MikeLortz.com/JordiScrubbings.com

Here is another one from the binders from an Article and Essay class I took in Spring of 2002. Interesting to read where my mind was at when I was 24. (Note: Some slight grammatical edits made based on the professor’s comments.)

Have you ever had the feeling you committed a crime?  A crime not of the legal sort, but one that makes people look at you as an outsider, an outcast.  For me, it has been tough to admit that I have grown away from the mantra of Christianity our society is based on.  Growing up in a patriotic, Catholic family causes a lot of pressure and not much open responsiveness.  Sometimes I have felt like I am wrong, like I have committed a heinous act and will spend my afterlife burning in Hell.  Other times I feel more liberated.

If I had to pick a date, I would say my change in belief started in 1997.  I was in the Army then, hanging out with my friend Scot.  Scot was a big fan of the rock band the Doors, and he especially admired the band’s late lead singer, Jim Morrison.  Morrison’s rebellious attitude had a large influence on Scot’s life, his favorite saying being “Think for yourself, man.  Don’t let others tell you how to be.”

Being around Scot influenced me.  I started writing down my thoughts, turning some into poems and some into meaningless scribble.  More importantly, however, I expanded my musical outlook, listening to more rock music (hip-hop was my thing at the time), and started my own Doors CD collection, closely rivaling Scot’s.

One interest I have in music is digging into the music’s roots, finding out who or what influenced the lyrics and/ or the music.  Doing this with the Doors uncovered a world of thought that would eventually change my religious ideals.

I discovered Jim Morrison was an admirer of Aldous Huxley, author of the book “The Doors of Perception,” from which the band derived its name.  I bought the book in summer 1998, shortly after Scot left the Army.  I was on my own.

I read “The Doors of Perception” while stationed in Bosnia in fall of 1998.  To summarize, Huxley records his experiences using mescaline.  He writes of a “one-ness”– being “one” with the world while under the influence- contrary to the world of labels and materialism.  I was so moved by Huxley’s ideas I wrote a four page response documenting my own views on materialism and “all-inclusive individuality.”

In my essay I started to compare my own Catholic upbringing with the ideas of nonmaterialism and materialism.  These ideas are the basis of numerous religions.  For example, I wrote that even Satanism, the “opposite” of Christianity, has its roots in materialism, its followers divulging in lust and self-gratification.  As I was writing the essay, I attended the Catholic services held in the Bosnian chapel, still unsure whether I was ready to believe what I had written.

After leaving the Army in the summer of 1999, I enrolled in Florida State University.  One of the first classes I took at FSU was a humanities class covering the eras of Medieval Europe to the Enlightenment.  In this class I learned of the Catholic Church’s empirical control over medieval common people using practices such as pardoning and inquisition.  I continued to drift further and further away from my upbringing.

As time progressed, I followed a literary link from Aldous Huxley to Jack Kerouac, purchasing Kerouac’s “The Scripture of the Golden Eternity.”  In the book, Kerouac takes his own Catholic upbringing and merges it with Buddhist ideals.  “The Scripture of the Golden Eternity” affected me like “The Doors of Perception” had earlier.  After reading it, every time I attended Catholic Mass with my family I would compare the priest’s message with what I had read.  I didn’t dare tell my family about my newfound beliefs.  I was afraid of the repercussions I would face.  Not that I was afraid of being disowned or anything that drastic, but when I was younger, my parents sent me to Catholic school  for a reason.

After reading “The Scripture of the Golden Eternity” I started researching more about Buddhism.  Although I agreed with its philosophy and practice, I was timid to “announce” myself a Buddhist.  Along the same line, I could not declare myself an atheist.  I have noticed that people who announce a non-belief in God always seem to get strange looks and “normal people” act very apprehensive towards them.

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on America many people responded with outcries of “God Bless America.”  I disagreed with the attachment of God to America, surprising a lot of people, including my parents.  My thought was that religion caused the ideals behind the attacks.  Shortly after, I tried to tell my mother I no longer believed in the Catholic faith.  She was not ready for the discussion and claimed she didn’t want to talk about the subject.

