Big Tobacco Reports From Iraq on His War of Atonement

I asked Big Tobacco to write a guest post about whether he would be able to attend Jewish New Year services at his FOB (Forward Operating Base) in Iraq. He got inspired and wrote this very compelling response. We agreed that he and I would both put this post on our individual blogs before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

Here is Big Tobacco’s Day of Atonement blog post:

I will not smoke today.

She stands in front of me in the chow line. I see a tattoo on the back of her neck. I lean closer and notice that the tattoo is of a placard written in English and Arabic that sits on the back of the last gun truck in every convoy.

Stay Back 100 Meters
Or You Will Be Shot

I wonder how she is ever going to get a job in the real world with a tattoo like that.

I’m judgmental.

I’m in my barracks room. One of my roommates is a Christian and he spends at least twenty minutes a day in silent prayer. I lie in my bed and look at porn on my laptop while he kneels by his bed to pray. Strangely, I don’t see anything wrong with this arrangement.

I’m disrespectful.

I sit on a bench near the FOB Burger King and smoke a cigar while I finish my Whopper. A female sergeant sits at the far side of the bench. I ask her about her unit patch. She responds. I joke with her, drawing out each intoxicating laugh. When she moves her hand, I see that she is married. This doesn’t dissuade me. I have to keep her laughing, drawing her closer and waiting for the opening that will get me a tent number or a promise from her to see me later.

I’m an adulterer.

I attend “Lunch With The Rabbi” in Kuwait. When I arrive at the chapel, the rabbi hands me a Kosher MRE. I expected brisket or at least a kosher corned beef sandwich. I grimace and put the MRE in my bag. Then the rabbi wants me to study the Torah with him.

“Study?” I say. “Sir, I’ve got the Cliff Notes. I try to follow at least five or six of the Ten Commandments. I’m workin’ my way up, though. I’m gettin’ there, sir. I’m getting there.”

He gives me a pocket prayer book for Jewish soldiers, insisting that it will keep me safe. I toss it in the trash when I leave. Gotta’ travel light. Not enough room in my rucksack for G-d. My situational awareness will keep me safe. My 5 and 25* will keep me safe. A book is just a book.

I don’t make time to study the Torah.

I’m at Camp Attabury, Indiana, for an Army NCO development school. I go out and get drunk every night, but I have trouble getting the attention of girls at the bar because my classmates are far more muscular and better looking than me. I start wearing my yarmulke when I go out to the bars. Now the girls flock to me because I’m different and interesting. The yarmulke is a great ice-breaker and works like a charm.

I use my religion as a punch line instead of as a way of life.

I’m in the chow hall again. Although I turned my nose up at the pork sausage for breakfast, I let the KBR contractors pile on the steak and crab legs. I eat every crab leg on my plate and go back up to the line for more.

I obey G-d’s laws when it suits me to do so.

I’m home. My wife drags me to temple with relatives who are Conservative Jews, a branch of Judaism that just doesn’t know how to have fun. I loath sitting in synagogue listening to people I rarely see read from the Torah and babble in a language I’m barely conversational in. I turn to my wife and say:

“I’ve had enough. I’m going to sleep. Wake me at Aleinu.”

I don’t respect my family.

I’m in the parking lot of Har Zion, a Conservative temple on the Main Line in Philadelphia. Services are over and I sit in my car and light up a cigar. A congregant walks over to me and asks me to respect the Sabbath and put out the cigar.

“Listen, dude,” I say. “It doesn’t exactly look like you walked here.”

His face betrays shock and he leaves me alone. My wife stares at me in horror.

I don’t obey the Sabbath.

It is the last night in Kuwait before we fly to Iraq. A number of soldiers call their families to say goodbye. I decide against calling my wife, even though any number of things could happen to the plane as we fly over a war zone. My wife will cry if I call and this will be a pain in the neck. I don’t feel like dealing with her so I go to sleep instead.

I don’t treat my wife as well as I should.

I don’t know, G-d. I guess the war in Iraq isn’t the only war I’m fighting right now.

But I promise I’ll try to fight harder.

*5 and 25 is a drill that is done [in Iraq] any time a vehicle stops. Too many people were getting blown up from IEDs that were directly under their vehicle. So now when you stop the vehicle, before you get out you open the door and look at the ground below your feet. If it is clear, you get out. Then you scan out to five meters. Once the five meters around the perimeter of the vehicle is clear, you scan out to 25 meters.

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Helping Big Tobacco Come Clean

Today Big Tobacco put a new post on his blog with the title "Coming Clean." But because there is a paragraph near the top of the post that is R-rated, I'm going to put most of his post here rather than send you to his blog.

Below is the excerpt from the September 24th post by Big Tobacco, written from an undisclosed FOB (forward operating base) somewhere in or near Iraq:

I’ve been asked my multiple people to “please write a book” so they can still enjoy my writing when I’ve redeployed and the blog is done. Well, you are going to get your wish.

It’s too late for me to take masters classes at school, so I’ve decided to start writing ... a novel.

Wow! That sounds incredibly pretentious. Can you imagine me signing books at a Borders?

"Hi, I'm Bee Tee, famous Iraq War vet and novelist. I'll sign your book, but only if you let me sign your chest first."

Now this novel presents a problem, because with the exception of a few short stories from college and one or two as mental exercises, I really haven’t written any fiction. But I’ve never let ignorance stop me from doing anything.

Phyllis Miller from mrslieutenant.blogspot.com is the key to all of this. She is helping me out with story structure and editing. So do me a favor, go to her website and buy her book. She deserves the extra scratch while she helps straighten out the kinks in this thing.

In the meantime, maybe I'll take up smoking a pipe.

