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RIP sweet Hector. And fuck Michael Vick and dog fighters everywhere.
I'd give up my legs to replace the current problems. At-least people would understand why I couldn't walk or criticize me for being unable to me.
It is easy to find articles that bring awareness to the hidden mental scars of war and its easy for me to point to a deployment in a MOS with highest injury risk for injury or death for a men & women MOS (MP would be higher if so much of their job also didn't include jail & paperwork police) but combat is the reason why. It is, finding smoking gun proof that the only reason I was doing why I was doing all this for cheated on my 2 months prior before deployment on the 2nd night left of my R&R which based on the information available plus her value as a person overall. To spare you the rest I had to go through the 5 stages of grief alone in the unforgiving, hard ass, 24+ hour days which were worse in garrison where I was always the easy target within my squad for mindless details.
To help understand the personality of my squad is one soldier (a specialist who had ranked on me by a couple of months which the unit made a push to enforce lower level enlisted chain of command which led to the power trip of hell but he was always clean shaven & uniform clean w/ little to no scuff marks on boots) who asked out of a South Korea unit who wasn't too happy to him by his extra duty admission and I found universal agreement that extra duty in South Korea is hands down the worst. To his defense his mother died shortly before this but out of the blue while I was on my a phone call with my wife he started choking me against the wall which caused me to lose my damn mind which led him to report my underage drinking (I was under 21 by 2 months at-the-time) which the following the morning our team leader told me he didn't give a damn what he did because of my underage drinking but little did he know he was the same one that provided me the alcohol that night which which led to the soldier spreading snitch claims around the barracks. During deployment he would often drag me off the top bunk which squad members would tell affectionate stories of times where I continued to sleep which also happened to be times I didn't remember being dragged off the bunk.
That doesn't even bother me, more funny or ironic than anything else just painting the picture because when I was in the "anger" stage I remember a phone call where I was hung up on & I was at CSC Scania w/ next stop BIOP (which was a risky route in-itself) with the cargo drop at Al-Asad which was in the Anbar province but not the danger (which was a rival to Tampa checkpoints 58-60. If you heard of Taji (further north of BIOP) you heard of the attacks which mainly took place outside the walls the exception of the occasional mortar lobbed over (more common occorence). To summarize immediately following the phone call (worried about the last words & inability to handle personal problems 10 time zones away) I punched a basketball due to frustration of those things as well as playing poorly, constantly boxed out for rebounds--good friend that was so it wasn't a who they are frustration which the arrogant, full of himself gloating which the growth of which the main team leader encouraged (not out of bitterness because all things considered, he ended up being one of my better friends--especially in the judgmental department, plus I could see what kind of issues they must face to volunteer for another round) which eventually set off a train reaction that led to the unit armorer (who our unit had 2 at-the-time were switched w/ a specific convoy) being killed by an EFP because I was switched to the convoy heading to better medical facilities to deal with my broken hand which the profile mention of firearm carrying restriction was brought to the attention of Assistant Convoy Commander (which a harmless joke of convoy soldier carrying around my weapon which was meant to poke fun of a strict interpretation -- which my unit leaders were bothered my where my platoon sergeant famously bashed profile restricitions asking "What would happen if you broke your right hand? You'd learn to wipe with your left" shortly before I broke my right hand. Which the ACC went up to the backstairs (had to to get the answer he wanted which was an answer consistent with DOA regulations) that delayed the convoy 1 day (for them to fly me back to Kuwait on a C-130 while our unit flied my replacement to BIOP) which ended up putting that convoy at the wrong place at the wrong time which struck the second to last vehicle of a roughly 30 truck ---the passenger side door of the very same Assistant Convoy's Commander's vehicle.
The "karma is a harsh mistress" view of this and if you go by simple laws of action & reaction which is the karma I do believe is due to my injury there wasn't a whole lot they could make me do so they tasked me as amour assistant which provided me the opportunity the opportunity to get to know someone right before they died. I remember he mailed a fancy anniversary gift and given the roughly 10 day mail time period there is a decent chance it came in the mail after his wife received the news but I remember his last words to me were expressing frustration during mission prep (which was a lot of work) but it was "bad time to go on the road" much work that was left to be done which for some reason re-inventory & "guarding the arms room" which is where I came in so the man in charge of the unit armor (the other guy on the road was the "assistant"
could do some of the work which this new concern called for but considering no unit before the new concern and the JLTF lack of concern before no gave much thought to much more security than a lock you can buy at the PX for a stockpile of carbine rifles including SAW-249 & a 50 cal.
