Mythical Bowl of Creatures

“You missed it, man,” Courtney said.

“What did I miss?” I asked.

“You know that pregnant camel spider I caught?”

“Yeah?”
“We tossed it in a box and lit it on fire.”

            When we got bored, we got creative and perhaps a bit demented.  Camel spiders were a thing of legend before I actually saw one up close.  There were stories and pictures of gigantic creepy crawlies that would get you in your sleep, but they weren’t that bad.  Don’t get me wrong; camel spiders are nasty to deal with, just not to the epic proportions you’ve probably heard about or seen in seriously obscured photographs.

            A typical camel spider is the size of a pack of cigarettes.  The ones I encountered didn’t crawl like most spiders.  They leaped!  This is the part that freaked me out.  You’ve got a hand-sized spider 15 feet away and he’ll close in on you real fast with quick leaping ability and jumps of 2-3 feet at a time.  On top of that, camel spiders weren’t poisonous, but they had two pairs of interlocking fangs that would tear into anything they grabbed onto making for an unpleasant encounter.  They also made a hissing noise that sounded like a cat’s, but since they are much smaller than cats, it came off as a whispering mini hiss.  True story.

Girls, don't be screaming at your computer now.

            Courtney came up with an idea to trap one without getting messed up.  He took a concertina wire glove and thru it within striking distance of the camel spider.  Being territorially threatened, the spider leaped and latched on with his four fangs.  The C-wire glove is made to protect the hand from sharp objects, so once the spider bit into the glove, Courtney had just enough time to shove him into an empty Gatorade bottle before it could get loose.  He hit the jackpot, as this was no ordinary camel spider.  It was a pregnant one and a little bigger than the others we caught.  We must destroy this beast before it gives birth to more vermin!  How?  Burn it at the stake!  The crowd watching was probably much like the crowds during the Salem Witch Trials screaming, “It’s the devil!”

“There’s like, these things coming from under the ground,” Gonzo said.

            What Gonzo was referring to were scorpions.  It was late at night when the rains came.  White platoon had two soldiers manning an observation post, or OP.  We were responsible for that OP a few days at a time to over watch a checkpoint that was blinded by the trenched hills where the Iraq/Iran war raged during the 1980’s in eastern Diyala Province.  It was a dry place, but with a pathetic river running thru it, there was room for life.  Albeit not the kind of life you want to see in the middle of the night.

            The rain would bring scorpions to the surface in drones.  Our guys had to do what they could to stay off the ground.  We just lit the area with chem lights to keep an eye on things.  There wasn’t a lot we could do for scorpion bites with minimal scorpion kits back at COP Cobra.  The funny thing about scorpions is that it’s the small whitish-pinkish-translucent… ish looking ones you have to worry about instead of the big ass black ones.  The black ones can still kill, but the little guys kill faster with a higher dose.  So how can bored soldiers turn this into a good time?  Trap one and toss it in the burn box with a camel spider to see who wins.  It’s only natural, right?  The scorpion wins every time with a venomous strike from the tail as the spider focus its attack on the front claws.  Fatal mistake.  Then we burn both of them.  “It’s the devil!”

Chris Hall up at the OP... land-o-scorpions.       

“Whatchya got there?” I asked Wai-Tai.

“I saw that lizard crawling on the T-wall and thru a rock at it,” he replied.

“One shot, one kill!” White Toast proclaimed.

“Hell yeah,” I added.

“After it fell I tossed it into the ‘Mythical Bowl of Creatures’ over there.”

            Wai-Tai put a bowl next to our sad campfire on COP Cobra and as critters popped up, we hunted them and added them to the bowl.  We found foot long lizards, scorpions, camel spiders, hedgehogs and field mice.  At the checkpoint we found even more.  We took on wild dogs as our pets, watched foxes circle our perimeter and birds half the size of a human torso nosedive to catch rodents.  We fancied them the “Birds of Pandora” since they carried such strong colors of red or green and looked like they would be one of James Cameron’s creations from Avatar. 

