I don't easily get depressed, but that shit is just horrifying.
I could tell you a few stories from my experiences in Iraq twice, but I doubt you want to become suicidal. It's so very depressing and frustrating. Especially moreso if you grew up idolizing the military.
How long were you there both times?
1st
3months trainup 12 months over the first time. So 15months of actual service.
13months break and then..........
2nd time
3months trainup, 9 months over. Luckily this one was a year, but when you look at other service tours, like the Marine Corps, Navy or Air Force, all with their 4-7 month tours, and coming off of 15 or 12months, it's depressing.
Not only that, but because of the extended duration there, you grow complacent, you stop caring about the health and wellbeing of humans in general, you are prone to depression and anger, and you feel isolated because your friends and family are back home, 8 hours in the past. The added stress and frustration with big-military fuels your growing hatred and rage, and in my case, I became a monster.
My buddy later told me that the scariest moments in Iraq was when he was with me, and on the days where I had completely lost my patience and care, I was pointing my pistol at women and children and men, for simply just refusing to listen to my orders. He said he was afraid I'd shoot someone and he'd have to take my back and shoot someone as well to save me.
Edit: I will add however that I did not shoot a woman or child, and being in a combat arms unit, I rarely saw women (the first time) around my area. Besides my growing hatred for women in the military (Double standards in the way that men bend over backwards to accomadate women and appeal to make it hospitable for them).
2nd time however, I just stayed in my area and tried to stay sane as I counted down the days till we could leave.
That's rough man, and I don't mean to downplay your experiences or anything but I've played Counterstrike and nothing compares to that experience. Sometimes I go to bed unable to feel anything, just staring blankly into the darkness, listening to the "fuk u walhaxor" and other cries of all the children I gunned down. Sometimes, I don't know why, but I would specifically aim for the children. I would hear their frail, soprano voices and I would look everywhere on the map for them and shoot them over and over while taunting them. Now, I am forced to remember all these horrible incidents. All this violence I perpetrated against children. American children. My gods, what have I done?
Better in the way that in 9 months I will have nothing to do at all with the Army. Otherwise, since being back home, people my age or generation annoy the living hell out of me. Their plights and misfortunes don't arouse the concern. I'm pretty blunt and cold to strangers.
I was going to type up an elaborate and personal story about how cold I have been, but I just seems like a waste. I'm pretty indifferent about it.
The point I make now is, yeah war is hell, but combat and what not is just a small portion of it. Yeah combat is pretty brutal and it sucks hanging out with friends and playing Halo2 on what free time you have, only to hear how one of them died the next day because some sniper got off a lucky ass shot, and you stop playing Halo all together.
The biggest thing in my opinion that soldiers face is the non-combat side of war. The times of isolation, depression, frustration, anguish, and complacency. When that soldier get's complacent, it's time to get him out of there because they'll cause more harm than good. And that usually occurs around month 3, and with 9-12 more months to go, how can you possibly imagine that it'll get better?
Everyone has that limit, that line before it snaps and they change.
edit: Drez, I got a good laugh out of that. hahahaha.
My Iraq story relating to counter-strike. Before you think OH MY GOD HOW BRUTAL, no we didn't actually follow through with any of this:
My buddy and I are talking about video games. I forget how the subject comes up, but we mention how hilarious it would be if in mid-sentence the other person just jumps down, runs through the field at full sprint, and knifes some poor schmuck. Then the other guy, in the background seeing this says, HUMILIATION. Or if you are shooting at people and you land a head shot, some omnipotent voice says, HEADSHOT. (I played on the servers that had these features) We thought it was pretty hilarious at the time so now whenever I play a FPS, I can't stop thinking about those jokes, and it makes the game something more.
It sucks much less than usual. And it's possibly just because I failed with a bra a few days ago.
I was horrified when I realized bra's probably work differently between different makes. With my ex- it turned out that I could do it with one hand, so I come up against a new one and I'm all "right, I've totally got this she'll be impressed" - and then nothing.
It sucks much less than usual. And it's possibly just because I failed with a bra a few days ago.
