16 October 1999
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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