My Room Smells Like the Woods

Well, more aptly, my room smells like pine trees and patchouli.
But, I like to pretend it smells like the woods. Even though most of us know the smell of the forest is something that is infinitely more complex than what candles and an open window (depending on where you are) can provide you with. Not to mention, the forests where I come from are a good mix between coniferous and deciduous trees, but I miss the smell of the cedars the most. 
That earthy scent. The perfect mix of decaying leaves and needles, of rotting wood, of the damp ground... of everything that makes it unique.

You won't smell the woods while you're treading the sidewalks of the city. You won't while you're stuck in traffic on the interstate, daydreaming you were anywhere else. You won't while you're sitting in a stuffy office. Or in the confines of a hangar, surrounded by the many chemical, synthetic smells of aircraft maintenance. You won't smell this on some muddy, miserable FOB in Afghanistan.

So maybe, this is why I like to pretend. Pretend I'm far away. Maybe on one of the running trails around my old high school.
Maybe on the peninsula, around a campfire with my family, like we spent a good number of my summers growing up.
Maybe in the mountains again. Or somewhere in the Skagit Valley, on some private property, sketching streams and calculating their velocity. The places I learned it isn't trespassing unless you get caught.

I'm sure we all have places that we like to run off to in our heads. These are the places I've picked, this time. But, studies have shown that certain smells can be linked closely to memory. 

It's silly. I thought this would alleviate some of the frustration I feel with the East Coast. (Before you lose your mind, by "East Coast" I really mean NOVA, DC and Maryland. And anything that falls along the I-95 corridor.)
But it hasn't.
And it's made me a little more homesick than I intended it to.

You know what I want to do? No, of course you don't. None of you are mind readers. I hope not at least. 

What I would love to do in a perfect world, under perfect (or even imperfect) circumstances, is get the hell out of the Marine Corps, find a spit of land somewhere. Buy that land. Build a damn cabin on it.
Preferably, I'd like this land to be a little out of the way.

Ehhhhh. To hell with it. I'll continue this rant some other time. It's too late, or early depending on your perspective, to stay up before another day of tedious Death by Powerpoint.


The things I look forward to everyday, right? Hmmph.
Shut up Wood, you're the one who signed up for this.

Slightly Intoxicated Rant v1.3 - Return from the Land of Real Trees and a Bitchfest

I spent thirteen glorious days not worrying about work.
Or Quantico.
Or the Marine Corps.
Or how the Big Green Weenie may fuck me over in the future.

THIRTEEN DAYS.
Of being carefree. It was amazing.

So yes, I took leave. I went home for the first time in about a year. The last time I was home was on boot leave. And yes, I'm STILL A GODDAMN BOOT. I don't care. I know I am. Ohhhh well. Gotta start somewhere, no?
But the Land of Real Trees is Washington. As in the state. Sorry, I have to clarify that since a lot of people like to assume I'm from up the 95 corridor in DC. Nope. Try about THREE THOUSAND MILES north and west of here.

I didn't do much of anything while I was home. Spent most of my time with my parents, my amazing Hobbit-dog, and visiting a few friends. I also managed a trip over to the Land of Potatoes-Killer-Tumbleweeds-Crazy-Hormonal-Weather-and-Nothingness to visit my Super Duper Paratrooper Brother and his wife, who are students at WSU. That was a good trip. Mostly because of the good food. I'm kidding. Kind of. It was also nice to see the both of them. And their attack Conure who now hates me for >insert random nonsensical reason here<.

Contrary to popular belief, I did not get drunk on leave. Actually, I drank very little and I'm absolutely shocked. This NEVER happens.

But now? Now I'm back in the Land of Perpetual Disgruntlement.
What happened while I was gone? A K9 Board.
Don't get me wrong, I'm really happy for who won the board. He more than deserves it.
But it seems to me that the Fates are rubbing it in my face something fierce when I find out a female from my MP class is now at K9 handler school. And the only thing I can wonder is, "Huh. Dick sucking probably gets you places as a female? Well, that's depressing as fuck."
Depressing because FUCK THAT SHIT, I refuse to stoop that low.