Currently, I am more at peace with myself than ever before.  My views may not be the most popular with my family or the rest of our God-based society, but I am not following a mantra I am uncomfortable with.  I know I can be the best person, best family member, or best American I can be and still subscribe to my own philosophy or faith.

The recent passing of former Met and baseball Hall of Famer Gary Carter pushed me to finish this post. I started it when Carter was diagnosed with brain cancer and with his death Thursday, I figured now was the best time to complete it.

(Note: this was pretty tough to write.)

February 15th is my least favorite day of the year. That part of February is tough for some people because of the pressure of Valentine’s Day, but for me the woe of February is much more family-based. On February 15th, 1991, my brother Eric passed away from a brain tumor. He had undergone several surgeries and treatments for the malignant disease from the age of 6 to the age of 10 and unfortunately, even after his long fight, cancer got the best of him.

According to the National Cancer Institute, there were an estimated 22,070 new cases of brain cancer and 12,920 deaths in the US for 2009. For some unexplained reason, the malady of brain cancer has woven it’s way into almost every aspect of my life, both at the family level and at every step in my professional and academic life. It has even permeated my hobbies and the things I like to follow. I don’t know why, but the disease that affects only 6.4 of 100,000 people has effected people in every aspect of mine.

First and foremost, I lost my brother when I was 13. He was almost 10. There is no doubt his death played a huge part in my social development as a teenager, which for most people is already the most screwed up time of their lives. Although I had friends, I wasn’t the most social kid and was especially bad with the ladies. Being in a relationship is about giving to someone, and that wasn’t even an option when I had just lost someone. Although I was generally an outgoing kid, my brother’s death kinda set me back a bit, and it wasn’t until I joined the Army that I re-acquired the confidence to be outgoing and extroverted, which are the personality traits I think fits me best.

After I signed the dotted line to commit four years of my life to Uncle Sam, the powers that be sent me to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Coincidentally, and I found this out long after the fact, the namesake of the fort, General Leonard Wood, died of brain cancer in 1927. Although he was originally diagnosed with brain cancer in 1910, he was one of the first recipients of brain tumor surgery. Without him, or rather without the surgeries done on him, I would have lost my brother years before he actually passed.

My four year stint in the military ended in 1999. That year, cyclist Lance Armstrong conquered testicular and brain cancer won his first Tour de France. When I was a kid, my father was really into bike riding. When I could, I joined him on quite a few shorter stints. I think the Armstrong victory meant a lot to my Dad, as I think he thought of my brother’s plight when he saw Armstrong raise the yellow jersey. Personally, seeing someone who meant a lot to my Dad advocate so much for cancer research made Armstrong one of my favorite athletes, even if I was only a cycling fan in passing at best.

Later in 1999, I began my academic career at Florida State University. As a big baseball fan, I immediately noticed the home stadium of the Seminoles baseball team was named after former Kansas City Royals manager Dick Howser. I quickly learned Howser was twice named an All-American in the 1950s and is one of the first of many great baseball players to begin their careers at Florida State. After leaving FSU and having a distinguished career in professional baseball, Howser died of a brain tumor in 1987.

Living in New York at the time of Howser’s death, I remember reading the extensive coverage of Howser’s death in New York Newsday. Prior to being the Royals manager, I learned Howser was a key part of the Yankees organization for over a decade. On a personal level, Howser was the first baseball personality whose card I had who was no longer alive. I started collecting baseball cards the year before and had Howser’s ’86 and ’87 Topps issues. I remember looking at his 1987 card and realizing I was holding Howser’s last baseball card.

Brain cancer drifted out of my life for a few years while I was in college. In 2003 however, the same year I graduated with my bachelors in Creative Writing, brain cancer’s horrible head re-emerged when former Mets relief pitcher Tug McGraw was diagnosed with brain cancer. When I started following the Mets, my Dad told me about Tug and the other the legendary heroes of the 1969 and ’73 Met teams. They were a big deal in Mets lore and history. It was Tug, for example, who coined the “Ya Gotta Believe” slogan that became a part of Mets lore. And it was Tug who hosted Baseball Funny Side Up, one of my favorite baseball blooper films of all-time and a video I watched repeatedly through the late ’80s and early ’90s.

