Do Not mistake this for a Mea Culpa.

Way back in May I wrote a certainly derisive missive concerning call for new medals to be awarded to service members. You can read the whole thing here. To paraphrase for those that don't want to go there: "... is already a medal for doing nothing. It's called a Bronze Star."

It smacks of mean, dirty, rotten, venom spewing, vitriol. I meant what I said and I stand by it.

A couple of weeks after posting that, me, my dad, and grandma were at the cemetery decorating family graves. While trying to find them a couple of older gentlemen wearing Vietnam Veteran caps and proudly displaying Bronze Stars on their jackets (Probably the same medals they were awarded in Vietnam) came by and struck up conversations with my dad. All the while I felt a little sheepish.

I think this week is as good as any to tell a couple of stories explaining my emotions on the subject.


About five or so years ago some guy I don't remember the name of because it's not worth remembering started bragging about getting a Bronze Star for supervising a trench across a road in Iraq. Mind you, that trench was important. A pipe going from a water purification depot to a canal was needed and it had to go under a road. This braggart pretty much stood on the side chit-chatting with the other sergeants and whenever a soldier asked for a water break the answer would be "Get back to work!"

"Sergeant, I have to use the latrine." "Get back to work!"
"Sergeant, I'm hungry, we haven't eaten since yesterday." "Get back to work!"
"Sergeant, I'm out of malaria pills." "Get back to work!"
"Sergeant, I've stopped sweating." "Get back to work!"

And, at no time did he or the other sergeants standing around swing a pick ax, touch a shovel, take a turn with the jack hammer, or even run the SEE-truck. He got his Bronze Star. His buddies got ARCOMs.  The soldiers in the trench got AAMs. Which at the time were illegal.


Now we have this: After a month in Iraq, she lost hearing in one ear. Then spent over a week soaked in diesel fuel. Got cheated on by her loved one and dumped. Had a (fortunately dud) mortar round land next to her. Was on a crew that was tasked to wash every vehicle in the battalion so she spent over a month was doused in the nastiest and coldest water in the world. Was one of the last soldiers in the battalion to return home a month after everybody else.

Back home she was kicked out of recruiter school for obviously bogus reasons. Deployed to a hardship duty pay area for four months and was never paid for it. Ordered to drive her personal vehicle to a job site over twenty miles away for several months and was never compensated for it.

Then while in Afghanistan she broke her hip and kept running on it for over a month. After being sent home for about six months she went back.

Worse of all, she had to put up with me torturing her all day long and taking our private conversations and using them as fodder in my little comic strip.


So I leave it to you: who do you think earned their Bronze Star?

Only slightly exaggerated.

I'm now icing my boo-boo.

I normally keep personal stuff like this confined to Facebook, but I can't go on at length there like I can here.

I went to a friend's hometown to attend her Halloween Party. I got there the night before, and rented a hotel room. I asked if I could extend my stay by a few hours, and the clerk said yes, just come down in the morning to make the arrangement. Well, morning comes around, before I head downstairs I decided to fire up the laptop to check the itinerary of events I planned out for the afternoon. I reached over to pick up the laptop and

OW!

My back started killing me. I figured I had tweaked a muscle. Actually I hoped that was all. I went ahead and checked out the locations of the tourist traps in the area. After that I hobbled my way to the front desk to extend my stay and get some more sleep.

No go. They had sold the room out from underneath me, and that the whole hotel was sold out. They told me to get out right away. I guess my kind is not welcome there. The kind that laugh too loudly at the David Hasselhoff Roast. So I get my stuff and leave.

Across the road is another hotel, they didn't open up until 9, it was 8:30. I wait, go the office and they said that they don't open for another half an hour. Thirty minutes later a sign is on the door saying be back a 11:30.

For the next three hours I'm dodging horses pooping in the street, closed roads, and too narrow roads for two way traffic. After 20 hotels in three cities not one let you check in before 3 in the afternoon, I had gotten to be pretty frustrated. By this time my back was so bad I decided to call it quits and go home.

I called my friend to see if it was okay to stop by for a few minutes about five hours before the party. I could tell by the sound of her voice and the ruckus in the background that I had called her at a bad time. At that exact moment in time my phone died. I figured that was the one hint not to ignore. I went home.

Even if the phone had lived, I would not have told her about my back. I feel if I did, that would by like trying to guilt her into feeling sorry for me. And to put up with me when she had more important things to do. Plus, my little owie is nothing compared to the crap she's been through, I know, I was there when it happened.

When I got home I went the emergency room and the doctor said I probably just strained a muscle. I chose to go to an emergency room back home for a couple of reasons: I didn't know if my insurance would cover me at my friend's place. And, if the injury was serious and required an extended stay, I have family that I could brow-beat and guilt into helping me out.

