Thursday's Thoughts

They rubbed a hole in my chestal region and ruined many T shirts, but I felt this hardware kept me a little safer. All came from different friends except one that came from a chaplains assistant. The pic reminds me of a persistent military urban legend people often repeat that dog tags were initially made to be driven between the teeth of a dead soldier by stomping with a boot or driving in with a hammer etc. This legend never happened and is profane and bizarre. It should be an obvious legend since it goes so far against the grain of practicality, human nature and experience, but people believe it and have repeated it for decades.






• When Zachary is he here he always sleeps with me. I like it, but never sleep well.


• An example of a perfect song that's been one of my favorites for most of my life: Gerry Rafferty Right Down The Line.


• GF posted some things about me on her Facebook which caused comments like, "No way- there's not any guys like that left!"


• Guess I'm an OK BF.


• How hot is it here? Yesterday it was just too hot... to be in the swimming pool.


• Zac loves swimming at night.


• I still puzzle over how superstitious I was during the war. Honestly, I didn't have any superstitious habits prior to deploying and found them annoying in others, but they somehow hardwired pretty quickly and were difficult to leave behind when I came home. Some of the ones that come to mind: I felt like as long as I treated everyone well I engaged I would be OK- like no bad karma would come down on me. Although we teased each other often about getting killed, Hey man, if you get blown up today, can I have your laptop? I never did this at all with the 3 youngest guys in my platoon (who were also often my crew) nor did I allow others to do it around me. The religious medallion that I passed up when offered does not exist. There's 4 crosses and 2 saint medallions on my dog tags. When guys would see my dog tags the question often was,"Oh, are you Catholic?"


• No, I just wasn't taking any chances.