When the "wrong convoy" had an expected ETA to arrive at the motor poll and everyone in our unit or batallion for that matter who wasn't on a convoy was at the motor poll and no one had to give an order as everyone was there to do the mission unprep for them such as helping with heavy bags & gear, ground giding vehicles, and staging vehicles "dress right dress" which is incredible difficult when it came to vehicles and to someone else subjective interpretration (mindless trailer yard details in a nutshell which required the trailers to be dress right dress not to mention countless respraying of trailer numbers "dress right dress" but the most unusual thing and it would be something right out of a movie was the level of fog that was drifting over the entrance as the one convoy where our unit had the 1 casualty the entire year was very eery. Fog near Kuwait City is unusual though I don't understand the climate enough to make that judgment, I do know it had some epic cold storms and it was damn cold in the winter & all that dirt turned into mud but that was the only time I remember seeing fog which was very close to Kuwait City from the Southeast direction.
I get that I'm rambling but my most tramuatic event event happened after the Army, my biggest changes as far as mental health happened under the Army and most of the stress didn't come from outside the wire. It was mainly office politics which prompted someone who was more a friend to my good friends had the rare opportunity to see the truth which he would say more than once (I can give examples) that I got the "short stick in life". However, this was someone who cried in front of the batallion commander asking for a unit change because the alternative to the Army was behind homeless in Washington DC.
My ex-wife was the mentally strongest person I ever met who also expressed suicide desires to me which were crushing more than anything else because I wish I knew the right things to say besides check yourself into a doctor right away but reality & her kids made the hardest working, even prison dilemma choices she made when the knowledge she can't take care of her kids (leaving anyone else taking care of them up to chance) behind bars. She dropped everything and drove cross-country from Mesa, AZ to Springfield, Il because of a phone call where her children expressed some sort of complaint over the situation over a visiting situating under their father.
Why do I mention all this? Well I already mention things like hypogyclemia which symptoms resemble a mental illness, possible TBI/CTE issues due to multiple bangs to the head which could come from a variety of sources such as being dragged off the top bunk (w/ no awareness to break my fall) for entertainment which I understand, it is very boring where complacency was a common concern drilled into us (also the surge led the rachoteting up of the violence on all sides including civilian death tolls & the EFP on a southbound military vehicle -- Southern Iraq was ZzZ monster territory in OIF I and still was to a lesser extent before the "surge" OIF III. It is because I don't even understand my own mental problems, what is the "root cause" for example. I know I was looking for any reason to leave my wife when I stopped sacrificing for the Army which ended up starting a 3-year period which sucked all the life out of my life in addition to things that aren't my fault (other than poor diet or playing pickup tackle football far too much & big guys would take the opportunity to pile drive even if you're already in the end zone.
In that context, even if I have trouble understanding or comprehending I'll ask a straight forward question in hopes that I'll get a straight forward answer--it is weird while plenty of nuanced things or like mirroring an argument with different terms to highlight the ridiculousness of the argument I'll catch but the most obvious things sometimes go over my head. Even if I don't figure something out, I'll figure it out eventually or I can tell an answer isn't straight forward which makes it easier to pick and choose the type of people I want around me.
I also highlight how much worse people closest to me had to deal with in terms of what to cope with (don't get me started on the TCN experience in Iraq) such as my ex-wife who came from very poor & very violent neighborhoods in Springfield, Illinois which she described as near the Lincoln Tomb National Park on the East side of it (I never been to Springfield so maybe Springfield residents would know the area). So I do plenty of self-coping and why would I tell a psychiatrist, why would feel comfortable "bitching about my problems" which I heard psychiatrists outside the couch express a view of their job.
You see "explains everything" is a mystery to me whether I want it to or not but I certainly put some thought to which all circles back to the conclusion that trying to articulate what may or may not be the root cause behind my problems would be counter-productive.
Living in Flagstaff, Arizona the type of news that was reported was a break-in, teens arrested for marijuana possession at Flagstaff mall. Living here (Phoenix metropolitan) I can't even find a story on why there were 4 cop cars and a forensics van in my own apartment complex a couple weeks ago.