What I want to know is: Where is his disclaimer that all mistakes are his own?

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Mrs. Lieutenant, Big Tobacco, Iraq War, novel

Looking Back at Katrina as New Orleans Braces for Gustav

Tonight while monitoring the tweets on Twitter about Gustav -- including the helpful communication info from a representative of Sprint -- I also read one of Big Tobacco’s older posts describing his experiences when his National Guard unit was in New Orleans after Katrina.

As you may recall, Big Tobacco is a National Guard infantryman currently deployed somewhere in Kuwait. Apparently he’s on the move from one FOB (Forward Operating Base) to another and he’s going to be away from internet access. So he kindly provided a list of some of his past blog posts for his fans to read while he’s offline.

That’s how I came across his Katrina post, which I highly recommend you read. There are some very funny moments (the military mind at work) and some very ugly moments (the boots-on-the-ground situation patrolling the streets of New Orleans). Taken together, the post is a very interesting first-hand look at New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina.

And at this point, all we can hope is that history doesn’t repeat itself in New Orleans only three years after Katrina.

Here’s the link to Big Tobacco’s Katrina post: http://tinyurl.com/6h59vq

And here’s the link to my PZ the Do-Gooder Scrooge blog post about an online central information point for news of Gustav: http://tinyurl.com/6pkccj

(Just saw a warning on Twitter not to shoot video of Gustav from cell phones while driving. This is dangerous!)

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Expiation for Killing: Young Soldiers Are Taught How to Kill But Not Taught That Killing in Combat Is Okay CONTINUED

In my July 27^th post (http://tinyurl.com/55zq2z), National Guardsman Big Tobacco (www.big-tobacco.blogspot.com) currently deployed in Iraq provided his response to my July 20^th post about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in military personnel (http://tinyurl.com/6eu789). In that same July 27^th post I put forth an insight from my husband Mitch about biblical public ceremonies of expiation of guilt for killing in battle.

In my earlier post today (http://tinyurl.com/6nowpc) you can read Big Tobacco’s main response to this July 27^th post. Below you can read the follow-up email Big Tobacco sent about this subject:

Phyllis,

I thought more about what I said and I have more.

I think that it is easier for the officers than the men when it comes to PTSD. They might feel survivors’ guilt but they get over it. How many officers have you seen interviewed about PTSD? Probably none, even if they retired. It's always the Joes.

I can remember my first deployment when there was a suicide bombing at another checkpoint. My checkpoint went to 100 % security and we were ready to be attacked ourselves.

I was in a bunker with my machine gunner when he said: "Sergeant, I don't want to kill anyone." So I told him to get off the gun and go relieve our RTO and he would man the gun. In hindsight, this was a bad idea because freezing up on the radio would have been worse than the gun.

But that was proof right there that fear of killing permeates a soldier's existence, even if he doesn't know it.

Gotta go. Got a mission

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Expiation for Killing: Young Soldiers Are Taught How to Kill But Not Taught That Killing in Combat Is Okay

In my July 27^th post (http://tinyurl.com/55zq2z), National Guardsman Big Tobacco (www.big-tobacco.blogspot.com) currently deployed in Iraq provided his response to my July 20^th post about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in military personnel (http://tinyurl.com/6eu789). In that same July 27^th post I put forth an insight from my husband Mitch about biblical public ceremonies of expiation of guilt for killing in battle.

Here’s Big Tobacco’s response to this July 27^th post:

Actually, I would think that some kind of public display like that would be, in the words of an NCO, "pretty f***in' stupid."

I'm not saying that you are stupid. It's just that I can already see the looks on the faces of my men, who just want to go home, being forced into some kind of quasi-Christian ritual when all they want to do is get drunk and laid.

The one thing I hate is acknowledgement of my service. I hate it when I am in uniform and people come up to me and say: "Thank you for protecting us."

"Yeah, dude. Don't worry, you'll get the bill."

That kind of ritual would be tacked onto all of the "thank you for protecting us" press conferences and parades. The fact is that people back in World War II DID have post traumatic stress; they just drank themselves to death or destroyed their families. And people didn't talk about it.

Also don't forget that A LOT more infantrymen died back then, even from simple wounds. By Vietnam, you had fewer casualties and better medical care (i.e., 30-minute medevac) so there were more people left around to be traumatized.

There is a book by a guy named Dave Grossman, who is a former Ranger and officer who studies "killology." He wrote a book called "On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Leaning to Kill.” In this book he theorizes that PTSD doesn't come from exposure to danger, it comes from the physical act of killing itself.

Our society teaches that murder is wrong. Yet we take a high-school kid, cram 10 weeks of training down his throat, and call him a "killer." Sure, he might be physically able to kill, but after the target falls, he feels bad about it. Grossman’s website is at http://www.killology.com .

Take a look at World War II. A study was done after the war and it was found that only 20% of combat soldiers ever fired their rifles. Why? Because they fired at bull-eyes and a human looks nothing like a bulls-eye. The soldiers were not just afraid to kill, they weren't conditioned to kill.

So we changed the training. We started to fire at man-shaped targets. By Vietnam, we got the weapons-firing ratio up to 90%. This is operant conditioning. Think of Pavlov's dogs. Bell rings, dogs salivate. Target pops up, soldier shoots. Stimulus, response, positive feedback. Stimulus, response, positive feedback. Now we taught them how to kill, and they react and do kill, but they are still afraid to kill.

We never teach these kids that killing is OK. So they gear up, go out, and kill. Then their lives are wrecked afterwards. Here's your 30% PTSD disability, kid. Good luck finding a job.

It's better to deal with the nightmares than go through life like that.

Syndicated from www.mrslieutenant.blogspot.com.

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