Vote for Army of Dude!

Those that have followed BMRD know my respect and admiration for the military blog, Army of Dude.

I've followed AoD from his days in Iraq, his return to Fort Lewis (my old stomping grounds for 5 years) and his exit from the Army.

It cracks me up on a regular basis. I read his stories and can think of countless times in which I've experienced the same or similar things.

The whole ambidextrous rifle thing. Been there...I'm a lefty too. Nothing like smoking hot casing being ejected and getting caught in the chinstrap of the K-pot.

It's awesome!

AoD has a great story about him...well...landing in a river of crap.

It reminded me of a fond Fort Lewis moment. Back when I was an Infantry Squad Leader, we had a training exercise on Fort Lewis where we did a bunch of day and night ambushes, movement to contact, raids, MOUT training, and all sorts of other fun stuff.

I had a guy named Sergeant Cipiti who was my A team leader and was the point man for our squad. When we operated, we pretty much strictly used hand and arm signals. A closed fist meant "freeze", a hand motioning across the throat meant "danger area", etc. etc.

The signal that leads to this story is the signal for pace count. You tap the heel of your boot in order to determine the "pace count", or how far a squad had travelled.

Sergeant Cipiti had initiated this signal and it was passed back through the squad.

Dusk had just fallen and we were on our way to the objective. We performed our raid flawlessly and went to our after actions review soon after.

Things were not right though.

One of my soldier's uttered the phrase, "ok, who shit" once we got into the tent. It's pretty common to be gassy, especially after a week of MRE's and T-rations. But this was something much...much different.

I look at Sergeant Cipiti and discover he's covered in shit. The stock and receiver of his M4, his gloves, the front of his Load Bearing Vest, and the bottoms of his boots. How he didn't notice this before, I have no idea, perhaps he was in denial.

And then the hazing began...

Our commander told him to wipe the "shit eating grin off his face" and the fun and jokes began to dominate our AAR.



He gladly took Sergeant Cipiti back to the cantonment area for a quick shower though.

Army of Dude has a knack for telling stories, great Army stories. I don't miss the Army. I miss the soldiers, their dedication and the good times.

A big thank you to Army of Dude and the other military blogs out there!

Now got vote for Army of Dude!