Handcrafted Artificial Replicant Responsible for Yelling

cadet_mcnally @ 2009-10-11T17:52:00

2009-10-11T14:54:34Z

Plugging speakers into my iPod and playing Leaving on a Jet Plane on an endless loop while at the terminal waiting for my flight to take me out of Iraq tomorrow.

Awesome idea or AWESOMEST idea?

I Saw the Elephant

2009-10-07T20:59:36Z

Took small arms fire tonight. Burst of about 20 rounds or so went in front of my truck. One of them hit one of our antennas.

Bastards were hiding behind trees and the Rules of Engagement require we have positive identification before we can return fire. So I wasn't able to shoot back. Fucking cowards.

Your Love Is (Love Song with Metaphor)

2009-10-05T02:01:21Z

My love is a butterfly
Floating sweetly through a summer field
Spreading beauty and love under the midday sun
And your love is an entomologist
Chasing me down, ensnaring me in your net
And taking me home, jabbing a pin through my guts
And mounting me on your wall
A pin
Your love is a pin through my guts

My love is a sailing ship
Seeking out a friendly shore
To cast out my anchor, happily never sail no more
And your love is the ocean that drowns me
Leaving my bones to be picked at by crabs
And bringing settlers to the New World with smallpox and influenza
And wiping out the indigenous population
Smallpox
Your love is smallpox

You are a giant redwood falling on a family of deer
You are a soaring eagle landing in a minefield
You are river rising over the downtown levees
You are Christmas in Iran

My love is a tiny puppy
Knowing only joy and trust
Greeting each new day like a miraculous gift
And your love is an underground dog-fighting ring
Catching me and keeping me in a cage
On the brink of starvation
Torturing me daily until all I that know is hate and rage
And death holds no meaning for me
Just like Christopher Walken in the end of The Deer Hunter
Christopher Walken
Your love is Christopher Walken

sigh

2009-09-16T12:01:33Z

The next person who invites me to an event on Facebook is going to get bitterly sworn at.

cadet_mcnally @ 2009-09-09T11:17:00

2009-09-09T08:19:23Z

The Royal Navy toast for Wednesday is "To Ourselves (as no one else is likely to concern themselves with our welfare)." More and more I feel that's rather apt.

An Update That Isn't Emo

2009-09-01T12:44:30Z

Well, I suppose I have the time to give you all a taste of what it's like here.

The US-Iraq Security Agreement limits our movement though the country to the night time, for the most part (there are, of course, exceptions). As such, I live on a night schedule. Generally, I arrive at the motor pool where our vehicles and company command post (CP) are around 6:30 in the evening.

Generally, we do a three day rotation: Mission, Recovery, Prep, rinse/repeat. Sometimes more missions, sometimes more recovery. But that's the typical setup. I'll start with a recovery day:

Arrive at the motor pool (usually early), get started on whatever tasks we have to perform (as a gunner, mine deal with the maintenance of the M2 .50 caliber Browning Machine Gun, known as the Ma Deuce or just "the fifty cal." The driver makes sure the truck is fueled and performs PMCS - preventative maintenance, checks and services. The vehicle commander lends a hand when needed, as the gunner and driver have things well in hand), and then spend the next few hours kicking about waiting to be released. Usually we're let off between 9 and 10 PM.

A prep day is really more of the same and we generally have little to do as we got most of it taken care of on the recovery day.

Mission day is slightly different. Battalion, in its infinite wisdom, had decided that we should spend five hours preparing for a mission when, in reality, it takes us around two. If we're scheduled to leave at midnight, we arrive at the motor pool at 7 PM. The missions we run are logistical convoy escort runs, escorting supply trucks from here to other bases in Iraq. A typical mission takes about nine hours, though it's not uncommon for us to have to stay at the base we run trucks to until the next day.

Let's talk about my job more specifically.

As a gunner, my duties are specific: Keep my gun clean and working. Cleaning my weapon, an M2 .50 caliber Browning machine gun, takes anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, depending on how clean I want it. Once I've cleaned it, I lubricate the moving parts. The time it takes for that is built in to the 20 minutes to an hour estimate. Once that's complete, I generally just kinda hang around and wait. I generally have my DS with me, so I've been running through Chrono Trigger. Madden 09 has been getting some attention, too (Go Redskins).

Mission days are different, however. I usually show up early to get the gun mounted. Once it's mounted, I insert the barrel (the machine gun itself weighs 60 pounds, the barrel weighs 20 pounds, and when together, the weapon is about five and a half feet long). After the barrel is in, I check the headspace. Headspace refers to the distance between the bolt (where the primer end of the round sits) and the chamber (where the bullet-shooty part rests). Too much headspace and the chamber pressure is too low for the bullet to go shooty, and more often than not there's not a tight seal for the expanding gases to be directed entirely down the barrel, causing the gases to follow the path of least resistance. Worst case scenario is that the bullet gets stuck in the barrel and the cartridge ruptures (or even explodes). Too little headspace and the chamber pressure is too high, the cartridge explodes with enough force to ruin the gun, and I have a very bad day. Headspace is checked by inserting both ends of a specially machined piece of steel into the space between the bolt face and the chamber. Both sides are machined to specific widths. If the NO-GO end goes into the space, then there's too much headspace. If neither the NO-GO nor the GO ends go in, there's not enough.

