mini OCS

"Get those canteens squared away!"

"Aye, Gunnery Sergeant!"

*canteens drop and bounce on pavement, while we are standing in formation set to march, sadly candidate schroer did not get the help he needed....thus*

"Candidate, looks like you need help! Maybe you should have asked for help from some of your other candidates....now stand there and call for help!"

"Aye, Gunnery Sergeant!" .....after a few moments of awkward silence

"Heeellllllp!.....Heeeeellllllp!....Heeeeeeellllllp!....Heeeeeeelllllllllp!" *this lasted for about 5 minutes

as we stood at "attention" trying not to laugh our asses off...gunnery sgt. purcell actually caught it on video....absolutely priceless stuff

....with the command "eyeballs"

we respond "snap!" ...and do as told

its really awesome when it all happens at once...notice my awesome glasses strap danglin' away...

cocked, locked and ready to rock....ok so its 12lbs of USMC rubber, with a metal barrel...puurdy nifty huh?

....those Marines, just thinkin of everything...an actual fully loaded m-16 A2 service rifle is some 8lbs

....i swear to drunk officer, im not god....

the PFT....on my way to 136 reps!

forget, hell

So we had the opportunity to write a little 2 pager on remembering the slave trade and why we should do so in the first place....seemed like a decent idea and since there is a cash prize offered to the winner (of which the pool should be fairly slim considering the short 2 week time limit we had and the prevailing work ethics of my peers) anyhow i'm shootin for the cash,not gonna lie...but in re-reading my paper (threw it together in less than 2 hours) i realized it had potential to stand on its own outside of this tiny competition...hence im leaving it up to the handful of faithful readers to decide....ahemm, without further adue/adoo/adew...its just french, whatever here is

Remembering the injustice,
Honoring the sacrifice,
Ending an era:
Why celebrate the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery

By:
Christopher Cockrell
April 16, 2008


For some questions in history there are no simple, painless answers. The facts of the matter take on a haunting reality which then tends to linger, waiting only to be pushed back into the unconscious. On March 25th 2008, the United Nations sought to bring forth one such painful question, answer it, and proclaim a message to the world: slavery would not be forgotten. Remembering the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its impacts will serve as a way to highlight past injustices, bring recognition to those who played a role in helping to end the terrible practice, and catalyze the international community into seeking to end on going instances of slavery worldwide.
History itself does not occur in specific isolated incidents; rather, the happenings in one part of the world have tended to impact radically different hemispheres. The discovery of the New World, and subsequent colonization by European powers led to the need for a large labor supply to produce the raw materials needed to complete the infamous “triangle trade”. Weapons and ammunition left Europe bound for the western shores of Africa to pick up their human cargo bound for the colonies, only to repeat the journey time and time again. Most notable among the stages of this trade was the Middle Passage, whereby free Africans were sold into slavery by their captors-fellow Africans- and packed onto cargo ships to suffer inhumane conditions with little chance of survival. Once in the colonies, families were torn apart as human beings were auctioned off as cattle and violently forced into submission. These painful facts must never be forgotten and are reason enough to hold a day of remembrance, though the efforts of a brave few must be mentioned as well.
Abolishing slavery did not happen overnight, it took hundreds of years and hundreds of voices all joined in the message that all men regardless of race ought to be free. A great many risked their reputations and lives on this notion of abolition and felt strongly enough to continue fighting the good fight. Few people today truly recognize the efforts of men and women such as William Wilberforce, the British politician who fought tirelessly for some 20 years in the late 1700’s to bring an end to the British slave trade; Fredrick Douglass, an escaped slave who spent the rest of his life writing and speaking out against the system in America; Harriet Tubmann “grandma Moses”, the former slave who helped countless slaves escape on the underground railroad; William Lord Garrison, the outspoken abolitionist of the 1840’s and 50’s who called for the immediate emancipation of slaves in the United States. This list fails to mention the persons and efforts which existed with the same fervor in the Caribbean, and is all the more reason to celebrate the Day of Remembrance of Slavery.
Sadly today there are still cases of slavery in the world, the importance of remembering the past lies in the ability to prevent the same injustices in future generations. There exists today a very real opportunity to end oppression the world over, however, much awareness is needed to help those in the greatest plight. Sex trafficking has emerged as a highly degrading but profitable enterprise by which mainly young girls are taken from their homes and are sexually exploited in various dehumanizing ways. Civil war-torn Africa has descended into to soliciting child soldiers to fill the ranks of their armed militias. Young boys are taught to die for a cause they do not understand, while the leaders recruit more young men to take their place, and the vicious cycle continues.
Examining the harsh realities of history are integral parts in developing a stronger society of the future. Lessons learned from the deeply inhumane practice of the transatlantic slave trade must be applied to the contemporary crises occurring today. Remembering should not be a passive response; it must become an honorific gesture to show those who still hold the reins of repressions that their time is coming to an end soon. One day could potentially…change the world.

