CRC and the Pygmie Commies of Death

Well, well, well. It’s that time again. Yep, I went and got myself deployed again. I have to be honest, I volunteered my dumb ass to go to Iraq again. Yeah, a lot of you have a problem with me going. I know the concern is well placed. Iraq is one big combat zone and you’re all worried shitless about me. Thank you for worrying. It means more than I can express. But, that having been said, is for another time. Right now, I’d like to give you a quick overview of my last week here in the States. I went to Ft Benning, GA and had not so much fun at the hell that is CRC

CRC stands for CONUS (Continental US Replacement Center) It’s where all us government lackeys such as myself, US military (MAD respect for you all), and contractors (AKA money grubbing scum. In all fairness, not all of them are, just a select few bottom feeding pieces of shit) NOW THEN, this is the place anyone who is heading overseas goes to process so they can get over to the sandbox. I can’t and won’t go into any specifics, but I’ll give a somewhat quick overview.

My partner in crime for this deployment Greg and myself got to GA last Friday. After saying WE’RE HERE!! To the folks at CRC, we got to our hotel and vegetated until the next day. Dissolve to Saturday, our first day of processing. Well, it wasn’t all that involved. But, it did set us up for the rest of the week. I’m not going to go through every little piddly assed detail, but here’s some of the stuff we did: required deployment training (most of which is pointless as fuck. I now know how to traffic humans…lovely), medical and dental record review, equipment issue (who was the fucking ass clown at the Pentagon who decided I need enough gear to declare war on ____ ??? (insert appropriate third world country in the space provided) Oh well, regardless…and a lot of other stuff which is pretty much pointless. We also got familiar with the M9 pistol. Now, there are certain people in this world that I would be quite hesitant to give a weapon to. And I think most of them showed up at CRC when I did. These people have NO BUSINESS even looking at a weapon, much less a loaded one and then firing it at the range. I saw sooo much stupidity during classroom instruction as well as at the range I decided right then and there they needed to play a game I call Let’s Drink Stuff From Under the Sink. K, enough bitching. Anyway, I shot 9 out of 10. I still got it. Oh, almost forgot. There are these green and white targets shaped like the upper body of a human. Greg, my traveling partner, informed me when he was in the 82 Abn, they called said targets the Pygmie Commies of Death. Why? It was for various reasons: 1) They’re short, hence pygmies. 2) They all have a star on top of what passes for a helmet, i.e. Commie. 3) The death part comes from the fact that they are used for target as well as simulated enemy soldiers. And there ya have it.

After a LOT of hurry up and wait all week, the big day came. It was time to get out of Dodge and leave for our final destinations. (One quick note about the whole hurry up and wait thing; If you’ve been in the military, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, think of it this way. It reminds me of a Japanese game show where the object is to see how much torture on person can take. Yes, almost like MXC, but no Nards of Doom flying at you.) My day started at 0230. Yes, 0230. It’s fucking barbaric for ANYONE to have to be up that early, but Greg and I had a plan that we had to stick to due to the nature of what we had to do. Rental drop off, hotel checkout, fitting 40 pounds of gear into a duffel bag that had room for about 10 pounds…fun stuff. We waited awhat seemed like an eternity, but it wasn’t that bad. Which brings us to now. I’m at 35k feet flying to an undisclosed location on my way to the sandbox and watching Iron Man. At least the movies and the food are decent, can’t beat that with a stick. And wait until the next oh so thrilling episode. It’ll have all the elements of a great B-grade movie. Action, suspense, drama and the dreaded Camel Spider. (They’ll scare the living shit out of you. Think of a pissed off Alaskan King Crab on dry land. You’ll never eat at Red Lobster again.) Trust me, it’ll be the best 5 minutes of your life you’ll never get back.
Munk