Was cruising a forum board earlier today (not JU, but there are some here that I'd like to ask this question sometimes) and I saw a post that generated a lot of responses and interest. As I read it, it was obvious that the OP was just trolling the board with an idiot story and he kept defending it out of (what I presumed to be) boredom. Best line was "Did you guys eat stupid sandwiches this morning?" Absolute comic gold. Thanks, Chops! My Ecosystem Details

We had another full honors funeral on Saturday. This one was also for a retired Navy officer. We had practice on Thursday and we cleaned the rifles thouroughly in hopes that they would fire better. We also had a number of new service members at practice, so I told them that some of them could come along to see the military honors firsthand. I made contact with the funeral home on Friday and found out that this ceremony would be short. There would be a church service prior to the ceremo...

Just a bit ago, I wrote about the two funerals I attended over the weekend. At the second one, something happened before the ceremony and I felt the need to write about it. I didn't want to tuck it into that post, though, as I thought it deserved its own space. After the casket was removed from the carriage, but before the Lt arrived, I was standing near the head of the casket trying my best to look as if I was some special military presence there to honor the deceased. I was approa...

After leaving the first funeral, we drove up to Castroville and stopped for lunch at a shopping center about one mile from the church. I told the team to get their food to go so we could and they could eat in the van while we waited for the second ceremony. We had plenty of time but I wanted to get there early so I could prepare. We were initially told that there would be a service inside the church and when it came time to perform miltary honors, the firing would take place outside the ch...

We had two full honors funerals for retired Navy service members on Saturday. I went to base at 0930 to pick up the van and get our rifles. A friend of mine wanted to come along and watch a detail. He knows that sooner or later he'll have to be on the detail, probably as the overall NCOIC since he made the list for SFC this year, so he wanted to at least see one with no pressure of being involved. He met me at the van and helped get the rifles and ammunition, along with my firing team lea...

We had an out of class activity lined up yesterday. Or, as the students like to say - "Field Trip!" Nothing really special lined up, we just planned on taking a bus up to the San Jose area and spending the day in Korea town. But it was an oppurtunity to have a relaxing day (as opposed to the third semester curriculum) out of class and practice some Korean in real life settings. We finished up the trip with lunch at a Korean all you can cook and eat meat restaurant. The one vegetarian in...

If it weren't for short notice, we'd have no notice at all, right? At the beginning of practice yesterday, we had only one full honors funeral and one two person detail lined up for the next few days. By the end of practice, we had a full honors lined up for today, a full honors for Friday, and two full honors details for Saturday. Busy schedule, especially with only one full team for full honors. So, we got our team together this morning extra early (for those that read my posts last...

Last Friday afternoon the Army unit that is responsible for students here held a Health and Welfare. The unit asked our company to provide NCOs to help so it would be done all the faster. It still took over two hours to inspect the barracks of the company I was helping out. I won't go into the specific dirty laundry that caused the entire unit to do this for all the barracks Soldiers, but I will say that the Army uses Health and Welfares for a number of reasons - an inspection of general l...

Why Don't Cows Smell Like Leather? Just a random, odd thought I had as I passed a Wilson's Leather Shop yesterday. My Ecosystem Details

I've been wondering about this for a while and even asked about it in the comments on another post and maybe someone else has already asked and gotten an answer, but I missed it. What happened to having 10 articles per page. I liked it that way better. I tried to check my user settings but couldn't find an option to change back to having 10. My guess is it might have something to do with Draginols post " Frustrated with JoeUser's speed ", but that is just a guess. Maybe to speed things...

I wrote a thing about how much I hate crappy music . In it, I talked about how lame the radio is in the area and even named some specific groups I don't care for. What I didn't offer was what I do like, so as to not provide target fodder for YOU, the reader. Well, I decided to share the contents of my most recenlty burned audio cd. It's mostly stuff I've bought off iTunes recently, but there is also some stuff that's been out there for a while that I still like a lot. There are a to...

After Operation Goldenflow this morning, I still had some time to spare before I needed to be in the office. So, I went out to one of the local grocery stores to pick up some coffee and something to have later for lunch. On the way back, traffic got real congested around the base. Cars were lined up for a good distance with teachers that were trying to get in to work at the last minute. I happened to know the teachers in front of me and behind me in line. When I got to the light at...

Phone rang at 0455 this morning. When you've been in the Army for a while, you know there are only two things a Soldier will get called for that early - an alert or urinalysis. And since I'm in a training unit, I knew it wasn't an alert. I picked up the phone already knowing what I was going to be told. Be at the company at 0630 either ready to pee in a cup or ready to drink water. The problem, though, was that I got up for PT 15 minutes earlier and had already gone to the bathroom. S...

I was originally going to title this article "Gay! Is Leon" since that's what inspired this post. But, I didn't want anyone to read the title and think I was using any bloggers name in the title (I don't even know if there is a Leon blogging here at JU, but better safe than sorry, haha). I was out running this evening with a buddy here on Ord Military Community and CSUMB (formerly known as Fort Ord). There is a large amount of graffiti and painting on the old buildings that are just aw...