I was horrified when I realized bra's probably work differently between different makes. With my ex- it turned out that I could do it with one hand, so I come up against a new one and I'm all "right, I've totally got this she'll be impressed" - and then nothing.
I don't understand how the one-handed bra thing is impressive. "Why yes, I do in fact have opposible thumbs, let me show you :winky:"
I was all going to be smooth and totally get it easily and then it was different and didn't work and I was all "damnit the stereotype has been reinforced" but then it turns out I can only seem to manage to take off her bra's with two hands and I think the important thing really is that they come off and have done so more then once.
Is that game/anime series good then? I never actually played it.
The first four games have god awful combat and are almost unplayable, but the story is pretty good.
So far G.U. is fun, if only a bit too easy. The enemies are kind of retarded A.I. wise and don't normally have a full breadth of attacks. The main character, however, seems to evolve as a character throughout the series, and most of the main characters have motivations and depth, which is saying a lot for a JRPG.
I have no idea. It had some hooks. Does this help?
If it's what I'm think of you sort of take the top strap between your first two fingers, then push away on the bottom strap with your thumb while pulling the top strap to unhook it.
Soon you'll move on to combination locks and timed explosives.
Psycho Internet Hawk on
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Zen VulgarityWhat a lovely day for teaSecret British ThreadRegistered Userregular
When my machine was working, the LAN party was pretty great - aside from a very brief UT2k3 interlude, two full days were filled until four in the morning with Soldier of Fortune 2. I must have said that SoF2 was the perfect game sixty times in the last two days, and I think that in a LAN situation it has some very serious strengths. The two patches put out since retail release have added eight maps, three new weapons, a new gametype, Punkbuster Support, and I've heard that it will write your mom a little poem on Mother's Day. See? Raven cares. Get seven or eight people per side, have them duke it out in jungles, urban areas, mansions, and the like, put them close enough to each other so you can hear them roar with triumph or defeat, and tell me that SoF2 multiplayer - the multiplayer it wasn't even supposed to have - ain't something special.
Too special for my machine, even. The bluescreens started almost immediately after things got underway, the excruciatingly nebulous "IRQ_MORE_OR_LESS_EQUAL," and though my initial approach was a sensible regimen of new drivers and reinstallations things quickly took a turn. When everyone around you is jubilant or morose (depending on the results of the last round), it imparts a certain desperation on to get things running again. Aside from the fact that I feel sick anytime my machine ("Czar") isn't working right, I have it on good authority that guys were trying plant a bomb on our thing, which seemed unnecessary but I couldn't do anything about it. Three or four hours into diagnosing a problem on my computer I become less of a technician and more of a shaman, and the proceedings take on a strange character. I just started flipping settings on and off. I moved the card to a new slot, which seemed to help. I told it to reset the ECSD, God only knows why, and then it started working. I doubt those two things have any connection to each other, but I want to stress to that I was in a bad place.
We played Soldier for a few hours, and once we switched over to UT2003 it started fucking up again. We decided to go back to Soldier, which had stopped working. Also, my network card went out, and on top of that I had switched my soundcard so many times that Windows XP got mad and said I had changed the hardware too much. I reset the ECSD, which I had come to think of as my Spirit Animal, but no dice. I messed around with it until four, when my ability to form real sentences was replaced with the ability to say only bad words.
Came back the next day with a new NIC from Monkey, and when we installed it we realized that screwing in the cards was actually unseating them. Who knows how many of the other problems were connected to that, but we swapped out the sound card and things were underway again. He needed his soundcard back for another machine, which I protested. I made up races, then I said that he was one of them, and then I made up racial slurs to use against the imaginary races I just made up. I suggested that his actions were typical of those hypothetical peoples. You may be surprised at this, but these epithets did not endear me to him, and he took his card back. Lo and behold, the computer started locking up again and I spent the rest of the night trying to fix it again. In fact, I purchased a Turtle Beach soundcard from New Egg at three or so in the morning, which was probably unnecessary. The entire ordeal was the opposite of rad.
