Tag: military story

Postagram!

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Since I’ve had a lot of text heavy posts lately, I’ve decided to mix it up a little bit by doing a picture post–a postagram! I gathered a few random pictures from here and there. The only thing these images have in coming is that they are over 10 years old.

Woody – She belonged to my step dad and was the first car I drove around town. Half the radio stations didn’t work, but she will always have a soft spot in my heart. I’m not sure if I want to reveal this picture’s age…
Tech School – I was studying hard for a test! Think of it as a boarding school for adults, but add the entire military thing.

The Ziggurat – Located in the ancient city of Ur (modern day Iraq).

Me standing at the steps.

This is believed to be the house of Abraham. The local government was working on restoring it at the time. I wonder what it looks like now because this picture is 10 years old.

Cricket – The best cat in the universe (R.I.P.). He was a childhood pet and was at least 20 when he died in 2009 (no joke!).

Around the World in Currency

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A General Update
 I am working on my “Montgomery” story. The announcement that I was going to make for the moon story will be made for this one instead, so keep your eyes peeled. I just want to say that I love this story! It’s finished and is going to be put into the old editorial grind before I let it see the light of day.

As for The Year is Now, I am still polishing it with a final round of copy-editing. It is a lengthy process, and it’s hard to keep steady in this new, busy world of multitasking and distraction! Even so, I am chipping away at the mines.

Around the World in Currency – A pic spam!
Circa 10 years ago…I can’t believe it’s been 10 years.

Korean Won

Outdated Iraqi currency. Yes. That man in the middle is exactly who you think he is. 

These are trades I made. I used to collect currency like baseball cards.

Japanese Yen

Turkish Lira. I believe it is outdated now

Replicas of the Byzantine Empire! 

The rocks are rubble from an old castle. No matter where you went, there was always a farmer selling replica coins. I always purchased them because I thought they were awesome.

Please come to a complete stop!

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2001: Assignment Turkey!

I was immediately enthralled by their culture, the Mediterranean spices in their food (particularly lamb), and their pop music. However, my first obsession wasn’t the delicious food or the pop music. It was their stop signs. They were prevalent on base and off base.

This, my friends, is a Turkish stop sign–my very own piece of Turkey.

No, I don’t have any wild stories of riding in a dolmuş full of friends while Tarkan blared through the speakers as we embarked on a rebellious quest to get ourselves some stop signs….Although, that would have been pretty awesome (if it wasn’t against the law, of course!). I can see my imaginary caper of stop sign thieves dining on Adana kabobs and naan bread afterwards, relishing in our shenanigans.

No misadventures were to be had in my acquisition of my favorite household decoration. There was an alley of shops right outside the base (conveniently dubbed The Alley). The major thing I remember about Turkey is how friendly the locals were. I was friends with a lot of the shop keepers. To this day, I miss the friends I had made while I was there.

I confided to my friends who owned a carpet shop that I loved the stop signs and wished I had one to take back with me. It turned out that they knew someone who worked for the division responsible for stop signs! I gave them some money to have two stop signs painted, and  my quest was complete. I sent the second one to my father as a Christmas gift.

Portraits are a Global Thing

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When I’m stuck for something to blog about, it means it’s time for a military story. I can only stretch “I liked 2013!” into so many cliché words that everyone else is chatting about right now. ‘Tis the season for reflection, and I can’t deny that. I just can’t stretch something that won’t stretch!

Portraits
It was 2004, and I was deployed to Iraq. Our base was once an Iraqi base, and it was still showing signs of the first Gulf War. The Iraqi military didn’t clean up a lot of the first mess. There was even a downed, Russian built helicopter near one of the buildings my shop supported.

One afternoon I was tired of being cooped up in our windowless shop. The day had been a particularly long one so far. I excused myself with pretenses of using the porta potty (In all honestly, I really had to go, but there were no rules against taking your time).

I walked to the abandoned shower/bathrooms on the other side of our building. The abandoned showers had been thoroughly gutted and nearly destroyed. Two of the brick walls had caved in long before I was there.

I ran my hand along one of the walls that hadn’t been destroyed; though, there were many sizable chunks taken out of brick. Why I stopped at a crack between two bricks and stuck my finger in it, I will never know. Maybe it was the heat? Maybe I was hoping I’d find a dollar? I found one on the side of a road on that base before…

Regardless of the case, I found something wedged there. Arching my dusty eyebrows, I pulled it out and placed it in the palm of my sweaty hand. The bundle turned out to be a series of tiny portraits of Iraqi servicemen.

I took them to our squadron commander because there was something written on the backs of them. She and I headed to the base’s translator.

The translator looked at the portraits and told us that the writing was just their names. He said that the Iraqis were told to ditch everything, hide what they could, and to get out. I felt a chill as he gave me the pictures and said I could keep them. I looked at my commander, and after she nodded, I tucked them away in my pocket.

I eventually made a scrapbook of my deployment to Iraq with various things and pictures. The portraits have their own page in it.

A Spooky Tale

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 A spooky tale for a spooky month!

I was stationed in Turkey ten years ago (don’t get me started on the fact that it was TEN years ago). I will never forget one of the times I was working a 12 hour rotation on the graveyard shift. My coworker had gone to lunch (more like midnight chow), so I was left alone until it was my turn for chow. This particular night had been quiet, dragging along like a kid procrastinating an annoying chore.

About ten minutes after my coworker was gone, I heard a distinct thumping in the ceiling. There was enough room between the tiles that made up the ceiling and the roof for someone to crawl—I knew this because they had been working on the A/C all month long, and some of the tiles had been taken out.

Thump, thump…It was the clumsy pitter patter of feet. Thump, thump. I stood very still. My eyes roamed the room for anything that might be used as a weapon. Spotting the electrical safety kit (of which included a wooden cane *), I crept towards it. Thump, thump! The person continued crawling, and he was heading in my direction.

My heart was pounding as I grabbed the cane. A cold dread welled up within me. As long as I got him with the cane first, I’d be okay…or so I lied to myself. I held the cane up when he was above me. Drawing in a deep breath, I prepared my offensive.

“IDENTIFY YOURSELF!” I shouted, holding the cane like a baseball bat.

Silence.

I waited.

“IDENTIFY YOURSELF NOW!” I took the butt end of the cane and hit one of the tiles with it.

Silence again.

“Meow?” came a small, soft cry. I blinked and moved under a spot where one of the tiles had been taken out.

“Meow?” a tiny, furry black head peaked down at me. “Meow!” The kitten was just as happy to see me as I was happy to see it.

* The cane is an emergency tool used to pull someone out of a hairy situation.

In other news, I’m still offering commissions! Here are some that I’ve done recently!