I've been listening to far too much NPR lately. Yesterday I heard a woman marching for peace say that we must avoid war "at all costs." I wondered if she had the faintest inkling as to what she was saying. I somehow doubted it, so I've prepared a brief listing of what "at all costs" will mean for the Iraqi people.

amnesty international

"In spite of the difficulty of investigating extrajudicial executions and mass killings in Iraq, it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people have been the victims of such killings since the 1980s."
     - 1997 Human Rights Briefing

executions
executions
torture
torture
torture
torture
repression

Human Rights Watch

"Saddam Hussein and others, including, but not limited to, members of Hussein's inner circle, members of the Revolutionary Command Council, and senior and upper-middle level members of the Iraqi military, security, and intelligence forces are responsible for a vast number of crimes that constitute genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The victims of such crimes include up to 290,000 persons who have been “disappeared” since the late 1970s, many of whom are believed to have been killed."
     - Justice For Iraq

genocide
genocide
persecution

You were saying?

Saturday, March 8
Another glorious day of...of...well not a whole lot. Supply sent me my uniforms (mostly): everything but a belt and some boots. They even sew the unit patches and name strips on, which I thought was a nice touch. Yep, we're a full-service Army. They get bonus points for spelling my name correctly, something the Navy never quite got the hang of.

Lunch was okay. Ham, boiled cabbage, mashed potatoes & gravy plus the usual assortment of accesories (rolls, salad, fruit, etc). I can definitely get used to having lunch provided on the weekends, though the thought of eating this same food for weeks on end during a deployment makes me cringe. Still better than MREs.

So for reasons I won't expound on (I'm a butthead) I only got 3 hours of sleep last night. The total lack of activity is making nap avoidance very difficult. As much as I love aircraft, T700 technical manuals don't make for compelling reading.

I'm going to go poke around the Blackhawks in the hanger before I fall asleep and drool on the Illustrated Parts diagrams.

Sunday, March 9th
I decided to drive home for the night. That means a 3-hour commute, but it's worth it to see Gabe and sleep in a real bed.

So let's see, what did I do today? Well at the risk of showing the National Guard in a poor light, I did absolutely jack shit today. Not that I was looking to slack off. Quite the opposite. There's just no work for us. Zero. So instead I spent the morning (that's all morning, btw) cleaning rifles, with a quick stop to listen to a Stress Management lecture (snore). I did get to clean a 16 with the M203 attached, which was definitely the highlight of my morning. I've heard that we're going to do a full weapons qual this time around, so in theory that will include the 203, SAW, .50 and (drumroll please) the M19 fully automatic grenade launcher. Can I get a MWA HA HA HA HA!? Yeah well it's still just a rumor so far, so I'm not getting my hopes up.

Lunch was okay (again). I spent most of the afternoon climbing around and sitting in the cockpit of a Blackhawk getting familiar with all the systems. Not exactly a recuiting commercial, but it's a living.