Now, If my friend, if she still calls me that, invites me next year; I'm buying my room for two days at least two weeks in advance.

Update: 11/3/10

I've been invited back for next year. I think I'll ask for the day off as well.

Manga Triple Header.

First we have what I call: "It's a Wonderful Suzumiya." Volume 7 of "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya." This issue was the story board and script for the space battle sequence I already have seen in the anime. In other words, boring. I have been ambivalent towards this series since I first heard about it last year. I liked season one. Hated season two. Manga is not helping what so ever.

Maybe with this issue we finally get into some unknown territory. Almost. While we finally break from the anime, we certainly break character. I had been anticipating "The Disappearance Of Haruhi Suzumiya" for some time. Something new, finally. Except we get Kyon way over-reacting. After all the crap he's been through, nothing could phase him at this point. Wow, the way he treats Yuki and Mikuru, you'd think they were the ones trying to kill him and not Ryouko.

 Speaking of which: "Haruhi-chan."

I used to be one of those guys that thought that the TV show, movie, anime, cartoon, or whatever had to be perfect to the source material to be good. I am so over that. So over it that I am willing to give "The Clan of the Cave Bear" movie another try. If I can find it. (Not a high priority.) The downside of this manga is that I had already seen it in anime format. So I was rather bored reading it. Also I noticed that the manga was a little jumbled up from the anime. Which I find interesting because the original anime is jumbled up form the original manga.

However, I must say that Haruhi Suzumiya actually works best as a comedy. For some strange reason it makes some sense that way.

 ST: OMG! "Conundrums."

"Oh My Goddess" volume 36 flew in under the radar and surprised me by arriving in the mailbox this week. This issue follows the same plot that episode of a popular science fiction series that just aired on the BBCA. Everybody loses their memory. After twenty some odd years, Kosuke Fujishima can still find something infesting to do with these characters. The only part I didn't like was how it dragged on. I was lucky, I got it collected in one volume. The Japanese originally had to suffer through this over six months.

What I found neat were al the mistakes that were made. The back cover said "Plus your fan art and letters..." Which wasn't included. Just fan letters from Japan, 20 years ago. Somehow Keiichi managed to remember the precise location of the girlie mag in his room, but nothing else. At least a couple of instances of Urd having the wrong color hands. A major unresolved change in that Velsper talked in front of Megumi. (Remember, Megumi doesn't know the secret of the Goddesses.) How did Megumi figure out that Keiichi is her brother just from her license and from snooping in his room?


Stuff like this makes things all the more fun. Probably not for the author and publisher. I'm keeping this to just me, you, and whoever else might see this. Imagine that their email inboxes must be flooding from all the otaku's pointing this out.

Here's my question: The original issue these mistakes were made came out sometime in 2006. (The math is very unscientific and I'm very uninterested in getting perfectly right.) The graphic novel came out in Japan in 2007. It's now 2010. So why hasn't the color of Urd's hand been fixed?

Jackass 3: Couldn't these guys have bugetted in a hooker to flash her boobs at least once?

I have an uncredible backlog of stuff to talk about. I was thinking about what to bore you with when I noticed most of the subjects trended negative. So I decided to talk about something I like.

There was stuff about Jackass 3 I didn't like and in fact almost had me vomiting. Suffice it to say these guys are really over obsessed with wieners, close your eyes when you see the toy train go by, close your eyes and plug your ears for "Sweat Suit Cocktail." That even still has me dry heaving every time I think about it.

That aside, Little Person Bar Fight was comic genius. I can't believe those people fell for the gorilla, they've been working with Johnny Knoxville for ten years. Woodpecker Should have been in the main body of the movie. Without a doubt the bit that had me almost vomiting because I was laughing so hard was "Ram Jam." Just seeing that guy knocked around so much was worth the price of admission. It was even funnier for me because my dad has a sheep similar to that one.

It was definitely worth the matinee price I paid.

I can't wait for 2013 as well.

Not because it will be finally the end of the 2012 election season. (Which started January 21, 2009. And, more poignantly will wind up being the beginning of the 2016 Presidential Election.)

Starting about nine years ago I looked forward to that special day in that special month that matched the year. So on all my paperwork I could write 1-1-1, 2-2-2, 3-3-3, blah-blah-blah, yadda-yadda-yadda. Just an icksy-cutesy thing that I found fun, and kept to myself. Apparently unbeknownst to me, this is the scourge of the internet. Millions of trolls going to forums, blogs, and sites with commentary telling us that the date is 1-2-3, 2-3-4, or 3-4-5. (My goddess! Somebody change the combination on my luggage!)
While trolling one of my favorite news sites: Maximum PC, I saw this phenomenon. Unfortunately, (or fortunately,) reality prevented me from making an observation:

That in 2013, all those flat twelvers will finally have to shut up about their end of the world conspiracies.