Milk and OCS..in that order

True Fact: I think I’m addicted to Silk: Vanilla soymilk…ask me why? Here’s the long and the less than short of it…last semester I lived a life devoid of the simple pleasures which accompany a mini-fridge…not so this time. This semester was different, a new chance to maintain a relatively normal eating pattern and keep good food fresh (sounds kinda catchy, like something off a ziplock commercial or whatnot…just more goodness from my own fertile brain) but yeah as it happened, my first trip to Plaza Extra (sounds Hispanic you think, right, oh no, the Virgin Island chain is owned by a handful of Arabs who speak no Spanish-o at all, nunca, nada, ni siquiera una palabra en espanol para aquellos)…alas I digress…so back in January, when I was here on the 3rd day of the year..seems only yesterday…I went shopping to stock up the ole ice box, and low and behold there was no milk to be had at all…no whole milk (fat ass milk I call it), no 2%,1%, skim…or any of the carton sizes…but they had a whole section of Silk brand products…pulling back the roll-a-dex of rememberances, I found the one where I was tasked with picking up several cartons of vanilla silk for Jon and Heathers kids (here heather, here’s your “shout out”…happy now? ) I also picked up 2 packages of double stuffed oreo’s for jon, aaron and I, to be eaten 1.on the clock 2.on the cook line 3.in frozen dessert mugs and 4.with the stores milk (should be noted that sometimes we did clock off and take over a booth in the 50’s-I feel like orwell here, but the 50’s in Coltonspeak were the last booths closest to the bathroom with the painting of a guy riding a horse…which after many a close look, you can tell that the face of the rugged cowboy is none other than President George W. himself…) where am I going with this? …hey look a duck! …ADD strikes again, this time the written word, eeeeeshh….ahh yes, milk or the lack there of…so grabbed the soy milk, picked up a box of mini wheats and went home..a few days later when the palate was jonesin’ for some cereal I utilized my tupperwear container and hand dandy spoon and went to town…I must say the initial shock of mini wheats n’ soy milk was a little alarming…think of taking a hugeass bite out of delta farmland when crops are in season…the cereal added to the natural grown taste of the milk, and all in all it was amazing, I was hooked…still am…now I did give ole lactose another chance when I picked up a trusty half gallon at Foodtown, only to ruin a perfectly good bowl of cereal with the sourest milk in the world…adios lactose…when the cafeteria gets me down with nothing but chicken and rice, and more rice to go with the burned greasy chicken stuff…I reach for my trusty tupperwear container (never washed, I just keep it in the freezer, let the leftover milk freeze and then it makes for little “treats” at the bottom of each new cereal bowl…still can’t wait for me to come home mom??? Haha) It should also be noted that a gallon of 2% milk will set you back 6$, whereas a bit carton thing..some 70oz. is only 4$ for soymilk goodness…don’t pull out the calculator just yet, I hate measurement conversions, and besides there are somethings you just can’t quantify like: the health benefits from drinking a wholesome/several wholesome servings of silk in cereal a day, or the priceless trivia found on the back of the Silk container…beat that lactose, beat that…if you’re still reading this and wonder if its all been in jest, think again…while my tone may be light and cheerful, my message is clear, my resolve unwaivering…ok, well when I was in Miami the other weekend I had to submit to soymilk, but Mariott knows how to keep milk fresh, so I waivered a tad…anyone counting, this makes 674 words on soymilk alone…but wait there’s more
