January 2007 Archives

When you're a young Private in the Army you might as well be the Armys equivalent of a guy who keeps getting racked in the groin over and over again. You're on the bottom of the totem pole so to speak. You're like the fat kid in 3rd grade that cant play dodgeball and gets nailed in the head every time. You have the lowest rank so you always get picked to do the shittiest jobs around. You rake leaves, pick up trash, clean the shitters (the military slang for the toilet), and if you have been a bit of a goof-ball which believe it or not Ive been known to be, you are punished in the utmost creative ways which I can only imagine have been improved upon daily since the earliest beginnings of the Army. If you know me at all then you know I'm a bit of a goofball. The Army didn't change that too much. When I was a young private in the Army I had my share of days where goofy wasn't as cute as I would have hoped. So, I was made to endure some of the more creative punishments by doing such tasks as mowing the snow, and once I flipped rocks in the Arizona heat to make sure that they didn't get sunburned. No shit people I flipped rocks. Looking back I cant complain for all of those things. It built character. I mean look at this blog...it really built character. So, on the opposite end of that spectrum you have the older and wiser soldiers that have moved up in the ranks as Non-commissioned officers or if you have watched enough war movies you may recognize them simply as "NCOs" They generally have more experience, more time in the Army, more responsibility and they dont get kicked in the proverbial balls nearly as much. On the very, very, extreme end of the NCO spectrum you have the top NCOs in the military, the hard-core, will-put-a-foot-in-your-ass, chain smoking, grumpy types, the lifers, the Sergeant Majors.

So, what happens when a young goofy Private Girlpunch is tasked to work for Sergeant Major B, the top NCO of an Army unit in Germany? He never thought much of my antics either. He conjured up punishments so creative they were worthy of a Mensa membership, and oh did I bring character building to a dynamic new level. I'm still waiting for my place in Army history as the private who all alone perfected the art of buffing the floor. I worked for him for three long and agonizing months. I filed papers, scrubbed the toilets, waxed the floors, emptied trash, worked as a runner for the secretary and did many errands outside in the German cold. I did miserable mind numbing tasks and it pissed me off. I was a brand new military intelligence soldier and I had a brain that was suffering from floor buffer induced atrophy. All I could think about day in and day out was that I was missing out on doing REAL work. The specific tasks assigned to me by Sergeant Major B, himself were always the worst and I was convinced that I was serving out some kind of bad karma sentence while working for him. One day Sergeant Major B came to me with a single sheet of paper and said to me "Somewhere on this post theres a Battalion printing office, I want you to find it and have this piece of paper cut in half" This moment marked the first of many days spent in the Army wearing a bewilderment face. I protested. What was wrong with the Secretaries scissors? It was a single. sheet. of. paper. Nothing was wrong with her scissors. This was the way he wanted it done and thats what I was going to do. End. of. story.

So off into the German cold I went for a fucking piece of paper. I could have swung into any office on post and borrowed scissors, but he was a Sergeant Major and I was Private. Lying to him meant my career and I was pretty sure he had some kind of intuitive anti-lie detector only issued to mothers and Sergeant Majors. So, I started my search for the printing office. I cursed the cold; the Army, him and I swore I would punch my recruiter in the face if I ever saw him again. I spent hours looking for the Battalion printing office and after asking dozens of passing soldiers I was convinced that clearly the printers only existed in Sergeant Major Bs head.

After a few hours I gave up and I returned with the piece of paper still uncut. "Goddamnit Private, listen to me. I don't care if its a stack of 50,000 pieces of paper or one stinking piece of paper. You work the problem all the way through and do not stop until you solve it. Do you understand me Private? One day lives may depend on whether or not you work the problem. you find a way, any way YOU WORK THE PROBLEM"

And so I did. I spent another two hours walking around the Kaserne looking for the damn printers. It was in a tiny unmarked brick building and couldn't have been in a more obscure location if it were the Unabombers shack. I got my single piece of paper cut in half at the printers. They had the bewilderment faces too. I returned the two pieces of paper to Sergeant Major B as he scrawled away at some random Army paper. I was frustrated, tired and couldn't fathom why a single piece of paper and this old man had caused me so much grief in one day.

As I walked out if his office he said to me "You're going to understand one day, Private."


Two months later I left working for Sergeant Major B and went into a Military Intelligence unit. 8 months later I was fighting the Kosovo War. The firs time I ever saw Serbian soldiers ethnically cleanse a village, I understood what he meant. I worked the problems. I worked the problems until I couldn't work them any longer. I worked them until I was physically ill. I worked them until the war ended.

My name now hangs in an Army museum for actions in combat simply because I never stopped working the problems.


I found out today that Sergeant Major B passed away.

In two weeks I'll be entering combat for the fourth time in my life. It will be my ninth deployment into military operations. I'm not a private anymore as I have long shed those Army boots. Now, I'm considered an expert in my field. I know I'll run across Army privates out in Iraq that will look to me for guidance and expertise in our fields. They will be eager to learn and fight just as I was. I always teach them everything I can, and every chance I get Ill tell them for that grumpy old Sergeant Major "work the problem, private."

The last few months i've tried to get back out into the dating scene but with my upcoming deployment to Iraq i've given on the girls for now and turned my focus elsewhere.



Why i'm not dating in 2007

1. I'm going to spend more time with my mother on the phone when she calls.

2. I'm going to work more overtime and help my dad pay off their house so he can retire.

3. I'm going to spend more time talking to my nephew about his dad being in Iraq and helping him learn how to be the man in the house.

4. I'm going to spend more time being the silly aunt that my niece knows me as.

5. I'm going to go home more.

6. I'm going to take my dad fishing more.

7. I'm going to spend more time studying.

8. I'm going to get my team home from Iraq safe and sound and back to their families.

9. I'm going to spend most of my year getting my mind and body where I want them to be.

10. I'm going to be the writer I know I can be.

11. I'm going to be a better sister.

12. I'm going to spend more time making my friends laugh.

13. I'm going to help every person that I can no matter what the consequences.

14. I'm going to make more friends.

15. I'm determined to leave my world in 2007 a better place than the one I left in 2006.

16. I'm going to blog more!

17. I'm not going to date in 2007 because I'm going to devote this year to my family and friends. In 2008 I'm determined to find my wife.