Taps had played some time ago indicating it was now well past 22:00, what a way to spend a Friday night. I’m sure those in the armory did not appreciate standing downwind. After working nearly twenty four hours a day for a week leaves you with a unique odor, one you don’t notice until you have showered and your buddies have not.

Spread out before us on a well worn wooden table were maybe six machine guns in various states of assembly. While not an overly complicated machine than many parts covered the entire table from edge to edge.

Heads bent never looking up while engaged in the process of getting these machines qtip clean. This is a maddening task, like crawling under your car and getting every surface clean enough that the Pope wouldn’t dirty his smock if he shimmied his way down there. You know that the second you drive it becomes dirty, like just one round fired and your weapon is dirty as hell.

If memory serves there were four of us and six guns. Not sure if it was true but they say never to mix gun parts, the machine does not work the same if you do that.

As we scrubbed the carbon off the parts somone, I think Besser, verbally asked if someone would pass that shit to him. Without looking Craig picked up the part and handed it over. The second Besser took hold we all stopped cold.

Somehow we all instinctively knew exactly what he needed. On a table of over one hundred parts and countless cleaning implements we all just knew.

Having a solid team is nice, having one that anticipates is something you just need to experience. Sometimes at work you have teams but I’m not sure we can ever get to the same level as what I experienced in the armory all those years ago.

A team that litreally spends every minute of every day for years together is something that I never thought I would miss.

 

 

I have written a bunch of posts but never hit the publish button.

Sometimes I worry they aren’t good enough.

Sometimes it is because they are too many choice words. Tim O’Brien mentioned something that made me laugh. He said something to the effect of you can’t expect people in the military to not speak a certain way. The choice language is just how we think, talk and interact with each other.

I drafted a few things about my brother. I am shocked he had my dog tag and Marine Corps ring after all these years. The electrical tape was still on the tag, I wonder if I ever told him what used to be attached to it.

Sometimes I was a random question I had that I thought about texting him but I can’t, he is gone.

Listening to Tim today someone asked him what kind of audience kids should write for. Well maybe that wasn’t the exact question but it is close. He said don’t write for an audience, write for the heart.

Maybe that is what I needed to hear.

It is funny how little things that normally go unnoticed now stick out.

We went out to dinner the other night and got some cake. For some odd reason restaurants try to class up cake with some cut strawberries. Just before the plate was taken I was transported back in time.

I was in my old kindergarten room where I think the desks were as old as the glaciers that once shaped our home state. I remember thinking how this was the same room my brother told his teacher a lie.

All the adults laughed about, they still talk about it today.

I never fully understood why some lies were OK and others were not.

When we were in school parents could bake treats and bring them in to celebrate. Some one in PT’s class had brought in a cake to share, a strawberry cake. PT stated that he was allergic to strawberrys.

After a phone call home my parents laughed.

That day we learned that he didn’t like strawberries and he learned how to tell someone no thank you when he didn’t care for something.

This story all because of the strawberry on the restaurant’s attempt to fancy up the plate.

 

I bought the domain zombieziotsqaud.com and redirected it to this site. The back story to this is sad and somewhat funny.

I was in Minnesota in the beginning of June, my brother was dying in the hospital. We were all gathered in one of the family rooms talking. At some point a random man walked into the room talking. I was pretty sure he was talking to someone on a bluetooth headset, his hair was pretty long.

After a minute or so he layed down on the ground right in front of one of the doors. I still thought all was good, there were two doors and maybe he was dealing with some pretty heavy news.

I was telling a story about when PT, my older brother, got me a job at Pizza Hut. It was only a temporary gig at some music festival. One of the performers happened to be Sinead O’Connor. The second I mentioned her the floor guy starts singing her songs.

We all stopped talking and just listened. I leaned over to notice he didn’t have a headset in and what I thought was a large energy drink was actually beer.

The guy then started telling stories about how many fights he had been in and that he was part of a gang called Zombie Riot Squad. He kept saying Zombie Riot Squad over and over again.

He wasn’t talking to us or really anyone else. Just talking out loud.

I don’t know why but that name just stuck with me. I felt compelled to buy the domain but I really don’t know why. I just needed it.

I like thinking about it, I know PT would have loved this story.

Deiss, my brother from the Corps. 

Thirteen weeks. Thirteen long weeks to be reborn, reshaped and re-purposed into something new. Thirteen weeks to break you down and recreate each of us as one. One team.