The bowl itself after two capture/kills.

            At night we turned on huge lights to keep the perimeter well lit at the checkpoint.  This is where the action was.  I had never seen so many insects in such a small place.  It rivaled the house raids we did in Baghdad where we entered a house and the floor appeared to move because there were so many flies.  Insects rose from the river towards the lights and it resembled a snowstorm with zero visibility, only it was 120 degrees.  Bats, smaller birds and bigger insects would swoop in all night until their stomachs could hold no more.  Darwinism at its best folks.

Had to give your eyes a break with some cuteness... my homegirl Roxy and I at the checkpoint.

UGS! And not the Boots with the Fur

“So what’s Uganda like?” I asked the Ugandan guard.

After a short pause, “AIDS,” he affirmed with a head nod.

            At Combat Out Post, or COP, Cobra we were undermanned and running too many missions to also pull guard on the perimeter.  In situations like this, we contracted Ugandans, or Ugs.  That way we didn’t have to worry about asking the corrupt Iraqi army unit stationed with us.  Insider attacks would have sky rocketed.  Ugs are a great bunch to watch your back and do you know why?  Of course you don’t.  It’s because they had more disdain for Iraqi’s than we did.

Ug guard post.

            Every Ug had very dark complexion, shaved or short hair with minimal facial hair growth and were devout Christians.  While Iraqi soldiers sported long pinky finger nails to snort cocaine and American soldiers were sneaking off to get high or drink on their down time, the Ugs just relaxed around a fire and stayed out of trouble.  They dawned tan desert boots, pants, and shirt with a black protective vest and black helmet.  They preferred to dress like Americans in movies and not actual soldiers.  Soldiers have bloused pants with boots tied and the laces tucked in as where the Ugs liked to wear their boots like Americans wear their Timberlands with laces only strewn half way up and the tongue sticking way out with unbloused pants.  Thanks a lot Hollywood. 

They were always friendly and approachable with us, but damn, if an Iraqi tried to enter COP Cobra without the proper credentials and didn’t heed to a search, those Ugs wouldn’t hesitate to man handle them.  I saw an arrogant Iraqi general refuse to allow the Ugs to search him and they raised their AK-47’s in an extremely aggressive posture.  The search commenced.  They knew their job well and didn’t bend the rules for anyone.  If they were spooked by anything at night while scanning the fields around the COP, they would just start shooting.  There were probably a lot of dead animals in those fields.  Perfect mentality for perimeter security and they had the most important thing that the Iraqi’s never earned… our trust.

            White platoon would be prepping for a mission near the gate and out of curiosity and boredom we’d ask the Ugs to educate us on anything from their culture to why they would do this particular job to learning the language to why the hell they ate so many bananas.

Ugs chillaxin' after a shift.

“AIDS?”

“Yes, its beautiful country, but AIDS is everywhere.”

“So why would you come to this shit hole?”

“I saving moneys to go someplace nice in da Europe.”

“How long are you guys here for?”

“Some stay months. I stay 2 year now. They forget me.”

            Apparently it was a common occurrence for whoever was in charge of the Ugs to lose track of whose turn it was to go home on vacation.  An American in that situation would lose his shit, but these guys keep working since the alternative is to go home to “AIDS” I guess.  Not an ideal situation for any human being.  These guys just kept to the rules and did their job day in and day out.

“What’s the language you speak?”

“Swahili.”

“How would I greet someone in Swahili?”

“Mizooloo. click”

“And the proper reply?”

“Mizooloo.”

“Again?”

“Yes, it means many things.”

“I’m so confused. What’s with the clicking noises you guys make when you talk?”

“Some tribes have meaning behind click. My people use it like you would use a sigh or laugh or sneer. Not a real word. Its affirmation that shows your level of interest in person or conversation.”

“You use big words.”

“Mizooloo! click  Hahaha!”

“You’re silly.”

God bless the Ugs for protecting us in the most dedicated of ways.