You know what? I'm gonna stop while I'm ahead this rant. I don't have any funny stories from my visit home. I don't have anything positive to say tonight.
So.
Good night.

I'm Still Alive. Promise.

I haven't been kidnapped by midget pirates.
Or strangled and put through a woodchipper.
I have not gone UA, run off to Canada to marry a lumberjack.
I haven't drowned trying to swim the English Channel.
Nor have I been shot in a quail hunting "accident".

No, I'm still here. And still very much so okay.

There are just some days where you simply do not want to get out of bed. Or even do much of anything that you don't have to do.
I just happen to have had quite of few of those days lately.
And I've also been at work a lot, so I'm sure that's a contributing factor.

Since you know that I'm alive now, I'm going to go run along. I promise I'll have a better blog entry next time.
I kind of owe you, right?

Slightly Intoxicated Rant v1.2 - Bro Status and "Finally Accepting It"

Please note, I've been drinking tonight. And I'm in an awfully cheerful mood.
 Now...


Raise your hand if you've never been completely okay with who you are.
That's most of us, right?
Now put your hand down if you still aren't.
Mine is still raised.

I don't know if yours is or not, but quite frankly, that's something you're going to have to tackle on your own.
You may confide in friends, family and loved ones, but ultimately no one is going to help you be comfortable in your own skin except for yourself.
That sounds harsh, but it is undoubtedly true.
You can either accept who you are and make strides toward achieving the best you...
Or adversely....
You can choose to loathe the person you are, despite the fact you're either trying to change it or are absolutely unwilling to.
That's up to you.

Me?
Well.
There are parts of me that, in the past, I've locked away, never wanted to come to terms with or simply did not want to believe are true about myself.
This past month or two have been fairly interesting. I've found out uncomfortable truths about myself. And those things that I've locked away? Well, those certainly have made a break for freedom. I know, escape attempts are authorizations for the use of deadly force, but really, I haven't had the heart to. Or maybe I finally think they were shut away for very unjust reasons.
Either way.
They're out there. Running ramped. Causing mayhem and destruction.

But you know what? I. Don't. Care.
It's a part of the fabric of my being. Who I am. And well, it hasn't hurt anyone yet.
I'm not any different.
I'm still LCpl Wood, regardless. I'm still the same person you met originally. I'm still me.
The only difference is that I've come to terms with all my perceived faults.
I'm happier for it, too.

Obscure rant finished.
Moving along.

Bro status?
Yeah, I've coveted that achievement for a while.
In a predominately male world that is the Marine Corps, I think that's a very valued place.
The whole being accepted as "One of the guys" is fairly important to me. Albeit, the ones who have given me this status are ones I've known for a cool minute, it still is awesome.
I don't think you quite understand the range of freedom that gives me.
I can go out with my guy friends, and I can drink, chill, I'm in on "Bro-code". And it won't be under the pretense of trying to fuck me. So. That's a great thing.
Onnnn the flip side, I will have to deal with jealous-as-fuck significant others. Which is such a damn hassle because they don't quite "get it" with being a female that's become just one of the guys.
Obviously, I'm not after their man. If I were, I wouldn't have wound up with the title I have. Also, I generally wind up knowing all the disgusting, perverse male things that they talk about or think. So. Why the fuck would I want that? I don't.
But on the positive side, I'm not excluded just because they want a "guy's night out".

So props to me.
Well. I'm not making much sense at this point, it's just putting a stream of consciousness down on the screen at this point. So I should go. 

A Phone Call That Changed It All

 The day I stood on the infamous Yellow Footprints is coming up in a few days. So today's blog post is dedicated to my sisters of Oscar Company, Platoons 4008 and 4009, and to the women who turned us into the Marines that we are today.

"How do you feel about going to boot camp early?"
"When?"
"Tomorrow."

