I may be salty, but I prefer pepper.
“Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.”
― Isaac Asimov
This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.
This is a brief introduction to give you a little bit of background and to establish the fact that I, like many people on the internet, am as exceptionally unqualified to give advice or solve the world’s problems as the next individual. I have been a few places and seen a few things, so I’ll share the one thing we all have: a perspective.
As the title of this blog suggests, I am a veteran. I served in the Army for 27 years, 9 months and 13 days (but who’s counting right?) and have been retired for a few years now. I have served overseas in forward deployed regions, completed multiple tours in combat zones, and I have a laundry list of aches and pains to show for it. I have physical scars and mental scars and to some degree I think that is true for many, if not all veterans.
I’ve lived in other countries for over five years of my life. I’ve lived in eight mainland states, spent five years in Hawaii, and have traveled to most of the lower 48. I’ve officially held three military specialties and unofficially worked in three more. I enlisted at 17 and stayed in until I was almost 45. I served under five different Presidents and through two different military draw-downs. As my wife frequently reminds me, housing areas are called neighborhoods, sweeping the house is done with a broom, and there are some things in life that don’t require a contingency plan or exit strategy. I’m still not quite convinced of the last one.
Why does this blog exist?
Topics you may find on this blog could be based on politics, news, philosophy, science, traffic, laws, pets, art, entertainment, veterans concerns, disaster response, or simply the life and death struggles we go through every day… like how you tell your wife you washed one of her favorite sweaters on hot by accident. I may see a comment or post on social media and respond to that topic here. I may see a news article that stimulates a thought, or I may get conned by one of my dogs and come here to process whether I actually am “more evolved”.
I hope you find it interesting and I welcome any feedback. I promise to take that feedback with a dysfunctional grain of salt.
No one: How was your morning?
Me: Woke up this morning ready to “Will Smith” my stepson’s sperm donor for a “dream offense” that is likely a culmination of the multitude of offenses he committed while my son was growing up. Leaped out of bed in fight mode scaring the crap out of the dog below me.
A short while later I cleaned up a dog accident that I narrowly avoided stepping in. Counts as a positive and a negative?
Then I was nearly killed because somehow, despite our MANY advancements in technology, drivers and especially this asshat in a Mercedes cannot figure out how to Bluetooth their damn phones. Instead, they drive like a drunken idiot randomly entering other lanes and changing speed in a 70 zone from 40 to 75 or more. Hang up and drive already, you and your conversation are not that important or you’d have a driver.
Managing to return safely to my humble abode I set to work on a project that is due. Ah, peace and SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRAPE… SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRAPE. Squirrel, chewing on the gutter just above the window of the room I’m working in. Scratch scratch bite scrape, repeat. Terrific. This is not the first time nor the fourth time this has happened. I failed to buy the SuperSoaker that I planned to use to curtail this behavior. What to do?
Ah… make the area less palatable! I grab my trusty Sabre Maximum Strength Oleoresin Capsicum Pepper Gel that is nearing the end of its recommended life. I’ll scare off the squirrel and spray some on the gutter to make it less appealing for the “chewing”. Maybe. Do squirrels dislike OC Pepper? About to find out.
March outside and within five feet of the offending squirrel. He just looks at me. Mr. Squirrel is sizing me up, knowing that I can’t get to him before he can run away. I raise the pepper spray towards him. A circumspect squirrel of some worldly experience, he runs away across the roof. A smart move on his part. Not a problem, my target is not the squirrel, but the object of his obsession. I should have followed his lead and simply retreated back inside.
I’m tall enough to get an angle on the gutter if I raise my arm high over my head. I press the button on the spray and instead of a high-pressure stream of gel (the normal emittance when you do that), I get a fine mist… just as a gust of Texas wind picks up. It was a one to two-second burst, hopefully not a lot of OC in that mist. No immediate effects were felt, so I wait for the wind to die down and fire another test burst… a stream emits as originally expected. I proceed to spray a stream of gel on that part of the gutter some refer to as the “hors d’oeuvre”. Surely that will dissuade Mr. Squirrel. Mission accomplished?
I get back in the house, secure the pepper spray in its spot, wash my hands just for good measure and resume my position at the computer. All is well, for a moment… then I adjust my glasses. The “fine mist” must have deposited some of the pepper spray on my glasses because the edge of my eye starts to burn a bit. I likely touched the substance on my glasses and transferred a bit to the edge of my eye.
