Sunday, July 17, 2011

Olde Dream

yesterday the last thing i did before going to sleep was watch the saint crispin's day speech from Henry V. then last night i had a dream in old english. weird.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Fierce Bunny: Revenge Of The Rabbit

you might remember the rabid rabbit that tried to attack me a while back. i've learned different people have different ways of dealing with the creature, but not all of them have learned from neville chamberlain. that's right, i'm saying someone tried to appease it.

i was passing by another soldier at the site of the previous attack when the rabbit appeared. doing his best to show no fear the other soldier slowly bent down and poured some lettuce out of a cup onto the ground. the rabbit gave him a "you think you can buy me off?" look, then it showed that man of will what will really was.*

it hopped towards the lettuce but stopped about a yard short. instead of eating the lettuce, it started eating a sandbag nearby. tore the thing to pieces. i can only imagine the fire burning in it's eyes. i give that other soldier credit for not immediately running away like a little girl.

*that line was stolen from "the usual suspects" and used here without permission or a valid reason. it really doesn't make much sense here.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Adapt And Overcome

this war has brought several modifications to the vehicles the army uses. i'm not talking about new types like the MRAP, but about changes to the existing vehicles. for instance, every vehicle now come with air conditioning. very important if you want soldiers sitting in a metal box for hours in 120+ degree heat to be in top fighting shape.

other modifications are just as important and have reportedly come from the innovation of soldiers themselves, such as the current turret system. when the war began, humvee gunners essentially stood in the open, with no armor from the waist up. the story i heard is that one enterprising soldier took some spare parts such as metal plating and bullet proof humvee windows and placed it around the humvee turret to give the gunner some protection. you might think this is the point of the post, but it's not. it's merely a segue.

there's another modification soldiers have been making for years that has not yet been picked up by the army. first let me explain that the way we talk to each other inside vehicles is usually with headsets, each with headphones that cover the whole of both ears and a microphone. the modification, and why this couldn't have been done in previous wars, involves leaving one headset free, then taping headphones from an mp3 player to the microphone. this gives everyone in the vehicles a radio. strange the army left those out. they also missed cup holders.

it's the small luxuries that matter.