I had a choice to make. Wait until the 22nd of January, or leave a little under three weeks early.
Feet first, I took that plunge.
Twenty-four hours.
That's what I had to settle any and all affairs that I had planned to take care of in the following two-and-half weeks.
A lot of people, I never said goodbye to. Maybe it was better that way. One of the things I learned is that when you keep moving, you don't have time think about being afraid.

The next day, before my recruiter drove me to MEPS the final time, I went out for my "last meal"  at home, as I liked to call it. Gyros and Greek fries. My stomach was roiling. I couldn't eat more than two bites.
Excitement.
This was finally happening.
Nervousness.
First wannabe Marine in the family; what the hell am I getting myself into?
Sleep-deprived.
I stayed up most of the night packing up my entire room so my parents wouldn't have to.

Jeans, t-shirt, Chucks, Northface jacket.
Driver's license, social security card, and two recruiter cards
That's all I left with. As per my recruiter.

He offered me one last chance at food before dropping me off at the hotel we stayed at for MEPS.
Chipotle. I declined. My stomach still hadn't settled down.
That night I met one girl who would eventually become a sister. She's in Okinawa now.
She was my roommate, and as it turns out from my recruiting station. She left that night. I still had to go to MEPS in the morning. Then I'd be sent out the next day.
When I went to dinner both nights, anyone who talked to me thought I was absolutely daft for joining the Marines. 
I didn't believe them.
That is until I sprinted out of a damn van in the middle of unusually warm January night and onto those infamous yellow footprints. To the screams of a voice that represented everything I would learn to hate, loathe, fear, respect, and in it's own weird way, come to love.
It was my very first encounter with a female drill instructor.

I remember the exact set of footprints I stood on.
Front, right corner.
There were three of us in our receiving group. Some of you might think that's very fortunate. It was... Not.
That staff sergeant. She knew my name. And she remembered it until the day I marched across the parade deck three months later.

I also remember needing to pee like crazy. Well. That had to wait. For a very. Very. Long. Time.
I was the one who learned what a hatch was first. To get it. To get back. To get it.
To open my fat face and fucking scream.
Oh. So you don't want to scream "Aye ma'am", huh you disgusting thing? GET BACK!

What.
The.
Fuck.
Did.
I.
Get.
Myself.
Into.
FUCK.


A blur. That's what receiving was after a certain point. Cooper's Color Code Black? Ahhhh haha. Nah. Well. Maybe.
So I didn't have tenni-runners (Go-Fasters for you males, and running shoes for normal human beings. Wtf is a 'tenni-runner'?) when they took the last vestiges of my previous life away in a brown paper bag. Everything except my green Converse. I was issued my running shoes after that.
I had managed to hide my shoes in the bottom of my footlocker for three months.
God knows I was horrified what would happen if my stuff was ever dumped. I'm sure it might have ended up something like Private Pyles' jelly donut. Uggggh.
I was... Lucky.

Black Friday was a blur too. The day you meet your drill instructors. That was intimidating as hell.
Then the games began with gear.
And screaming.

I became a part of 4th Recruit Training Battalion.
Oscar Company.
Platoon 4009.

I remember very distinctly hating Drill Instructor Sergeant Creel in the beginning.
Well.
She hated my "heinous ass voice".
It was pretty nasty, admittedly.
Platoon 4008 knew who I was because they'd hear DI Sgt Creel always screaming, "WOOD! YOUR VOICE IS FUCKING HEINOUS!"
"RECEIVED MA'AM!"
She was the one who brought me to the sand pit most often. Or anywhere for a wonderful IT session.
One day, it was the laundry room.
I fucked up in drill. Go figure.
That IT session felt like it would never end. Hell, the recruits DI Sgt Shippen brought in after me left before me.
Sgt Creel quietly informed me that I could go back to drilling with the platoon as soon as I got the floor wet. I was drenched. But none of that sweat hit the floor. She wanted the impossible.
My automatic response was to take my sweat-streaked face and...
Rub it all across the floor. It was the only way I was going to get that floor wet.
She momentarily lost her bearing. She looked confused, shocked and disgusted all in a split second.
"Get UP! GET OUT. FLY! I SAID FLY!"

