In ‘08 I gave my notice to Parsons and went to work for an Iraqi company called Leadstay. Leadstay was the outfit that provided all the heavy equipment and operators we employed at Camp Wolf in Anbar Province.
They worked under the direction of our EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) guys, (Tetra Tech) helping them to locate and destroy the UO (unexploded ordnance) that Saddam had so graciously left behind.
The project, USACE CMC (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Coalition Munitions Clearance project), was a noble one and I worked for them two years, “Kicking bombs” as my IT guy referred to it.
Previously I had worked for Parsons on the USAID (U.S. Dept. of State) Rural Water Project.
We built water treatment plants for rural villages all over Iraq providing clean potable water to people who had never put lips to same.
Spent two years doing that. I was in the ‘Construction’ business. At CMC I had moved into the ‘Destruction’ business, or for you literary types: ‘deconstruction business’. The circle was now complete.
CMC was winding down in ’08 after having destroyed roughly four hundred thousand short tons of old live ordnance during the five years they had been ‘kicking the bombs’ which the bad guys would surely have turned into IED’s.
I needed to find a new gig.
Through my connections with Leadstay I was hired on as ‘Business Development Manager.” They paid me fifteen thousand bucks a month (In cash if I so desired) plus two percent of any new contracts I landed. Potentially very lucrative.
The Leadstay ‘Man Camp’ was in the ‘Red Zone’ just outside the wire of Camp Victory, which bordered BIAP (Baghdad International Air Port).
Electricity was hit or miss. The power grid from Baghdad was kind of like Texas weather; “If you don’t like it just wait a minute and it’ll change.” We had backup generators, but they were only for show anyway.
The shower in my hooch often gave me little shocks, reminding me that “OSHA does not live here.” All the Iraqis (and some of us) were armed.
I wasn’t, but I had my eye on an AK-47 for sale in the duty-free shop Ahmed owned. Mostly the Duty-Free was a liquor store. We were only allowed to drink booze on Thursday nights. (Of course we mangled that rule, being ‘By God Americans!”)
“‘Cause I’m livin’ on things that excite me Be they pastry or lobster or love I’m just tryin’ to get by bein’ quiet and shy In a world full of push and shove.”
And, Yes Jimmy: I’ve Also Seen Too Many Places
“The Wino And I Know”
–Jimmy Buffet
Street Cred: MoonLit Water
***
Lance In Not-To Distant Future:
Speaking of “Futures”–My Liver Do Not Have One.
Not A Pleasant One Anyhow.
That’s What The Lovely Young She-Doc Told Me During My Recent Commerce Hospital Adventure told Me Anyway–
She Sent Me Home With Some Scary-Ass Lit:
Two Inches Thick.
Had ‘Family Snaps’ Of MY Liver & Ever’Thang.
I Saved it For My ‘Crap/Snap-Book-Book–
And to Tack to My
“I love Me Wall”
(Just Some ‘Light’ Reading)
For Reminiscing:
“Hurry; Don’t Be Late”
For Reminiscing:
Say Moi!
No Wine Before It’sMine!
Winos!
God Love ‘Em!
Street Cred: MoonLit Water
*****
Bonus Added Value:
King Richard-The-First:
****
I know I am STUPID!
But, I just want to make people
LAUGH!
(This is My Mission)
*****
“Livin’ My Life Like A Song”
–Jimmy B.
“It’s A Strange Situation…
Wild Occupation!”–
JB–Again.
*****
Man Wrote some really Great Shit!—
AndYes! I Have Read His Auto-biography–
“A Pirate Looks At Fifty”
It Kinda Sucked–Was All About Nothing But Water-Planes—
I Never Read Another One–The First One Bored Me To Tears
******
I was Disappointed
*****
I generally
Don’t Like
To End My Posts On A Down
NOTE,
But…
This Song…
Is My So-Called Life.
