Disclaimer: this post includes military acronyms. I’ll do my best to spell them out as I go along. If I manage to forget one, ask in the comments. There’s also some profanity and some salty descriptions. I’m a veteran talking about my time in service, it happens.
The title is one of my favorite lines from the military. Those of you who have served know it and what it represents. For those of you who have not served but have children, it’s the equivalent of “I don’t know” when you catch your child doing something and ask them what they think they’re doing. Bill Cosby explains it well with his “Brain Damage” routine.
No matter how smart, how high-speed, how hardcore a Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Marine, or Coast Guardsman may seem, they will utter this phrase at least once in their career. No matter how old they are, it’ll happen. I guess it’s because military folks don’t seem to lose that sense of invincibility we all have between the ages of 18 and 21. This occasionally produces hilarious results for everyone BUT the person involved….and often their chain of command. In my case, I was two and a half years into my career and 24 years old when the infamous phrase escaped my lips.
Do you know the difference between a fairy tale and a military story? Fairy tales start with “once upon a time”, military stories start with “no shit, there I was”.
So…no shit, there I was enjoying the good life at Fort Meade, MD. It really wasn’t a bad deal for a 24 year old kid from the Midwest with no degree. Got training that would be useful in the outside world, working out every day, blowing off rounds with the M-16 rifle and M-9 pistol a couple times a year, getting muddy and filthy in the woods and getting paid for it. Stationed in between Baltimore and DC and basically had a 250-mile bubble to play in when I wasn’t on duty. Figure as far north as New Haven, CT, as far south as Raleigh, NC, and as far west as Morgantown, WV. Plenty of big cities and college towns to find some fun in. Oh, and did I mention that I quickly learned that women love a man in uniform? So life was definitely good at the time.
Now, I’d been in long enough at that point to know that the Department of the Army (DA) exists for the sole purpose of pissing Soldiers off. I’ve long suspected that some evil hateful bastard at DA closely tracks the happiness of Soldiers. When a Soldier’s happiness reaches a magical metric on some obscure scale in DA Headquarters, a set of orders guaranteed to ruin your day are issued. This is done to see how well the Soldier in question adapts to change…you may remember your parents doing similar shit when you were a kid and telling you “it builds character”. In the event that the Soldier in question is actually bored at work and enjoys conflict, the orders are cut so that an insane number of hoops must be jumped through. Short suspense times, far-flung or less-than-desirable locations, units that no one has ever heard of, anything except logic goes into cutting these orders. It’s usually termed as “needs of the Army”. To accurately explain “needs of the Army”, imagine a full-size latex spiked fist painted olive drab and you’re on the receiving end of it. With that image in mind…
I came down on orders. Report to Fort Drum, NY, you’re on assignment to 42nd Infantry Division (Mechanized) who is deploying to Iraq within the next four months. Oh, and you have three weeks to get there. Let me break this down Barney-style for ya: I was being sent on short notice to a location that is 20 miles from Canada in October. A remote location where there was damned few coeds to chase, no strip clubs, and 450 miles away from the extended family I had made in the past two years. On top of that, I was deploying to Iraq with a National Guard unit…a unit known as The Rainbow Division. This was definitely not happy-making. So what’s a Soldier to do? Well, whatever he does, it’s probably going to involve alcohol.
My friends decided to throw a going-away party for me, so yes, it did involve alcohol. The idea was some drinks and laughs….and it was the weekend. We were going to be drinking and laughing anyway. But now we had a reason to do so, therefore we had to buy and consume MORE alcohol. So we went to the Class Six (convenience store, breakdown of military supply classes here), loaded up on adult beverages and set up shop in the pavilion next to our barracks. As soon as I arrived, a bandolier of Heinekens was hung around my neck. I was informed that it was not to be empty at any time during the night. Like a good Soldier, I rogered and moved out. All the cats I hung out with (and keep in touch with to this day) were there. My extended Fort Meade family turned out in force to wish me well. The beer was flowing, the music was playing, jokes and insults flying…..and then the Jagermeister showed up.
An aside about Jagermeister (Jager). Those who have experienced it or seen it’s effects, you know what it does. For those that haven’t, here’s what you need to know. It’s a thick brown liqueur that tastes like the original “green death” NyQuil. Yes, people actually seek out this foul stuff. Not only does it taste foul, it also seems to completely shut down the higher brain functions. Anyone who consumes it is usually left with their lower reptilian brain functions of survival, namely combat and procreation. A person who consumes more than one fluid ounce of Jager can be expected to have an intimate knowledge of handcuffs by the end of the night…take that how you will. It also removes all concept of vulnerability. Jager has been known to cause a person to start a mosh pit in a small house, or attempt to take on an entire fraternity with a baseball bat (allegedly). Mixed with tequila (I may have known some people who once thought this was a good idea) which causes a person to remove all their clothing, Jager has been known to have devastating effects. One can expect to have the reincarnation of Caligula on their hands, trying to fight or hump anything in their way.
Three shots of Jager later….
About this time, I realized my trusty Zippo was out of juice. No worries, I knew I had a bottle of lighter fluid in my truck. So I bopped over to the truck and filled my Zippo. Some lighter fluid splashed onto my hand….and I had one of my “really good” ideas. I thought back to my high school days where we used to splash some lighter fluid on our hands and light it. Presto! Flaming hand! Wave your hand once and the flames go out, always good for a quick trick. Why not do it again? Stuck my hand out and SOAKED it in lighter fluid. Mind you, I had a few drinks in me, so my concept of “splash” was a bit hazy. Put the bottle back in the truck, sparked my trusty Zippo and with a “hey guys, check this shit out”, lit my hand on fire.
I distinctly remember the looks I received. It was a veritable rainbow of “What the hell is he doing?” No worries, I’m a professional (Soldier, not a professional human torch). Wave my hand once, still on fire. Wave my hand again, still on fire. Vigorously wave my hand several times, still on fire and HOLYGODITHURTS!! Bellowing in pain, I drop to my knee, shove my flaming hand in the crook of my knee and drag it through my jeans in an effort to snuff the flames (See, Mom! I did pay attention to “Stop, Drop, and Roll”!).
For those who have never been on fire, let me tell you, it will sober your ass up quick. It will also cause you to realize “yes, I am a idiot”. My friends rushed over to make sure I was okay, and promptly informed me of my stupidity once they were sure I was relatively fine. I was then instructed to go inside and run cool water over my hand. I nodded dumbly and did exactly that for about 20 minutes before they found me again. While I was running water over my hand, alternating between “Jesus, you’re a moron” and “Suck it up, pain is weakness leaving the body”, two of them had been busy looking for something to cool the burn. They found me in my room and pulled me back outside to perform first aid of sorts. An empty two liter bottle was found, the top cut off (with my knife…I offered to do it, but they figured I’d done enough damage to myself that night), and a full bottle of aloe vera lotion poured into it. I was told to sit down, my burnt hand dunked in the bottle, a beer shoved in my other hand (pain management), and my lighter confiscated. I stayed in that chair for the rest of the evening, my bandolier being refilled and my cigarettes lit by my friends. Make no mistake, it wasn’t because they wanted to serve me, rather they were protecting me from my own dumb ass.
Fast forward to Monday morning – I show up for PT, blisters from my second degree burns fading but still visible. My platoon sergeant and first sergeant saw my hand and in stereo asked, “What the hell did you do to yourself?”
“Well, you see, what had happened was….”