Kelly Smith Weblog Aficionado: Just a guy vs. Life

The "N" Moments of the Lost Boys..... Unfortunately there is a population of young males in the United States who boast a significant few who seem to have no care about themselves, their race, their future, or even what discredit and hardship their misdeeds bring upon others. Years ago I used to scoff at the notion that rap music, video games, or racy movies had anything to do at all with influencing the behavior of individual people. To a large extent I still feel that way, however, I do acknowledge that people of weak mind, spirit, and moral makeup attempt to "emulate" what they see, because somehow many of these negative behaviors are perceived. The medial seems to reinforce the notion that somehow because you are a black mail, you have had a rough life and grew up in "hell". That may be true for some, but I think there is a large majority that step into that position as an actor steps into a role. There are few occassions when a person is so poor that ...

Al Furat, Muhalla 893, Baghdad Province, March 13th, 2007....Sniper....[PART 1] On March 13th, 2007 the day seemed like every other day in Iraq.....hot and dreary. The winter was over, the rains had stopped, and the temperature was climbing back toward the unforgiving and miserable level that it had been when we first arrived. I was the 1st Platoon Leader of Alpha Company 1-149th IN. My platoon was in charge of patrolling Al Furat, Al Maksasib, a tiny sliver of Al Jihad, the operating space of AO Mutt, and a daily route clearance on stretches of Route Yankee and MSR Tampa. (This intersection of both places was once called the most dangerous intersection in the world because of all of the IED emplacement.) In addition to this, a small contingent of my platoon was tasked with operating ECP 7 which was the entry point for military convoys onto Victory Base Complex. What was unusual about this day was the fact that I was on the FOB in a Company meeting and my platoon Sergeant was out on pa...

Japan Trip I am nearing the end of a training rotation in Sapporo Japan. Over the course of this two weeks in the field, the weather has gone from single digit to fifty degrees. From clear skies to hard rain, from blowing snow, to sleet. I am glad that I came on this mission, however, I am glad to be going back home. I am only going to have a couple of days before I have to report back to work, and I am probably going to try and sleep the entire time. I have been eating MRE's a few times a day, and I am SO ready for a nice ribeye steak, baked potato, and a glass of bourbon. In the picture above, we were trying to reinforce tent stakes because the blowing wind and heavy snow was making the tents collapse. This is a picture of me with two Japanes scouts before we did a recon of one of the objectives. The Japanese Infantry is pretty hardcore. The snow in a lot of places is so deep that the patrols have to move with skis or snowshoes. As you can see in this photo, knowing how to ski is...

Reinvention...... I am unhappy. re-in-vent–verb (used with object) to invent again or anew, esp. without knowing that the invention already exists. I have thinking lately that I need to reinvent myself. I have lost a lot of the drive and motivation that I used to have to do a lot of things. I feel a lot of facets of my life that are oh-so-important, almost feel as if they are becoming stagnant. The infrequent number of times that I have upated this blog in the last two years is a testament to that. Perhaps I don't need to reinvent myself, I suppose that perhaps I ought to re discover myself. I haven't been ME for quite some time I fear. It didn't start on my last deployment, it started somewhere else, I think it was the fact that I felt I needed to be somewhere at a certain time due to my age/experience/status/rank. I think that the key to my unhappiness has been the persistent quest to BE HAPPY. I have all of the things that I need to be happy, and perhaps that is enough....

Happy New Year! This is the first day of 2009, I am hoping that this will be a better year for me than 2008. 2008 was no failure by any stretch of the imagination, but 2008 was fraught with issues that slowed me down. I haven't blogged much lately because of it, but that is one of my New Year promises to myself. Resolutions usually end up coming and going, but I am going to promise myself that I will do the following.... Start writing again. Get back into the physical condition I was in on deployment. Save more money.

37..... Today, is my 37th birthday. I generally make posts on my birthday, but all I can say is that I am alive and well and on American Soil. What could be better than that? I am not sure if I will be here on my birthday next year or not. Who knows what the military has in store? I have had this blog going since I was 28 years old. Maybe I need to plan a 10 year blog anniversary? Hmmm.... that's a thought.

Democratic Convention..... I wish I could be there.... This could be every bit as pivotal as the 68 convention.....every bit.

Without a backward glance.....

Grey........ The air is cruel as clouds taunt, The sky begins to cry. But still I smile, because tomorrow's sunshine is possible.

Blatant racism in the coverage of the Obama's. Just because they concluded their speech like this..... Some people in the blogosphere have likened it to Hezbollah like fist-pumping. This was on far right-wing zombie Cal Thomas's Human events forum. The comment has since been scrubbed, but here is a cached copy. [LINK] This is absolutely unbelievable. This is being done obviously because of the color of their skins. Do you need proof? Well, I will give it to you. Zan and Jase did this for years and the media never took them to task for it.