…As was previously mentioned, I was in Miami, why? Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time…flights were cheap, and American offered me a job fixing these little tube things on all their planes, said I’d have to keep quiet and not talk about it until after Tuesday, so I did…ha, and my family really thought I was up a mini-OCS at camp Blandly outside of Jacksonville, FL…ha, ok so I was…it was a great weekend, ripe with ridiculously loud Sergeant Instructors, our platoon’s version of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (watch full metal jacket) …rather we had GySgt. Cruz…absolutely the most intense guy I’ve ever seen march into a squad bay…I managed to stay low, keep my head down and not screw up while he was watching…it will be different this summer with 3 staff NCO’s in one squad bay, picking out little things and then communicating “in stereo” (one at each ear and one at the nose…im hoping they’ve all seen the nasty affects of chewing tobacco, and have quit that habit…with my luck, I’ll get 3 Copenhagen spokesmen)…I’m looking forward to it, just as I was looking forward to it at the weekend thing…the biggest thing that happened was the realization that a good bit of the challenge will be the mental side…not bragging, but I’m in the best physical shape I’ve ever been in, and improving daily, and the academics are now in my hand thanks to OST Miami’s Gunnery Sgt. Purcell (my gunny) who gave us the study guide with everything they will teach in classes at OCS…not everyone got those so I feel very fortunate to have someone who cares enough about his job (which is to prepare officer candidates) to give us the extra heads up…good stuff…anyway the point was driven home, on the drive home actually..that OCS is a game, like anything else there are rules, only these rules are sometimes “3 seconds to put 1 sock on, and 1 second to hold out your other one”…stuff like that…more importantly it’s a constant evaluation/screening process…if you think about it, the staff NCO’s are effectively training their bosses…honesty, integrity, and commitment are more than just words, they are the way…some may call it brainwashing, or losing my identity…but then again they also call a successful day one in which they almost thought about getting up at 5am and running “X number” of miles…so I can take that with a grain of salt/sand *we have both on my island*
…..I’ll end this round of spoutings with a little tid bit of info that reassured me I was doing the right thing…Velazquez, the Sr. army roc cadet is set to graduate in a few weeks, and get commissioned the same day, to complete his packet, he’ll need a recent PT test score, being in the VI Natl. Guard, they had drill this past weekend and a PT test was included…until they cancelled the test, but still had drill…no test, so he can run it and have Capt. Bell administer it, right? Wrong…I even asked him, could I time you? Could he time you?...no, it had to be some huge deal or whatever so velazquez said “so capt. Bell is just gonna make something up for the PT score” …really? Seriously now…I also was talking to him about army rotc’s version of OCS, which is 10 weeks, but there is no yelling in your face, no “drill instructor roar” to be had at all…they treat you like officers, and refer to you as “warriors”…there were also 12,000 warriors instead of some 3,500 candidates, which will fall below 3,000 before aug.9th…not knocking on the other branches, they have their role, and this is merely my limited perspective, on an isolated instance…but all that being said, I’ve never been more motivated to go get yelled at, berated for going to college (a classic when we forget things like left foot, right foot), and pushed beyond my known limits…I’d like to thank all of you for your support and encouragement…we’ll be in touch

