...Cuz you've gotta have goals

American Short-Timer made me realize today that I'm not drinking enough. He describes his flight towards basic training, which he managed to share with a bunch of soldiers headed towards civilian-land freedom and describes his fellow passengers:

They drank their asses off, shirts untucked, jackets open, cunt-caps askew. Wild-eyed and intoxicated from those first tokes of freedom. The freedom to go be a burger-flipper. The freedom to sleep in hungover or drunker-than-fuck. And get fired for it. Free to tell the boss to shove it where the sun don't shine and walk off the job whistling. To not give one indecent fuck-all about any of it and less. To wake up in the middle of the afternoon without a single commitment. Without a single coherent thought. Penniless.

What the fuck happened to me? I used to dream about this shit. Before I was stoplossed. Back when I had a modicum of respect from both superiors and subordinates alike. I used to get shaky and drooly over thoughts of back to back shows and waking up to alcohol for breakfast.

One day after a weekend of driving and daydreaming and staring at maps to plot my destructive path of madness and freedom, my friend told me that we had an early-morning battalion formation. "We're getting deployed," we both chuckled uneasily. Sure enough, that was the gist of it. December 15 was the fateful days the news was broke. August was to be our departure date. Funny thing is, it was also my ETS (ie: day one gets the fuck out of the army). 14 extra months in the army. Too bad for me though. Nobody cared that I had already been to Afghanistan (the REAL and forgotten 'War on Terror'), nobody cared that I went to Korea, that I'd never be promoted again (someone finally figured out they don't speak Korean in Iraqistan and stopped promoting those lowly Korean linguists. Won't kick them out though, oh no.). Our platoon sergeant had the audacity to chuckle at the miserable faces of my platoon mates and I screamed at him. He was genuinely taken aback. "Are you really mad?" he asked incredulously. "WELL YEAH I'M FUCKING MAD!! THESE ARE PEOPLES' LIVES HERE AND YOU THINK IT'S A FUCKING JOKE!!"

I seethed. I went from silence to screaming. I had fights with platoon sergeants, first sergeants, captains, any shithead who dared accost me with some comment about a "negative attitude." But the good-natured part of me wanted to teach - to help those that would be in this mess for even longer. I tried teaching them the things I learned in A-stan - the reality of things, not the bullshit officer-speak they have you memorize and regurgitate. That got me in trouble. Standing up for my soldiers got me in trouble. In fact, nothing I did was ever fucking good enough for them ever again.

But gradually and very VERY slowly, I started to get over it. My screaming had turned into subdued snarling under my breath. I went out drinking with the new guys to try and make friends with SOMEONE before I went to get shot at with them, to make them feel like someone understood what they were about to go through. I guess I even came to acceptance. Reluctant acceptance, but acceptance nonetheless.

And then, suddenly, I wasn't going. Three weeks before departure, they had me pull my stuff out of the quadcon and move units. I moved, outprocessed the army, did some backpacking in Europe and now I'm at home with the parents, waiting for my first apartment all to myself.

Did I burn out? Did all that hate, anxiety, anger cause me to lose my dream of being a drooling-drunk, scenester punk? I wanted to go to every show and drink myself into a stupor. Run into the mosh pit and not even feel the blows delivered.

Then why the fuck am I at home typing on my stupid blog?

November 1 is the day I move out on my own. From November 1 on, I vow to be beligerently drunk for as much as possible in each 24-hour time period.