Hey Kuwait, Nobody Likes You

Flying into Kuwait, I was in awe of the oil fields that I had only seen on TV.  My sense of adventure kept my forehead glued to the plane window.

“Welcome to Kuwait,” Drew sarcastically said passing by as he slapped the smallpox vaccine scab on my shoulder.

            “What the fuck, man?  That was on my smallpox shit,” I whined.

            Drew turned to look at me, his eyebrows raised and then he turned away quickly.  I turned to see what he was looking at.  Yep, it was our squadron commander, Lieutenant Colonel Peterson.  He was just looking at me so I smiled, awkwardly nodded and turned back around and walked over to Drew.

            “Thanks a lot asshole.”

            “You’re the one that said it.”

            Kuwait was the final training spot for our unit in July 2006.  We would acclimatize while checking our equipment and making sure we were all on the same page for every situation we could think of.  You know what’s awesome about Kuwait?  Nothing.

            Stepping off the plane and onto the tarmac I thought, “This plane’s engines need to be turned off.”  There lies the problem.  The engines were off.  As I walked off the tarmac towards the buses it felt like an angry hairdryer was glued to my face.  I had a hard time opening my eyes with the heated wind and bright sun leaning on us at 120 degrees.  That’s quite extreme considering we left Fort Lewis, WA at about 55 degrees then Maine then Germany en route to “The Sandbox.”  We had to wait to get on the buses, so we gathered under some tan netting and hydrated.  I was in the shape of my life a couple days earlier, but with a slight hangover, jet lag and smallpox vaccine symptoms kicking my ass I had a hard time breathing in that climate.  I thought “There is no way I’m going to make it a year in this air and fight a war.”

            Our days were long, but simple.  We would get up around 3am to avoid the extreme heat while working out.  Then we’d eat, hydrate and go straight into training until about noon.  Then we’d hide in the tents where the temps were at a nice, cool 95 degrees.  Guys would clean weapons, do classes on scouting, play cards or sneak off to the port-o-john with porn to rub one out, which was gutsy because you could easily become a heat casualty doing that.

Fighting fatigue from that damn smallpox shot along with an unnecessary anthrax shot, we made it to our home for the next few weeks.  It was a tent that would house about 85 sweaty, nasty dudes who would often forget they were about to enter a war zone with each other.  Being away from home, no women, no booze and training we didn’t need was the perfect equation for short fuses to fly off the chain.  On top of all that, we slept six inches apart on cots.  Of course there were messy fellas that didn’t believe in personal hygiene or keeping their 6x2ft area organized.  Real hard, I know.

           

This is only a small portion of our tent. Lucky me got to be in the middle.

            We would rotate a two-man guard around the clock on the Strykers and do maintenance.  This was a particularly annoying task considering the trucks were parked about a half-mile away and the path to them was nothing but deep sand.  I remember carrying my MK 19 to the trucks one day.  It weighed 75 lbs and the only comfortable way to carry it was to front carry it.  That equals a great arm workout since the walk took 15 minutes thru the deep sand.  While pulling guard on the trucks at night we would stare off into the black abyss of night and wonder what was happening across the boarder to the north.  We went to the range just one day.  The range consisted of us driving 30 minutes to the middle of nowhere, passing a herd of camels and shooting at paper targets set up in front of some sand burms.  Life in Kuwait got boring real quick.  To top it off we were introduced to a Middle East tradition, the sandstorm.

            One day while bored out of our minds at the trucks, we tested the theory that if you wet a sock, put a bottle of water in it and then laid it in a shaded area that the bottle of water would significantly cool down.  It might have just been a trick on the mind, but it seemed to work.  Simple things like this made us look like a caveman grunting at the discovery of fire, “ugh, ugh!”  While we were laughing at our own simpleton ways I looked off into the distance as the wind kicked up.

            “The hell is that?” I asked.

