During the construction "boom years" .. Sarge was a carpenter and equipment operator .. at Pendleton he was a heavy equipment striker .. two weeks after graduation with a net full of ammo and a D-8 under a Huey .. they were swerving through tracers going into Baghdad.
They asked the tanks where they wanted their shells and fuel .. landed and dug a pit .. off loaded what they had .. phoned in their GPS and gave the dump a name and were off to do it again. Welcome to the United States Marines .. recruit! In something like two weeks he had his stripes and was the "go to" man when crap broke out.
Standing at over 6'4" and who knows what he weighed .. we'll start at 240 .. it was Sarge who was asked to run through sniper fire .. a husband and wife Russian pair that would painfully get knocked out over the next year. They had shot up a tank barrel and killed a huge man in the tank. The tankers quit pointing their barrels towards town after that .. unless something was gonna come out of them.
Sarge had to bench press a headless corps through a narrow overhead hatch to waiting men .. the hardest press he ever did and good for a lifetime of ___ ___ memories.
When the Marines took fire from town during their baseball
games .. Sarge jumped into a cat and dug a different kind of dugout .. the fans were in there also.
When new Humvee drivers were pin pointed as killing more Marines than the enemy .. panicing under fire and turning over the Humvee driving and swerving at a high rate of speed .. Sarge jumped on his D-8 and made an obstacle
course of a range of hills .. from what was doable at 30 and what could be done at five .. deaths dropped immediately .. and officers squirmed .. they had not thought of it or seen it.
When a Marine wrote home his letter was posted at church .. they didn't have any proper mitts
bats but plenty of balls ...... a millionaire sent a care package.
Today, Sarge has just coped a new job driving train .. right past his parents house .. and his three year old daughter runs out on the front
yard and waives and he gives her a toot .. things are trying to normalize .. he is packing some metal from the bomb that wiped out his dozer crew at an intersection in Baghdad .. some garbage may apply .. if you meet a quiet bum .. perhaps drunk .. ask him if he or she served in the war .. give them a hand shake and company .. help them shake the jitters of being home.
