I'll take the .50 cal

When I was in the army, I was a scout. That is exactly what you think it is: sneak up ahead of everyone else spot the enemy and report back. Sometimes shoot at them and sometimes call for artillery or air support. The first unit I was in was at Fort Polk, Louisiana. This is not a pleasant place. No offence to folks who live in Louisiana, I did like the state. But the post was awful, infested with bugs, humid all the time, mud up to your knees and more than its fair share of snakes.

But it was here that I learned to be a soldier and that means pulling your weight and not giving up. The vehicles we used for our craft, it feels cool to call soldiering a craft so I'll do it here, were M113's. Most folks have never heard of them as they were obsolete 10 years before I ever joined the army. They are big aluminum boxes on tracks, kind of like an armored bull dozer with a big machine gun. Well after we would get back from the field, i.e. playing in the woods with automatic weapons, we would need to carry the equipment back from the motor pool to the armory. Sometimes there was a Jeep and sometimes not. If not you would need to lug the .50 cal a half mile to the armory (read 84 pounds - 60 pound gun and 24 pound barrel). I would volunteer for the gun. Mostly I did this for selfish reasons, first it was like earning good will to get out of more unpleasant stuff, second I could do it). So I take the .50 cal because I can and because I don't quit. I carried that hunk of metal over my back for half a mile. Quitting is for others, not this kid.

So tonight, I ran 4 miles beginning at 11 pm.

Mile 1: 11:58
Mile 2: 11: 37
Mile 3: 11:50
Mile 4: 11: 45

I could have gone to bed, I was tired after putting in a long day today. Nobody would have said I word if I did. But I didn't. Just like when I was 18, I can carry the .50 cal so I do. I don't give in, I don't break. I may back off for a little bit, like the last 2 weeks. But I don't quit, that is for others. I'll never be the fastest guy out there but I won't quit. I have some bend but no break.