Dogs and Soldiers Keep Out

I apologize for this rant. I normally laugh these things off, but I am using the blog as a form of therapy tonight.

We got kicked out of the US Embassy for swimming yesterday. You'd think there’s a story there. You might think it involves alcohol, nudity, and raucous behavior. Nope. Just the fact that we are soldiers.

The State Department is very jealous of perogatives. We were told that they have very strict and limited funding and so using their washers and dryers, their pool, their volleyball court, would stress the budget to the breaking point.

This would be believable if: we were carting off buckets of water, wheelbarrows full of sand, or even knew where the laundry facilities were and didn't want to use the free laundry service at our camp.

Friday morning until lunch we have "off." This is the only time, perhaps four hours a week, that we could possibly use the pool. And if the State Department people stayed on the Embassy compound and didn't use anyone else's services, then I would find this to be fair.

Of course, this is not reality. They descend like locusts every Friday and Saturday (they get two days off a week, not four hours a week) to strip our camp store, or PX. The line for lunch and dinner swells to hour long waits because of the two hundred or so Staties who come for a change of scenery and barbecued burgers.

I once tried to eat dinner at the Embassy with some FBI types. I was unwelcome. The FBI guys had to pay my way in. Somehow the FBI doesn't consider the Army to be beneath them.

If the military must visit the Embassy for official duties, we are told our weapons must be concealed. Rifles of any sort are forbidden. They are too scary and give the wrong impression that there is a war in Afghanistan.

I guess it's like a country club: the elite Staties with noses in the air and teeth clenched want to keep their lawns green and pool clean while retaining the freedom to slum with the low-class soldiers.

Maybe someone could write a country song, or better, make a movie.

Oh wait, Caddyshack. I just don't want to be Danny.