Fixed some movies

Hey everyone, just want to give you a heads up and let you know I've fixed the 'Last Samurai' movie so it now goes beyond two minutes and is now fully complete. Check it out. Since I have that fixed there is nothing standing in my way now of posting the preview for Pillowheart. But, since I'm feeling a bit stingy right now, I think I'll post that here in the next few days.

Grenade Range movies

Well, here we are. Something a little different. This was yesterday at the grenade range. It was an easy day, albeit cold and somewhat miserable. But, it was a lot calmer and a lot less active, so we enjoyed it. Here's some movies from it yesterday.

Frustrating times

Well... it was one of those weeks. The ones that had so much wrong with it you wished it just had never existed. Since it is very possible people from my command could possibly see this, I won't mention any names or say anything that could get me in trouble, but, wow.... some people just shouldn't do certain things, like lead Marines into combat.

We have one person in particular that everytime we do a mission or train for something, manages to mess it up. Everytime we did urban combat ops this past week, on EVERY mission, he managed to get atleast 4 Marines killed, everytime. He will undoubtedly get Marines killed in Iraq. It's too disheartening. How can they expect us to keep morale up and stay focused when we're being led by someone who obviously doesn't have a clue what he's doing beyond a very rudimentary, basic understanding of combat. Heck, he doesn't even display common sense. Anyway, can't mention anything particular because of the situation, but, it's bad. Real bad. You can't even tell him things while on a mission that you notice that might be dangerous that might alter his plan because he'll yell and curse at you and tell you to shut up, he's a ... higher ranking individual than I am and we better listen. That's a big no-no in combat. We all have eyes and ears and if he doesn't utilize all of them, we're dead.

I in turn had a bad attitude and am disappointed in myself. It got to the point where I just shut up and didn't talk to no one. Didn't smile, was short with everyone when speaking to them, and was generally, overall bitter and angry. I'd hit my peak so to speak. We'd been in Combat Town for three days and I hadn't cleared a single room. The guy was so unorganized he never rotated the teams through training and the same teams did the same thing. We missed training completely except the last house we went in to on the last day we were there. And, of course, the door we chose to breach was booby trapped and I was the lead man, so I was dead on arrival. That was the extent of my training out there.

I evaluated my demeaner and tried to have a better attitude yesterday, after three days of that and I did better. I got a little goofy again. Yesterday was the grenade range (I'll be putting up videos) and a certain someone wasn't there, so, it was ok, except it being cold.

But, that was my week. This post may not have been too cohesive and may not be understandable, but, I needed to vent. I just feel disappointed spiritually that I was so bitter. Some people generally tried to cheer my up and forget about it but I was so consumed by it that I wouldn't have it. But, I'm coming out of it. Just wanted to be honest with you guys and girls out there. Love you all very much. Oh, we also had our service this morning, only three people there. Disaab is saved now, he belives he got saved a couple years back, but, now he's aware of it I think. Thank God for that.

But, I appreciate your prayers for the situation and if anyone sent anything recently, I haven't gotten it because mail has been real sketchly lately since we've been gone soo much. But, I'll respond and thank everyone though for their letters and packages. Thanks especially to Mrs. Jerris for writing so much, she's so sweet, and for Angela for the excellent package and scrumptious cookies she sent.

Love all of you. Later.

VCP and ECP training pics

Hey everyone. I would have updated sooner but this week has been so busy and frustrating (I'll post on that in a later post) that the 14 hour plus days we've been putting in don't afford us much time to take care of non-training essential stuff like this.

The picture above is from us doing house breaching and room clearing tactics. It was good training overall that day, namely because I wasn't with a certain leader that's incompetent.

I've made some adjustments to my gear, namely the drop pouch I bought for my magazines on my thigh, a camelback holder that is attached to my flak jacket, and a one-point sling I made from a crappy sling they gave us. If you look at my weapon it only connects to the rifle at the buttstock (one-point), instead of two points like I was using.


This was.... Thursday I believe. We set up VCPs (Vehicle Control Points) and ECPs (Enemy Control Points) and actually cordoned off a certain small area of the base and set up a roadblock, which in turn infuriated local traffic since they had to go through hoops to get through. It would have been good training if not for the person in charge of us. He's hopeless. He's going to get someone killed, and he just confused the situation 90% of the time. Anyways, here's the pics.