Like Lance Armstrong, Tug McGraw’s cancer had an effect on my father. Not only was Tug a member of the Mets teams he followed during his teens and early 20s, but by the time of Tug’s death in 2004, my Dad was a fan of Tug’s son, country star Tim McGraw. I remember my dad telling me about Tim McGraw’s tribute to his father in Citizen’s Bank Ballpark before Game 3 of the 2008 World Series, which was coincidentally against the Tampa Bay Rays and only one game removed from the Phillies-Rays contest in St. Petersburg that my dad and I attended. It was the first World Series game my father had been to since Game 5 of the 1969 series.

On February 16th, 2012, a day removed from 21 years since my brother’s passing, former Mets catcher Gary Carter succumbed to a malignant brain tumor. While Tug McGraw was the emotional leader of the 1973 Mets, Carter was one of the leaders of the 1986 Mets, the first baseball team I followed closely. Although I was more of a Darryl Strawberry fan, I appreciated Carter as one of the key pieces of what made the Mets World Champions. He was the best catcher in the National League and he was a Met, which automatically made him my favorite catcher.

I remember attending a Mets game with my Dad at Shea Stadium in 1989 (possibly July 25th) and seeing one of the 50 games Carter played that year. Whereas he had played over 130 games in the six years since, injuries and knee pain had caught up to Carter and severely diminished his ability to contribute to my favorite team.

As Carter came to bat after a lengthy stay on the disabled list, most of Shea Stadium stood in applause. If I remember correctly, the Mets had already stated that neither Carter nor Keith Hernandez would be returning the next season. So for many fans, Carter’s return from injury was a great time to show “The Kid” their appreciation. The many fans, however, did not include me. As they stood and cheered, I booed Carter. In all honesty, I was only 11 years old and I wasn’t so much booing Carter the man, but Carter the baseball player who was hitting far below .200 and struggling to play the game that came so easy to him a few years earlier.

When my Dad heard me booing Carter, he turned to me and said, “I thought you liked Carter. Why are you booing?”

I looked at my Dad and said, “I’m not booing him, I am booing his knees.”

It made sense to me at time.

In closing, I would like to let out one more very hearty boo. A boo not directed towards any of the people mentioned in this post, from those who were family to those I followed as a fan, but to brain cancer. Brain cancer that took away fellow Florida State Seminole Kimmy Carter’s father, Tim McGraw’s father, a former Royals manager and one of the best baseball players in FSU history, a prominent US Army general, and thousands of others.

Including my brother.

(Image from mymetsjournal.blogspot.com)

I found two interesting articles last week on the overreactions of governments to speech on the Internet.

In Morocco, an 18-year old was arrested for posting an unflattering image of the king on Facebook. The government claimed the youth was “defaming Morocco’s sacred values”.  As a response, several Moroccans set up Facebook group pages and posted as many unflattering pictures of the king as they could find.

Meanwhile, in the land of the free and the home of the brave, two Europeans were denied entry into the United States after one of them tweeted that they were going to “destroy” America. Of course, the two enthusiastic travelers didn’t mean they were going to send America back to the Stone Age, they merely meant they were going to party. But the all-knowing Homeland Security booted the pair and sent them back across the Atlantic.

Big Brother and The Man are watching here, there, and everywhere.

Stability (n) – the quality, state, or degree of being stable: the strength to stand or endure : firmness

Most people go through some form of moving in their lives. Few people stay in one place for all their years. Some professions force people to live their lives in a suitcase, constantly moving to gain or maintain work. Others travel without work, migrating from the north to the south and from the east to the west and vice versa without a dollar or a care. They are the personification of Metallica’s “rover, wanderer, nomad, vagabond”.

For most of the second half of my life, I’ve been a mover. Not a mover in the “movers and shakers” mold, or a mover in the furniture mover sort of way (although that played a part), but a mover in the itinerant vagabond sort of way. To date, I have never lived in one place more than eight years, and those were both residencies in my parents’ houses from 2 to 10 years old and 10 to 17 years old.

