Rampage of the Codiak Bear

It’s time for more of Biff Calhoon’s adventures in Germany. Sometimes I would get insanely angry for one reason or another. Maybe it was something that happened during the workweek or I may have just got finished arguing with myself about what to do about my eye, or I was thinking of how stupid I was for trusting Stephanie and Brad while I was away. Whatever it was that set me off I would grab my headphones and head out on foot. Walking it off is one of the ways I deal with the rage I carry around sometimes. Usually I would walk up and down downtown Friedberg, but there were times when I would walk to the next town over Bad Nueheim. Man I can’t even remember if I’m spelling these places right anymore. I’ve been in the sandbox too long. Anyhoot, on those long ass walks I would think about everything that was bothering me until I figured out how I was going to deal with it or if it was even worth my time. Then I would be back in time for the massive amounts of booze I was scheduled to pour down my gullet with my friends. We had the Gauntlet to run. Every night we had money we drank. None of us cared what was going on the morning after. Now it is time to introduce a rather unique character in the tale of my life. Cody Brock, AKA The Codiak Bear, is a drinking machine. Much like my friend Jim he has a lot of trouble not doing whatever destructive idea happens to pop into his nugget when alcohol was involved.

Around this time I had run my leg broke. Yes that’s exactly what happened and let me say that shit hurts. Well it was of course during the damn summer so my happy ass should be chasing girls (prior to being married) or swimming or something that involves legs. Well I would still go to the pool with the guys cause German girls sometimes don’t have a tan line if you all get what I’m saying. So I’d be at the side of the pool using my injury to acquire the attention of the opposite sex. However, I couldn’t keep that good attention long because when the funny appears there is no woman on the world worth me passing the chance to point it out. Brock’s big ass is jumping all kinds of times into the pool while I make fun of him and just talk shit. We hadn’t had that much to drink yet so the antics were still pretty clean. I wanted to get back to the barracks because unlike my friends I had different priorities that I needed to tend to. Most of my friend’s motto in life was (sorry ladies) “pink before drink.” Mine on the other hand, besides “It only has to be funny to me,” was the opposite “drink before pink”. I wasn’t out to whore myself out I was out to erase the last two years out of my life. So I headed back with a few of the guys who wanted to get down to the serious party too. Brock stayed back at the pool with the few who were trying to land a free trip to jail via young girls. Brock is a bigger guy…. Well he’s a hairy guy….. Well let’s just say that Codiak Bear is a very descriptively accurate name. When you’re out with Brock you know that adventure and misadventure are right around the corner. It’s never a dull moment.

Meanwhile back at the ranch. Now as much as I talk about going to run the Gauntlet I prefer to drink where I live. That way I don’t have to go anywhere when it comes to pass out time. So I stocked up the room with two cases of Mickey’s 40’s, a case of New Castle Ale, and a fifth of Vodka mit orange juice. I’m pretty much going to listen to tunes and watch movies, maybe streak down the hallway and throw bottles out the window at extra duty for the rest of this story so we’ll head back over to Brock. Our paths would cross again later anyway.

So Brock’s crazy ass did end up hooking up with a randy and ready German woman who was so randy and ready that when his half drunk crazed slur spouted the ever popular, “Let’s go behind the bushes and fuck,” she was already half way there. After getting done with, with, well he never knew her name so I don’t know her name. He loaded up on some extra drinks to catch him up to us when he got back to the barracks. Those few extras turned into a few extra more until finally he was ready to leave. He got his clothes back on and naturally thought that would be a good time to jump back into the pool rendering his cell phone all but useless. Then this damp ass lunatic lumbered up to the shoe counter and asked to get his shoes back. Now on a technical note the sandals in question were my friends Owens. When the counter lady told him in broken English that she couldn’t give them back cause he lost the ticket for them. He proceeded to beg for them and then when that didn’t work he slammed her head into the counter and ran off. The German police show up on the scene to confront the rabid bear. Two police against a cornered animal, these guys had no idea what was coming. Brock beat the crap out of both of them and stole one of their asps, the cool extending metal beating sticks they carry. Well this crazy man walks his happy ass back to the barracks. The pool is in Bad Nueheim so that’s not a short little trip for a drunken bloodied bare foot crazy man. The same trail I blaze to blow off steam Brock used to get the hell back home. For some reason when anyone of my friends had a really bad night they end up in my room telling me about it. That is of course if I wasn’t the cause of said bad night.

