Dream of Waking

I was driving home at lunchtime last week on a very busy main road. It’s spring, which is roadkill season in TN, so it’s not strange to see something dead on the side of the road. This time, however, it was a dog. Some fucking asshole hit somebody’s dog. It was in an area where it was nice and clear all around so it’s pretty obvious that the driver either wasn’t paying attention or it was intentional. It wasn’t completely mutilated either, it looked like a dog on it’s back, but it was clearly dead. I went home and was kind of sad and wondered who the fuck hits a dog and how long it’d be till the owner noticed.

After my class I was on the same route going home. The dog, which was almost off the road it was so far next to the curb, had been hit again. So now there was a half crushed roadkill dog right next to the curb. Fucking awesome, that’s exactly what I want to see. So now that there’s a mess, it’s only a matter to time before the city comes along to clean it up, right? Or the owner finally notices and does something about it themselves? I mean, as hard as it is to think of such things, I wouldn’t want any of my pets lying dead in the street.

The weekend goes by. It rains, hard, several times. It’s more than a week since I first saw it. What’s left of the dog is still there. A flat, unrecognizable mash of fur, bones, and dried entrails. The blood has been washed away by the rain.

Somebody killed someone else’s pet and no one gives a shit. The driver didn’t give a shit. The owner doesn’t give a shit. The city doesn’t give a shit. That piece of roadkill that (I estimate) hundreds of people, if not a couple thousand, see a day is going to sit there until it decomposes itself into nothing.

This is how this whole town operates. Clarksville, TN. No one gives a fuck. I’ve never seen such apathy in my life. If someone’s car breaks here, they just ditch it on the side of the road. It’ll sit there until the city decides to move it. I was driving home on the same ultra-busy thoroughfare on my lunch hour when I found myself in the middle of a street race. In broad daylight. Some fuckheads want to show off and swerve through traffic at 80mph in a 45mph zone. They can do this because the police don’t give a fuck. When Chester got bit by a loose dog in the neighborhood and I tracked down the owner, he didn’t give a fuck.

It is one hundred percent obvious to me that in this city, you are absolutely on your own and the solution is always get a bigger stick than the next guy. Clarksville, TN is an apathetic shithole.

Just after I get off work I get a little time to relax in my room before I go to sleep. I work 12 hours a day, which is longer than most people in my shop. I look forward to my three hours of downtime. After a couple hours I decide I’m about to go to read my book and go to sleep but there’s a knock at my door. It’s one of the privates in my shop. He says I have to bring my sensitive items (weapon, night vision goggles) to the shop. He doesn’t know why.

There’s nothing I can’t stand more than having my free time taken. Even worse is when I’m summoned by Private Whothefuck. The icing on the fucking cake is when they can’t tell me why I’m being summoned. I can’t stand that shit. Nothing puts me in a worse mood as fast as Joe Jackass knocking on my door and telling me I have to be somewhere for no good goddamned reason.

Whatever. I get dressed (in PTs), grab my sensitive items, and start off to the shop. On the way I run into Private Whothefuck. He got the message wrong. I have to bring my sensitive items up at 1400, well into my sleep time. He’s already gotten this message wrong once, I’m not relying on his memory for anything. I’m already out of my room and dressed, I’m not going back until I know what’s going on. I get to the shop and they tell me I need to be there at 1400 with my sensitive items. No, no one else can take them up there for me, I need to be there with them to show them to the armorer. When I ask if I can take care of it right now, they say I need to speak with the armorer myself.

I walk across the hall, and speak with his supervisor. He tells me where I can find him. I spend a whopping two minutes looking for him, found him. I say “Hey, 1400 means I don’t get a whole lot of sleep. Can I do this now?” He literally looks at the night vision goggles in my left hand, the weapon in my right hand, and tells me I’m good. That’s it. Mission accomplished. I go to the shop and let them know that I’ve shown the armorer my sensitive items and he said I was good. If I don’t do this, they’ll assume I didn’t and wake me up at 1400 anyway. I go back to my room, read my book, and seethe.

It’s utterly ridiculous that it took one Corporal who’s willing to fight for his own sleep to fix this. There’s four other people in my shop higher ranked than me who just didn’t give a fuck. It’s not their time they’re taking. No one else is losing sleep over it. And for something so trivial that it wouldn’t have taken more than someone saying, “Can he do this later tonight? Can he do this now so we don’t interrupt his sleep?” If I were Joe Nobody with no sense of self-preservation, I’d have been up there, half awake, for no good reason.

There’s a big misconception about the Army. That every soldier is a brother. That everyone is looking out for the person to their left and right. That we’re all in this together and we’re all on the same side. But we’re not. It’s basically every man for himself and if you’re looking out for anyone else you’re needlessly burdening yourself. No one else is looking out for you.

Size 7.5 Wide. Desert tan. Hot weather type. Army standard issue.

I give up my sizes (top, bottom, hat, gloves, boots) about once every three months. Once every three months someone (usually supply) needs my sizes for god knows what. I cough up the same sizes every time; Small-Regular, Small-Short, 7.25, 8, 9.5 Regular. This last time we went to get new uniforms before this deployment I got small boots. I got small boots because the guy there told us not to go by the size we usually wear because these were different boots. The boot he gave me that he said was 9.5R was too big. The boot that felt closest to fitting was 7.5W. Whatever. I’m not wearing them right now, my boots are fine.

So I didn’t wear them until about three months into the deployment. 7.5W is too fucking small. They don’t fit. I can’t get them swapped out because I’m in Iraq and there’s not shit that can be done out here about it. Oh well, one pair of boots down the drain. It’s a good thing the Army buys us new uniforms while we’re in country, hopefully I can get a new pair of boots that fit.

Wrong. Even though I give up my sizes once every three months, supply decided to go with what I was issued more than nine months ago. A size I’ve never worn before as I’ve always worn size 9.5R boots. Every pair of boots I own are size 9.5R and every pair fits except these two pairs of worthless boots. So since I’ve got a brand new pair of boots that I know don’t fit I thought I’d take them to my supply guy so I can get them sent back and get a proper pair out here that do fit.

Wrong again. My new supply guy must get off on fucking other soldiers because he basically told me I could go fuck myself. He said he can’t (or won’t as I believe is the case) send them back and I could try to find someone who wears a 7.5W boot (no one) and give them to them and let me get the right size when they get their stuff or else I’m stuck with boots that don’t fit. So I’m stuck with boots that don’t fit for a second time.

So if no one wants these brand new 7.5 Wide, desert tan, hot weather standard issue Army boots, then I’m either giving them away to some Iraqi kid who needs them (most likely) or throwing them in the trash (out of spite). Because 7.5W boots are worthless to my 9.5R feet.