In the 16 years since I’ve been 18, I’ve become nearly nomadic, living in 19 different places for at least two months, and that doesn’t include two weeks in a friend’s house while I waited for an apartment to be cleaned and cleared. That number also doesn’t include my two-month business trip to the Middle East in 2009. And now I am preparing to add two more locations to the list in the next 14 months when I go to Afghanistan for a year and then wherever I end up when I get back, whether it be Tampa or wherever.

As I prepare for my year overseas, it is rapidly dawning on me that I’m tired of moving. I’m tired of packing. I’m tired of restarting. And I am tired of not having a home of my own.

Nowhere I have lived thus far on my own has been a “home”. While they have been fun on occasion, they have more or less been temporary places to hold my stuff as I figure out my next move. My tendency to relocate has been so bad in recent years that I didn’t bother unpacking several boxes in my latest apartment because I knew I wouldn’t need their contents. And by staying packed, these unused belongings would be ready for the next move, where they may or may not be used.

My mentality and temporal nature became so bad over the last few years that I didn’t even have a social-based living area in my apartment. No living room, great room, or any room with more than one chair. While I moved my sofa bed into my spare bedroom for guests who never showed, what was supposed to be a living room was spot for a cheap futon I never bought and an entertainment center that was never purchased. But of course I intended the new furniture to be cheap so it could be moved easy or departed with if needed. Something probably by IKEA.

I also think that besides having an effect on my living conditions, my mobile existence had an effect on my social life. One on hand, my phone book and social friends lists are a patchwork of personalities and perspectives from around the country and various parts of the world. Which is really cool to me. There is a recent article on Wired.com where people are found to more likely associate with people with commonalities that reinforce their viewpoints. That’s quite common, but because I’ve needed to make friends and adapt with different people in different places I like to think I am not like that as much as the average person.

Combined with the various people from various places I have “met” online, I like to think I have cultivated several “families”, each made up of people whom I share at least one common interest. I have my blood family, my Army family, my FSU family, my pro wrestling fan family, my Rays fan family, and my geographic families in Tallahassee and Tampa.

There is a line by hip-hop artist Jay Electronica in his song “Exhibit C” in which he says “I have a lot of family, you have a lot of fans. That’s why my people got my back like the Verizon man.” Like the itinerant hip-hop artist, I like to think this represents me as well. I’ve done several long semi-cross country drives for example and stopped along the way at various friends’ houses. Everyone I have stayed close to is the kind of friend willing to open their home to a familiar traveler. They also frequently support me in whatever crazy adventure I get myself involved in, whether it’s wishing me luck on my journey to Afghanistan or checking out my YouTube comedy clips.

Although having many friends throughout the years and across the miles is an awesome result of an adult life of travel, I can’t help but think wandering these empty roads has been detrimental to finding Ms. Right. There aren’t too many women who live nomadic lives. Most of the women I’ve met and tend to be attracted to are home-orientated, perhaps because I eventually want someone to be there for my happy home, whenever that happens. But I think many of these women see me as inconsistent and unsettled, not ready to put down the roots needed to make a home and raise a family. They are by and large looking for a guy who will be in one place for a while, one who is stable, and not likely to blow away when the next wind of adventure blows.

While I used to think that was boring and a waste of time sitting in one place when there is a whole world to discover, I eventually want to be that type of guy. Definitely not this year, and maybe not in the next, but hopefully within the next five years. Traveling has its advantages, but I want a home to come home to after a tough day at work. A place that reflects me, yet somewhere people will want to visit and come back to. I want a place I can host family and friends, and definitely the occasional date. I want a spot that shows my interests in academics, sports, music, and Star Wars, but doesn’t look like a bachelor pad.

I want it to look like … wait, scratch that, I want it to be a home.