            We all stood slowly and looked to the horizon.  It was some kind of haze moving in our direction.  Haze my ass.  It was a seven day sand storm.  Sandstorms are the most annoying things on the face of the planet.  Even more annoying than Jim Carey’s “most annoying noise in the world” routine in “Dumb and Dumber.”  You can’t hide from it.  It has a sustained wind like in a hurricane, but much weaker of course.  Winds would consistently stay in the 20-30 mph range.  Sand would cover everything and weapons cleaning become difficult.  When it finally settled, we rejoiced.

The tail end of a sandstorm in Kuwait my second tour.

            The days continued and seemed to get longer and longer.  People in leadership positions, such as Breastos, tried to come up with ways to keep the rest of us busy.  Instead of succeeding, he only infuriated us with “hip pocket training.”  It was a term used to tell a guy in my position to pull a class out of his ass to teach the rest of the guys.  We all knew the material, but we had to look busy in the presence of rank that was above Breastos so it didn’t look like his soldiers were getting lazy.  We also  got sent to the trucks to “disappear” for a little while.

At night the temperature in the tent would actually drop to what it was set at, a frigid 65 degrees.  Some guys would bring their cots outside to sleep.  It doesn’t seem bad, but when you’re used to 120 degrees outside and 95 degrees inside, that 30-50 degree drop will shock the body quite a bit.  It got agitating as the time grew near to push north.

We were initially told we were going to Anbar Province in western Iraq, a desolate region.  Our “torch party,” or soldiers that went early to start our transition with the unit currently in that area of operation had already arrived.  It didn’t take long before rumors started to fly about our unit not going to Anbar.  I would always find a reason to get into our higher command’s tent to listen to radios and look at maps in order to get an idea of where we were going.           

 We were about to move north and be a part of the surge of American troops in Iraq at the height of the war.  The rumors floating around were Baghdad.  Fuck yeah!  To the center of the shit.  We were told not to talk about it so of course “Joe” was at the phone booth telling his girlfriend how important he was and where he was going.  I heard of one soldier walking out of the phone trailer and immediately being escorted off by the geeks that monitor the phones.  What a dumb ass.

            Wanting to keep as much packed as we could to be ready to move at a moments notice, we froze our asses off in the tent.  Thankfully it was on the first night of sleeping without fart sacks or puss pads that we got the word.  Off we went to get on the C130 planes for Baghdad.  For once the rumors were spot on.  My adrenaline starts moving thru my body like the constant flowing lava on Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano.  Here we go.  Fuck you, Kuwait.

Mili-Caring

“Dude, I thought you went in to get a cavity taken care?” Walker asked.

“I did,” replied Wombley.

“Then why are your front four teeth missing?”

“I don’t know! They put me under and I woke up to this.”

            Poor Wombley was one of many victims to terrible physicians during basic training.  It would inspire me to avoid a military dentist and keep extremely good care of my teeth.  It’s bad enough that while growing up, we all view the dentist’s office as a torture chamber.  Imagine going in for a simple procedure and you wake up to four of your pearly whites missing in action.  No bueno.

“Sergeant Vance, I want you to take this black sharpie, circle the non-surgical knee and then make an “X” inside the circle so the surgeons know which knee to operate on,” the nurse said.

“Are… are you kidding me?” I asked with eyes wide.

“It happens.”

            In late 2007, after my first deployment, a friendly game of flag football turned into tackle.  I was in the shape of my life when a freak accident left my torso turned in one direction and my right foot stuck into the turf facing 180 degrees in the opposite direction.  Most people “tear” their ACL.  I snapped mine completely in half, leaving nothing but two nubs on the inside of my knee. 

“Try to walk it off, Vance,” LT said.

“Something’s not right,” I hissed.

“Don’t get up, man. I heard the pop from the other side of the field,” Jackson proclaimed.

It would be a long road to recovery and a path that would lead me to despise military doctors.  After hobbling around for almost two months, a spot for surgery opened up at the base hospital in early 2008.