******
Very Long Ago…
“I thought I’d found a life to suit my style.“
Obviously I Was Mistaken
“Spider John”
And This Vid Kinda Sucks
But I prefer Old Washed-Up Drunks To Watch,
Rather Than When They Were In-Their-Prime
Below is the Orig Audio Version
For All You ‘Purist Parrot-Parrot-Heads’ Out There In Radio-Land
Here is the Audio-Only Original Version:
******
How Many Good Women Have I Cast Away?
Far Too Many to Count.
But How Many Lotharios Do You Know Who Ever Even Learned To Count Above Ten?
A co-worker from Trinidad, but calling Houston home for the past 20 years, (let’s call him “Persad” since that was his name), lives in the “cubicle” next to mine in Tent C-9.
He was “home” when I arrived. He greeted me from over the cube wall.
My Hooch. Don’t It Look Like Home?
My Hooch
“Lance Mar—cone!” (that’s how he calls me, ’cause to him, that’s MY name) “Waz da happn’in’s?”
“Same ol’ same ol’. Where you working these days?” (he just got back from RR yesterday)
“Dey got me over to the new LSA, Bro.”
“That would be LSA Six… Bro,” I answered back. “You got an office over there?”
“Nope, no office,” he lied.
“Well, I heard you got a CHU.” (Containerized Housing Unit–small trailer, kind of)
“Ya, but no furniture.”
“Pretend you’re Japanese; sit on the damn floor. What you need furniture for anyway?”
“Damn Bro! I be too old an’ shit for dat.” (I am aiming for “Island Accent” here.)
“You do realize, Persad, that you are in a war zone?”
*Unintelligible grumbling*
After a pause…
“Hey Mar—cone!”
“Yes?”
“I spoke to yer girl today.”
“You mean Lashonda?”
“Yeah, dat one.”
“She’s not my Girl, but, yes, she works for me; ‘Bout what?”
“She said you dun give her dat office chair.”
“You mean that office chair I bought with my own money months ago for my hooch here?”
“Ya dat’s de one.”
“What about it?”
“She said you give it to her.”
“I did in fact; it’s my chair.”
“You give it to her, or to the office?”
“I gave it to her for as long as she is on Dwyer.”
“Why you give her dat chair, Mon?”
“Because her back was hurting and I am a gentleman.”
“Oh.”
“You want a chair?
“Yah”
“Amazon dot com.”
“Damn Bro, caint you H Bee Oh; Help a brother out?”
“No.”
“You gots some scissors I can borrow?”
“Yes,” I said, handing them over the wall, “Here ya go; don’t run with them.”
Just so happens, I had one in my hip pocket. (I carry it about, you see? Just for occasions such as this)
I do believe the year was 1994, give or take. (10 years)
I was in a bad spot with my then-wife and my Girl-Friend who soon, someday soon, I hoped to become my next-wife.
Nevermind her name; this is irrelevant. After a few… well.
I was in this bad spot, you see. And I needed a flat-bed truck (for whatever reason), you see?
Now, the only one in possession of same was Peanut.
You see? (Because Peanut was always the one who did not ask questions, you see?) And why was that? Because I was also the only one who never asked.
Being poor of money and poor’er of excuse, I told my bride: “Honey, we need to see this man about a truck. Then we can get on with our lives.”
“Okay,” she said.
Off we went, she in her pretty sun-dress and me, looking for flatbed trucks in all them wrong places.
And then, after about eight miles of Bad Texas Road, we came upon a tree across the road you see, and a madman with a shotgun, you see; this madman was shooting at this young girl, you see, and this was embarrassing to me, you see, since the man wielding the shotgun could not hit shit, .. and his aim was lousy you see? And of course the girl was out of range, you see, and it did not matter to me, you see?
BECAUSE My Brother, PEANUT would never shoot an innocent girl on the wing.
You see?
You See?
You must have seen that coming.
Oh, that ‘other’ guy?
That Guy shooting at that girl?
What did we do with him?
Well, turns out, that was Peanut.
I had to forgive him. The girl was not harmed and I missed my brother.
Thus it ended….
That’s Tejas!
*************
STOP!
I cannot write this.
Maybe later.
Sorry. It has become rare that I just throw up a rough draft, you see?
