sounds like it will be in the next edition of both the Navy and the Marine Corps Time with a

I missed an afternoon

Last Sunday, I took most of the afternoon off and went to my room and watched SciFi channels Children of Dune in its entirety and ate sweet rice with fish sauce and crushed red chili. Basically disconnected from everything behind the comfort of my blue walls and kicked my feet up. Little did I know that outside a storm was raging, the dust had got so bad inside of my work that fire alarms were

JUST A CORPSMAN By HM2 (DOC VADER) Benitez

(note, I didn't write this, just using it by permission, it tells a bit about what I do)I recently was engaged in a heated argument with a young sergeant during this argument the sergeant said to me “You are just a corpsman” This angered me to no end, as we continued with the patrol I thought about his statement. You are just a Corpsman.I realized that even though he may have thought he was

New nickname

My doctor dubbed me the Grim Reaper last night and to others, mentioned the name, Angel of Death. You know, that guy with the pale bony face who supposedly appears right before someone kicks the bucket? Not that anyone has kicked the bucket in my presence for a long time but because all of my injured Marines have been kind enough to do it when I happen to be taking pictures with my camera. Yes

Easter and Juno

Just lying in my bed watching Juno and my roommate is across the way is watching wrestling which seems to be on out here every other night. I’m totally digging the movie and typing this at the same time which calls for much editing later. But got to write when the feeling calls. We had a Bar-b-q for Easter Sunday, even though we’re at the edge of the world, our PX still carries frozen t-bones,

Coping Cliques

Coping CliquesWe each find our way of coping with the distance. Being a Corpsman of Marines, it's turned me into a watcher of people and being tapped as the unit photographer, that gives me an unbiased license to see everything.Humans are social beings, the interaction between people give me hours of enjoyment just observing. Lately my focus has been on the unconscious cliques people form to deal

It's a small world

Back in the late 90's I was stationed at NWS China Lake, a Navy base down the street from Death Valley and worked for this cranky old first class named Mark Lawrence. Mark was famous for making grown men cry, an act I had witnessed every couple of months while I was there. But for some reason, Mark and I got along like peanut butter and jelly and made a great team running the Aviation Medicine

When a sailor talks about coffee, he talks about it like he would a lover. Any Navy place you go to, there’s a coffee mess, usually with a tip jar towards supplies but it actually doesn’t matter if someone puts money in there or not. Because there is always going to be someone like me or my doc who will pay out of pocket to fill the thing up just to make sure it’s stocked.In Iraq, I’m drinking

Groundhog Day

The rituals are starting to sink in, the little idiosyncrasies, the quarks that each of us do to stay sane with the sameness. Our secret pet peeves are now common knowledge and the people we spend 16 hours a day with are as well known as the back of our hands. One thing about being out here, it wears out the buttons we all have inside of our head because someone is always there pushing them to

Blogging Thumbs Up

Last May when I went to the Milblog Conference, there was talk about us being in the last days of milblogging. That military was cracking down on blogging from the front. Being someone who has spent a fair portion of the last 4 years blogging from Iraq, I’m beginning to think it was all a Net Myth. Unlike many of the anonymous Milbloggers, my real name has been attached to my blog since day one

Have I said thank you?

As usual, I’ve had a team of great people sending me care packages and they are being welcomed with open arms. Thank you, specially Soldiers Angels!Sorry with the slackness of my blogging, the other half of my team has a rather high tempo look on life and likes that in the work environment. Believe me, my time spent here has been more productive then most periods in my life and I’m known for

Milblogging is tough..