I did some ridiculous shit.
I think we all did.

Funny thing? In the end, I requested that I be in her squad for The Crucible. The one drill instructor I thought I hated the most ended up being my favorite.
It was her first cycle fresh out of DI school.


I was that recruit who would talk... Well... Yell, that is, in her sleep.
Awesome.
They have some pretty funny stories.
Such as the time I sat bolt upright in my rack and gobbled like a turkey and laid back down.
Or reciting the firewatch report. Perfectly. Though for the life of me I would stumble through it when awake.
Or those random ass screams of, "AYE MA'AM!".

Yeah. That recruit. There were a few of us, actually. But my turkey noise night was pretty notable.

Well.
I hate to bore you to death with my boot stories. I have too many.
But quite honestly, those were some of the best shitty times.

For the life of me, I would never take back going to boot camp early.
I wound up with the best drill instructors to shape me into a Marine.
I found sisters that I will have until the day I stop breathing and walking this earth.

I'm not from Nasty November.
Nor am I a Pretty Papa.
I'm motherfucking Outstanding Oscar.




And one more thing...
PINK ON A MAP?!
MA'AM, PINK ON A MAP IS ALPHA COMPANY, MA'AM! 

Phở Porn - My Undying Love for Noodles

DISCLAIMER:
Parental discretion advised. The following is not suited for noodle haters, vegetarians, the faint of hear. Vivid descriptions of phở and its effects will follow. Also photographs depicting phở may be included.
I will claim full responsibility if you take offense. Will I give two phở-cks? Hell no. Go away if you don't like it. Wuss.


So as most of you know, I have a few weaknesses and couple of vices I enjoy indulging.
They include and are not limited to:
Drinking
Over-sleeping
Hookah once in every fiftieth blue moon
Laughing by far too much
Being cynical
Food

And on the last bit... Noodle soup. Not just any soup, mind you. But phở.
Broth of the gods!
Well. Maybe not, but it is damn tasty.

For those of you not in the know, phở is a Vietnamese street food that is comprised of broth, rice noodles, meat and a few optional garnishes. You can usually find me adding in bean sprouts, Thai basil, a squeeze of lime and a LOT of Sriracha.(AKA 'Rooster Sauce', 'Cock Sauce') Enough to turn my broth from that beautiful brown to a painful orange hue. But the burn is so good.I love this stuff so much, I own a shirt declaring it.
It's tasty.
It's usually inexpensive. (Around the same price you pay for some sack nasty from the Golden Arches. I get a regular size bowl, and I can barely finish it)
It's quick.
It's my comfort food, on this weird level.

I can tell you about my very first time.
I doubt I can ever forget that.

STANDBY FOR STORY TIIIIIIIIIME.

It was mid-June. I had just graduated high school. Eighteen and full of dreams, but also plagued by unnecessary relationship problems. I was on a hiking camping trip with a couple of friends/co-workers. Needless to say, I left the trip early for some really stupid reasons, and for a while lost one of my best friends for it.
In two and a half days, I managed to hike a total of nearly 27 miles. Being carless, I managed to snag a ride down the mountain from the trailhead by a couple of amazingly awesome ladies, one of whom owns a local wine shop back home. Hmmph. I need to stop by the next time I go home and talk for a while.
Despite my very disheveled appearance and crazy-ass story (I'm lucky they didn't think I was an ax murder), they took me down to one of the local towns. Skykomish. That was as far as they could take me, seeing as they were one a little weekend retreat to a cabin the wine shop owner owned. Needless to say, they let me use a cell phone (Didn't have one for three and a half years. It was nice).

