Ryan, the Iraq war veteran. And all its glory

Ryan, 24 years old. Just got married in May. Loves his new wife and loves the out doors. He is currently going to school at Folsom Lake JC to study computer science. He has a scraggly beard and wears old jeans and shirt to work. He is a vibrant person who has experienced and done some amazing things in his life.

Apart from working at various clubs in salt lake city, he worked at a car part warehouse and then as a bartender and then he went to the military as supply and logistics, where he only had done infantry escort service jobs. Now he is at the VA

here are some of his stories he told to me about his war.

His first encounter with a IED.
He was on his first escort mission and was going over a bridge. There was another hummer going underneath when he felt a bump. I turned around and pat himself down to realize he was ok but saw all this rubble on his post.

another encounter was these IEDs are directional, where they have a metal plate guiding the explosion. ryan was the gunner and he went down to tie his shoes, when the directional IED exploded over him. If he were to have not tied his shoes, he wouldve died.

He would sleep during the day where it was so hot, and do missions at night.

He hates women soldiers. Medically, they are not as capable as men when left out in the wilderness for long periods of time.
In basic, they had co ed training. His entire platoon was smoked cuz one of the DI found a used tampon in the floor. Everyone was punished. Even the guys.
When he went of wilderness training courses, the women would come back with yeast infections and urine infections and all that stuff. They need to take more unnecessary things with them on missions.
There was this one girl. She was ok looking, she couldve been hot if she tried, wanted to sleep with every guy in the platoon. Ryan told her off and she kept going after him, until she was transfered to another unit.

Ryan did missions primarily in northern Iraq. By mosul. He would volunteer to go on certain missions to some bases just for their hot sandwiches there.
The whole strategy of going out of cities to give them back to the Iraqi military was in place long before the public withdrawl. what happened was that the iraqis didnt take the training seriously and felt that the americans had their backs. but when the americans left and the military was getting slaughtered, they begged the american military back and retrain them so that they were to take it seriously this time.

He remembers when was in a fire fight and one of his guys had his calf blown off and sheered his shin bone in half. He was the radio operator and had to fight for 8 hours to get a medavac to save his comrade. It was the most gorry, stressful, and horrific time he recalls. His friend was going into shock, and they can see all the blood and blown up part of the leg and everything.
now that guy has skin over his bone, no calf, and rods holding his leg.

There was another guy he knew that had his leg blown off as well. The government makes different legs for people depending on what activity they feel like doing. So among the legs, his friend asked the government to make him a wooden peg leg, so he can wear it for halloween xP

The military is full of paperwork and mundane shit. If you want to go home early or just get out of things early, just say that you werent in combat or seen anything or just have any injuries, cuz if you do, they will hold you for 3 more days.

When you get into the army, you grow accustomed to eating junk food. when we went out for missions, we had poptarts, snickers, muffins, and sodas.

You can make bombs out of your MREs. What you do is to take out all of instant heating stuff that comes with your MREs and put it inside a bottle or something. Then you just add water, the pressure will blow it up. Its much like dry ice.

When we would come to the outside of our base, little Iraqi kids would be throwing rocks at us. To this, we would get some soda that has been boiling next to the tank engines, Id shake them up and chuck it down at the kids feet so that the soda will blow up and hot syrup would get all over them.

Rants about Work

People, I dont know everything first of all. I cant remember 1/6000 names, I cant find your single brown box among hundreds, I cant know what needs to be done if you never tell me, I cant be at 2 places at once, I wont run across the hospital so that you can be first in line. I dont give a shit about you, your authority or how busy you are compared to me. I do my job, and I do it right.

Wisdom of soldiers

Milton Brown.
The Vietnam Sniper, retired vet, retired mailroom employee, and soon to be lawyer

i never talk about war. Ever. Its nothing I wish to no one and no one should ever be subjected to it.

It is your obligation to your attacker to warn them before you take any action

the difference between a garrison soldier and a foot soldier is that a foot soldier fights to kill.

when you do something, make sure you do it right. speed will come later

when you do it right, you only need to do it once.

some of milton brown's quotes

Hehhhllo

let me as you a simple question

you are a gentleman and a scholar

whats up daddy rich?

im always having a good day

Milton had a friend. Second craziest person he know, but one of his best friends. Would wear two knifes in each of his boots when he was out in the field.
His friend had long hair to his back. Whenever they went to town to the bars to buy rounds for everyone, this friend never liked anyone staring at him. When someone did that, his friend would go apeshit on him. Bust tables, chairs, bottles, everything. Milton limit himself to two beers knowing that they were about to be shut down. It was because of this incident where Milton and his friends were barred from every bar in every town they stopped at. He told me that his commanding officer told them that they had to stay out for 90 days in the field because of this. But if you are with people who would die for you, it doesnt matter where you party, so they never minded.