(Yes, I know: they are all rough drafts)
This one may have some promise, however, since, like all Things Peanut, it is true.
Caint you see?
Mercutio/Peanut?
“And being thus disquieted…”
Or something….
Not unlike Pygmalion, as the years fly by, I create.
I cannot ‘create’ the woman I love. Not because she does not exist, but because, I do not want to embarrass her.
Yet, she is real and she loves me: since 1971.
She told me so.
Now…..five wives later….My wives.
(I should have never left her to fend.
oh no! I had to go to fuckn egypt for five fuckin years!)
“Torn-ment”
Is just a fucking word.
Hell! It is not even a word for a life lost.
“His only aspiration…. was getting back that girl he lost before.”
–Joni
But.. what to do with? As a dog chasing a train? What is he gonna do, if he catches it?
Just Ask Lucille Ball’s Bank Account-Ain’t-or Aunt-Or Ant.
Oh Screw it!
You Know What I’m A-Tryin’ To Say.
Okay?
Yes! Re-Runs Are Fun!
For ME NE-Way!
Be’Cuz I Have Never Had An Original Thought
***
“Letter From a South Park Jail” Letter The First: Part One (Apologies to MLK for Shamelessly Appropriating A Great Title)
NowPlease Do NOT Get Me Wrong!
I LOVED The Years
(And All My Tears Shed In Hell-Man! Province, Af-Gan-Is-Sand)
***
“Here, hold this!” said the Texan to his credulous girlfriend as he handed her his half-empty half-pint of Jim Beam, stomped the shit out of the accelerator on his pickup truck and flew headlong into oblivion…
“Roads?”
“I don’t need no stinkin’ roads. I’m going to Afghanistan!”
HaHaHaHa!
*****
I need to be ‘institutionalized’ somewhere far far away.
In a place where life is tenuous at worst and exciting at best and the pay is good and booze is scarce and the women are… well, usually not to be found, except on the Internet.
That is how Lance stays out of trouble…
It works well-enough in theory anyway.
***
The following is Part One of a transcribed letter I wrote to a Significant Other while cooling my heels in Helmand Province and Kandahar, Afghanistan trying to get my CAC renewed (Common Access Card: An ID card for Civilians working with the U.S. Military).
‘South Park’ is, for lack of a better term, A Holding Facility ‘soullessly owned and operated’ by DynCorp International for transients, itinerants, illiterates, sycophants, miscreants, and other sad and lonely temporarily homeless people just trying to travel through, hoping to land somewhere else, anywhere else, and the sooner the better…
South Park is understaffed, under-financed, under-achieving, under-esteeming, underwhelming, and sometimes underwater.
Airmen worked together to clean up after a flash flood that occurred on Kandahar Airfield Feb. 8. Airmen in South Park awoke in the middle of the night to flood waters reaching approximately knee-deep in height both inside and outside their tents. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Nancy Hooks)
***
It is also overpopulated, misconceiving, deceiving and just plain infuriating.
Southpark will depress you, repress you, digress you, digest you, and shit you out if you allow it.
Writing saved me from insanity there.
“I’ve gotta go to South Park?”
“You’re shitting me, right?”
“RIGHT??”
***
Saturday 28 July 2012, Camp Dwyer PAX Terminal, Afghanistan 1218hrs
Dear Lady,
I’m sitting in the PAX terminal. We boarded the plane, (Sixties-Era, prop job) a couple of hours ago, but they were just kidding.
After sitting on the tarmac for about forty five minutes they brought us back here. Seems someone forgot to feed the hamsters which are actually responsible for propelling the plane and hence, they died.
We were told not to worry; they are flying in some fresh, well-fed hamsters from KAF (Kandahar Air Field) and once they get those settled into the plane’s power plant, we will be good to go: wheels up around 1430hrs.
So here I sit, thinking of you, Dubai, and Hamster Avionics.
This PAX terminal isn’t too bad, as these places go. (I have seen worse—and better). Like every other facility on Dwyer, it is a tent, but it is a rather enormous tent and they have provided the weary travelers with bottled water and MRE’s. So I am sated, as far as it goes. You see, I really am low maintenance.
