“The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty”
“The Fool”
By Micah Ulrich
Manners
From FB (2011):
“‘Please’ goes a long way if you want me to do something for you. Arrogance and condescension are unlikely to achieve desired results.”
The Golden Isles, Georgia (2016)
From FB:
“If only this were the punk redneck parentless teenagers who have been coming after our house after hours because of a silly beef with Matthew and not Matthew tripping the trail cam I had to set up in our front yard…
STORY: Gang of three neighborhood idiots who don’t like Matthew have come by two nights in a row to mess with our house and mailbox. Matthew woke me up at 9:40 after I’d been asleep 20 minutes and shouts, “They’re out there! I see ’em! Three of them!” I get my flashlight (there might have been a 9mm attached…) and we go outside but they skedaddled. I check the wildlife cam but it didn’t capture any pics because it was too far away from the action. I tell Matthew, “Just for shits and giggles, let’s drive by their house to see if they’re stupid enough to still be there.”
Guess who was standing outside on their front porch in a group of three? Wearing the exact same clothes they had been wearing to try to vandalize our mailbox. At 9:49 PM on a school night. Smoking marijuana….
I just rolled down the window and drawled, “Ya’ll just wait right there. Police’ll be by shortly.”
A young Glynn County officer came to the house, heard the story, and said, “So, what do you want to do? You want me to lock ’em up? I’ve got no problem puttin’ ’em in handcuffs.”
I told him I wanted the silliness to stop however he saw fit. Since I knew I wasn’t going back to sleep anytime, a few minutes after the officer left I told Matthew to hop in the car and we’d do a drive-by the kid’s house. Sure enough, the officer had all three of ’em standing in the front yard chewin’ their collective asses while one of them worriedly sucked on his thumb.
Country idiots….
“Tender Is The Night”
“Perhaps, so she liked to think, his career was biding its time, again like Grant’s in Galena; his latest note was post-marked from Hornell, N.Y., which is some distance from Geneva and a very small town; in any case he is almost certainly in that section of the country, in one town or another.
Kabul, Afghanistan (2004)
This looks like a pretty badass photograph on the surface, but it actually makes me cringe a bit for a few reasons.
I volunteered for the Hamid Karzai Protective Detail (KPD) in Kabul for one big reason – the problems resulting from the Iraq War were heating up and I knew my agency might eventually start directing us to support Embassy (Green Zone) operations there. I had just gotten married three months prior, and at the time, Kabul was much quieter.
American Special Forces along with the Afghan Northern Alliance had pretty much routed the Taliban by early 2002 and a lot of smart people in charge of such things were busy thinking they could funnel endless amounts of money to the country to turn it into some sort of First World democratic paradise.
I came in to the airport in Kabul through a plane from Baku, Azerbaijan where I’d overnighted, and was met by some of my colleagues who were all tricked out in 5.11 pants, Royal Robbins shirts, thigh holsters for their pistols, and M-4s. No body armor or Kevlar helmets, but lots of cool Oakley and Gargoyle sunglasses and tan fisherman’s vests.
The first day they gave me an M-4 with a $1,500.00 Trijicon sight. Shortly thereafter, they took me to the range to zero it. I’d never used optics on a rifle and had always qualified in the Army using iron sights. But here, I was suddenly expected to know what the fuck I was doing with this new piece of equipment, and the DynCorps contractor in charge was getting more and more pissed and impatient with me when I couldn’t adjust it properly.
For those who don’t know, DynCorps was the multinational corporation that had won the contract to provide Executive Protection services to the newly elected President of Afghanistan, and the top tier guys were all either former Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, or Marine Force Recon.
And this may sound fanboyish, but I’ve never been in the presence of so many ostensibly elite American warriors. They were all unique individuals and all very interesting, as reflected by the nicknames they used. None of us knew their real names. We just knew their call signs.
“Lobster”
“Moose”
“Tank”
“Coyote”
However, one thing I was told before I left was that I, personally, should not acquire a nickname. It would mean I’d done something stupid enough to distinguish myself. And I’m happy to report that I never did. I don’t even think they knew my last name. They just knew I was the Shift Leader. The guy with the college degree who their bosses said they had to putatively listen to. Until the bullets started flying. After which I would then need to shut the fuck up.
I’ve used that piece of advice regarding nicknames with students when talking about big picture things.
“Don’t do anything stupid enough to earn yourself a nickname.”
Still solid advice.
My partner, unfortunately, acquired one.
His last name was “Elrod,” but he was such an amiable goof that they started calling him “Elroy” from “The Jetsons.”
These contractors were highly competent, but they were Break Glass In Case Of War type guys.
Their priorities were working out, drinking booze, and getting paid.
At the time I think they were making $185k per year. Tax free.
Most of them were doing multiple tours back to back.
So, we were pretty much confined to our own base (comprised of Conex containers and Hescoe barriers) and the Presidential Palace where President Karzai lived and worked.
But pretty early in my 42 day TDY, it was announced that President Karzai was going to the city stadium (where the Taliban used to hold public executions) in order to celebrate the life of Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was assassinated by the Taliban the day before September 11th, 2001.
I was sent out with a crew of two other contractors in an unarmored HUMVEE to scan the route and look for IEDs. Occasionally, they’d stop the HUMVEE and I’d get out, pretend to possess the uncanny ability to instinctively detect where an IED might be placed, and then would get back in the vehicle and we’d drive off down the road before doing it all over again.
I remember my thoughts when I got out the first time:
“I’m in fucking Afghanistan in wartime with an M-4 that I haven’t properly zero’d, a couple of magazines, a VT baseball cap, a shitty second hand piece of body armor, and no real idea what the fuck I’m supposed to be doing. If shit hits the fan, I’m truly hosed.”
(Moments like that were one of the reasons I left my agency as I felt we were frequently placed in situations like that.
I had enough experience with those types of events that I wasn’t surprised in the slightest when Benghazi happened and was just happy I wasn’t there when it did, or that something similar didn’t happen to me when I was so overexposed.)
The photograph also makes me cringe because once we got to the stadium, we were essentially placed in charge of crowd control. I didn’t speak the language, we were outnumbered 20,000 to 1, and we had no real plan for what to do if shit went bad. It could have been an international incident like Nissour Square if someone had started shooting, but fortunately they didn’t.
We were also informed not to let anyone with a weapon into the stadium.
Unfortunately, we felt this applied to U.S. military personnel and I got in a jawing match with an Army O-6 who informed me he wasn’t about to come inside the stadium without his pistol. Being a former E-5, rather than handle it in a professional manner, I decided to try and take the piss out of him a bit even though he completely didn’t deserve it. I was still smelling my own farts at that stage of my career and I really regret the way I talked to him.
If I could offer him a personal apology, I certainly would do so.
Song Of Ajax 