Friday Night Discovery

So last night we went to one of those Japanese Hibachi places for dinner (Jim is Catholic so no meat on Friday during lent). I am not Catholic, but I don't eat meat on Friday's during Lent around him. After dinner while we're waiting on everything to wrap up, get the check, etc. Jim starts talking to the guy next to us about his time in the military as Jim had mentioned something about it. So Jim also talks about his time that he spent in Kuwait and Iraq during the first gulf go round and the mentality of the people over there, not wanting to go into Baghdad and urban warfare, etc.

Then Jim drops the bomb - he tells the guy about his medical discharge as he had stress fractures in each lower leg and that he was medically discharged about a year earlier than planned (in '99 instead of 2000). Jim then proceeds to tell him that right after 9/11, he had called the recruiter in Columbia as he wanted to go over to Afghanistan. However, since he was medically discharged they would not have taken him back in. This part about wanting to go back in and calling the recruiter was news to me.

When Jim was in the Army the first time, he was an 11 Charlie (Infantry) which is the military's fighting machine which has a 60 second life expectancy during combat. He was a mortarman as his test scores were really high and you had to be able to do the complex math in your head. When he got out in '94 (way before I met him) he went back to Ohio, went to school for a year, worked some, and then ended up re-upping in January of '97 and they sent him to Ft. Jackson and we met in Columbia in February of '97. They would not let him go back in as 11 Charlie, so he was a 71 Lima which is a clerk. He hated being a clerk. And you can take the man out of the Infantry, but you can't take the Infantry out of the man.

So here he is after 9/11, and he called the recruiter and wanted to go back in so he could go blow $H*T up and blow up people in Afghanistan. Of course, he didn't tell me that he was trying to go back in! I knew he was very upset and ready to get on a plane to go stick it to the Taliban and Bin Laden, but I didn't know he's busy calling around to try and get back in until last night!

I knew he was really hard to be around for about a month or so, but I had no clue he actually tried to get back in. I can't really blame him or be too upset, but it was just such a surprise that he had tried. I should have known better. I fussed at him half the way home. He knows I would have been really upset if he had found a way to go, but he would have done it anyway no matter what I said. I guess I can't be too upset though as he is very patriotic and has such a sense of duty and love of country.

He also knows how to kill people with his bare hands as that is what they are trained to do if you don't have a weapon or if it jams. There are things that he did in the military that he won't tell me and says that he is not supposed to even though he has been out and is not going back in. His aunt told me one time that he was in Turkey for a while but that she was not supposed to know that. He won't even confirm or deny that. He won't tell me anything much except that he has been in situations where he's had to defend his life before. I think that means he had to kill someone while in combat in Iraq (close to the border with Kuwait right after it was over), but he won't tell me anything specific. And that is what his aunt thinks happened too.

Anyway, it was just a little upsetting to know he tried to go back in although I should have known better.