For the first time since he left for Iraq, my brother Mike and I were just on Facebook at the same time, and we got to chat for a sec. He says, “It’s like 120 here and windy. Feels like a blow dryer on your face all the time.” Later in the conversation he said, “I would like to go home. I’m over this place.” I asked him what he missed most about home. “Girls, alcohol, and the ocean.”
If I ever write a book about my brother, I’m gonna call it Girls, Alcohol, and the Ocean.
Photo above is from the 4th Brigade, 1st Armored Division’s Facebook page.
Good to hear your brother is okay – I wish him many days of girls, alcohol and the ocean when his tour is done.
I would totally buy that book.
It’s great to hear that he’s doing well. I hope he’s able to come home soon.
perhaps he shoulnt have gone into the military if he didn’t want to be in Iraq?
Very cool that you guys were able to chat. Here’s hoping that he finishes his tour with no major events to report – other than the odd events that he want to put in the book that you’ll co-author with him. All the best, and glad to hear that he’s still doing okay.
@3 for the most obnoxious comment possible win! your prize is to stfu!
Can you imagine the volume of whiny bitching you’d hear on Seattle streets if everybody was humping 40 lbs of gear and body armor along with the heat?
Time to bring them all home.
@5 She’s just a Michelle Malkin clone, pay her no mind.
Humanity is amazing…its amazing that we choose to reproduce in such a desert and not feel the need to get the fuck out (migrate) every second of the day. What a species we are…..
Bring the boys* back home!
Bring the boys* back home!
Don’t leave the children on their own, no, no!
Bring the boys* back home!
*(and girls!)
I can sympathize with Mike – we are probably experience very similar weather right now.
Only, I’m not in a war zone or wearing fatigues or humping gear.
The Marines at 29 Palms are, though, no wonder they are all so bitchy when they come to town!
Yes but, as they say in Arizona, it’s a dry heat. (Apparently that makes it better.)
i hope he comes home safe and much, much wiser.
Having been over there so many years ago, facebook is awesome! we had a satphone bank in the middle of the desert, it cost about 3 dollars a minute to make a call (1991 dollars). Now I can chat with my friend over there about frigging mafiawars, and it costs him nothing.
@3 FOAD. It is every soldiers right to complain. You only worry about soldiers when they stop.
As @12 said, I wouldn’t be complaining so much if the humidity was 10% here like it is in Baghdad.
This is the man who complained because he had no shoes. Until he met a man with no feet.
@3, a younger me might have made the same comment. I think I understand better now why people join up. I still hope he comes home safe, and Iraq isn’t totally f’d up for oh, 75 years.
Try living in Subic Bay, Jakarta or Calcutta – this is nothing – and yet people complain as if they were being consigned to the ovens. If we’re not whining over snow, we’re whining over heat or plastic bags or gay wedlock – as the French say: ‘in the meantime, please chill the white whine…” Best of luck to your brother, Chris.
Glad to hear he is doing well. We are totally little bitches for being whiny about this heat.
Iraq is hell, this is like purgatory. 😀
@ 3 and @20: Epic Fail.
One thing I love about America: Girls, Alcohol and the Ocean. Can’t wait to buy the book.
This guy is talking his brother. In this capacity, he’s just another man bitching about his job, not a soldier. No need to treat him like some kind of Army-sanctioned spokesperson.
@23: Sorry, *to* his brother.
I’d also like to know what a soldier during an active tour is supposed to say to his brother on Facebook. Weather is as innocent and appropriate a topic for him here as it is for you and me when we chat to co-workers, to strangers.
23, 24, 25: he is talking to his brother who posts their conversations on a blog read by thousands.
All that sand is bad enough, but when there’s no ocean nearby, that’s gotta suck.
#26 he posted it because he said something relevant. He didn’t say something relevant because he knew it would be posted. Learn the difference.
@22 – please see posts #25 and #28. Also, polease contact the Sylvan Reading Center for immediate help.
@22 – please see posts #25 and #28. Also, please contact the Sylvan Reading Center for immediate help.
I am surviving the heat by thinking about my brother, on active duty in Kuwait. If he can gut out that serious shit, I can deal with my little puppyshit.
And for the assholes that want to blame the soldiers for what BushCo did: the soldier’s job is to follow orders; the civilian’s job is to make sure those orders are the right ones. We civilians failed them, they haven’t failed us.
Thank you for sharing, Christopher. I’m glad to hear that you heard from your brother.
@31 Well said.