Name:Andrew Country:United States State:Washington Metro:Olympia Birthday:6/24/1983 Gender:Male
Interests:adult swim, ann coulter, aristotle, arminianism, army, aviation, bam margera, bill oreilly, breaking benjamin, christian, college, conservative, current events, final fantasy, george w, jazz, jesus, jhonen vasquez, jthm, lacuna coil, manowar, meijer, michigan, military, mongolian bbq, philosophy, politics, pro-life, ps2, reading, republican, rock and roll, rocky, ronald reagan, rudy giuliani, running, rush limbaugh, sean hannity, seinfeldr, sith, soren kierkegaard, star wars, stephen king, swimming, teen mania, the matrix, top gun, traverse city, weight lifting Expertise:I'm 23 years old native to Northern Michigan and am currently living in Jacksonville Florida to be near and spend time with my fiancee, Sarah. We will be getting married in July. I am a soldier in the United States Army and am going into a career of combat arms with specific ambitions of becoming a Ranger and then perhaps Special Forces. Occupation:Military Industry:Government
I've been tracking the progress of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for several months now. If it's as awesome as it sounds, and as the trailer depicts, I might just be forced to buy a PS3 upon my return from Ranger school. I think someone has finally depicted the power of the force as it should be. Plus, it's awesome that you get to play as a Sith rather than a Jedi. This along with Fallout 3 have got me really excited and hopeful.
(aka: That dude with the guitar at the Honor Academy)
Put
it down dude. Seriously, you know who you are. I went to camp with you.
I went on a lot of church retreats with you. And some how, you even
ended up living on the same floor as me freshman year of college.
I
get it, you own an acoustic guitar. You put stickers of bands I have
never heard on the outside of your guitar case. You have an interesting
guitar strap. You are moody and introspective and somehow when you
combine that guitar with the three songs you know and a campfire, every
girl on the planet wants to sit near you. Are you kidding me?
Back
when I was in high school you knew the simple chords to Poison's song,
"Every rose has it's thorn," and Bon Jovi's "Bed of Roses." But I have
to believe the newer version of you has updated the material. What are
you singing now, Coldplay's "Yellow" or maybe Dashboard Confessional's
"Screaming Infidelities?" Maybe you are doing something by the Jonas
Brothers now or Maroon 5? What, you're actually singing U2's song,
"One?" You are killing me.
I
know what you are doing. You have brilliantly found a way to carry
around the thing you are best at. (And I use the word "best" loosely.)
I am very jealous. What if painting was the thing I was best at? Would
it be OK if I just started carrying around a canvas and an easel and
then when girls said, "Do you know how to paint?" I could casually
reply, "Oh, this thing? I guess I forgot I had it with me." Or maybe I
was really good at pottery and could carry around a kiln and a wheel
like in the movie Ghost. Because that's what you do. You pretend that
you just happened to have the guitar with you. Like the whole thing was
just accidental. I know it's not though. I know.
Your
instrument isn't even in tune but that doesn't matter does it dude with
the guitar? Because it's more about the image, not the music. And what
really gets me is that you're going to play a song at youth Sunday this
year and people are going to tell you that you should be a worship
leader. Hearing that is going to make you start wearing product in your
hair and rocking a white belt and when I walk to class at college
you'll be sitting on the steps of our dorm with a girl that is way too
pretty to talk to me singing, "How great is our God." And when she asks
you, "Where did you learn to play like that?" You'll respond by saying,
"I just listen to my heart." You are my archenemy dude with the guitar
at camp.
I am going to steal your guitar and
replace it with those big hand bells and the white gloves that
handbellers (or is it just 'bellers') wear. Let's see how easy it is to
get girls to go on dates to Outback Steakhouse when all you have to
play is a gigantic bell.
Today was the rifle qualification testing for our upcoming EIB (expert infantryman's badge)
testing was today. The task was to qualify as an expert rifle marksman
on the M4 rifle given a standard pop up target range. The day started
off well enough at the zero range. I was almost finished zeroing my
rifle when one of our platoon's sergeants came up to me and told me to
shoot one more time and then head over to the qualification range.
Since I am a man of many talents I always seem to be frequently getting
shanghaid into doing all these random odd jobs throughout the
battalion. Today they were going to have me running the qualification
range control tower since I was the only person on the range with
qualification on the CASWEL range computer system. The CASWEL controls
the pop up targets, scoring, and reporting. Normally I wouldn't mind
doing such a task, but today it meant that I wouldn't have much time to
qualify. While everyone else got the entire day to fire through
countless iterations for their expert qualification, I got an hour at
the end of the day when we were almost out of ammo and the NCO in
charge was rushing us so that we could finish up.