Not being a complete idiot (current evidence to the contrary) I realized that I must have received a dose of the pepper spray when it misted. I go to remove my glasses and I realize that my hand-washing was not thorough enough because now the mucus membrane of my nose and my lips are starting to burn a bit. Remove glasses, flush eye with cold water for 15 minutes. You’ve been here before… OC, CS, CN… all the fun C irritants. Air and water, that’s the prescription. Where is a canteen of smelly water when you need it?
Oh, the cold water feels good for a brief moment. Maybe we can wash this off without causing further injury. The burning is increasing and spreading. This is NOT the desired effect… “DO NOT RUB YOUR EYES!” echoes in my brain from military training years ago. I absolutely will not rub my eyes, I will flush them with SWEET BABY JESUS IN THE MANGER… my eyeball is on fire now! Are there needles coming out of the faucet? Am I accidentally scraping my eyeball on the metal threads in my effort to get a better flow of water… no, no.. that’s not it. I am just eating hot sauce with my retina.
This slow crescendo of burn is a sensation I relish when I’m eating nachos, but I don’t normally eat nachos with my eyeballs and I certainly don’t get jalapeno or habanero juice in my eyes. Flushing with water is no longer a problem, the internal sprinkler system of my body turned itself on and now I’m crying, from one eye, that is on fire. I’m a full-spectrum audio/visual performance art piece (NSFW). I don’t know my lines, but I’m saying them with fervor and passion as my tortured soul attempts to extract itself through the first available orifice on my head.
I continue flushing my eye with water but that is difficult because I am tall, the sink is low, and there is no cup to be found to assist with this, or if there is I cannot see it because I’m blinded by the fires of Hades in one eye, and according to my optometrist, I’m just blind in the other. My useless and likely contaminated glasses sit on the counter taunting me. I have an idea… the kitchen sink has a much taller faucet AND a sprayer that will facilitate the flushing of my inferno eye. I’ll go there. *cue Mission Impossible music*
All of the commotions startled my two dogs. They watched with some level of concern as I administered aid to myself. They realized that things were not going well because of the obscene barking and wailing emanating from what used to be their kind and loving master. “Something must be done about this! Oh, I bet he needs our assistance!”
As I make my way out of the bathroom and through the bedroom they decide to meet me halfway to provide whatever canine assistance they can. They choose to circle in the other direction and meet me via the hallway. The bedroom door is partly closed. I am approaching the door auditioning for the lead role of “Blind and Blinder” when one of my trusty mutts paws the door open right into my face. Not the middle of the door or the comfy flat part of the door that one might use in a WWE match to smack their opponent. No, it was the edge of the door, smacking me in the forehead and nose as one hand holds a wet washcloth to the injured eye and the other was reaching for the doorknob. That will leave a mark I’m guessing… but I probably won’t be able to see it. At least my glasses weren’t damaged. They are laying on the counter next to the bathroom sink.
I manage to stumble into the kitchen, turn on the faucet on cold and resume flushing the mote of Sauron that is swimming nearer and nearer to my optical cortex. After a short while, the burning begins to subside, the involuntary tears begin to slow, and the worst of the experience is over. This will continue to sting, but the irritation is subsiding and I’m able to see reasonably well. Enough that I can decontaminate my glasses, wash my hands again, and resume my work.
Life can return to normal. Surely I have washed my hands and decontaminated enough to avoid any other ill effects. What is that sensation? Oh… that’s not good. I have to pee…
Lots of negative press for the 3rd Infantry Division and Fort Stewart, thanks to a single traitorous Soldier. He is a young private and cavalry scout who was radicalized by ISIS and terrorist ideology. Fortunately, he was neither exceptionally qualified nor was he in a position to provide specific and critically harmful information. Another bit of fortune is that the JTTF intercepted him, entered into discussions with a member of U.S. counterintelligence, was arrested, and is now in custody awaiting prosecution for his crimes.