“Learn to obey before you command” -Solon



"I think you went to college and it sucked out all your common sense"

"OH MY GOD!! Is that a marsupial pouch?!"

"No, Gunnery Sergeant"

"That is disgusting! You are disgusting"

"Yes, Gunnery Sergeant"


"Are any of you candidates religious?"

"This candidate Gunnery Sergeant!"

"Then you better pray to your God to give me the strength not to kill this candidate!"

"Aye,aye Gunnery Sergeant"

Take it slow...bring water...this one is long

(The Trans-Generational Team...Me, David who's father was a Marine who saw action in both the Atlantic and Pacific in WWII, and Mark)

(the sea plane)

(Brooks and I, before he left...no he's not on the curb, he's really that much taller)

(Me on the way to a lousy 2nd place finish)

(Dinghy-ing)
(Manly-ness atop Goat Hill)

Well it seems to have been a hot minute since last time I threw down my ideas on this my blog, so instead of keeping the outside world updated with random postings, ive decided to put off working on a term paper to jot down my rememberances before they enter into the shadowy world of forgotten(ess)…it’s a scary place from all the stories I hear, but then again those stories always seem to have some piece missing in them, ha…alas, I digress…Might as well start this off with as far back as I can remember (ok, so I can remember farther, but for all its worth, this should get us up to speed)
The first weekend of Spring Break-though I often feel that was back in august, since the whole experience has been rather break(ish)- ahemm... that Friday I flew the illustrious seaplane airline Seaborne Airlines over to St.Thomas for the night/day trip down island a tad to Jost Van Dyke in the B.V.I.(British Virgin Islands) anywhoo…the school was takin a trip and got a hell of a deal on tickets so I boogied my way over to our other campus and met up with the crew before they set off to Jost….a little side note, not to be taken too seriously, as all went well, but still; ferry boat diesel fumes, warm bottled water, and high seas in the Sir Francis Drake channel are not the best elixir for a hangover *cough, cough* at least that’s what “some guy” told me…but not to worry, by the time we reached Jost I was good to go J…For those that don’t know, Jost Van Dyke is a rather small island with a total population of about 400 (cats and dogs included) right across the aforementioned channel from St. John in the USVI, thus technically Brooks and I could have taken our fearless dinghy across the way and gotten into the BVI without technically going through customs…but it was best we didn’t as I’m not sure that we had enough fuel to get back..anywhoo…there wasn’t really much to do on Jost, other than chill on the beach at the Soggy Dollar Bar, which is the actual birthplace of the “Painkiller”…I kept the cups to prove it…tis just a mixed drink, popular in the islands…some secret amounts of ‘special’ rum, orange juice, pinnaple juice, and coconut cream stuff, plus freshly ground nutmeg on top…at soggy dollar they don’t put straws in it, just a wooden stick thing (don’t know if that SOP all over, I don’t order them…mixed drinks are kinda dumb if ya ask me…but most people don’t ask me…so I wouldn’t know if that’s particularly special about that bar…anywhoo) so that was Jost, just hung out on the beach with a bunch of super rich folks with their own sail-boats, yachts, and a group of upper-crusted tourists on some elegant yacht club cruise line…did I feel outta place? No, because that’s just how the islands work…you can be sitting right next to a billionaire who lives up on the hill somewhere, who is drinking the same beer as you, paying the same thing you are, putting up with the heat the same as you; on the flip side, I’ve seen the same sights and arguably more amazing ones, swam in the same water, and put up with the same winds that they have. It’s kinda funny how the islands have a way of equalizing all of us…pasty white folks when they get out in the sun can’t count on their portfolios to keep them from burning to a crisp, or worrying too much about the “island time” which seems to drive them crazy…I’d even go so far as to say that those who come down and visit aren’t having all that much fun if they don’t attempt to let go of what they sought to get away from…I’m no local, but I’ve been here long enough to see it, and the happy ones don’t have plans for the day, and don’t bring up frivolous news from up in the States…they just chill, as its really the only way to get things done, since no one here is in any hurry, there is no point in trying to rush all over, there is something to be said for it I guess…but it can really be a pain in the ass when you need to get things done…Anywhoo, after I got of the plane headed back to my island, I was ready to meet up with my own little tourist clan J… the mom and grandmomma were heading down to visit, and ended up a few hours late, but its ok, it all worked out and we were in our hotel and all asleep before 10(may have been 9…but I wasn’t complaining at all…as I had a long night the night before) After waking up the ladies we were off to go see stuff…it should be noted how much better my island is when seen from behind the wheel of a car…seems a lot smaller and much more like a home…I’d missed the feel of driving, and the whole keep