..on electronic gear. Over the years, this has turned out to be quite an expensive hobby but then again, I'm a techno geek and would have probably bought most of the gear anyways. Not that I would trade blogging for anything but since 2004, I have gone though 5 digital cameras, 4 laptops (shopping around for number 5), 2 8mm camcorders and 2 external hard drives and an assortment of thumb

Laughing Dogs

One of our in jokes is that we’re going to be eaten by laughing dogs (hyenas) on the way home and I’m not even sure there’s even hyenas in Iraq but there is some sort of canine in the waddie that gathers in packs and makes howls though out the night. Some of the howls sound remarkably like laughter so we imagine that there are hyenas out there. No I haven’t actually searched the internet yet on

Daily Grind

Mornings start out with a shower and shave and I try to make it out to breakfast with Gunny A and my RP1 (religious programs specialist). My normal breakfast consists of a freshly made hotdog and cheese hot pocket, maybe biscuits and gravy, some fruit, dark coffee (they have a choice between normal and mud, I’m in the Navy, we do the mud) and two grapefruit juices.Sick Call starts at 8 and

Combat Basketball

Every time there is an event that someone could get hurt, Marines ask for a Corpsman to provide medical coverage. In the civilian side of life, you worry about medical bills, how long it would take an ambulance to get there or just plain getting hurt. Overall most civilians I know are fairly careful about getting injured. Not so in my line of work.I think with Marines, having their “doc” there

Valentines Day in Iraq

Care Packages have started to arrived and the Soldiers Angels have taken care of me, in the picture below is maybe a quarter of the Valentines Day cards that I’ve received for my unit. It’s a lonely time of year to be away from the family but these folk let us out here know that people still care. Thanks everyone!Here’s a picture of me and the doc.I got tapped for being the squadron photographer

Unloaded my 9

4 times.For all of my readers who think that I’m a battle hardened war hero who has seen many battles on his 4 trips to Iraq. Let me take a moment to change your minds. While I have dealt with my share of blood and death and horror, the three trips prior to this, my weapon as never went off in the war zone. I’ve drawn a time or 3 but not a single round has ever left the chamber and for the most

Nighttime mayhem

Yesterday, while cleaning our room after KBR spread dust all over the place replacing our heater (thanks!). We fried our power cord, I guess the shop vacuum pulls to much wattage for the Iraqi brand cord that I had purchased from the local hajji mart and all of the smoke came out of the wires and it wouldn't work anymore. So I wasn't able to plug my super loud alarm clock into the wall and we

Paint Fumes

My roommate lasted less then a week with the pink walls before he went out and found some Navy Blue Angel blue and white paint for the trim and went all out with painting our room. I showed a remarkably total lack of interest in him painting, personally, I have no issues with pink, I’m used to waking up with a pillow of it next to my head. Unfortunately the only kind of paint he could find was

Living in a pink room with a chick

Well actually his last name is Chick and the girl that lived there before painted it a bright pink color. Being married to a girl with pink hair, I didn't even notice till he started complaining and said, "oh". He wants to repaint, I could care less but if it keeps him happy then I'm all for it, cranky roommates suck. (I have pictures that I'll post once I get my own connection and pictures of

Kuwaiting take 7

I'm in the wonderland of Kuwait checking out my first sunrise in the middle east of the year. Just got done hitting breakfast where they had kimche as one of the side dishes! As usual things have changed towards the better with each trip.I just got off a 23 hour flight and my brain is reeling about with a full tummy so I think I'm going to try finding my way back to my far off tent. Enjoy

Bout to turn 4

It’s hard to imagine that I’ve placed 4 years of my life on the internet, I wonder how many words that is (the old blogger tracked how many words you wrote, the only problem I have with the new one). Not many bloggers, let alone milbloggers have continued on so long, my secret? I wrote when I felt like it. I have more sites up then most but a majority of the info cross pollinates, they’re just

Grand Canyon Pictures

I was using the new camera on simple mode and it automatically defaulted to putting the date stamp on each of the pictures. Which wouldn't have been a big deal if it was the right date, but it was stamping 2007/01/02 and I didn't find out till I uploaded the pictures that night. There's nothing like sharing a bunch of pictures with the world that you knew you screwed up. You can see the pictures

One of the reasons to be a milblogger.....:(

is that it gives you a place to leave your mark on the world, rest in peace Andy

If I were a horse I wouldn’t bet on me

My life seems to be falling apart a bit in the last month. First my truck starts making funny sounds right before my training trip to Yuma, forcing me to drive the old and slow suburban while there, my body spontaneously breaks down. I’m bleeding out of my lungs which turns me into a guinea pig for the local medical professionals for most of a week before they let me go back home.Back in San