BUDS OF A FEATHER

As Elvis once advised in a song, "enough with the conversation get on with the action", so that's what I did, I joined the army, you know, isn't it something like "Be all that you can be" and I wasn't half what I could be, I kid you not.

I thought I knew all about military being around it from infancy. Truth be told, you don't know how much you don't know. The MOS I wound up with I would not have identified with since before salmon grew fur but I ended up with fur, dog type fur. My pal, my mostest best friend was Crankcase, who was the handsomest devil on four legs responsible for this astonishing feat of mind control.

Well, you see another astonishing feat took place just about then when the president decided to go head to head with Sadam Hussein and off to OEF as Iraq was called, me and Crankcase. It's good to know what you're GOOD at and I'm not being a wise ass. Me and Crankcase got to be known for our expertise on missions. Well, when something's primed to blow up in your face, you do get to honing your abilities to find it.

We found our symbiotic relationship mutually beneficial, me and Cranky, like when I would Ratf$$k an MRE, Cranky could be counted on to finish it. I read his body language and he read mine. Get the defusers quick or maybe it's not a rush job. The bottom line was both our decisions, but this one time, even though we'd been blowed up before, this one time when I didn't stop, look and listen and I overruled Cranky, was what you might say the most stupid thing I ever did, literally and figuratively. When stupidity almost costs the life of another, it's like that Beatle song, You Got To Carry that Weight A Long Time. Anyway, suffice it to say, it blew, and it was Marsalama! Now me and Cranky are decommissioned Rummy's Dummies, him without a left front and me without a right lower. The hole resembled a nuclear bomb blast that should have turned us into hamburger. They tried to take him from my side but a screaming fit from yours truly convinced them otherwise.

I know what you all want and that's the happy ending …..dog and soldier became millionaires and lived happily ever after. Well, I have to tell you, things aren't all bad. They're talking about a movie with Cranky as the star of his story. You see the way they figure it is, a dog with the name Crankcase has got to have star power and

Me? I'm just the collateral damage.

There he sits, that brown-eyed devil, just giving me that Crankcase sly smile. He knows he'll have me laughing inside of five minutes, after he cleans up the MRE.

I DID REAL GOOD DIDN'T I BOSS? You sure did Cranky, but you gotta learn to clean up your language. People are gonna think I'm a bad influence.