iraqistan

This is a public service announcement:

If you have a problem with this site, or with anything my cynical and admittedly arrogant self has posted, you might want to go ahead and let me know.

Because my warrant, my former first sergeant, and several people in my battalion are all regular or semi-regular readers. They all know me personally, and they get to put up with me daily as it is. Yet funny thing is, they find it funny (and usually can identify the element of truth as well as the caricature). Much of the things on this gripe list I call my running rant are also running jokes and running commentary among all of us, and what I say on here I have frequently said to the people involved, or at least passed the nasty-gram higher to get told I might want to rephrase.

But if you have an issue, take it up with me. Don’t come up with some creepy fake address and have grammatical errors in an email sent to my warrant officer, because he just has the immediate reaction of calling me to giggle about it. Though thank you, because he did just have some minor surgery for which I have made fun of him for two straight days, so he probably appreciated the laugh.

If you think that because the idiocy of certain aspects of the Army amuses me that I am therefore a poor example of the NCO corps, ask one of my Soldiers what my safety brief is. No, actually, I’ll just tell you, so you don’t go and randomly contact other people. It’s a simple brief:

Don’t do dumb.

Do dumb things, you’ll pay the price. Don’t do dumb, you can go about your business. I check my dumb against people I trust, to include my warrant (when he isn’t out getting coffee or smoking) or my first sergeant (when we have one). I still do dumb every day, but I have learned since being a wee little specialist what is exceptionally dumb and what is just minor dumb, and try to stick with the latter (and really, I still don’t understand why if I am cold and my computer is warm that it is so entertaining to my warrant that I rest my head against the keyboard when it gets cold. I remind him that for me to close the window, I would have to get colder because I would get closer to the window, but he just asks me if I have taken my medication and wanders off to make a new cup of coffee anyway. He never listens to my logic).

So, dear readers, if you like what you see, go ahead and read through and learn to laugh at yourselves. And if you don’t, please feel free to call me an arrogant, cynical, snot-nosed, holier-than-thou NCO, though the recent psych test left it in the realm of “Excessively Assertive” which simplifies the whole thing. Just do me a favor and contact me instead of my warrant or others, particularly since in this instance you are clearly in the military and therefore supposed to be a brave Soldier. Afraid I might poke a little fun? You haven’t met my warrant…

This ends the public service announcement. You may now return to your regularly scheduled program.