Op Plans
There is a saying in the Army that an Op Plan lasts
about as long as the first five minutes of the operation. That's
too true, because usually something really fucked happens in that first
five minutes and the rest of the operation has to be played by ear.
The plan for tonight was comprised of two stages.
The first stage consisted of an assault on Value City, a place where, reportedly,
phat pants could be found for cheap.
When I got there, I found a whole lotta cheap, but
no phat. How depressing; I searched long and hard, too. Scratch
that objective. On to stage two. But first a little nourishment.
Two piece dark meat chicken (with biscuit, not meal) extra crispy, from
KFC. Yeah I'm gonna die of a coronary, but I will die remembering
the taste of good chicken.
The second phase consisted of invading the Sony
Cineplex and watching as many movies as could be stuffed into an evening
before they closed, most especially "The Story of Us" and "The 6th Sense."
I got there just in time for "Story" so I figured that's first.
Man, that was so painful. From the commercials,
I thought this was a romantic comedy. No fuckin way. Within
the first five minutes there's recognizable echoes of my own lousy failed
marriage going on, and by the time they got to the yelling and throwing
things, I was thinking about walking out. Hell if I wanted to watch
this kinda shit, I woulda stayed in Maryland. This was a bitter,
agonizing divorce drama with occasional comedic moments that did not make
up for the pain of it. If you like that kinda thing, then go for
it. I don't think that many folks who have had or are having divorces
will find it all that entertaining. I cried the whole time, praying
that something redeeming would rise outta all this, but that speech at
the end just wasn't it. I ached and bawled for the entire hour and
a half after the movie that I waited for "Three Kings." Heh, you
thought I was gonna see "6th Sense," right? So did I, but now I wasn't
so sure it was one I could handle. "Kings" I *knew* I wanted to see
- the others just kinda looked good on the commercials.
I really liked "Three Kings." I really, really
liked it. I liked the cinematography, the slowing and quickening
of action, the jumpiness of shots when appropriate, the following bullets
around on their courses. All that was really - uhm - I don't know
an adjective, but it seemed to suck me into participating in my own perception
of the action.
I was also impressed with the level of detail and
accuracy about a lotta stuff. Like the smuggled booze in mouthwash
bottles. Even the ink pen the guy uses is an actual Skillcraft[1].
Black clickable pen with a band of three silver lines around the middle.
Great. The only problem I had was when the Major comes in the tent
and all the enlisted salute him. And he returns the salute.
Stupid. They're indoors, you don't do that indoors, unless an enlisted
is reporting to an officer who sent for them.
I take that back. The other problem is a PFC [2]
with a 9-mil handgun. That's an officer thing. I dunno, I didn't
go North, mebbe they let certain PFCs working with POWs use them there
and then.
Oh well, the Arabic was really good. It sounded
terrific. I have no doubt these were native speakers. They
were using actual Iraqi dialect, not Egyptian or Lebanese. Iraqi
has a lot of Farsi mixed up in it, really distinctive. And all the
accenting was right, not like the way native English Americans fuck it
up, no matter how good they get.
The amount of action was appropriate, and the amount
of compassion was generous. I like that in a war movie. Or
postwar movie. Or whatever. Anyway, this must be seen on the
big screen. I pity the fool watching bootleg on a rinky dink TV screen.
This is a film that should wrap around your face.
So, stage one was a scratch, and stage two was only
50% accomplished as planned. So much for plans.
-- Spring
[1] Look, ma, a footnote.
That never happens. Anyway I wanted to say something about Skillcraft
pens. So pervasive were (are?) they, and they'd have to be, they
are the official US Army pen, that the name has been lent to other activities.
For instance, every year or six months, depending, soldiers have to qualify
with their weapons. When I was in, these were M-16's. Now the
ordinary qualification range had pop-up plastic silhouettes placed at various
distances for soldiers to shoot at. Less well equipped ranges still
used archaic paper targets with silhouettes drawn on in various sizes to
simulate their distances. If you really needed to qualify, and you
were a lousy shot, and you had a less than ethical range operator working
with you, when you were done firing and that person went out to count your
hits, that person could take out the trusty ballpoint pen, which strangely
enough pokes a hole roughly the same size as the rounds you're using, and
add to the number of holes until you have enough to qualify. This
came to be known as the Skillcraft method of weapon qualification.
And it was a no-no. It was additionally funny that if you had the
SKILL in the CRAFT of weaponeering, you wouldn't need the Skillcraft method.
[2] PFC=Private First Class.
That's third from the bottom of the totem pole. That's two levels
below Sergeant. And POW is Prisoner of War, in this case the Iraqi
soldiers.
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