Of course, now that it's at home, you know, no problems. I can play Hegemonia or AC2 or Army Game or whatever and nothing, none, not any issues. If there is a moral to this story I can't formulate it in any way that makes sense.
I was waiting for all the sponsors to get in there before I introduced them, so I'm a little late here. This is the second time they've been with us, and I'd like to thank Near Death Studios on the strip page for their support again this month. It sounded like those of you that gave it a shot back in October were pleasantly surprised with it, so it pleases me to have them back up. I don't need to talk about Mechassault anymore, because you probably already own it. UberCon was a surprise, even to us - when they asked us to get the word out, it was an easy decision. I've never been to one of the pure gaming cons because they're always so far away, but if you're up in that neck of the woods this February you'd do well to check them out.
Posts
I inject coffee directly into my ovum.
You're not lying, I know that much.
That's rough man, and I don't mean to downplay your experiences or anything but I've played Counterstrike and nothing compares to that experience. Sometimes I go to bed unable to feel anything, just staring blankly into the darkness, listening to the "fuk u walhaxor" and other cries of all the children I gunned down. Sometimes, I don't know why, but I would specifically aim for the children. I would hear their frail, soprano voices and I would look everywhere on the map for them and shoot them over and over while taunting them. Now, I am forced to remember all these horrible incidents. All this violence I perpetrated against children. American children. My gods, what have I done?
Better in the way that in 9 months I will have nothing to do at all with the Army. Otherwise, since being back home, people my age or generation annoy the living hell out of me. Their plights and misfortunes don't arouse the concern. I'm pretty blunt and cold to strangers.
The point I make now is, yeah war is hell, but combat and what not is just a small portion of it. Yeah combat is pretty brutal and it sucks hanging out with friends and playing Halo2 on what free time you have, only to hear how one of them died the next day because some sniper got off a lucky ass shot, and you stop playing Halo all together.
The biggest thing in my opinion that soldiers face is the non-combat side of war. The times of isolation, depression, frustration, anguish, and complacency. When that soldier get's complacent, it's time to get him out of there because they'll cause more harm than good. And that usually occurs around month 3, and with 9-12 more months to go, how can you possibly imagine that it'll get better?
Everyone has that limit, that line before it snaps and they change.
edit: Drez, I got a good laugh out of that. hahahaha.
My Iraq story relating to counter-strike. Before you think OH MY GOD HOW BRUTAL, no we didn't actually follow through with any of this:
My buddy and I are talking about video games. I forget how the subject comes up, but we mention how hilarious it would be if in mid-sentence the other person just jumps down, runs through the field at full sprint, and knifes some poor schmuck. Then the other guy, in the background seeing this says, HUMILIATION. Or if you are shooting at people and you land a head shot, some omnipotent voice says, HEADSHOT. (I played on the servers that had these features) We thought it was pretty hilarious at the time so now whenever I play a FPS, I can't stop thinking about those jokes, and it makes the game something more.
More awesome, that's what.
I ran into this exact situation once before.
I mean
Drez
It's part of the court's decision.
What's your av and sig from?
Do you know Tri-Edge?
Is that game/anime series good then? I never actually played it.
The one handed bra thing is cool because it makes you look suave and experienced. Also, fumbling around with something is never suave.
I'm somewhat sympathetic, but I'm also of the opinion that the PC is a savage platform that should be abandoned.
1951
I'm of the opinion that nothing of value was lost.
After realizing that the intro to Welcome Home is the same as the Tetris theme (Korobeiniki), I can't not think of tetris when I hear that.
The first four games have god awful combat and are almost unplayable, but the story is pretty good.
So far G.U. is fun, if only a bit too easy. The enemies are kind of retarded A.I. wise and don't normally have a full breadth of attacks. The main character, however, seems to evolve as a character throughout the series, and most of the main characters have motivations and depth, which is saying a lot for a JRPG.
If it's what I'm think of you sort of take the top strap between your first two fingers, then push away on the bottom strap with your thumb while pulling the top strap to unhook it.
Soon you'll move on to combination locks and timed explosives.
Texan.
Later.