Forced Fun
Printed From: The BaitShop
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Forum Name: Military, Veterans, LEO, Fire and Rescue
Forum Description: These men and women put their lives on the line every day for us and we say THANKS! Forum dedicated to Lance Corporal Jeremy Scott Sandvick Monroe, USMC - KIA Iraq 8 OCT 2006
URL: http://www.baitshopboyz.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=18144
Printed Date: 26 March 2026 at 21:08
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.10 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Forced Fun
Posted By: rivet
Subject: Forced Fun
Date Posted: 01 October 2009 at 07:10
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Okay folks, here's another installment of my Desert Diary....one with a
lighter side to it than last post. Hope you all enjoy it! FORCED FUN "Under the blanket of sound. Uniquely Army sound- that conglomeration of simultaneous multiple intrusion taken without second thought. We eat through it, work through it, sleep through it. This auricular assault begins early in the pre-dawn and lasts well into the night. Today's Army is a 24 hour a day experience. At this moment a troop yells into a landline for Battalion Supply and another next to him is on the radio (PRC-77) berating the other end. Two separate Armed Forces Network stations are tuned in on either ends of the tent; rock versus rap. Directly outside is a highly animated conversation on the merits of a tour of duty in Korea: the pros being primarily sexual in nature, the cons of a military kind. We're a salacious group. With respect to the night and it's stifling heat- soon to be replaced by bone chilling cold- our gravity showerpoints are being cloaked in a berserk Saran-Wrap. Ultra heavy-duty clear plastic wrap now walls in our stalls, with cathedral ceiling to come. Have they taken the sun into consideration, these damned Engineers? What happens when roofed in?...... we might become the worlds largest shrink wrapped item. With the greenhousing effect we witness an exponential growth of our fly population. Ostensibly to keep out the cold-to-come night wind and dust, it is in reality an Army Test: How many trapped flies can be bred and then subject naked soldiers to before actual showering is impossible? A pressing scientific question for sure. As it is right now, we scrub hundreds into our flesh as we "clean up". Nevertheless, for whatever reason this is constructed, it wouldn't seem quite right without the appropriate level of military ineptitude factored in. The portion that actually required one to be able to SEE through, the swinging door, is a large single slab-sheet of plywood. There has been a marked increase in facial injuries recently. And finally, in a not so surprising turn of events today, we found from local sources that we are, in fact, living here worse off than the Kuwaiti refugees. -Desert Journal Entry 1990 So we all had to be there, the entire Brigade, 3 Battalions worth of hot, pissed-off paratroopers ordered to attend another- and hopefully the last if the war would ever get started- Brigade Talent Show organized by the chaplains, and more popularly known as Forced Fun. 'You Will Have Fun' were the directives from above. 3, 500 of us formed up inside a poorly ventilated immense hangar in the middle of nowhere for the evening's event. It was preceded, of course, by the obligatory remarks and motivational addresses by the Brigade Commander and selected minions, to include the Brigade Safety Officer, an overly solicitous First Lieutenant. Tommorrow after all, was Division Safety Day. THERE WILL BE NO ACCIDENTS we are ordered. "Psst. Hey man" I stiffened slightly at the whisper behind me, as we all stood at attention. "These speeches remind me of Communist Indoctrination Sessions we hear about. You know...what the Russians have to go through every-day" He paused. I knew he was smiling. "And you know what? This sucks as stupidly as the Soviet sessions..." he dragged out the "s" as he snickered at his own observation. It was Sergeant Anton- "Auggie Dog", my fellow squad leader within the platoon and roommate back at Fort Bragg. I cleared my throat still grinning. As the remarks wore on and boredom completely settled in, Auggie continued with his prodding humor, caustically commenting on each phrase, hilarity bred from cynicism, further enhanced by its impropriety, caressing us both, incognito among thousands of other soldiers. The heat sat unmoving within the hangar, yet that was not the entire cause for the rivules of sweat that rolled down my neck. Auggie's weakly contained pleasure at his own humor and growlingly muffled