So Brock shows up, feet all grimed up, clothes ripped, dried blood on his head, and a damn asp in his hand. I just sighed and let him in. I was done with two cases and I had long since killed my Vodka and orange juice. So I tossed Brock a 40 and he tells me all that had happened since I left the pool. I put the asp up into the ceiling tiles of my room so that he couldn’t find it anymore. We didn’t need him armed with beating sticks no matter how he acquired them. After his tale was told we all laughed a good deal more then was necessary and started a more philosophical discussion about who was the better leader Duke Leto Atreides or Paul Atreides. I was arguing towards Leto and he was enraged that I wasn’t impressed with Paul. If you haven’t read any of the Dune books then you’ll have no idea what I’m talking about, but suffice it to say that our nerdy asses were up the rest of the night killing the last case of 40’s and arguing about Dune topics. When I awoke he was still in the corner of my room and was there still at dinnertime. I was starting to think he was dead when I walked in with groceries for the evening, two more cases of Mickey’s 40’s. I was on a Mickey’s kick. I cracked one open and set it by him and I’ll be damned if he didn’t come to and thanked me saying, “Well where was I?” He scratched his head and then looks up and says, “ Oh that’s right! Paul is the Mua’dib! I can’t believe you think Leto’s the better leader!” Here we go again…

See you all a little further down the road.

Mike

Welcome to the Freak Show

Well here we are again eh? It’s time for yet another journey into the life I dare call a adventure but adventure really doesn’t really begin to describe it. I really think that I have a spellbinders way about me that infects those that I’ve been around for awhile, and turns them into crazy ass people just like me. Maybe it’s the fact that I don’t care about the artificial boundaries that we as a society have trapped ourselves in. I don’t care about political correctness or sexual harassment. In fact I’ve always thought her ass was two words anyway. I’ve found that no matter who I’m with or what a persons background is after about a week of constant contact I can pretty much cross any line I want and nobody thinks I’ve done anything wrong. No one ever seems to get offended. This strange spell I weave is a tricky mistress though when it turns around and focuses on me. You see I have thoroughly infected my fellow soldiers and these guys were already crazy to begin with.

Welcome to the Freak show! These guys are some of the funniest people in the world and we make everyday like a fucked up circus with a massive freak show exhibit. We have the “Mad” Cuban who had a Spartan helmet made of foil and cardboard. He also does a very good camel spider impersonation. We have the SSG “G” who craves peanut butter and has a rubber chicken as a pet. We have the CTU agents. I force fed 24 to two of my buddies and now they are hooked and Jack Bauer and his plight are always on the forefront of their minds. One of those guys, Rymer, is also a firebug. A firebug is a nice term for pyromaniac. I can’t get enough fire in my life. The bigger the better and no matter how out of control it looks we always have it all under control. *Glances nervously around* We have crazy guys who act like they’re wacked out on goof balls for no other reason but that life is boring any other way. There’s a guy who don’s the moniker General Scooter. Of course I have my fellow pirate crewmembers Casey, PP “The Bastard” Lepew, Panique, and Domenico, Dom “The Boss Hog” Carbone. I’ve been lucky as hell to know these guys and love the carnival air we have around us constantly. Making the most out of all the crap we’ve been dished out by life. In fact I’ve come to think that the only people worth knowing are the ones life has crapped on just a little. People who’ve lived the good life all their lives don’t really know how to enjoy themselves. They’re the ones that require my magic to make them get the joke instead of “be” the joke. *Chuckles*