left bit didn’t cause much of a problem except when I was talking and driving at the same time *gasp* and inadvertently merged right into on coming traffic…had I not made a quick U-ey in the grass, no one would have noticed…but the cop sittin at the light, probably saw, just didn’t bother moving (big surprise there haha) ...Sunday I took the ladies out toward sandy point, or the best beach on the island, aside from buck island…where we met up with my adopted family of Fred and Sue, it was good for them to meet after all this time of me talking about them…Sue had us over for dinner, and it was a good time all around…got up early the next morning and headed out to goat hill, way up above Point Udall, have done the hike several times, and it never gets old, it just gets easier each time…I’ve gotten to the point to where I can do it in about an hour and a half in boots and utes, with 35lbs or so of sand in my bag (what kind of crazy S.o.B. would do such a thing??) yeah its goodtimes, and that day did not disappoint…it was even better because it rained for a good 5-10 minutes while I was hoofin it up the road to even get to the trail…a little extra weight, just to make sure I didn’t forget why I was doin it! Oorah! So after taking the ladies around the beautiful parts of my island, and spending good quality time with them, it was time for them to go…and go they did, only dropped them off at the airport about 5:30 and decided to run back to school, in the pitch dark…o000 fun! Not so much, not so much actually…running out of the airport, the locals decided to build a water treatment plant straight downwind from the airport…so you turn left outta the place and then Wham! You are hit with an amazingly potent atmospheric combination of human refuse…that woke me up dontchaknow…
With the lightly burnt tourists safely on their way it was time to gear up for my first full on sprint triathalon…I knew the swim was gonna be bad, rough, and ultimately kick my ass…and true to form it was, and did…the water was so rough that the marker buoy broke loose, and the current carried it down a good ways…even the old hands in the water were upset with how bad it was…so I didn’t feel too bad for being something close to 5th from the rear outta the water…it all worked out though, as most of the tail end charlies out of the water were bad bikers and runners as well…so I passed probably 10 or more bikers out on the 14 mile loop stopping past certain landmarks as : grassy point, the turn they filmed the last scene of shawshank redemption on(when he is in the corvette…yea that’s a rough turn..great view though) , and cheeseburgers in paradise *some claim the best burgers on island…ill argue that point and say Off the Wall’s double hamburger is waaaay better..1. the bar is on rocks over the water, as in get a big wave and water splashes in…yeah…and 2. the patties are almost an inch thick and expertly seasoned…ok ok so I like my burgers* and then you come back to kramers park…ditch the bike and head off for a 3 mile run, which fittingly was more than 3 miles, probably 4.3ish as the old hands who know their times were all in a hissy about the amount of time it took them to do 3 miles…hell I was worn out and just wanted to pass as many people as I could before my body said “screw you, I’m done!”…and pass more I did…pulled up a respectable 1:43:?? Don’t have it memorized down to the second, do forgive…anyway it was a good time…and to think Brad and I joked we wouldn’t have wanted to sleep till 9am anyway (whole thing was done before 9 J ) Keep your racing boots on kids…The following Friday was the UVI 5k…ended up getting 2nd place to some former Div. I trackstar guy who ran the damn thing in 16:46…Two long minutes later I show up…geeze, I guess a sub-six minute pace doesn’t get ya quite as far as it used to in the world ha ha…interesting note here, the guy who got 3rd, came in two minutes behind me and was in army PT gear…I happened to be sporting a Marines T-shirt and he asked if I was just wearing the shirt for the fun of it? I calmly explained my situation (OCS this summer, just getting in shape for it…yadda yadda) and posed the same question to him…he was cool and I didn’t have an attitude we just joked around a bit…so it turns out he’s a biker as well…That Sunday he was out at the bike race, another 14 miler with an end point slightly off from what I imagined (remember this fact)…and yeah never having done an actual bike race before, the whole riding in a pack thing was new to me…but its just how it looks to be on TV with the tour de france…its scary as hell, basically…no questions asked, and I wanted nothing more than to be out front leading the way, screw the wind we had to deal with, being in that pack just sucked, they weren’t moving fast enough, and I rode my brakes more than I actually worked…on the way out that is…eventually at the turn around I broke outta the pack, and went for it…didn’t really care if they came with or not…but I got out ahead off to a really good lead…coming into what I thought was the last flat stretch before the final two hills, I cut back from my push and wanted to save some for the hills and a sprint of a finish…turns out Haypenny (the ending location, a name that meant nothing to me, a non local) was at the end of the straight away…and about the time