Elephant Butt

Hello there from glorious Fort Huachuca. One of my platoon sergeants, SFC Hall, said that he was noticing a lack of motivation within the platoon today. Quite honestly, it's hard to keep the motivation up day to day when it feels like the cadre go out of their way to mess with us... as if they are spending all their time concocting plans to suck all the fun out of here. That is, if there indeed was fun to suck. So, his solution was to give a motivational speech that went something along these lines...

There was once a village full of blind people. No, not flying people, blind people. One day, they realized that there was an obstruction in the road that lead to and from the village. The obstruction was a ginormous elephant. They decided to send their three wisest people to figure out how to move this elephant that had plopped down on their road.

When they reached the elephant, they decided that the elephant was reality. By figuring out more about the elephant and how to move it, they would figure out reality. Moving the elephant would open them to the world.

So the first blind wise man grabbed the front of the elephant, the trunk, and said "Reality is like a tree. Standing tall and firm."

The second blind wise man pushed on it's side and determined, "Reality is like a wall. Tall, firm, and unwavering."

The third blind wise man reached from behind, putting his hand up the elephants "butt," and said "Reality smells like shit and now my hand does too."

Basically, SFC Hall said that we needed to learn that TRADOC is the butt of the elephant. Once we get out of glorious Fort Huachuca, we'll move onto the better part of the military or elephant or reality. For now, we have to gain a sense of humor to make it through. Knowing that in two months, some other poor soldiers will be standing there listening to the same motivational speech because they too are stuck in the butt of the elephant is kind of comforting...

A sense of humor will be what makes the days pass and what makes them tolerable, regardless of whether I'm here or in Iraq. I may just have to be reminded of that every once in a while. For now, I really can't think of anything funny about being on fire guard from 1 to 3. I'm thinking really hard, but nothing is coming. I think I need some practice...