Here is a quick synopsis of my residences since 1995:

Parent’s House – Melbourne, FL

Fort Leonard Wood, MO

Fort Huachuca, AZ

Fort Hood, TX

Camp Bedrock, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Fort Hood, TX

Parent’s House – Melbourne, FL

Salley Hall room 1 – Tallahassee, FL

Salley Hall room 2 – Tallahassee, FL

Melbourne, FL

APT 1 – Tallahassee, FL

APT 2 – Tallahassee, FL

Sub-lease 1 – Tallahassee, FL

Friend’s spare bedroom – Tallahassee, FL

Ghetto APT – Tallahassee, FL

Different friend’s spare bedroom – Tallahassee, FL

APT 1 – Brandon, FL

APT 2 – Brandon, FL

APT 1 – Tampa, FL

After being laid off several months ago, I did everything I could to find work. I did lunches with power brokers and went broke at power lunches. I signed up for new job sites and cited new job signs. I looked in nooks and crannies and looked at jobs for cooks and nannies. Nothing panned out short of washing pans and a hand-out.

Yet despite my own personal failures, I’d recommend all the networking, job sites, lunches, and the like to any job searcher. They all have potential, potentially. But there is one recommended job searching method that I don’t believe is effective in the least. One job searching method that is so horrendously ineffective, so overrated, and so flat-out meritless it is better to be unemployed than to get bathed in its embarrassing embrace.

If you haven’t guessed from the title of the post, I am talking about the Job Fair. The modern day sullen spectacle of utterly useless professional pageantry. A voluntary auction where people beg and butt-kiss for a chance to labor hard hours for The Man.

I’ve been to several job fairs since I lost my last job. From industry specific to general, they’ve all gone the same way: thousands of job hunters get dressed up, shake hands, hand out resumes, collect business cards, and go back to being unemployed. At every job fair it’s the same thing. Rinse and repeat and in two weeks, the hopes and dreams of being employed will wash away.

Even worse, half the recruiters or job reps I’ve talked to have told me to go online to apply or email them my resume. Then why did I get dressed up? Why did I struggle for 15 minutes trying to tie a tie when I could have been checking job fair sites at home while eating Cheetos in my underwear?

So being the connoisseur of capitalistic carnivals that I am, I’ve come to the conclusion that job fairs need to be more interesting, more useful, and more fun. They should be more than just meet and greets. They should be both practical and entertaining.

They should be more like state fairs. Everyone loves state fairs. Why? Because they are awesome. And job fairs need to steal a bit of that awesomeness.

First of all, job fairs need clowns. Lots and lots of clowns. Not just the step-and-fetch-it corporate clowns that are normally at job fairs, but real red-nose, rainbow wig, smiley makeup clowns. Job seekers need to be optimistic, right? There should be clowns to greet people as they walk in to the job fair. And clowns can walk the aisles smiling, making balloon animals, and shocking unsuspecting recruiters with hand buzzers.

Second, job fairs need cotton candy. They need clowns to give out cotton candy when job seekers walk in and then hand out more cotton candy as job seekers peruse the aisles of employers. Cotton candy is much better than the piddly plastic pieces of crap and grab bag garbage job fair sponsors and booths usually give out these days.

Third, job fairs need games. They need bottle toss. They need ring toss. They need duck shoot. They need the games that make state fairs so fun. The games that award giant stuffed Kung Fu Pandas and goldfish that die in two days. Games at job fairs however would give different prizes and wouldn’t cost the price of a token. Job fair games would cost only a copy of a resume and would award the player first consideration for any job they want to be considered for at any employer at the job fair. I think that’s fair fare.

Games need to be prevalent throughout the fair and held not by the job fair sponsors but also by each individual job stand. These games would be great icebreakers instead of the played out boring song and dance of “Hi, my name is … and I am looking for a position as a …”. That is not only dull, but tells nothing about the person. State fair-type games would give employers insight into how competitive the person is and whether or not they have an aggressive killer instinct. Some companies might find killer competitiveness important, and some might find it a turn-off.

Another staple of the state fair that I want to see is the highly entertaining freak show. Instead of the traditional freaks of the natural world such as the bearded lady or the world’s smallest, tallest, or fattest man, however, I’d like to see the freaks of the corporate world such as the woman who swims in perfume, the ageless man who won’t retire, the middle manager with the permanent brown nose, and the man who eats tuna for lunch every day. Some companies could even donate freakish absurd objects such as the coffee pot that was never cleaned or the fax machine that actually worked.