            A quick snip about that base hospital… the best equipment and the worst staff.  When I originally went to the ER they told me I had a sprained knee and wrapped it tightly with a soft cast.  Not only a misdiagnosis, but the worst thing you can do to a knee with my injury is apply heat.  I didn’t sleep much that night and all they had to do was give me an MRI, but that was “too expensive” to do at the time.

            After I circled my good knee during pre-surgery I hopped onto a mobile bed for the procedure and hooked up to an IV to knock me out.  As the drugs began to take a hold on my body I began to shake.  The hospital staff rolled me into the surgery room.  This isn’t something I wanted to be awake for.  As the bed came to a halt, I looked around the room and saw all kinds of shiny tools they were going to use on me along with lots of people with masks on and this made me uneasy.

“Oh shit, he’s still not under,” a male nurse said to the female nurse.

“High tolerance maybe. Up the dose,” the female replied.

“Why am I shaking?” I asked.

“Count to 100.”

“Wooooooooooon, choooooooo, teeeeee,” yep, time to go night nights.

…………………………..

“Sergeant Vance, are you with me?” a nurse asked.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“For the tenth time its about 2:30.”

“I just woke up, how did I ask nine other times?”

“You’ve been awake for 10 minutes repeating that question and now you’re actually aware of yourself.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Don’t be, it’s been hilarious. Go ahead and pee in this jar.”

“I don’t have to piss.”

“You will when you stand up.”

            The post-operation room is where the comedy is.  We’ve all seen the videos on YouTube where a kid comes out of surgery and is saying wacky things on the car ride home.  Now imagine a bunch of crazed veterans.  Apparently I behaved and just wanted to know what time it was since I had asked Sanchez and Jonesy to pick me up.  Pretty damn cognoscente for a doped up guy if I do say so myself.  They walked into the room as I went to sit up.

“Aw man, I gotta piss bad,” I muttered.

“Told ya. I have things to do so your buddies will have to assist you,” said the old nurse.

Sanchez looked confused and Jonesy started laughing.

“What she mean, ‘assist you,’ Vance?” Sanchez asked.

“I still can’t feel much so somebody has to hold me up and the other has to… hold the plastic jar while I… urinate.”

“I’ll hold him,” Sanchez snapped and immediately took the easy job.

“Hey, hey Jonesy,” I said with a wink.

“Fuck you, Sanchez,” Jonesy whispered while laughing.

Sanchez stood behind me, held me up and looked away while Jonesy stood in front of me while I relieved myself. 

“You owe me a lot of drinks, Vance,” Jonesy said.

“Yup-p-p-p-p,” I tried to respond, but the drugs still had a firm grasp on my mind.

            Something went wrong during the course of the surgery and the doctor who operated on me failed to pass a referral on to my rehabilitation office because she was too excited to go on vacation.  The problem is the rehab place won’t accept me until the operating doctor sends a referral and she wasn’t reachable.  So what happens to Mat?  My knee locks at 90 degrees for over a week and rehab was supposed to begin three days post-op.

            I plea my case with documents to another rehab place and they accept me.  No progress with bending the knee after another week.  Doctor Ditz comes back and I’m ready to go on a rampage.  She admits her error, but the damage is done and you can’t just sue the military.  Ditz calls me to come in for a procedure known as a “manipulation.” 

“You’ll come in, we’ll put you under and make your knee bend,” she assured me over the phone.

I show up to the hospital the next day.

“Here’s a pillow,” Ditz said.

“What’s this for?” I asked

“You’re going to want to put your face in this. We won’t be putting you under.”

“That’s not what you told me last night.”

“This way is more convenient for us and saves money. We’re going to give you an epidural then force the knee to bend while you’re awake.”

“Epi-what?”

“It’s what we give pregnant women during the birthing process.”

“Riiiiiight. Lets get on with it then.”

            I put my face in the pillow, felt some pressure in my back then what felt like a cool liquid going down my spine.  Two male doctors came up and Ditz directed them to my lower leg.  She looked uncertain of what was about to happen.  I just glared at her as if to say, “You better fix this situation real quick-like.”  All three grabbed my right shin, lifted my leg and began slowly trying to bend it.