Being a pessimist in America is chancy..... Anything can happen...... ......anything.

Sometimes I wish I were back..... Back in what is familiar. The sights, the sounds, the stench, the heat, the utter drudgery of Southwest Baghdad. Now that I have been back for over six months I wish that I could go back. I wish I could go back and do it all over. Because maybe if I did something different over there, things would okay over here.....

Catharsis..... Since I have been back I have found myself unable, or unwilling to post pictures of SW Baghdad on my blog. And, "No" nothing to do with the "cynical vet" mystique. In all actuality, it could be laziness, but I am not sure. I just found that I didn't have the enery to do so. Looking back, however, I realize that I just finished with the BEST and WORST job in the Army. I miss the guys so much... Now I have gone from Rifle Platoon Leader to OTI (For those of you who didn't know. There are two jobs in the Army.....Infantry, and Other Than Infantry. I was born signal...transferred to Infantry, and am now a Signal Company Commander. Until the next iteration...here is the high point of my tour....when it was over, and I knew everyone was going home alive. Me, Stone (MY RTO), and SGT Bogonko (One of my Squad Leaders) Waiting on a flight home at Ali Al Salim Airbase.... SSG Gass (from 2nd Platoon), Doc Basham (My medic from 1st Platoon), and Me. Imme...

WWGD (What Would Grunts Do?) Imagine that you are a Soldier in an Infantry Battalion. You have been gone from home for a few weeks shy of 15 months. You have experienced Snipers, RPG's, IED's, and your fair share of fire fights with the local milita. You have had dangerous duty patrolling in Southwest Baghdad. You have had your fair share of action, and you are now smart enough to know that "boring" days are good days. Now your time to rotate back to the world is at hand. The new Battalion is there to replace you, and you are simply waiting for your turn to get onto the freedom bird (airplane home) What would you do with your free time? Make your Lieutenant's life a living hell..... ....and they say they love me.....

Unbelievable.... Sitting at an informal military gathering, many drinks were purchased and downed. One superior Officer, (in rank only.....because he has been in longer than me and the system hasn't flushed the turd), made the statement, "Yes, I know I am cheap...but hey, I don't apologize for being "Niggardly" (Italics and underline is indicative of his inflection on the word). Being the only Black Officer in the Officer call, and one of three in the battalion I just looked down and pondered my drink. A hush fell over the members of the table..... I chuckled. He says.... "Let me guess, Smith...you think I am prejudiced because I said, "niggardly"? I reply..... "No Sir, I think you are prejudiced because you assumed I didn't know what the fuckin' word meant." He was mad. I couldn't make this up folks.

I see that I need a turtle.... One of the new additions to family life that occurred while I was in Iraq was the purchase of a dog. A dog that has gotten on my nerves to no end. The kids like her so I can't very well get rid of her. She has pooped on some of my military gear and chews everything. Maybe I need to invest in a turtle like these.

Persona non grata....me. Storytelling: In the days that have passed since I got home from deployment, more than anything people have asked me, "So how was it?" My friends who are not in the military have this notion that every day things were going on like those shows, "Over there", or "the Unit". More often than not I would say, "It sucked..but it could have been worse." For some reason people are inclined to believe that I am downplaying things but really I am not. I had Soldiers wounded, but not one death. Not even a death in our battalion. At one point we were the only battalion in theater to not have had anyone killed. In that regard I consider myself lucky. We were engaged by both Shi'ite and Sunni militia, but more often than not our engagements were because of spillover between factions. I really haven't had the urge to go into a great amount of detail about things. More often than not, people want to know things, but g...

Repeal Day.... December 5th, 1933 was the day that Prohibition was repealed. At 2100 hours on that day, in honor of that amendment, local establishments began serving spirits. Kinda cool......at that point, the Mob had to look for other sources of income. I think I'm gonna go get a Maker's and Coke ....

36..... Happy Birthday to me.

Out of the loop.... I have been completely out of the loop since coming off of deployment. I am back into the garrison lifestyle and somehow I am fighting getting used to it. I haven't blogged about anything since I came out of theater, although I have done a lot of things. I had a week's long stay in Miami for vacation, went to a bunch of Pop Warner football games, Road tripped to Camp Lejeune for Thanksgiving, and basically tried to reintegrate into my family lifestyle. Tomorrow, which at the time of this post is in approximately twenty minutes, I will be 36 years old. So, I may not have anything compelling to share, but I will definitely, post the obligatory birthday cake with the age title in bold font. Hopefully I will feel inspired as we get closer to Christmas.