Every second was purposeful but impossible to see that from the inside. They taught us to shave, how to make a proper bed, methods to shine shoes and boots. Everything was by the numbers as if we never had those experiences before. No assumptions, we were all treated exactly the same.

This experience shapes you for the rest of your life. It somehow bonds you to people in ways that your blood relatives might not be able to fully understand.

The countless months that follow are equally bonding. Mashed together, it seems like you have been together for years. All walks of life, backgrounds rarely matter. The might have been the best part of the experience, no one really cared what your background was. Rich, poor, race, religion or education, no one cared. It wasn’t a rose garden but it wasn’t exactly like the outside world. It was a world that only can be seen from the inside.

I was fortunate to have Deiss come up to visit while I was on vacation. It is great to reconnect to my past life. Telling old stories felt like it was yesterday. Reconnect to something that forged me into who I am today.

It is hard to define what makes the connection strong, why we could pick up like it was just yesterday we were on ship or the pier. Not sure how it all works but I am so thankful for all of it. Thankful for Deiss.

I hoisted this pack on today, heavier now with books and a few gifts. I jumped a bit while I tightened the shoulder straps. Thought nothing of it until I reached Starbucks.

Once I ordered I searched out a seat. I took my left hand and loosed the strap. Something so familiar about it. The zzzzzzziiiippp sound of the nylon brought me right back and reminded me of alice. Alice isn’t a person but the name of the pack we carried in the Corps. Well… we never carried them, we humped them. Humping the term we used for hiking. No clue where it originated from but it just stuck. humping alice 20+ miles creates pain like no other. Going downhill was always the worst. I’d take walking up those endless hills of the jungle any day over walking down just one hill.

There were times when the pack was so heavy little guys needed help standing. I no longer wonder why my hips hurt today. My lower back hurts. They say it is age but we know it was alice, still crushing us to this day.

It seem seems I live in the now and past simultaneously.

When I was younger any trip that included a hotel was the best. I’m pretty sure that you could have left me in that place and I would have been super happy. Not sure why but I always loved them. From HoJo to a Best Western, they were all better than Disney. Maybe it was eating a restaurant or the fact that every single hotel had a TV that worked, something we did not always have.

Most of these trips happened because of my grandparents. They would pick us up in St. Paul and drive us to Athens. This trip included two nights in predetermined hotels and outlet shops. Gramps always had the route mapped out, lunch stops included. Grandma had the outlets planned so she could buy us clothes, but mostly church appropriate shorts. I still can’t believe my grandma let me wear shorts to church. Maybe it was because it was a billion degrees in Georgia or it was to quiet the complaining. I never liked going to church.

I am fortunate enough to be in Texas for a conference and staying in another hotel. The image above is the keypad in the elevator. I stepped into the elevator upon arrival and stopped cold. I was choked up, even now. The last time I was in an elevator was at the hospital saying goodbye. My brother, only 48, died suddenly. Still no reason. Said it was natural causes.

Still raw from all the emotions. Makes me think of baggage and how much we all carry.  I wonder how many people I work with see things like a keypad and get swept away. Maybe the smells from school lunch brings a student crashing back into some memory.

Not sure how we can look for for these signs. Maybe just being aware, observant and ready to help. Help with space and support.

*I wrote this without editing and in one shot. I’m sure there are errors but I can’t go back at this time. Harder than I thought to relive.

I saw this cloud today and thought of you. The last few times we were together all I could do was curse. I think the only person who could of interpreted what I was saying would have been Crow.

All those four letter words just flowed, that was all I could say.  Those utterances had strong meanings, they were the things we never said.

Only a Marine could have interpreted what I was saying but somehow I’m sure you understood.

Here is my first installment of my favorite Crowisms of the past. There was nothing worst than guard duty but we made the most of it.

Another memory.

I can’t recall who was there but it was a hot summer night. I think there was maybe four of us sitting on that hill just talking and drinking beer.

I can’t recall what we talked about but we sat there for hours.

My brother had this thing about telling stories. He would start down a path and he would spend ten minutes telling you about that path before ever stepping foot on it. Many of the stories where like that, never really knowing where you would end up.

I have to admit, there were times I felt like yelling “GET TO THE POINT!” but I never did. Sometimes I was at the end of the story already, having heard it before, just waiting for it to be finished. I think he liked telling it, reliving it in his own head.

I would give anything to hear another rambling tale.