“Ummm, errrr, yeah I can feel that,” I mentioned with a grimace.

“Give him more,” Ditz ordered more numbing agent.

They took a break to let the drugs set in and ten minutes later we went again.  Same result.  Repeat.  Now I was numb.  They put all the force they could into bending my knee and it started to move.  I heard the scar tissue and cartilage breaking up inside my knee, but felt no pain… yet.  After the three stooges were done with their manipulation that put saving money over a patient’s comfort, I was wheeled into a holding area because they forgot to get me a room.

My leg was placed in a machine that would make it constantly bend in motion.  While I was looking at this contraption a pretty female nurse came up to me with some kind of rubber sack and a tube.  Our eyes met and she looked surprised.

“You’re awake?” she asked.

“They gave me a pillow?” I smiled.

“I was going to insert this catheter.”

“Well I still can’t feel anything below the waist.”

“You won’t feel weird by me doing this while you’re awake?”

“I don’t give a shit about anything anymore. Just don’t judge me because I don’t know what’s going on down there right now.”

“Ha! I would never.”

            She inserted the catheter and I was finally wheeled off to a room.  I was on a morphine drip at the time.  In order to be released, the hospital had to verify that I would feel minimal pain without morphine so they would periodically wean me off.  The first time was the worst.  The hospital staff didn’t tell me.  I started to feel a pulse in my knee and started clicking my morphine button to no avail.  Within 30 minutes I was screaming bloody murder while clinching to the rails on the side of my bed.

            It was the worst pain I had ever felt in my life and still to this day.  It felt like somebody's hands were inside my knee twisting every nerve that wasn't already damaged.  To make matters worse, a captain with three interns walked into my room unannounced not knowing what kind of pain I was in.  He wanted to show them the results of the manipulation by grabbing my leg and moving it in places it wasn’t ready to go.

“Gentlemen, as you can see…” he begin.

“AHHHH! Put my leg down you stupid son of a bitch! Get the fuck out! GET! THE! FUCK! OUT!” I interrupted in surround sound.

“What’s going on in here?!” a nurse came to the rescue as the captain and his cronies ran out.

            She took one look at me in tears, red face, veins bulging from the neck, grabbing my knee and then pursued the captain to cuss him out.  At the time I didn’t even know he outranked me by quite a bit, but sometimes you have to put rank aside and humble somebody.  He later called to apologize and didn’t have the testicular fortitude to do it in person.  I just hung up on him.  The rest of the time in the hospital was a daze.  I don’t even remember some of my chain of command coming in to check on me.  My hospital gown had folded up and my privates were out in the open.

“Yeah, you’re balls were definitely showing,” my lieutenant, Jamal said.

“Don’t remember that,” I said shaking my head.

“You were like, ‘HEY!’ all happy to see us.”

            After a few days the hospital decided they needed more space.  They pulled the catheter and sent me home with a similar concoction that accidently killed Heath Ledger that same year.  I even had morphine pills.  Who the hell gives a single guy that lives in the barracks morphine to play with?  I was in and out of the hospital and don’t remember anything from the first half of 2008.  I’m not a fan of hospitals as you can imagine.  They hold some of the best people in the world, yet they also possess some of the biggest airheads.  It’s a crapshoot so good luck and watch your back out there people!

The Amazing Racists

"E" patrolling by a fire as the sun sets. 

“1, 2, 3, White!” our platoon yelled on the football field.

“Power!” E followed with a holler and we all laughed.

            E isn’t a white guy and our platoon isn’t called “White” because of any ethnic backgrounds.  You become so close with members of your platoon that the differences amongst you are poked at in brotherly love, not in hate or racism.  Our diversity makes us better.  From the outside, I can see how we all seem like bigots, but I believe a true bond is when you can say whatever is on your mind and only the person you’re talking to can judge whether or not you’re serious.

