Late last night I was watching a movie when I got an alert for a new geocache being published. I thought it was close enough and they are so rare to pop-up around here I should go and get it. Turns out I was a little too late to claim to First to Find, but while writing the date in the log I noticed something. It is the one year anniversary of me leaving the Army. A whole year, Army free! The odd part is that it doesn’t feel like it. What is worse is that I think I have done a lot more in that one year than I did in all 5 years in the Army.

• Quit smoking
• drive across the U.S.
• Tripled my income through my websites
• siteseen more places that I thought possible
• start college (holding 12 credits right now, earned maybe 9 credits in the Army)

Possibly a lot more that I can’t think of right now, but still amasing to myself.  Even after thinking about it for a second, 5 years of the Army didn’t do much for me except the G.I. bill which if I lived in California I wouldn’t need.  This semester is costing me about $250 plus books.  Thats less than my car payment.

I don’t regret the Army, but the more I spend time in the real world the more I hate it.  Think about it, would you work for a company that screams “equal oppurtunity” then has someone who is racists themself regulate it.  (I know three different people that were E.O. reps and were racist, on thought he was black so it was OK, another saw no problem with the term “colored people” and the last had such an anger managment issue that his true opinion would slip out.)  Yet the Army as a whole says which jobs are only available to Men, and if they are gay then they get fired (unless they keep it a deep dark secret).  Any corporation that ran like that in today’s world would be facing criminal charges.  Yet we allow it?

I am happy where I am at now, at least the Army did one thing for me…, it opened my eyes to the rest of the world around me.  Now when I feel like I have no other choices I look harder.  (I found my wife on the Internet, Army had nothing to do with it).

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We sincerely regret this intrusion and assure you we have taken the necessary steps to prevent future attacks.

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Paul Voorhees
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Can’t I get a break?!!?!!

Wow, wasn’t expecting this.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_the_Iraq_War

I love wikipedia, its a great source for researching things or to browse when bored.   Stumbled across this one today and was quite surprised that they have this much info towards the opposition of the war.  I expected them to have something, but not something this strong.

I especially love the quotes…,

• “I like to tell people when hit- the final history is written on Iran- Iraq it will look like just a comma…uh, because, um…there is- my point is there’s a strong will for democracy these people want a unity government the unity government’s functioning.” – American President, George W. Bush (September 19, 2006) [26]

• “Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein’s government, then what are you going to put in its place? That’s a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it — eastern Iraq — the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you’ve got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It’s a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.” – Former United States Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney (April 15, 1994) [27]

• “If you look at those matters, you will come to the conclusion that the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace. Because what America is saying is that if you are afraid of a veto in the Security Council, you can go outside and take action and violate the sovereignty of other countries. That is the message they are sending to the world. That must be condemned in the strongest terms.” – Nelson Mandela (September 10, 2002)^[54][55]

• “The option of war can appear initially to be the most rapid. But let us not forget that after winning the war, peace must be built.” – Dominique de Villepin, French Foreign Minister, at the United Nations Security Council on February 14, 2003 [28])

I have been trying to get my driving privileges for driving on post back now since I got out of the Army. Today I finally get a call back from my 1SG and he left a message informing me that I have to attend a class first.

I lost my privileges because my command wanted to flaunt what they could do. It had nothing to do with my driving yet now after I am not in the Army I have to take a driving class? It makes me glad that I am no longer in the army and have to deal with this shit on a daily basis. I won’t be any bit surprised if I have to pay for the class now too.

How we have the strongest Armed forces in the world I will never know.

Finally here! My last day in the Army. Just now getting home and have this overwhelming feeling of relief. It didn’t come without more problems though.

I had previously mentioned to another sergeant that my wife may not give up her ID card easily. It gives her the right to get on post and use the commissary and utilize other services. Since neither her or my ID cards expired until June 1st of 2008, there shouldn’t been much of an issue anyway. The Army is supposed to keep us on for 4 months for insurance purposes, and I have other privileges on post up to 6 months.