I called the only person I could think of that would drive an hour and a half to fetch my sorry ass, and not flip out.
My brother, the Paratrooper.
The one who has pulled me out of more than a few fires. It would be a lie to say I don't owe him my life.
It was the summer just after he had left the Army.
Since that day, I've had his phone number memorized. I'm just lucky he hasn't changed it. Haha.
So while I'm waiting for him to come retrieve me, I help my rescuers out with building their outdoor firepit. I still feel it was inadequate payment for their kindness.
My brother arrives, we throw my pack and gear into the van, we all chat for a little while and then we depart.
The ride home was such a relief. We talked. Then he figured I was hungry. He took my out for my very first bowl of phở.
It was one of those beautiful Washington summer afternoons. Far from being hot, but sunny, everything green.
We walk into this tiny restaurant, just a few miles from home. Phở Dat. My favorite noodle joint to date. Blistered feet, hiking boots, dirt stained jeans and a comfortable t-shirt.
We sit down. The place is cheerful and cozy. Oddly raised designs and paintings of rice paddies adorn the yellow walls. I remember anytime off my feet at that point was nice.
You could smell the broth simmering back in the kitchen. One of the very welcome smells.
God, I was hungry.
The owner comes by and asks us for our order. Two Cokes, two large bowls of phở with eye round and flank steak.
A few minutes pass, he drops off a plate of garnishes and two cream puffs. I still don't know what I'm getting into at the point. My brother reassures me that it'll be good, and to save the cream puffs for the end. I trust him, so I follow his lead and break apart my bamboo chopsticks and wait.
Not more than ten minutes from the time we order, the own comes back with two steaming bowls of the most beautiful sight ever.
Paperthin cuts of beef, cooking in front of your eyes in that magical brown broth. My brother adds in his bean sprouts, basil and lime wedge. He gives it a healthy spurt of sriracha. I follow suit.
Words cannot describe my first taste of this.

 Words still cannot do justice for my love of that bowl of pure happiness.

One of the first places I ate when I came home from boot camp was that little noodle place. It's a pilgrimage I think I'll make everytime I journey home.
As common as phở joints are back home in Washington, not everywhere is blessed to have one.
I learned this the hard way in Missouri.
That was a dark, dark time for me and diverse foods. Because there were none. Maybe that's why I took up barbequing more frequently. And drinking.
The only place I could get a bowl of phở was Saint Louis. Which is not particularly close, and a $130 one-way cab ride. Or before they took it away, by rental car. I do have an amusing story about that, for another time though.
Let me tell you. That phở was alright, but far from being perfect. That restaurant didn't revolve around it. I can't blame them, I don't imagine anywhere in Missouri is keen on Vietnamese noodle soup.

Since then, I've crawled out of the dark ages. Went to my current duty station. I'm back in civilization, and despite the horrific traffic, all is good.
I also have a little phở place I happen to frequent whenever I have a ride or a car to drive myself.
Or a willing convert.
I've already dragged several Marines to go broaden their tastes. And I'm pleased to report they've enjoyed it. They have even gone to seek it out on their own volition.

Admittedly, I have a tendency to binge eat. I will eat it 2-4 times in a week, and then it'll be a few weeks of absolutely nothing before I manage to go back.
I wish it would be more regular.

And now...

 

Obligatory photo. The last time I had gotten any, Saigon 75.

Also note Thai iced coffee in the background.

God... I've got the shakes again. I need to go back soon.

Understanding My Dad

Maybe not understanding him completely, but I feel like this past year I’ve grown to understand him a lot better than I ever did when living at home. And that’s saying something.
This sort of has occurred to me before, but I never really thought to write about it. Well, here I am.
 
Let me give you a little bit of background into my family before I go off explaining my oh-so-profound revelations. First of all, we don’t call him “Dad”, he’s Pop to us. Always has been, always will be. When I was a little brat ages ago, he was Papa or Poppy. Second of all, out of all my siblings’ lives, he was around for most of mine growing up. He had retired from the Army in about ’96, 22 years of active service as a tank crewman; a 19K by Army MOS designation I think, or a 1812 to translate to Marine terms. I was just about to turn six when he got out. Most of my brothers’ lives had been spent with him deployed or in the field.