           

            For instance, Jonesy is from the small Indiana town of Terre Haute.  Sanchez is from Nicaragua and came to the states around the age of 10.  Terre Haute is a predominantly white town and Sanchez is from an entirely different country.

Jonesy relaxing between missions with music a smoke.

“I never even seen a black person ‘til I went to college and my roommate was on the basketball team,” Jonesy would say.

Sanchez on the 15th floor of a building we cleared in Baghdad.

            Jonesy and Sanchez have one of those bonds where they can say whatever they want to each other, no matter how offensive it sounds to the rest of the world.  I should say Jonesy could say whatever he wanted to, to Sanchez.  It’s just not Sanchez’s style to say anything back that might even sound offensive to any listeners.

“Hey, you goin’ out tonight? Hey, spic, I’m talking to you,” Jonesy would instigate.

“Ha-ha, you funny Jones,” Sanchez laughed then his face went to a serious look as the rest of us laughed.

            They were roommates in the barracks and they talked about everything there is to know about each other.  It’s the reason that kind of language can only be shared between the two of them.  Sanchez knows Jonesy is from a part of the country where people say racist things, but Jonesy himself was no such man.  He was all jokes and having a good time.  Just to cheer him up, Jonesy would pop off at Sanchez, instantly cracking him up along with the rest of us.

“You’re going out with us tonight and you don’t have a choice,” said Jonesy.

“Oh yeah?” Sanchez curiously responded. “How you gonna do that?”

“Just cause I said so, wetback.”

“Hahaha that’s a racist thing to say to a Mexican, not a Nicaraguan.”

“You’re all the same, ain’t ya?”

“Fuck you, Jonesy, I came here on a boat.”

            Sound terrible?  Then you’ve never had a bond with someone willing to give there life for yours and you really need to lighten up because this story only gets more intense from here.           

“Cracka,” Taser said to his white friend.

“Spic,” Neirbo returned.

“Uh, huh, huh, huh,” They both chuckled quietly.

Taser and Neirbo were in Raider platoon together and went thru a lot.  They would do anything for each other at a moment’s notice.  That doesn’t change the fact that they loved to remind each other of what race they were in the most vulgar manner.  Few people can relate to this kind of friendship.  Especially intoxicated people that overheard them at a bar.

“Eh, what did you just call him?” asked a Hispanic man turning around from the bar.

“I called my friend a spic. Don’t worry about it,” Neirbo told the man.

“Oh, well I am worried about.”

“I’m the last dude you want to fuck with.”

Neirbo did the right thing and just walked outside to have a smoke.  He really was the last person anyone wanted to get into a tiff with.  Neirbo is a ginormous individual standing 6’5” and 265 pounds of all muscle.  The disgruntled man at the bar was about 5’8,” 175 pounds and suffering from “Little Man Syndrome” or LMS.  People with LMS are tired of not being noticed and when someone like Neirbo walks into the same room as them, they feel the need to prove their toughness.  I call these people, “Tough Guys.”  Neirbo and Taser came back inside and stood near the same location with the rest of us, including our friend Hurricane.

“Weak ass muthafuckas,” LMS said under his breathe while mean mugging everyone.

“It’s not a good idea to fuck with my large friend,” Hurricane told LMS.

“He won’t kill me. I’ll kill him.”

Well that wasn’t very nice.

            Things seemed to calm down for a while when Holly, Hurricane’s girlfriend who worked at the bar, spotted ole LMS sneaking behind the bar.  He grabbed an ice pick and turned to go towards Neirbo.  Holly and another coworker tried to stop LMS and told him to leave, but he pushed both women down a couple of stairs leading to the icebox.  Hurricane saw this and went to the rescue.  I was at a bar table talking to a lovely when I see this all happening.  I could barely walk without crutches at the time so I made an executive decision to make sure we won this battle.

“NEIRBO!” I yelled.