After I check headspace, I check timing. Timing refers, I believe, to when the mechanism is allowed to fire again after the bolt makes its round trip. If your timing is off, you could be firing faster than you ought to (which is bad for the weapon), slower than you ought to (which is probably bad for the weapon), or it's even possible that the weapon could fire when it shouldn't (like when the bolt is still traveling forward, which would cause the headspace to be all wrong). Timing is checked by pulling back slightly on the charging handle, placing a specially machined steel tool into the gap between the bolt carrier and the front end of the receiver, and pressing the trigger. If it dry-fires with the NO-GO gauge in, your timing is wrong. If it doesn't dry-fire with the GO gauge in, your timing is wrong. To adjust the timing, you need to take the baseplate off the weapon, unscrew the timing wheel all the way to the left, then start screwing it to the right until the weapon dry-fires on GO (placing the baseplate back on each time to fire). Then you screw it to the right five more clicks.

After headspace and timing are checked, I climb off the top of the vehicle, go to my seat, turn on the CROWS, and arm the system. I then climb back up to the gun and check the timing of the solenoid that fires the weapon from the CROWS. This is done three times. Not sure why. It's the same as timing above, but done with the trigger on the CROWS control grip rather than the weapon's trigger. The entire process takes maybe ten minutes.

Next I need to boresight the weapon. This consists of pointing the system at a target between 300 and 400 meters distant, changing some settings in the system, then inserting a special rod and sight into the barrel. The sight is aligned with the weapon, showing exactly what the weapon is pointing at. Basically, I aim at the target (in my case, a sign on a building 380 meters away), someone calls adjustments until the weapon is pointed where I was aiming the system, and then I dial in an adjustment by telling the system the difference between where it's aiming and where the weapon is actually pointed. This process takes around five minutes.

Once the weapon is mounted and boresighted, my next task is to go to the test fire pit and ensure the weapon functions. This serves two purposes: It lets me know if the weapon is working properly, and it gives the driver an opportunity to test-drive the vehicle. Before we can leave to test fire, however, we must have good commo. Usually, that just means turning on the radios and doing the following:

Us: "Any PYTHON element, this is 4. Radio check, over."
Them: "4, this is #. Read you Lima Charlie (or Loud and Clear, or Lickin' Chicken, or whatever they want to say), over."
US: "Roger, #. 4 out."

If nothing happens after the first line, then our crypto fill is probably wrong. Our radios are encrypted to keep people who aren't on our side from listening to our chatter (usually consisting of one of the scout vehicles announcing that something suspicious on the road has been interrogated, cleared, and marked with a chemlight). Refilling the radio is pretty simple:

Plug the ANCD to the radio, tell the ANCD you want to load a crypto fill to a radio, press LOAD on the radio, and then wait. Then set the time on the radio to within 3 seconds of the time on the GPS.

Once I've test-fired, I'm pretty much done. I lay my gear out for PCC/PCI (Pre Combat Check, Pre Combat Inspection), grab some ice for the cooler, and just hang around until mission brief. Mission brief takes place two hours before we leave the gate, and one hour before we leave the motor pool. Usually it takes about 45 minutes. We go over the route, recent SIGACTs (significant actions - basically "has anything blown up in the last 24 hours?"), and review our battle drills ("You, tell me what we do if the #3 truck gets hit by an IED/takes small arms fire/breaks down"). Once mission briefing is finished, we head to the vehicles and line up in order. From there, once we're ready to roll, we head to the staging lane where we meet up with the trucks we're going to escort. The trucks are driven by contractors working for KBR. They make three times as much money as I do and they probably have days off. Lucky bastards. We're generally at the staging area for about an hour (sometimes longer if the weather is bad - we don't roll if the helicopters can't fly), which is time I use to load my weapon and take a nap (SOP for gunners is that they load their weapons without chambering a round - AMBER status - when they leave the wire. The only way I can load my gun is if I get out of the vehicle and climb onto the roof, which is not an option when we're rolling, so I go AMBER before we leave. When I leave the wire, I roll RED - weapon loaded, round chambered). If all goes well, we roll out as scheduled. If all is not well, we could be waiting for hours to get the word that the weather has cleared and we can leave, or that the weather is still bad and we stand down (stand-down time is usually 0100. One time we go the word to go at 0055).

