Home Sweet Speicher

I’ve been gone from my home at COB Speicher for little over a week. We are rearranging some of our Company’s here and I was dispatched to help setup communications for our satellite units. I began by catching a midnight flight on a chopper to a base called Anaconda; easily a contender for the most lavish base in Iraq award. Anaconda is within proximity to the town of Balad and is situated on what used to be an Iraqi army base. It was left rather unscathed in the initial invasion and features and indoor and outdoor swimming pool and a movie theater, complete with concession stand. While I am living quite comfortable at Speicher, those stationed at Anaconda are just plain spoiled. But with amenities comes a price—there is more bureaucratic nonsense than should be allowed in any war zone. After two days of setup, I caught another flight to a base called Warhorse, near the town of Ba’qubah; picturesque and strife with Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence. Warhorse had been in the toilet bowel of communications for quite awhile, and none of the chimps there could figure out what the problem was. My primary function in the Army is to fix communications and not to kill people, but if one were to correlate my success that day in terms of a body count, I would have massacred 1000s. It was like being on a new level of nerdiness. Just how nerdy you may ask?? I was on the ground for only a couple hours and I figured out that the field wire on the Long Range Ethernet cable repeater was spliced into a C-block using only two strands of copper wire and that the distance from the fiber-optic terminal switch to our operator’s switch was too great for only two strands to work, four strands must be used to carry the signal that far. DUH! I spliced the four cables and instantaneously brought our Company back up on the network, the nerd Gods smiled upon Ba’qubah that day. I still find it funny that I even do what I do in the Army. I really have little interest in networking and communications; it is actually quite a bore to me. But I find solace in knowing that I have learned a skill that I could care less for, and that I am able to perform it in a successful manner. I stayed at Warhorse another day to help out with some minor issues before heading back to Anaconda. While at Anaconda I caught a news report about the recent election results, and how the Democrats were taking over etc. The report also included a mention of the Republicans nominating REP. John Boehner for the minority chair. Maybe it was the giddiness of having been so successful on my trip, but I couldn’t help at snickering at a name like John Boehner. Without hearing the proper annunciation, I could only hope that he uses a name like that to his advantage. I began to come up with some campaign slogans:

John Boehner-- He won’t become limp under pressure

John Boehner--Hard on crime

John Boehner--Firm American Values

And of course…

John Boehner--His name means erect wiener

MUHAHAHAHAHA