My Mom raised us pretty much alone, my oldest brother (who is sixteen years older than myself) helped out. We all did our part, actually. We were a well-oiled German engineered machine while Pop was gone, as Mom would joke around.

”Zhere vill be order und discipline!”
That was a poor attempt at communicating my mother’s accent. And her odd sense of humor. If any of you have met her, you’d have laughed a little at that. You also would then promptly remind me how much you love my crazy little German mother. Well, I love her too. Very much so.

Sometimes I wonder how much she has rubbed off on me. Probably a lot more than I’ve realized.

 
Anyway! Back to the topic at hand.
Pop.
He’s fairly rough around the edges, cantankerous, grouchy, sarcastic and always has to be in charge. He is also a man of routine. Part of that comes with old age, I’m sure. (And I suddenly have realized that sounds a lot like me. Auuugh.) He might be retired from the Army, but he works for the Navy as civilian DoD police. We call them ‘Blueberries’ out here, due to their dark blue/black uniform. And also because a good number of them are a little… Shapely.

I’m certain without my Mom, he’d be less civilized. She also might instigate part of that cantankerous old man-age. But isn’t that what married couples do after… Uhhh… I think it’s somewhere close to 35 years of marriage? Regardless. It’s a high number that I don’t think I’ll see for myself. BUT I DIGRESS. That’s a story for another day.

 
After twenty-two years of being in the Army, or any branch for that matter, you develop a mindset that life is supposed to run a certain way. You have habits and routines because much of your day revolves around a regimented schedule. I see that now. I knew that before but at the same time, I didn’t really know. You catch my drift? Well. My very little time spent in the Marine Corps has shown me this. And I can understand why small, stupid stuff would piss Pop off. Why he expects things to be done a particular way.

Pop joined the Army thinking it’d be a single enlistment stint; he joined because a high school buddy joined. This buddy of his thought he’d go career. He ended up getting out after his first enlistment. Two decades and some change later, my dad is a First Sergeant. His retirement only pays him as a Sergeant First Class (our equivalent to a Gunny), simply because he didn’t have enough time in grade as an E8 before he left. Go figure.

I get up everyday I work, and do more or less the same thing. I deal with the stupid bullshit we all have to deal with; Putting up with fools and whores, assholes and some ridiculously silly rule because someone ruined it for the rest of us. I do my job, I do it in a very particular way, and it’s the same. Day in, day out.
I see the crap we deal with on all levels. What my NCOs and SNCOs deal with, what my peers deal with.
I can see how by living like this for twenty-some years, you get set in your ways.
 
I never anticipated that one of the things I’d gain, quite inadvertently, from joining the Marine Corps would be the ability to relate better to my dad. (Also to my brothers)
Don’t tell him, but I’m really happy I can now.
Through high school and college, we butted heads more than a few times. Such differing opinions on life, politics, uhhh… Boyfriends, what I should do with my life, etc. Those typical teenage/young adult things that happen to make life a little more turbulent than necessary.  

 

Anyway, I should wrap this up. The hour is late. Or early, depending on how you look at it. Back home it’d only be midnight. Nights really have me jacked up.

 

Pop, sometime early '90s?

Christmas 2011

Yes, we wrapped it in a copy of the latest Army Times.
He looks so serious, but he was happy with it. His face is just....

Naturally that way. Haha. :) 

Shadow box was a joint gift from all the kids.

My idea, and we liked it. My dad did too.

Hand put together by the family paratrooper and myself.

 

We also got him shot glasses. One representing each of us. He was confused when he pulled out the one with the seal of the Marine Corps on it. That's how I broke the news I'd be going to Parris Island the following month, and not to Ft. Jackson for the Army. He was a little crushed. He thought his little girl was going to go put on the same Army green he had. Little did I know at the time, I'd see him tearing up on Family Day a few months later. Apparently, he brags to anyone who listens that his little pigtailed girl is a jarhead. Love you Pops. :)