Vietnam War Stories of Leroy Crabtree. A loveable 306 lb santa claus looking, kind hearted harley davidson riding man

Leroy Crabtree.
He eats only double cheeseburgers and is an outright anti vegetarian of any shape or form.
in in his genes he says.
Mr Sam I am that does not like green eggs and ham kelly calls him Leroy of all Crabtrees.
Always asking him to try tofu scrambled eggs.
Leroy has major kidney and carpeltunnel problems.
His wife has an on going cancer that is slowly getting to him
He is not of the 1 percenter gangs. he calls himiself a motorcyclist.
He rides on a big black and white harley davidson with big saddlebags and looks pretty solid on it
He does not want to be in any leadership position whatsoever and we tease him about being our workleader.
He always tries to joke around with me to join the marines and go to marines ocs school lol. officer training corps.

These are some of his stories that I feel to keep around and keep forever.
Bootcamp.
Reception.
"What type of hair cut you want?" if you answer, they slap you aside the head and start shaving your head from the middle... then a, "get your ass out of my chair and into the corner. NEXT!"

"Blanket parties are when you screw up and blow it for your whole company, that nite two guys pull your blankets down so you cant move while everyone takes a turn beating you with soap bars inside their pillow cases"

"if you ever get a hangover and do your 6 mile run, you know who your true friends are when they hold both of your shoulders up and the guy that you barf on doesnt kick your ass"

"if you ever have a loose footlocker, the drill sergant will make you drag your footlocker to the middle of the parade ground. make you dig a hole deep enough for it, bury it, and then dig it up. the whole time, two of your friends or your whole company would be on guard during the whole nite while you are doing this. then the next day is your blanket party"

Army hospitals
officer comes "Smith! get your ass in my office!"
"Im not Smith sir, Im Leroy."
"The fuck you arent smith! Get your ass in my office, we are gonna pull some teeth!"
"oh no sir, Im hear to have my kidneys done. not my teeth"
"bullshit, get the fuck over here now!"
then an orderly tells the officer that he is not smith
leroy then sees his kidney doctor later in the hall
"sir, why didnt you see me for my kidneys?"
"we did already"

Vietnam
We would trade our C rations like trading cards.

We would encounter lots of landmines and boobie traps. The most common one that we came across were three landmines in a triangle formation. One will explode in the front. When everyone would spread out, two more will explode on the right and left. I saw 15 men die out of my platoon of only 28.

toe popers were a common trap the VK would set up for us.

I got doused and inhaled so much agent orange in my body.

sometimes the VK would charge at our firing lines and I would see our artilery canons horizontal because they were over run by the charge.

Life, Love, and Letdown

why does it seem that whenever I find something or someone whom I would greatly fall in love with just has to end up akward and wierd. Maybe I should just think that this is nothing and let this go. Just have low expectations when it comes to love and just look at every girl that comes by knowing that I have no chance. Its just me and the world and no one else to care. Whenever I want to build something, I aways have that come crashing down. So, why hope? why wait? why blue ball myself into submission. This was the closest thing to happiness I came to and someone who nears perfection, but this I feel like I set the fuse and watched as the stark ignited the gunpowder. Now, Im just feeling the slinters and shrap metal sting my face. With every waking memory of recounting in the past 5 minutes of that evening, I feel a stinging sensation in my heart knowing that, it was the final nail in the coffin to what I ever had going on. :/

Rest In Peace Billy Mays......Cocaine is hell of a drug

Rest In Peace Billy Mays

Now I dont know what I'll do on Saturdays at 2am in the morning.

I dont know what to buy for 19.99

on top of that I get another 2 sets of something else absolutely free. A $70 value, mine only for $19.95.

I dont know who will yell at me to buy something on tv. Iono who will give me dramatic never will happen scenarios of how life is without this product. I have idea of what I will do with myself Billy Mays.

BTW.....COCAINE WAS PRESENT IN BILLY MAYS BODY AT THE TIME OF DEATH, THO NOT THE CAUSE OF IT

......COCAINE IS HELL OF A DRUG - CHARLIE MURPHY

I started work at the warehouse this week. And I like it

I like meeting new people, Im with veterans who did serve in active duty.

Al is a great guy, good leader that stands up for what is right and just. He knows how to handle what needs to be done, and yet he is patient enough to take me under his wing the first day and help me get started

Sam. Yes sihr is one of the most righteous men I know. He is very religious and the first black guy that is vegan. He is very humble and takes great pride in his work. He is such a good person.

Gil, my Filipino supervisor is always thinking 1000 things at once. He is a cronic smoker and gets fustrated easily, but he is honest, hardworking, and caring. And this is why I like him.