Perspective

Maybe it's because I'm the weather guy and my specialty straddles the Action Guy/Support Guy line, but I have a hard time getting too caught up in how cool Special Operations troops are. I have the utmost respect for what my peers have accomplished and what it takes to join these units. Admittedly, I kind of slid in the back door.

All that said, it doesn't change the fact that we have specialized missions but we aren't the only ones facing risks and killing bad guys. One the guys I was eating chow with made a comment about everyone trying to be special. It is one thing for a support troop to claim to be a Special whatever as opposed to either taking pride in what they did to make missions happen or manning up and trying out to be a Special whatever. It is another to forget that conventional forces do longer tours, ran the convoys, and did it without all of the specialized support.

I had to point out that a lowly transportation troop probably has multiple combat rotations, has run thousands of convoys, been blown up mulitple times, and probably been a few fire fights. Meanwhile, we have made some slides.

This isn't to minimize what we are doing, as tedious as it seems sometimes, but a reminder that just about everyone here is doing their job to get the missions done. Just becaues their job won't ever be featured in a movie, it doesn't mean it isn't vital to the war effort.

Though the odds of me using all my cool guy training to do something other than refine my powerpoint skills, I'm still collecting cool guy toys just in case.

I got two Army Combat Shirts from supply. A new pair of glasses (not cool, but I needed a new pair since my others broke). A second set of prescription inserts for my ballistic goggles. I may be getting issued a flight suit so I can travel home in comfort--if I actually fly anywhere in theater I'd rock the Combat Shirt since it is also fire-resistant and fits better under my armor.

I also have many cases of MREs at my disposal. Nice to have that problem pretty much solved.

Unfortanately I lost whatever cool points I had. My sister baked us some wonderful chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips. Awesome. But the crumbled up in transit... less awesome. Once we ran out of chunks I resorted to eating the crumbs with my spork.

Not even a folding titanium spork can make that cool.

I don't care cause the cookies were good.