State fairs are also known for their pageants of pigs and cows and other farm animals. Job fairs should emulate these fair standards as well. They should hold secretary pageants or janitor pageants, for example. Secretary pageants wouldn’t be beauty pageants, of course, because those are sexist. Job fair secretary pageants would showcase real secretarial skills such as typing, dictation, coffee making skills, and the ability to perk up the boss when needed. I’ll let your imagination run with that.

Finally, no state fair would be complete without an elephant ride. And job fairs should also incorporate these amazing staples of mammalian movement. Instead of riding the elephant as visitors would at a state fair however, elephant events at job fairs would instruct prospective job hunters to pick up plodding pachyderm poop as fat cat CEOs ride atop eating grapes served by beautiful buxom blondes in bikinis.

Hey, not all jobs are fair, even at the job fair.

Amidst running around like a chicken with his head cut off getting ready to depart for the great Afghan wilderness, I found some time to write a few pieces for a few websites.

Over at the Tampa Bay Times, I wrote a profile piece on Nick Major, a mainstay in the Tampa hip-hop scene. I have known Nick since his days with All-Stars Wrestling of Florida and in my opinion, although his wrestling promotion was a local favorite of mine, his skills at putting together a hip-hop show is far, far better.

Over at Bus Leagues Baseball, I wrote about what promotions I would like to see happen in Minor League Baseball in 2012. Among my ideas are a Star Wars night in the Florida State League and the destruction of the worst minor league movie ever.

Finally, and speaking again about wrestling, I cameoed at The Wrestling Blog again, this time with a post on why Impact Wrestling should move from its current location in Orlando.

Dear Jimmy,

May I call you Jimmy? I saw a guest on your show call you Jimmy. But I am not a guest. I am a resident. A resident of Tampa, Florida. And additionally, I am also a comic and writer here in Tampa. I’ve performed at the Tampa Improv a few times. Sure they were showcase shows and open mics, but you have to start somewhere, right?

And that brings me to why I am writing. I recently read that you had some not so nice things to say about the city I call home. Twenty years ago, you were kinda sorta right where I am now, a nobody in the grand scheme of entertainment trying to claw and scratch your way up at whatever venue or venture would take you. In your case, it was the Q-105 radio show. For me, it is comedy open mics, sports blogging, and freelance music writing.

So what’s with the Tampa hate, man?

Sure, you are a big time talk show host and a celebrity with tons of credits and acclaim, but that’s no reason to piss on your roots. There are many other comics and entertainers here trying to entertain and make people laugh, some of whom actually like living in Tampa or even claim Tampa in their biographies. Many would love to be in your shoes one day.

What you said about Tampa hurt, Jimmy. It hurt my heart. It hurt my soul. It hurt some places only the strippers in Tampa can make better.

Like you, I’ve had some bad times here in Tampa. I had my car broke into, I’ve had friends assaulted, I’ve lost two jobs. I even got food poisoning. But you know what, I still like it here. And if I ever make it big, I’m not going to bad mouth a city over a few bad experiences.

That said, Jimmy, I would like to extend an invitation to you to come back to Tampa and check out what we have going on and maybe tell us how we can be better. I’d like to see you help, not hurt, Jimmy. Unfortunately, however, I will not be in town for the next year. The economy here is so bad for people with my skill set that after almost a year of being unemployed, I had to find a job in Afghanistan. So I’ll be there.

But, in closing, Jimmy, if I could call you Jimmy, I wish you the best with your show and I hope someone else makes it from Tampa, someone who is a little nicer to their humble beginnings. Like my great-granddaddy once said, you can’t grow a good mullet if you pull out all your roots.

Best,

Mike Lortz

Here are a few links I found interesting today as I was catching up on my Google Reader feeds.

First, a great read on Etta James by Rebel Frequencies. I never got into Etta James, but I think it is damn past time for me to do so, especially after reading this.

A really cool description of political songs in Sierra Leone and their effect on elections (with videos).

Rebel Frequencies interviewed Egyptian political hip-hop group Arabian Knightz. Very cool insight on the Egyptian scene and the message coming from there.

