Same As It Ever Was.

It's not uncommon for a recently redeployed soldier to have little to no patience with the bullshit that comes with being back in the “garrison” frame of mind. For those who don't know garrison is what we call being on our assigned post. There's lots of stuff that just doesn't seem to matter after a long deployment. The higher ups beg to differ though and they make the lower enlisted regret everyday that they signed up to serve their country. My unit just went inactive and I'll soon be back on the civilian side of life again. The “meaningless” tasks we have to perform just seem rediculous at the time when you compare it to the rush that everyone is doing to PCS (move to another unit) and ETS (leaving the Army) and the desire of the soldiers to be with their families instead of doing minial tasks for officers that are more worried about how shit looks on the outside instead of what's good for the soldiers under them.

I've mentioned before my section is called the Underdogs and that we are a crazy batch of lushes who somehow manage to get every crazy mission done faster then expected and better then intended. Not to toot our own horn but we have some crazy and brilliant people ( I say people not soldiers) in our midst. Something like 95% are ETSing so I'm just going to call them people again. They'll appreciate it. One brilliant and eccentric guy is Eric Graessley. He's headed back home now and it's been a long time coming. He got caught up in the stop loss and spent an extra year in the Army. Good times. My buddies Pat Riley and Casey Panique are headed to other units for the time being. Dominico Carbone like myself is going back home, and there are many more people trying to get all their stuff in order to leave while at the same time deal with the “missions” that get passed down to us.

Between all the ceremonies that we've had to set up and tear down and set up and tear down it's really amazing that we haven't had anyone go postal. I'm not the postal type cause I only have four months left but there's some people who I've seen on the edge lately. Hell it builds character right? The newest fun time we've had is we've been clearing whole floors of furniture even though it was supossed to be rear d's job. So the Underdogs are called once again and the new motto is, “Underdog moving services - so you don't have to”. We make the best out of the whole situation though. We are very good at finding the fun in everything.

We play as hard as we work and we all drink like fish so we're a pretty rowdy group. Plus the majority of us consider ourselves to be pirates so that makes us rowdy and crazy. Butzbach, the town I live in, is hosting this years Hessentag. It's the state fair here. They have Aerosmith coming to play and there are posters everywhere. Well one night we were having a quiet night of drinking at Casey's house ( quiet because his daughter Katie was asleep) when after silent drinking and story time and after silent wrestling we decided to priate ourselves some Areosmith posters. So off we went into town and we misjudged the size and they wouldn't fit into the car trunk. After some doing we fit four posters into the trunk and laid the trunk lid down because it still wouldn't latch. We headed for the nearest bar and had a victory round and two games of shitty drunk pool and then it was back home going our seperate ways until Monday when it would be back to business as usual. Same as it ever was.

See you all further on down the road.

Mike

Evolution of the Underdog Cafe

Here’s my first picture blog ever. It’s all about the Underdog Café. This place that we built to keep sane over in a turret of chaos lots of times by our own governments decisions. This was our lifeline, a place to relax and forget for just a few moments that you were in a really shitty place where men, women, and even small children are trying to kill you.





It started out with just the bar and then we built a deck around a palm tree and put up a cammo net for shade.













During the summer months we had people coming almost every night. All ranks and units just were showing up to chill in our café. Some people were there to study, some people were there learning how to play instruments, and some were just there for the ice coffee and atmosphere.























We also completed a lot of our work out at the Underdog because not only was it attached to where we lived it made for a calmer work environment then anywhere else.























See kids stay in school or you’ll end up here. Thanks for the info Sen. Kerry. ASS!
Thursday’s were known as Band Day. We’d have an acoustic group play and those of us in the S-3 would wear our Hawaiian shirts.



























I’ll buy that for a dollar. Heh heh there’re going to kill me if they ever see this one posted. The invention of weather brought about it’s own problems. To prevent the rains but not create a hot box we put up our stick up tents without the sides.











































We held events on holidays whenever we could. We had a witch piñata on Halloween that SSG Meyers ended up breaking but most of these pictures are my friend and fellow pirate Vincent Pomante, who was lost to us on the 6th of December. Here’s to the good times we had while we had them. I miss you buddy.























Christmas time comes and with it we put the sides of the tent up and hook up a heater to it. It’s gotten cold in the desert.

































Thanks for the hat Hopie! I love it. The band had grown a bit. One of the incoming units, the 1-77 Steel Tigers, have a band and some of the member started to come and play. New Years Eve shows up marking the fact that we will soon leave.

















All great things have to come to an end and the 1-77 Steel Tigers Band and PFTO’s last concert comes and goes with a bang.









































The Underdog was open from June ’06 to February ’07. Even though we left it standing we’re sure that the next unit won’t take advantage of the place the same way we did. They just don’t seem as interested, but then again they’re just getting here to Iraq and haven’t been away from their loved ones for fourteen months. That’s all I have for now everyone. Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

See you all further down the road.

Mike