            Sucks to be LMS on this night.  Neirbo turned as I motioned towards Hurricane and seven from our group ran towards the action.  Hurricane managed to shove LMS out the back door of the bar and into the alley.  LMS had a couple of buddies follow, not knowing seven of Hurricane’s friends were on the way.  They made a poor decision to gang up on our guy.  A brawl ensued out back that left LMS and his friends hospitalized.

“I’m afraid its time to go,” I said to my lady friend.

“Meet at your place?” she insisted.

“Sounds good. Now I’m going to round up as many as I can before the cops arrive.”

            Everyone made a run for it as I hobbled to my car to do what little a crippled guy could do in a bar brawl and offer an escape vehicle.  Great success.  LMS and company weren’t so lucky.  Not only did they get hospitalized with fractured skulls, but I’m sure the police had a good laugh when they decided they wanted to press charges.  Bar surveillance cameras caught the entire episode and clearly our group acted in self-defense from a crazy person with an ice pick that hits women.

            All of it could have been avoided if LMS had minded his own business.  People are too sensitive.  A simple conversation between two friends having a good time turned into a bloodbath.  And why?  Because an individual didn’t know the context of a few comments.  Were racial slurs used?  Yes.  Does it mean they were used in a hateful manner and everyone should be up in arms?  No.

So, are we racists?  No, we just have an amazing bond shared by few.  But if you’re content on passing judgment we’ll go along with it to mock your sensitivity and deem ourselves, “The Amazing Racists.”  In the words of Matty Mayhem, “I SAID, GOOD DAY!”

Me Bum Bum!

“You drop your pants and put hands on table,” ordered the doctor.

“Huh?” I questioned.

“Final part of exam is prostate check.”

“I mean, I didn’t ask for that and didn’t know about it until now.”

“It’s part of exam. We have to.”

            Getting out of the military was a hilarious process.  Everyone out-processing has to get a physical so the VA can ASSess your health.  I was under the impression it would be a quick check up, but it turned into a day of probing… uncomfortable probing.  The physician who gave me my exam looked like Mr. Chow from the Hangover movies and spoke like him too.  So now I have an aggressive little man with an accent ordering me to drop my pants.

            I walked into a private room and dropped trou next to one of those elevated pleather seats with loud white paper on top of it.  A very attractive female nurse with a clipboard walked in and stood next to a counter that stretched the length of the wall.  All right, maybe this won’t be as bad as I thought and we’ll have some fun with this.  Then Mr. Chow walked in with his aggressive posture and strapped on latex gloves.  He then moved towards me with a tiny tube of lube.  I clinched as my eyes widened.  I guess the attractive nurse won’t be doing this task and I won’t be having a “Road Trip” moment.  Or would I?

            I turned to hold onto the seat and Mr. Chow went for it.  The process was awkward and physically uncomfortable.  He used a whole lot of lube and I definitely held a yuck face of disapproval the entire time.  When Mr. Chow was done violating me, I was expecting words of comfort or something like, “Everything checked out fine,” but this wasn’t the case. 

            The cute nurse turned to walk out with a slight smile on her face.  I bet she enjoyed the show.  As for Mr. Chow, he tossed his gloves in the trash and washed his hands.  My pants are still down, mind you.  He then grabbed a box of Kleenex’s and turned to me with his aggressive eyes.  Mr. Chow threw the box at my chest.  I didn’t even try to catch it.  The box hit me and fell to the pleather seat.  I looked at the box and then at Mr. Chow in confusion.

“You clean yo-self up!” he barked.

            Thanks for that Dr. Unprofessional.  He walked out and I never saw him again.  Mr. Chow did the exam, tossed some Kleenex’s at me from across the room, gave me orders and left me like a cheap whore.  Not that I know what a cheap whore feels like, but that might be close.  I was bewildered, but I “clean myself up” and walked to the front desk to the same smiling nurse.  She said I was good to go and I tried my best to normally walk out the door.  I got in my car and just sat there for a second.  Did that just happen?  It was a quiet ride back to my downtown Tacoma studio.