A mission can last anywhere from five hours to fuckin' DAYS, man. The nearest base we deliver to is 90 minutes one-way. Ideally, it takes us 90 minutes to get there, an hour or two for KBR to unload their cargo, 90 minutes to get back. Figure another couple hours for slowness getting into the gate because of confusion on the part of the guys who guard it (Ugandans and Air Force personnel), dismounting at the motor pool, and then After Action Review. I just got back from a run to Scania, which ideally is a 7 hour trip one-way. Scania is a place where we RON (Remain Overnight) every time. However, we got stuck behind an EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) crew for four hours while they were clearing the site of an IED blast for four hours and had to divert to another base to sleep, roll to Scania, sleep, then come back. The return leg from Scania to here was 10 hours. We left around 8 or 9 PM Friday and got back around 6 AM Tuesday morning.

During a mission, my job is to scan for triggermen - guys waiting to set off an IED or EFP (Explosively Formed Projectile - a shaped charge that fires a molten slug of copper and will penetrate 6 inches of armor and then set the inside of a vehicle on fire. Our vehicles have around 4 inches of armor). People hiding out on the side of the road are easy for me to spot: We roll at night and I'm watching on a thermal camera. I spot rabbits at 300 meters with ease. I'm also called on every so often to check out something suspicious on the road (it's only happened once, and it turned out to be a water cooler with a cup on it. Don't ask).

Missions are generally very boring and uncomfortable: The interior of my vehicle was designed in the late 1970s with a guy who is shorter than I am wearing a uniform and an ammo belt to ride in it. I'm much taller than that guy was, and I'm also wearing body armor. My knees suffer with every mission.

But there's often some fun to be had. Usually in the course of the radio chatter. It's all business during the mission, but inside the wire some fun is usually had. Here are some recent examples of both on-mission chatter and in-wire chatter.

ON-MISSION:

Scout: Entering NAI (Named Area of Interest - a zone where shit's gone down previously) marked with two large chemlights.
Convoy commander: Roger, entering NAI marked with two large chemlights.

Scout: Blast crater, left side, clear. Marked with chemlight.
C2: Roger, blast crater, left side, clear. Marked with chemlight.

Scout: 3, we've had to come to a short halt. We've come up on something that looks... almost exactly like an anti-tank mine. Over.
C2: Roger, 1.
Scout: We've got pretty good eyes on and it looks just like an anti-tank mine. It's right next to one of our rollers, so we have a good look at it.
C2: Roger, don't run it over.
Scout: *pause* Roger. We have an IA (Iraqi Army) here with us, he's asking if we can shoot it.
Scout: Now he's asking us if he can shoot it.
Scout: Okay, he just picked it up. It's clear.

IN-GATE

Wrecker: 2, this is Wrecker. Be advised, your RHINO appears to be broken and hanging.
2: Roger, Wrecker. We think we did that going over a bump.
6: We really shouldn't have given you a new vehicle if you're just going to break it.
2: Roger, 6. We didn't really mean to do it, it just kinda happened.
4G (4 Gunner, which would be me): This is why we can't have nice things.
5: Roger that, no nice things.

cadet_mcnally @ 2009-08-27T23:08:00

2009-08-27T20:16:25Z

You guys ever wonder why I'm anti-social sometimes? Because I frequently get the impression that none of my friends actually give a Goddamn about me.

I've been Iraq for two months, was at Camp Shelby for a month and a half, and the only mail I've gotten the entire time has come from my family. Some of you have been e-mailing me or talking on IM. You aren't the ones I have the problem with.

Those of you whom I haven't spoken to in months, though. What the fuck is wrong with you? It's pretty hard to fight the notion that I'm being left behind while everyone else is living their lives in and of itself, but when the only time I ever hear from any of you is when *I* say hi...

Y'know what? Fuck it. If you aren't going to give a fuck about me, I'm not going to give a fuck about you. I have enough to worry about.

cadet_mcnally @ 2009-08-22T07:51:00

2009-08-22T04:53:25Z

I want the parts to built a Tom Servo for my birthday. It'd be awesome to have Tom Servo on the .50 cal mounted on the CROWS with Crow T. Robot on it.

Oops.

2009-08-05T21:09:32Z

Did I say nacho cheese Combos? I meant cheddar cheese.

Care packages...

2009-07-31T21:35:35Z

So before I left, I got asked "What would you like in care packages?" and I responded "Nah, the PX at Balad is supposed to be pretty good."

Turns out I need nacho cheese Combos and beef jerky.

cadet_mcnally @ 2009-07-17T20:50:00

2009-07-17T17:51:34Z

Well, apparently I'm just an asshole and nobody actually *saw* my last post. So here goes.

If you want my address, you need to e-mail me (hmcnally@gmail.com) so I can send it to you. For security reasons, I can't just post it for all to see.

cadet_mcnally @ 2009-07-17T01:08:00

2009-07-16T22:10:28Z

Wow, really? Nobody wants to know my mailing address? At least when I went to AIT people *pretended* to care.