Where a dog fatality happens is why I doubt unless it had some sensational juice to it. The news is also a business so they have to sell it too and journalists routinely get facts wrong or sell it in a way and local news is the worst at it. CNN won't touch a dog fatality story, dog fatalities would come local news. Do you think they wouldn't mislabel a dog pit bull because it is more profitable to do so?
Strangely I come across an article that begins with a misidentification which is ironic considering the content of the article but they don't point it out.
A female pit bull, one of three put bulls involved involved in the mauling of a 10-year-old boy in 2005, is held at Aurora Animal Care.
http://blogs.denverpost.com/fetch/2010/07/18/the-media-takes-its-lumps-over-reporting-about-pit-bulls/1387/
That dog is not an American Pit Bull Terrier
Lets take the dangerous animals part? How does 21 fatalities out of the very large domestic dog population show that any of them are dangerous?
So is this dog dangerous?
That picture is of an American Pit Bull Terrier though what one would look like on the smaller end of the range but an APBT nonetheless.
I posted a picture of an American Pit Bull Terrier. (if it came from a cute dog story I have no idea, I searched pictures but that one is almost a twin of the one I used to own except mine hard darker black fur so you could see why I place an emphasize on breed, size, etc before coming to faith based emotion arguments that lead to what... the 35 lb American Pit Bull Terrier banned because the media misreported the breed of the brown dog who was "involved" in the mauling (that 3 other "pit bulls" were responsible--they are 0/1 so it would be reasonable to expect pictures to verify the other 3 are American Pit Bull Terriers)
The brown dog in the above picture isn't an American Pit Bull Terrier any reputable unbiased domestic dog expert will tell you that.
Here are a couple more
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Pit_Bull_Terrier
So since the Brown dog clearly isn't an American Pit Bull Terrier so which is it that is dangerous? Both? OK, now you have 2 different breeds.
Here is another picture
I know what I'm talking about too I used to own a dog that very closely.
Oh we are actually talking about the same breed, it just has two different names.
The American Staffordshire Terrier and the American Pit Bull Terrier (APBT) were bred from the same lineage, but received different names from the two American kennel clubs; Staffordshire was the name given by the American Kennel Club (AKC), and American Pit Bull Terrier by the United Kennel Club (UKC). When compared with the English Staffordshire Bull Terrier, the American Pit Bull Terrier is larger by margins of 6–8 inches (15–20 cm) in height and 25–35 pounds (11–16 kg) in weight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Pit_Bull_Terrier
If you're asking me that question at the bottom you don't understand the argument I'm making. These debates become so frustrating that I try to argue logically the best I can which is trying to logically break down their argument. (A)Pit Bulls are bad (B) what breed is a pit bull? (C) What breeds does the media mean when they say pit bull and what does others in this thread mean when they say pit bull? (D) Which breed will end up taking the blame? (my argument)The one with the "pit bull" name in it.
So there is enough evidence out there that me and you are talking about the very same breed it just has 2 different names so if there is a BSL, breed ban, or breed extermination the same dog were are talking about will be the first victims. I hope we're agreement on that.
I have a rescued AST who was used as a bait dog. He's already been a victim and I can't stand the thought of him being "exterminated" because of extreme ignorance and prejudice.
He is the most forgiving animal I have ever met, loves other dogs, kids, our horses, everybody. I was afraid of the reception he'd get at our local rabies clinic but he was the bell of the ball. Our GSD was another story, she's old and grumpy.
Anyhoo, just wanted to let you know someone's reading your posts and they're appreciated. 
Got stuck in his throat. 
(Old joke, couldn't resist. 
)
[font style="font-family:papyrus,'Brush Script MT','Infindel B',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]Wanting to [font style="font-family:'Brush Script MT',''Lucida handwriting','forte',cursive;" size=5 color=crimson]Exterminate[/font] a breed of Dog that kills less people than random lighting strikes...sounds like a totally rational and reasonable reaction.
[center]
WANT TO BUY UN-REC BUTTON!!! [/font] [/center]
The only thing constant is the media whipping up fear. Fear. FEAR.
Anyone who wants to exterminate thousands of innocent animals because of ignorance and irrational fear has issues.
Impossible!
Thanks to families like the above who care for animals in need... so much need.
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