So anyhoot, back to my spell turning on me, my birthday was back on November 6th. I’ve been working at night recently so I was hoping that I would get away with not seeing too many of my friends at all that day. Birthdays get crazy over here. Unfortunately for me my platoon sergeant got me out of work for that night. When he told me I thought that was cool. I went and called my wife and talked to her for a while and it was great to hear her voice. That was truly the best gift I got. Then came the gag gift. I went back to the Underdog café to relax and enjoy a rare day off in this crazy city called Ramadi. My fellow pirate Casey Panique gets up and announces my birthday and leads everyone into singing the birthday song. Then he yells, “Get him boys”. Six to eight guys grab me and throw me on a table. I couldn’t really tell how many people were holding me because I was too busy been thrown around like a damn rag doll. Ol’ Panique sprays shaving cream all over my face and then they take my shirt off and begin to shave and draw on my chest. By the time those jerks were done I looked like a modern art masterpiece with a bad case of the mange. Worse then that is there are pictures floating around waiting for me to run for some kind of office. I had to go and shave the rest of it off and then go through the insane annoyance of it growing it back. Now I used to get in trouble in school for “not” shaving. The truth is I shaved everyday it’s just that I have like mutant hair that grows back within an hour. I now know that that doesn’t just apply to my face. Within a few hours I felt the first itches that would haunt me for weeks. It still itches a little bit the bastards. It’s all in good fun and we all had a great laugh about it. Nothing but fun over here helps to make this messed up experience livable. The adventure ever continues. I can’t wait to see what the next craziness is going to be. We’re due for something big. It’s been a while. Maybe I’ll work on that tonight.

I’ll see you all further down the road.

Mike
Captain “Barnacle” Biff Calhoon

*Note that the term freak is not used in a derogatory form as it would usually suggest. I’m amongst those I’ve named freaks and I don’t ever talk myself down. I have too much shine and I never want to dim it.

Dealing with Duelality

Well this one promises to be rather weird but it's a very personal one, so bear with me please.....


I've just recently learned to deal with my first deployment to Iraq. It really messed me up a lot more then I let anyone know. I didn't let anyone in, not my friends, not my family, and not my wife. About five months into this deployment I finally talked to my wife about some of the things that were bothering me from my 2003 trip to the old sandbox.

As far as a little backround I have a drunken alter ego named Biff Calhoon. Now I won't go into his antics because that would limit my Oregon stories. They are all blogs in and of themselves anyway. He's the ass that shows up whenever I get blind stinking drunk. Everyone who drinks has one of these mostly harmless other halves. It's the being that has no inhabitions that comes out and makes an ass of us in front of our loved ones. Good times.

When I went to Iraq in 2003 it rocked my world. I was seeing things I never thought I'd see and doing things I never thought I was capable of doing. It really was one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had. Definently the most liberating experience I've ever had. It was, however, a double edged sword. I started to imagine that I wasn't Mike at all. That the person doing these things was in fact Biff Calhoon. It really kicked in after my platoon was ambushed on April 13th 2003. I stayed as "Biff" untill I redeployed. Unfortunatly, when I returned home my social and intimate life completely crumbeled away as my first wife left me and I found out that she had had relations with my childhood best friend, and best man. I know I know, you're thinking that this is worse then daytime television. It gets worse....

I PCS to Germany in a morbid funk that I perceived myself as Biff all the time. I was really detached from everything that I was doing and I was really having a hard time dealing with some kind of survivors guilt from the ambush. You see I had this weird feeling before we left for Iraq that I would lose my left eye in an explosion over there. When we were ambushed the man in front of me turned to me and his left eye was gone and blood was flowing like a waterfall from the socket. I was stuned and guilt ridden that this man got the wound that was intended for me. I started to think that my left eye was in fact evil and the cause of all my problems. Biff was all for cutting it out and I was not willing to hurt myself but I was still already about half sold on the idea. I would sit in my barracks room by myself at night fighting with myself about what I should do about the eye. Luckily I got through it without mutilating myself.

Now on this, my second tour of the sandbox, it's like the veil of darkness I was under just up and lifted. Now all the confidence and self assurance that was Biff's major traits are back with me. I feel great about myself and no longer feel like I need to have an alter ego to blame shit on. The weird thing is though that now that I feel whole again I'm having a hard time dealing with what I perceive as two personal experiences for the last three years. It feels like I'm trying to stuff six years worth of experiences into the three years it actully happened in. It makes me feel odd when I think of how totally different I was when I was "Biff". Twilight Zone stuff right there. Makes for interesting story telling and since I find the funny in everything the stories will all have a dash or twelve of humor in it. I know this is not a very funny story but the personal ones usually aren't. Thanks for listening all who read this.

I'll see you all further down the road.

Mike