The dead don’t speak
In combat it’s easy to forget when someone is killed. Forget isn’t the right word, but you’re fighting to survive, so you literally don’t get the chance to process the loss in the moment. All good things come to an end however and it’s often not right away that it sinks in. You experience that fresh loss for a long time before it sets in. You forget that the person has died. You look for them in the group you’re serving with until it clicks. The truth is, the most painful part of loss isn’t the initial death. It’s having to live loss that over and over before it finally becomes your reality.
(more…)Nuclear war, or how I learned to stop worrying as I was vaporized
Well in the history of humankind, it’s been a hot second since we didn’t have the impending threat of nuclear war. While I would like to believe that the possibility of a nuclear attack is so remote we shouldn’t even worry about it, the truth is I would rather be prepared than not. So let’s talk a little bit about the history of nuclear warfare and how it’s shaped our world even today. Things like, have you ever wondered why shampoo and conditioner were sold separately? Hint, it involves nuclear warfare.
(more…)For the love of war
Aren’t there enough things trying to kill us? Between global warming, pollution, and the pandemic, I feel like something somewhere wants us gone. Then again, humans are stupid, I include myself in that statement. So here we are talking about something I wasn’t expecting to talk about and that my dear readers is combat.
(more…)Please don’t thank me for my service
Yesterday was veterans day, the day before that was the Marine Corps birthday. I purposefully was going to ignore both, but an interaction on twitter the other day made me realize that I should at least touch on the subject. My feelings surrounding my service have always been complicated, but why not talk about it?
(more…)Recovery: Day 3
Somehow things keep moving forward. I had an experiment yesterday, I have a meeting today to go over my grant proposal, and there is so much data to analyze. It feels weird not getting a break after such a rough surgery, but here we are. Things keep moving forward and if I don’t keep up I’ll get left behind.
(more…)The recovery
We’re post-op day 2 so far and the word of the day is ouch. I don’t know that I went into detail about the surgery I was having, I mean I’ve been out of it these past couple of days since the surgery. It was a spinal cord surgery, there was some scar tissue that was giving me some trouble and they went in bilaterally (both sides of the spine) to remove it. That was… fun.
(more…)The aftermath
Well I had a surgery yesterday and it didn’t go as smoothly as I hoped. I’m home now thankfully, but there were some… complications and it could be for a lot of reasons, but I’ll cover the most likely issue and then go and rest some more.
(more…)War and (hunger) games Part 2
Obviously I’ve had more thoughts since yesterday’s post. With the fourth book just being released I’m giving the hunger games series a reread so I can refresh my memory before diving into the new addition. Sure it’s a prequel, but reading in published order never hurt anyone. Others have had the same thought obviously and yesterday’s post was inspired, in part, by someone’s take on the books. Now that I have had some time to think about it, let’s talk about the Hunger Games.
(more…)Day 137: The reality of war
Fun fact, this is a staged photo. For an even more “fun” fact, you should learn about what happened to these people after the photo was taken and made popular.
Well, 2020 is off to an … interesting start. We have all of Australia burning, Indonesia flooding, and trump starting a war without congressional approval (that last one is a rather large crime fyi). So in typical american fashion, people are starting to fetishize war again. Of course these are the people who have never been to war, so as someone who has some experience on this, let’s talk war. It’s going to get messy so let’s just throw in a CW for combat talk.
Alcohol Abuse and Combat in the Military
It’s no secret, I’m a proud Marine and combat veteran. So while searching for the latest and greatest science to write about I was surprised to come across a study on combat and alcohol abuse. Thinking I already knew the answer I almost didn’t bother to read it — when I did, the results were a little surprising and I wanted to share them.
Lunatic Laboratories 