“As we allege today, Bridges, a private in the U.S. Army, betrayed our country and his unit when he plotted with someone he believed was an ISIS sympathizer to help ISIS attack and kill U.S. soldiers in the Middle East,” said William F. Sweeney Jr., head of New York City’s FBI office.“
There is a saying that one “aw shucks” flushes a thousand “attaboys” right down the toilet. In a world where cancel culture and manipulative media hold significant influence, it is very easy to focus public opinion on the negative and aberrant in our military, our society, and our own lives. While it is important to remain vigilant and to acknowledge that such people exist and activities occur, it is also important to remember that Soldiers like this do not represent “us” as a whole.
As I’ve often explained in the three decades since I first pulled on combat boots, the military is a slightly curated microcosm of American society. We don’t perfectly match the demographics of the nation, but we are getting there. We weed out or “vet” those who seek to join our ranks, and to the extent possible, we mold Soldiers from the better half of American society. Criminal background, mental and physical aptitude to serve, and other factors are used to screen applicants and bar entrance to those who are poorly qualified. The quality of that military recruit reflects a snapshot in time. In the months and years after that, life (and sometimes war) happens.
It is not appropriate to paint every Soldier with the misdeeds and lack of honor displayed by this individual any more than it is correct to assume that every Soldier in the Army and 3rd Infantry Division ranks is as heroic or selfless as SFC Alwyn C. Cashe. Each Soldier is a human, with all of the potential for greatness and all of the frailties of humanity. We are not robots or automatons, and we fight the same personal and professional battles every day like every other American. Honorable service is a choice. How and when you end your service is a choice. How you choose to serve or to view those who do is a result of the wolf you choose to feed.
So let’s recognize that dishonorable Soldiers and actions exist, and be thankful that we have mechanisms to try to manage that. However, let us not forget the SFC Alwyn Cashe’s and the SFC Paul Smith’s, who are also representative of the service and sacrifice so many Marne Soldiers have shown so often and for so long.
#3ID #RockOfTheMarne #OIF #OND
I started this blog in late 2019 with every intention of making it my new “go to” location in lieu of social media such as IG, Facebook, or Twitter. I tend to write longer posts. I tend to give complex subjects their due. As such, I test the patience of people that can only process information 140 characters at a time, or speak of significant and complex topics in memes or poorly-sourced and bias-filled commentary.
I was told by one person that lengthy posts are offensive no matter how factual they are. It is supposedly wrong to unpack a meme, but somehow it is okay to create a meme that attacks and is divisive even if it is factually incorrect, is a glaring example of false logic, and is neither sourced nor supported in any way. To point that out makes me a bad person. To question biased and unfair representations that show zero critical thinking or reasoning skills makes me an internet bully, a racist, a misogynist, or a card-carrying member of a party or movement that I have never claimed. Mind you I asked questions, stated verifiable facts (and sourced them), and called out hypocritical thinking without resorting to personal attacks. For that I was personally attacked, judged, and in a few cases “canceled”.
How dare I question the prevailing attitude or insist on objective evaluation of a person’s actions? How dare I suggest that false equivalence has no place in rational discourse? How dare I suggest that people you don’t like can still do things that are beneficial, and that you don’t have to agree with someone’s philosophy or reasoning to agree on equality of opportunity or the achievement of an outcome?
2020 was a shitshow and this blog went into hibernation. You would think being trapped during a pandemic would have provided more time, more attention, and more productivity. Sadly, it did not. I blame part of that on the fact that I spent the entire year intensively learning cybersecurity, networking, and computer programming instead of writing. The rest I blame on an inability to disengage from the quagmire of social media, social justice activity and political rhetoric leading up to the November election.
Given the increased likelihood of censorship and questionable fact-checking occurring on social media, I am going to see if I can revive this site and blog for 2021. We’ll call it a late “New Year’s Resolution”. Let’s see how it goes, shall we?
I went to a VA appointment two days ago, because what better way to celebrate Veteran’s Day than to spend the entire next day at the VA? My PCM asked me a few questions when I sat down. Pertinent ones like “Are you new?” So many answers to that question. “No, I’m almost 49 years old with high-mileage.” “Why? Do I have that new Veteran smell?” “No, but Voc Rehab says I’m refurbished and certified for employment.” Or the one I really had to fight back: “No, you’ve been my PCM since my last visit in May… are YOU new?”
