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Trying something different here. Many times through out the day, I’ll think of a funny scene I would like to write. Of course, it’s not really fitting into a book or anything, it’s just random. Something I would like to put down on paper.

I’m going to call them “Insta-scene”. They don’t fit a story line. Maybe as this goes on, I’ll see scenes of the same characters or something, and there might be related scenes, and maybe that one day can become a book. Then maybe I’ll fit them together. But as is, these are meant to be read separately.

So I’ll go onto my first Insta-scene.

Cheers,

Cuyler Callahan

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The sun beat down on the eight weary soldiers sweating their balls off in their heavy fighting gear. Sweat dripped off their noses, down, into the sand, which eagerly drank the moisture. Three took position behind a clump of rocks left of the house, another three behind an old rusted out car to the left. Two where farther up closer to the house, behind a bunch of sand bags, conveniently placed by the man who sought to defend his house, but now retreated inside. They all had their rifles pointed at the house, safeties off, ready to pull the trigger at the slightest movement.

Sergeant Dusten was up at the front. He had private Ethro beside him. Dusten felt something crawling through his dirty hair under his helmet. He hated to think what it could be. This dirty land was crawling with so many creepy crawlies he just thought it better not to think about it. But of course he did, constantly. He couldn’t even tell what color his hair was anymore. He knew it was grayish brown, but with all the sand and sweat, it looked more like mud. And now his helmet was on, keeping the grime in.

“Hey Ethro, I bet if you just walked in there, told the guy that you’ll fuck his mother if he surrenders, he’ll probably do it. He’s just so grumpy cause his mother hasn’t been laid since his conception, and if momma’s not happy, nobodies happy.” At a stand still like this, sometimes its nice to break the ice, keep things calm. When your all nervous and waiting, people make mistakes.

“Sergeant,” Ethro said, not straying from his sights, ” with all due respect, if I wanted to fuck grandma’s to end war, I’d become a hippie.”

“Ya, suppose,” Dusten chuckled. “Those hippies always thought you could have world peace by making love.” He adjusted his rifle a bit. “All you get from that is a bunch of more retards with more ideas different from everybody else, all ready to fight for their god damned ideas.”

“Hey Sergeant, it gives me a job.” Ethro should have shrugged, but he was trained, keeping his rifle aimed, not moving.

“That it does Ethro.”

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There you go, my first Insta-scene. Something I just thought of, and decided it would be fun to actually write out. Hope you enjoy

Cuyler Callahan

Wow, I haven’t written on this series since march. I want to finish it, but it will probably take one more after this serial. These next couple serials are not going to be as properly written as my last serials. Not sure why I don’t want to write it as proper as the last ones. Guess I just want to finish this series, and kinda losing motivation on it. So I know the last serials where not properly written either. Bad grammar, incorrect spelling, bad writing form. Well this will probably be worse.

Fast and furious, with less correct story telling methods as even the last serials. So lets finish off the story with this serial and the one after and commence.

Enjoy

Cuyler Callahan

Warning: If you are offended by swearing, and some graphic scenes and scenarios, don’t read!

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The next stuff that happened of interest on my time in the field on SQ was setting up barbed wire defenses and flares. Sergeant Moy was with me as I set mine up. Now I felt quite nervous. The stuff they use in these flares is white phosphorous. If I set off the flare on accident while setting it up, I’ll get that stuff all in my skin all over my body. The fire doesn’t stop burning until the phosphorous runs out. Water won’t do anything at all to put it out. There is only one way to get burning phosphorous out of your skin; cut it out.

So of course I’m pretty nervous, I’m setting it up. Sergeant Moy actually gets a bit of a compasionate side I guess you can say, and tells me to, “Calm down Callahan. It’s alright, just take it easy.” He lead me through the process and I set it up. For some reason I get more nervous setting up flares then throwing grenades.

Later I go on a day recce with Sergeant Song. I’m the radio man so I get the big back pack radio. Not really sure how much it ways, but probably close to thirty pounds. It really isn’t much of a problem for me to carry. My problem was the damn gortex boots I put on. Earlier that day I put gortex boots on my feet cause my regular Combat Boots were wet from my recce the night before. They were broke in from wearing them before, but my feet don’t do good in Gortex at all.

On our recce my feet turned into hamburger. They got blisters all over them. The back of my heel felt like it was getting shred to pieces. Sides of my feet got blisters. The bottom wasn’t to bad.

After we got to our recce point, which was a bridge, we sat and talked with Sergeant Song. I leaned against the bridge railing and actually managed to fall asleep basically standing up. “Hey Callahan. You alright brother.” Sergeant Song said. I, startled, stood up real fast.

“No problem Sergeant.”

