Are You Serious???

[spadepacolypse]

That is the question I find myself asking, usually to myself but sometimes to the ridiculous people here in Iraq that pretend to be leaders. I mean the command staff here at Anaconda has reached new lows in stupidity. The last three instances absolutely slay me and are just the most recent examples of the genius we have seen in the last six

Comments

kevlar...

[unicorn_2211]

hey...do what we used to do when I was there. You know that cord thing that you use to lock up your humvee...take the cord through the chin strap so that even if your kevlar was unsnapped that it would still be attached to the cord. Your problem solved and still able to piss someone off in the making. Army life is great. (much sarcasim entered in last statement) Good luck...and dont sweat the small stuff.

Re: kevlar...

[talisein]

Our first week on Anaconda one of my friends' helmets got stolen out of our vehicle. It wasn't a SGM.

[themeshuggener]

Because they obviously have nothing better to do.

[rothgar]

I wish that once just once on this deployment I could see one of our awesome leaders take care of the soldier.

yeah, I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. When I was there we weren't aloud to take our top's off when we were working on our aircraft, even though it was 130+ degrees outside. Then the powers that be got pissed because people were getting heat exhaustion, even though we were drinking more than enough water. It was just straight hot, and we wearing these damn blankets they call DCUs over our bodies. Yeah, the stupidness never goes away.

[adudeabides]

I dunno why more people don't realize it, but the DCU top provides more protection from heat injury when it's on than when it's off.

When it's on it slows down the rate of evaporation of your sweat; if your top were off, you'd still sweat but it would evaporate much faster, leading some soldiers to think they weren't sweating as much (meaning they hydrate less, which puts them more at risk, not to mention the dangers of sunburn). Further, when it's damp it helps cool the body off. Additionally, the bagginess allows for some air which provides an insulating layer of protection from the sun's heat.

If I saw one of my soldier's take off their tops I'd beat them until they put it back on. It really is for their benefit. Take a cue from everyone who lives in this region...they wear loose, baggy clothing that covers their entire body.

[rothgar]

when you are out in the sun, then yes it does help protect you. but when you are crammed inside the something, like the transmission bay of the Apache while it is sitting in the middle of hangar where their is no air flowing, then they do more harm than good, trust me on that. Besides, the clothes that the locals wear are also light and airy, meaning they allow air to flow through them. The DCUs don't. At least not as well. Their clothes are designed to keep the sun off the body and allow the heat from the body to escape. That is what I meant. I didn't mind wearing the stuff when I was just walking from point A to point B in the searing heat. Just when I was crammed in some hole with no air, which I did quite often.

[adudeabides]

Makes sense.

The problem is, you'll have soldiers who'll walk from being inside the transmission bay of an Apache in a hangar with no air flow to direct sunlight on the way to chow, their hooch, MWR, whatever. They kinda ruin it for everyone.

[qp4]

Did they turn you around at the chow hall for having the k-pot? That would've been my life....

[sgtross]

Your best bet is to play the game, man. Fighting the system gets you nowhere fast. Just hang in there and deal with it for a few more months, then laugh at the poor sap that is tasked to be the retention NCO.

-- SGT Ross