Not being inclined to ignore any opportunity to ‘talk’ to you, I am using the tools (pen and paper) I thoughtfully provided myself in the event such opportunity did manifest itself. So here I sit, happily communicating to you using Nineteenth Century Technology. I do hope you are properly impressed.
Page From Original Document
“And what lovely penmanship!” She exclaimed.
“Thank you,” he said.
Looking about the terminal, I have pronounced us a motley crew: About a dozen or so Indians & Sri Lankans, some Filipinos, a smattering of American Expats, couple of Brits, and a few bored Marines scattered about and some behind the counter, whose job it is to search the TCN’s.
The counter has a sign which reads:
“TCN Search Area.”
TCN: ‘Third Country National.’ in case you didn’t know.
“What did you do in The War, Daddy?”
“Son, I put my hands all over aromatic TCN’s.”
“What’s a TCN Daddy?’
“Uh…That’s a very sophisticated weapons system Son.”
“Wow! Cool!”
1310hrs: PAX Terminal, Dwyer
Ok, for amusement, I took an inventory of the MRE’s stacked on pallets here in the terminal:
15 pallets
56 cases of MRE’s per pallet
12 MRE’s per case
Total MRE’s: 10,080 (assuming my arithmetic is correct, a rather liberal assumption)
Posted on each pallet are four signs which read:
DO NOT EAT!
Pending Inspection
MRE stands for “Meal, Ready to Eat,” in case you didn’t know, or in this case, “Meal, Not Ready to Eat.”
(“We done been eatin’ ‘em anyways. Hope we don’t die of ptomaine before the hamsters do, causing our Turbo Prop to morph into a glider…”)
1441hrs: Still in PAX terminal
Announcement: “Listen up! We couldn’t get the hamsters here, but we’ve drafted a couple of gerbils and they’re fit for duty.”
(‘Now there’s some happy news,’ I mused.)
He continued, “For all those going to KAF, this means now you’re flying non-stop…”
(Guess gerbils aren’t certified for multi-destination air duty.)
“…and your luggage is already back on the plane. As soon as we warm up the gerbils, you fly. Those of you who are going to FOB Shindan, you will follow me now.”
Someone pipes up, “Are we walking?”
There’s one in every crowd…
Having a few minutes to kill while the gerbils are doing their warm up exercises, I return to the MRE pile and rat-fuck a couple of the boxes.
Then I saw another sign which had previously gone unnoticed by me:
‘Rat-Fuck’ is a technical term which simply means, “To open several bags of MRE’s and take only the premium items, leaving the not premium items for the next schmuck attempting to do same.”
An example of this would be taking all the Reece’s Pieces and chocolate chip cookies, leaving only the cardboard crackers and synthetic peanut butter.
***
1600hrs: Airborne
Wheels up and airborne and the gerbils gerbilling their little asses off. Time to destination: thirty minutes.
1613hrs: Flying High (I wish)
I am seated in a window seat. Normally I would take the aisle, but I wanted to describe the spectacular view and with all the beautiful details of this rarified vista below:
BROWN
Perusing the in-flight movie list (from the one inside my head), I select Lawrence of Arabia (with subtitles in Pashtun). I estimate getting about half-way through the opening credits before we touch down. I listen to the wonderful Academy Award winning musical score.
The scenes of the burning desert are so real inside my head that I actually break a sweat. This Special Effect is helped along quite nicely by the fact that the air-conditioning on this aircraft in non-functional. I suppose one of the collateral duties of the deceased hamsters was operating the A/C unit.
1638hrs: Wheels Down
***
“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Beautiful Kandahar.”
(I do not doubt his sincerity, but I did detect a bit of sarcasm in his voice.)
“For safety, you are required”, he continued, “to wear your full body armor with your helmet when exiting the aircraft. There really is no danger, but we want you to sweat just that much more. Thank you for flying Gryphon Airlines today and once again, we apologize for the teeny tiny delay we had in leaving Camp Dwyer and we do hope you will… uh, be flying with us again soon.”