laughter had spread to me, embarrassed and unable to shut him up, now suffered with him, increasingly aware of the painful laugh-cramps spreading in my belly with suppressed laughter. Meanwhile, two Privates to the left of us, tickled by the surprising pleasure of standing next to two Sergeants conducting themselves in a wholly unbecoming manner and whispering invectives directed against our commanders, the speaker, the desert coalition and anything military in general, began their own clenched laughter. I wheezed, fighting for air, slowly drawing it into prevent an explosion of laughing. This caused Auggie to burst out in a guffaw loudly concealing it with a quick spasm of fake coughing. The two Privates whimpered as they maintained their clenched-smile composure, shoulders shaking. This was too much for me. As unobtrusively as I thought possible I sank to my knees, hoping to go unnoticed as I surrendered to a laughing fit as quietly as possible. Auggie was crazed by this and tears rolled down his red face, yet he maintained his bearing standing somewhat straight, quivering as clenched teeth stretched across his face and spit flew with every outward laugh. By now, several others had turned their attention surrepetitiously towards the four of us, and infected with our strange hilarity, began their own descent into uncontrolled and utterly misplaced insanity of this humor. "...And on a final note before we begin the talent show" Colonel Roach droned on through the tinny loudspeakers in the hangar "I want each and everyone of you to reflect a moment on how fortunate you are, to think about those worse off than you, in need of help, and give generously to the Combined Federal Campaign. This year's drive begins tonight, your First Sergeant's have the forms to make a contribution...." This was the last straw fo r Auggie and me, succumbing to spasms of laughter on the concrete, joined by another Staff Sergeant and a Private, both on their knees hunched over in helpless, shaking mirth, invisibly missing from the ocean of Paratroopers and surounded by a ring of snickering, smiling, giggling troops; an island of momentary happiness within that surly sea. Eventually it began, the talent showcase, consisting of acts put on by members of our Regiment; it headed hopelessly downhill as all other ones had. Who could ever hope to surpass those Samoan brothers and their fire-stick dance in the first of the talent shows? The Pupu brothers, wearing only OD green loincloths on a darkened stage, ate fire, twirled and limbo'd beneath kerosene soaked rags to our fascination, already desert worn thirty-plus days into Desert Shield. They had even convinced a female CNN journalist (specially flown in, can't pass up good PR for the Army back home) to limbo with them to all our hormonal delight. In the heat she had removed her safari jacket and the act degenerated from there to the crudities and innuendoes of the audience and the MC. Pleasantly titillated at first by all the attention, she had danced and joked and carried on, but her sweat had dampened her T-shirt further exciting the lusty soldiers who had seen only sand, flies and each other for over a month, causing her to grow suddenly self-conscious and flustered by the increasingly explicit solicitations and quickly ended her onstage presence. Our Brigade had not witnessed a press visitation since. Perhaps just as wellm for each event drew on a smaller and succeedingly weaker pool of talent; this one showcasing such talent as "Mental Floss", a singularly inventive trooper who threaded his dogtag chain up his nose as he tilted his head back, then hacking one end out of his mouth, and securing each end in his hands, "flossed" his head. Another duo sang of the weariness of slit-trench use and the dangers of rectal bug-bites, all to the 3 chord tune from an acoustic guitar. There was the inevitable quartet of black troopers and their rap, memorable only for its vigorous handclapping and crotch-grabbing, along with our inability to make out a complete phrase they sang. In the end it was Mental Floss who won the night's award for talent, exemplifying the depths our unit had sunk to out there in the northernmost outpost, tactically emplaced in the middle of the Saudi Arabian oilfields- which were in fact in the middle of nowhere- left to fend for ourselves and connected only by our steady, if vulnerable supply lines. The 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment- The Falcons- in that Airborne Tradition, made do with what we got; which was little more than food and water. -------------  FIRE IS OUR FRIEND!
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