In other news, my Primary Care doc was very concerned about my self-medication to cope with chronic pain as a result of multiple surgeries, including botched surgeries, while I was under military care for 28 years. She was aghast at the types and quantities of medication I was taking and clearly disapproved of the fact that I took myself off of Gabapentin without a medical consult. Am I abusing OPIOIDS? No. Do I drink alcohol in excess to drown the pain? No. Do I use marijuana? No. What was it she was aghast about then? Simple, I take maximum strength Tylenol 1000mg about three times a day (arthritis delayed-release) and some days I supplement or replace that with ibuprofen or naproxen during the daytime (600mg dose). At night I often take 5mg or 10mg of Flexeril to prevent spasms in my sleep. Those amounts caused her to become very agitated and I was informed that I am overmedicating myself at dangerous levels.
Hmmm. Okay. The Army told me that for my age, size, etc my toxicity level for Tylenol was about 4G (4000mg) per day. According to her, that level is actually 3.6G (3600mg) per day and she doesn’t like me being so close to the limit. Admittedly, that doesn’t give me much room for increase to deal with acute pain or injury, but I don’t take narcotics at all, so I think I could probably take a narcotic pain killer for a short period if I had acute pain or injury. Additionally, she was very concerned about the effects of such “large” doses of NSAIDs and feels muscle relaxants are not a good long-term management plan for my spasms.
I’m really starting to think she is “new”. Yes, I’m on the upper end of where you should be with Tylenol. Yes, NSAIDs can cause GI problems, destroy stomach lining, and causes ulcers. Anyone with a PDR (Physician’s Desk Reference), a tendency to read the fine print on medicine bottles while on the crapper, or an internet bookmark for WebMD knows the downsides of NSAID use; but we have a different name for them in the Army. They are called “Infantry Candy” and they are issued in 800mg horse tablets to be consumed orally 3x a day (2400mg daily) until you get tired of choking yourself or your inflammation subsides. Somehow my consumption of one-fourth of that dose is incredibly risky though.
I had to learn to do math just to take civilian Motrin. How many of these little pills is a horse pill? They are easier to swallow than the military ones, but they are almost too small. They jump out of your hand onto the floor very easily. They fail to let go of your hand when you try to pop a handful of them in your mouth all at one time. They also like to leave a rear guard perched precariously at the back of your throat refusing to clear out, not unlike a paratrooper frozen in the door until a jumpmaster ass-ists their exit with a boot to the fourth point of contact.
I will agree that the ideal pain management situation should include something less glass of water chasing floaty pills and more deep-tissue massage/spa day every day. Maybe a little Tai Chi and Chill (more on that in a later blog post) could be a good substitute. I’m almost willing to try one of those “Teeter Inversion Tables” (recommended for use only on an empty stomach), because who doesn’t want to be able to do a weird jump and say “I feel great!” every day? On a more serious note, what precisely does the good doctor consider an adequate replacement for a well-tolerated CNS/muscle relaxant like Flexeril? That question was answered with *crickets*.
VA Docs may mean well, but it’s like talking to a family practitioner who deals with generic sniffles, colds, allergies, and sinus infections every day and then you try to get them to understand that your entire adult life has simply been a never-ending episode of M.A.S.H. Or for the Millennial generation that may have never seen a single episode of M.A.S.H., think Chicago Med and ER with random interjections of the variety seen in House. Put some military uniforms in the mix, dial up the number of GSW’s, explosive force trauma and blunt trauma cases, and sprinkle lightly with altered mental status. Then you will have a much more accurate picture of life with military medicine.
Regardless, I’m not addicted to opioids, I don’t drink myself into a stupor or sit around stoned all day as a form of self-medication (CBD only, no THC), and I’ve been managing on levels of OTC medications that are easily 1/4th the amount I was given constantly as an active duty Soldier. Honestly, I find it surprising that such low levels of medication even have an impact on my pain at all. I also fall out of bed laughing when I see a commercial where some construction worker with back pain claims that a single 200mg tablet of Aleve keeps him functioning all day long. What planet is this on?
Please understand that I have received good care and bad care from the VA depending on the doctor, location, and injury or illness. It’s a crap shoot whether you get good care, indifferent care, or bad care in my experience. I don’t speak for all veterans regarding VA care. I’m not attempting to paint the VA with a broad brush. I’m just chronicling my “adventures” in the world of socialized medicine and sharing for your information or amusement. Stay Shiny folks!
The Unvarnished Veteran