Motherfuckers, every last one of you.

I have arrived

2009-07-10T09:51:24Z

Well, I'm at my permanent duty station and will be for the next ten months or so. In the interests of OPSEC, I really can't tell you specifics of where I am or what I'm doing.

But I do have a mailing address! I can't post it, but if you want it, shoot me an e-mail.

Greetings from Camp Shelby

2009-06-03T00:49:46Z

First, a housekeeping item. Not that any of you did, but stop writing to the address I gave before. We're leaving soon, so any mail we get starting this week will be returned to sender.

Second, I need a ride from the airport in Memphis on the 12th around 1 PM. Any takers? Call my cell at 304 261 7395.

Uhhh.... that's about it, really.

cadet_mcnally @ 2009-04-29T14:53:00

2009-04-29T19:54:05Z

It seems that I am, as ever, an idiot.

Tom Jefferson would never have stood for this

2009-04-11T15:21:24Z

Four days in negotiations with pirates? Are you fucking kidding me?

I think we should do everything we can reasonably do to get the hostages back. When they inevitably kill the hostages, we sink them. And then we raze the Somali coast and wipe them off the face of the Earth.

That's what I think.

cadet_mcnally @ 2009-04-03T23:44:00

2009-04-04T04:45:12Z

Good moods are such fragile things, aren't they?

cadet_mcnally @ 2009-04-03T09:47:00

2009-04-03T14:48:08Z

Sorry, everyone. Just been kinda frustrated lately. Wasn't fair or right of me to go on LJ and be all "raar you guys suck."

I'll do a detailed write-up of what's going on while I'm at Shelby.

cadet_mcnally @ 2009-04-02T22:23:00

2009-04-03T03:24:20Z

None of you give a Goddamn. Why do I even have this fucking LJ, anyway?

cadet_mcnally @ 2009-04-02T03:00:00

2009-04-02T08:00:46Z

I can't help but feel that nothing in my life ever goes right.

Watchmen review

2009-03-09T03:03:40Z

Glowing.

Blue.

Penis.

What's Up With Me These Days?

2009-02-18T02:13:43Z

I got a phone call on January 15 from SGT Admin asking me if I was on orders. Naturally, I responded "what orders?" He then asked me if I had heard anything about college students being put on orders until mobilization. I replied "nope."

Turns out higher decided that college students, who generally rely on the GI Bill for their income, should be put on active duty so that they can afford to live.

My name had been left off the list of soldiers who qualified.

Another batch of names got submitted. I received active duty orders on February 10, back dated to January 26. So when I get paid, I'll be getting hella backpay.

I left my parents' place back for school January 19 and on January 20 I met Whitney. To say that we hit it off is something of an understatement, and we've been more-or-less attached to the hip since then. This wasn't something I was looking for, what with deployment coming so soon, but I guess it found me. I love her very much and I'm so glad we met.

February 9 I went to Camp Shelby for four days to train on something called LRAS3 - Long Range Scout Surveillance System. It's a 120 pound box that has four major components: Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR), Day TV, laser rangefinder, and GPSIS. It's an awesome system and has saved a lot of lives.

And that more or less brings us up to date.

cadet_mcnally @ 2009-01-22T03:59:00

2009-01-22T10:00:07Z

Well, I was a bit upset a few days ago when I lost some shiny bottle caps that I quite like. But I found them, and ever since it's been damn good times. I'm feeling very very happy and I've never felt healthier. I have good life, thank you!

Urgh

2008-12-28T06:56:49Z

Chrysler has been spending at least six figures on ads thanking America for "investing in Chrysler," as they got bailed out too.

So I sent them an e-mail.

"'You're Welcome. Now Stop Wasting My Money.'

I am an American tax payer. Presumably this means you're grateful to me on some level. I am also an American soldier. Again, presumably this means something (or so I would be led to believe by your website).

As a word of advice, spending money on ads thanking me for my unwilling contribution to your company is not particularly endearing. Next time, just write me a check."

I too am bored

2008-11-17T07:52:16Z

1. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother's & father's middle names)
Pae Patrick

2. NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother's dad, father's dad)
???? Henry

3. STAR WARS NAME: (the first 2 letters of your last name, first 4 letters of your first name)
Mchenr

4. DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Green Shark

5. SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you live)
Michael Oxford

6. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite alcoholic drink, optionally add "THE" to the beginning)
The Blue Whiskey Sour

7. FLY NAME: (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)
Hely

8. GANGSTA NAME: (favorite ice cream flavor, favorite cookie):
Rocky Road Chocolate Chip

9. ROCK STAR NAME: (current pet's name, current street name)
(none) Anderson

10. PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on)
Chu Chu Woodstock