Finally, a video from several Columbian hip-hop artists in a song that translated means “Conspiracy for Peace”. Interesting to see such a wide swath of the Columbian hip-hop culture. There are parts that resemble the LA scene, there is the skateboarder scene, and all four of the “essential” elements of hip-hop: MCing, DJing, break dancing, and graffiti.

Yesterday I posted an article I wrote about my time at Camp Bedrock in Bosnia in 1998-99. While I was posting it I googled “Camp Bedrock” and found this really cool video. While not as cool as “Flash vs The Aliens” (humble brag), it is pretty awesome and brought back some very cool memories.

Here is another essay I wrote 10 years ago for an Article and Essay class. It is about my experiences while deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1998-99. Being that I am headed for another long trip working with the military, I think it is fitting to post this here now.

Everything was in place for a good meal: good food, good conversations, good people, and machine guns.  The fortunate, like me, had 9mm pistols instead of M16 rifles.  Thousands of miles from home, it was time to eat at Camp Bedrock, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

To this day I am thankful the Army knew the importance of food on the morale of a soldier.  The dining facility (aka cafeteria) was nothing to laugh at.  It was one of the few semi-permanent buildings on a makeshift basecamp on the top of a rock quarry.  Possibly its best feature was that it was open 24 hours a day.  Bland white walls with our unit crest –the 1st Cavalry Division horse head- posted throughout, marked its interior like a bad attempt at brainwashing.  In the corners of the dining facility sat two large screen televisions, permanently set on the Armed Forces Overseas Network.

We took shifts from duty throughout the day to enjoy a meal made by local Bosnian workers.  Usual American entrees graced the buffet-like area.  An array of vegetables, starches, and meats were on my plate as I walked out to the seating area.

Work in the command post introduced me to many of the other soldiers in my unit.  After a second perusing who was in the dining facility, I knew exactly whom I wanted to eat with.  I walked over to the long white table and took a seat on the plastic white chair right across from Sergeant First Class Smith, Uncle Kev to his friends.

Uncle Kev was an army “lifer”, with about 16 years in service.  A short guy, with a bit of an attitude, he loved to rub people the wrong way.  To his friends and others who may be fortunate enough to share his extremely dry wit, Uncle Kev was the man.

Sitting besides me at the table was Specialist Wayne.  Wayne was very unique, to say the least.  He was one of the few people I have ever met who called his beer belly a “Buddha Belly” and claimed it attracted women.  Wayne’s physical “attributes” didn’t end there.  He would often have trouble eating due to the fact that he lost his two front teeth.  This unfortunate predicament led Uncle Kev and I to dub him the OTB, or Old Toothless Bastard.

In the Army, everyone has their share of nicknames and I wasn’t an exception.  While in Bosnia, I was known as Lawdy Law (a play on my last name), Busta Zit (for a never forgotten large pimple I had on my forehead for a day), to the HEB- Hoagie Eatin’ Bastard (for my habit of getting late night dining facility sandwiches).

There was never any of the stereotypical military speed eating when Uncle Kev, Wayne, and I were together.  We would constantly poke fun at any target we could find, to include each other.  None of it was malicious; it was all good-natured fun.  Being quick with either a comeback or a new subject was a necessity.

Although we rarely went to the dining facility during prime meal time hours when the dining facility was packed with people, we were never alone.  Because of the around the clock nature of the US peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, there were always soldiers coming to and going from the dining facility.  These soldiers provided some of the most ample targets for humor.

One afternoon, for example, a soldier with an extremely large head entered the dining facility.  Uncle Kev was quick to whisper to Wayne and I that we should look to our left.  Whispering was a very handy tool used quite often when talking about people in our vicinity.  Sure enough, when we saw what Uncle Kev was referring to, Wayne and I laughed.  He did have a huge head.  Then Uncle Kev joined us in laughter, with others in dining facility left to wonder what was so funny.  Situations like that made it very hard to get any food eaten so we could return to work.

After our seven months being stationed in Bosnia, my unit deployed back to the states.  Although Wayne, Uncle Kev, and myself would get together to eat sometimes, nothing we said or did would compare to the times when humor got us through the day thousands of miles from home.