Long story short, I fired my first iteration. One iteration means firing 40 rounds down range. 20 are shot from the prone supported, 10 from prone unsupported, and 10 from the kneeling position.
The distances of the pop up targets are 50, 10, 150, 200, and 300
meters. I didn't hear my score on the first ideration, I only know that
I didn't hit expert. I fired my second iteration and hit 35 targets
(you need a minimum of 36 to qualify expert). Agh! One short. When the
NCO in charge announced that my third iteration would be the final
iteration of the day. Basically if I didn't get it this time, I was out
of the EIB race. I settled in and began firing and felt like I was
doing really well. When it was all said and done the NCO in charge
called out over the loud speakers that we were done and to police up
all expent brass shells and head back. Since he had been calling off
everyone who qualified over the loudspeaker since I had been shooting,
and he didn't call off anybodies name this time around, I just assumed
I missed it again.
I was steaming! I had gotten screwed!
Everyone else got all day to zero and qualify while I had one measly
rushed hour at the end of the day and now I wasn't going to even try
for my EIB all because of my CASWEL skill. Anyway, grumbling to myself,
I picked up all my spent shells and headed back to the ammo point to
turn it all in. When I got there I saw the score keeper wandering
about, so I approached him and asked what my score was just because I
was curious as to how close I was. I did a double take when he showed
me I hit 36 out of 40. I did it! And I did it with three rushed
iterations while most people took all day. I was walking on air all the
way back to the company.
Tomorrow is land navigation testing.
Kinda worried since I haven't done this since basic training at Ft
Jackson in the summer of 05', and I didn't do too well there. However, I
think I know what I'm doing now while I was completely clueless back
then. If I make it, my prereqs for EIB will be completed. Here's
hoping.
I'm not sure if I mentioned my goals for this year,
but I have four. My first is to earn the prestigious EIB badge, second is to
earn the coveted Ranger tab, third is to attend and graduate from
Mortar Leader's Course, and the fourth is to score a 300 on a PT test.
I believe that if I achieve all of these goals before I deploy to Iraq,
getting into the 75th Ranger regiment when I re enlist won't be a
problem.
I never mentioned the conclusion to my Ranger assessment test. Well, I
passed. Tuesday was the final event, a 12 mile ruck march. The
conditions were uniform, helmet, tactical vest, and 45 lbs ruck sack
and we had three hours to complete it. Everyone made it. I completed it
in two hours and 51 minutes. Sgt Bloom, the NCO administering the tests
said that he recommended passing me despite failing the pull up event
by one pull up. However, he also told me that I will need to pass it
before leaving for Ranger school and he recommends I be able to do 10
to standard by then. Shouldn't be too big of a problem since pull ups
are relatively easy to improve on.
So, whew, I'm still in a
state of surreal shock. I, me, am going to one of the most grueling and
elite schools in the military. Three months of pure misery and agony.
Being physically exhausted, sleep deprived, starving, constant exposure
to the elements and having to lead men who are in the same
condition for nearly three months. It's really scary when I think of
the beating I'll be voluntarily putting myself through. Completion
earns me a .50 cent strip of cloth to wear on my uniform and membership into the elite clique of those who have earned the tab. The thing that will keep me going is that even though it's going to suck, coming home without a tab will suck infinitely worse.
If things go as they're sounding like currently, my buddies Carmack,
Martinez, and myself will all be sent to Ft. Benning to start Pre
Ranger school sometime in September. Between now and then I need to
work my butt off to get in the best shape of my life. I already am in
the best shape of my life, but there's definite room for improvement. One
thing that we have in our favor going into Ranger school is a platoon
Sergeant who has earned his tab and is gung ho about helping us get
ours. Sometime before we go he's promised to take the three of us out
and teach us some basic skills we'll need at Ranger school that will
give us an edge.
In other news, I lost my beloved pocket knife, a Benchmade Griptillian, yesterday
at some point when I was working out on the ROTC weapons range. I loved
this knife alot and it was expensive. But today I got a new/better
knife. It's cool because it has a piston assisted open feature. It's a
SOG Flash II, and it was actually cheaper than the Griptillian. So
yahoo for a new, cool knife.
This
is from a childrens online ministry I found. It seems so rediculous that I'm
almost certain it's a spoof, but it's still hilarious, albeit sad at the same time that it's true there are plenty of those out there who view people of different faiths and ideas like this.
