Your Motivation is Showing

I know it's been a while since I've posted, but the past few weeks I've been knee-deep in Corporals Course. And I have to say it again: It was way overhyped. It can be difficult sometimes, and super gay other times, but me and some other guys are making it fun. Plus, the instructors, I think, have earned the right to tell us what to do. Their ribbon stack tells their Marine Corps story. All of them have multiple combat action ribbons from different theaters, most of them earned multiple awards for heroism under fire, and a couple were in the big push through Fallujah in 2004, a battle that I think is going to go down in Marine history as on par with Incheon and Hue. I consider myself a closet motivator, so maybe this is that talking, but I think this course is going to help me be a better NCO.

The second or third day of the course, however, I realized that I was lied to. People told me doing this course was going to add 100 points to my cutting score for promotion to sergeant, and I was pretty excited about that. Well, they were wrong, because there are no points added. The instructors say they're prodding their command to get that point-addition thing approved, but it hasn't happened yet. I just recently began rating a score (there's 12 months of ineligibility for corporals to pick up sergeant), and I'm about 90 points short, so this course would've put me over the edge.

I also got sucked into a retirement ceremony that's taking place tomorrow. It's not anyone in my chain of command -- I'm just in the wrong place at the wrong time. A master gunnery sergeant who's the deputy director of the Staff Academy (where this course is taking place) is retiring, so of course there's going to be a big ceremony and a parade and speeches. But the dude's been in my beloved Corps for almost 30 years, so I think I can suck it up and stand in this ungodly heat and humidity for an hour.

I've been too busy and tired to pay much attention to the news lately, but today I've seen stories all over the place about how Iran test launched a bunch of missiles. But the stories aren't really about that -- they're instead about how the Iranians photoshopped the official picture of the event. Apparently one truck's missile didn't fire, so they cut out that truck and added in a fake missile instead.


Scandal! (Pictures shamelessly stolen from littlegreenfootballs.com.)

Look, I'm all about exposing enemy propaganda (yes, Iran is the enemy), but everyone is totally missing the point here. The story is now about the photograph, when it should be about Iran testing missiles that are capable of hitting Israel and -- more importantly -- American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. And my goodness, their nuclear program is steaming along completely unopposed, so imagine if they become able to put nukes on these missiles.

And now they're apparently threatening to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. Remember why the Japanese attacked the US at the beginning of World War II? Mainly because we cut off their oil supply. Everyone can whine and complain about high gas prices and the evil oil companies all they want, but like it or not, oil runs the world market. If Iran wants a war, all they've gotta do is stop traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and cut off that 40% of the world's energy supply. If that happens, I think there may be new battles to add to the Marine Corps' history.