I made out theresa and her clipboard standing there, whoosh!....whoosh! two guys come past me and then it was over, the race was done but these two guys had passed me right at the end, I never saw them comin, and kicked myself, and still do for letting it happen but whatever…a total of 4 seconds separated 1st and 3rd, and I was that 3rd guy…the 2nd place guy was the same army cat I smoked on Friday…its an island…we shared a few words about how we were even now…and I just hope he knows we may be even, but its not over J Then this Sunday was the three man time trial, where you have a 3 man team riding together, drafting off eachother, not as crazy as the big race, because its encouraged that you speak to eachother…anywhoo, brad and Fred already had their team picked out so I teamed up with another older guy, Mark and one of his riding buddies…just how it works down here (oh yeah I know so and so, and so and so, it’ll be no problem)….we ended up doing really well…1st place really well is what it was…but there is no need to brag…we all rode very well and it was a good time….wheeew, if you’re still with me, it might be time to stand and stretch it out…I just checked and this has gotten to about 2100 words…a small novel I know…
Between races, my brother came down for a visit…that was goodtimes as well…the most notable experience would be hitting up all tree islands in one day…taking the first flight out of st.croix at 6:45am, landing in st.thomas at 7:15, taking the 9am ferry to st.john, after taking a taxi across st.T…hiked up caneel hill, and Margaret hill which overlook the small harbor of Cruz Bay, and on a clear day you can see all down island…it wasn’t a clear day…so we couldn’t see all that far…it actually rained all day, and was the worst day I’ve ever experienced down here…and it would come on the day my brother was here, and we were over on st. john (which is amazing, not sure if I’ve ever mentioned that)…haha we also rented a dinghy, to hit up the beaches…that was a great idea until the rainclouds unleashed a horribly slashing rain right about the time we got outta the harbor…so we bobbed around in the channel, headed to maho bay, and our lunch spot…when we showed up, it had stopped raining, and was actually a beautiful day there…no didn’t bother with the camera, don’t worry…all our shots were nice and cloudy all day…it was a good day but we were ready to go home, and caught the 4 oclock ferry outta st. john, a taxi from some Grenadian gypsy taxi driver who got us back to da sea pane in time for the last flight out, caught it…and landed before the sun set in christiansted, whew! Im tired just thinking about it now…anywhoo it was a goodtime, and something that doesn’t hardly ever get done, but deep down I was dying to prove that it could be done since I got here in august… sho’nuff did it…Not sure if I mentioned that we/I get/got the chance to fly over on a sea plane, which isn’t all that significant other than the fact that jimmy buffett has a sea plane (several) and I happened to be reading his “a pirate looks at 50” during the week brooks was here…thus I read it on all 3 USVI’s…a feat I would like to point out…I was also inspired to acquire my own flying boat, as he calls them…that’s a really good book by the way, I gave it away to a parrothead down here I met on the beach, when I finished it on Friday…question, why is it that I can blow through 5 books on the Marines’ invasion of Iraq, Jimmy Buffett’s latest book, and a great historical fiction novel surrounding afganistan during the Russian occupation, and can’t seem to make a dent in “Salt”…Earl Lovelace’s “award winning” novel based on the trials and tribulations of some family in Trinidad, trying to come to grips with the hardships of post colonial life, and a struggling independence…maybe if the book wasn’t written in dialect (I’ll go ahead and call it substandard English, running the risk of sounding uncultured here) then some of the ideas would come across much easier…but forgive me when I write this here, but if the class were called “Caribbean literature” I could see it, but since its actually supposed to be Western Lit. I, I don’t think this is the best selection ole Gould could have chosen…the guy is a goof, its really sad… big old white bald guy whose idea of good lit are short stories, the same ones I read in Freshman Comp! you don’t read American short stories (mostly the bad ones) in something called Western Lit!! uhhhg! The class sucks the life outta me…his mid term was a joke, people failed, his essays suck, since they are about stupid stories its hard to even find something interesting to put in them…half the class doesn’t turn those in when we get a month to do them…whatever…my apathetic nature is taking over, I’ll do what I need to do to get my transfer credit, but there isn’t any point in giving an extra 10%, cause it’ll be wasted…he fails to accept any interpretations/deeper meanings in the stories that aren’t what he thinks to be worth anything either…its just a waste of time, the questions are all surface level, I had tougher questions from mrs. Southard in 7th grade!! Ok so now its almost 3,000 words and I think its time I get on to something else…hopefully this was a good catch up…and hopefully the server doesn’t hate me and will actually upload this huge-ass blog J