“Good lets get back.”

We got back to camp and just as we set down our equipment, we get a big old “Ruck Up!” from Warrant Kellog. Next thing you know, we are walking extremely fast, then running, shuffling, with our rucksacks. My feet are bleeding, and I can feel my boots digging into my feet. It’s a quick three kilometer ruck, but it seems like forever with the pain in my feet. One and a half kilometers in, they stop us in a forest and get us to set up our hooches, crawl in, and sleep. I sleep, for about 5 minutes, then a hear that whistling sound. The sound we all hated with a passion.

“Pack up, and Ruck Up!” Sergeant Moy yells. We pack up our hooches, our kit, ruck back up, and walk, run, and shuffle back to the camp. I can’t remember how I made it through the pain. It was bad. I am not totally sure how to explain the pain my feet were in. Maybe I could say it felt like they were cut with knifes and had salt rubbed in. Every time I took a step, my feet felt like somebody was cutting them.

We got back and Warrant Kellog started yelling. “SO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT WAS FOR?” Most of us looked at each other really not even knowing it was punishment. I myself thought the Warrant and staff was trying to feel time and give us some bullshit, for training purposes. But I guess it was meant for something else. Nobody answered the warrant. Most people didn’t know what to say.

“It was because I went down around the trenches and found kit laying all over the place! PUT YOUR SHIT AWAY YOU FUCKTARDS!” Warrant Kellog actually looked like he was going to turn red. But I remembered him telling us to put our shit away, and I guess some of us didn’t, so punishment was called for.

“Now go get some supper,” Kellog said more calm. We got our punishment, he was satisfied.

After supper I changed my boots. Wet or no, I was wearing my combat boots instead of those god forsaken gortex. I vowed from that point on to never wear gortex again. I took off my socks, painfully and looked at my feet. I had a blister on the back of each heel that was the size of a toonie, and stood up about twice a toonies width.

I but on extra socks to cushion the rubbing. Even with my combats, they would still rub now that I had a blister already. Some people swear by gortex, others hate it. I’m a gortex hater. They are basically water proof combat boots. At least that is the way they look. I’m not sure what the big difference is in structure cause they look very much the same. But what ever it is, it fucks my feet bad.

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That night on sentry, shit went real weird on me. Sleep deprivation kicked in, and I had the hallucinations we all talk about. Now mine was not so much my mind making stuff up, but more of my mind playing extreme tricks, along with me being to sleep fucked to tell between dream and real life, or the mixing of them.

So we are sitting in our trench on sentry. Myself, Knight, and Myre. I’m getting that half sleep half awake effect where I’ll see with my eyes, but my brain will turn it into something else. Then I’ll snap full awake, and look around, then doze off again. I never fell fully asleep, but things were getting bad in that department. I start having dreams while awake.

First I didn’t even think I was in a trench on sentry. I thought I was on a night recce following some others through the dark. I don’t know how long that went on, but I remember just walking, and talking with somebody. I had a C-9 and bushwhacked in the dark, trying to follow those in front. I even remember my tille hat getting knocked off my head.

Next thing I know, I think I’m in my trench. But I actually was the whole time, but I thought it was a dream at the time, cause I snapped to and was back in my trench. From my trench to my trench. I know it seems weird, but one trench I was half asleep, the other I was awake.

Then I’m in my hoochie sleeping, but I wake up, in my dream, and I move around trying to get comfortable. Then I sit up and I’m worried that I should be outside not sleeping. So I’m sitting there trying to figure out if I’m dreaming or not. It was so fucked. Like I said, I’m half asleep half awake. I’m dreaming while awake, and enough so that I have mind enough to sit and wonder if I was actually dreaming or not, if I was suppose to be outside.

But the whole time I am in my trench, Knight beside me, Myre beside him. I’m back in my trench again, this time awake enough to realize all the other shit was a weird dream. “Woah,” I said.

“What?” Knight said.

I didn’t want to look retarded. “Nothing, nothing.” I pop in a pinch of skoal hoping the nicotine will wake me up. I look out. I start to see shadows. Running shadows, hundreds of them. They are getting closer, they are over running the trenches. Why is nobody firing? “Shit we are sentry”

“Ya we are man,” Myre says.

“No no.” I am afraid I’m dreaming I don’t want to shoot. I don’t want to get charged for a negligent discharge. So I yell, ” STAND TOO, STAND TOO!” People need to get up and fight. I’m freaking out.

Knight looks at me, “What the fuck man.” I’m freaking. I’m thinking we fucked up big and that the defenses are over run. Both Myre and Knight are freaking cause I’m freaking, but they don’t see what I see.

“STAND TOO! STAND TOO!” I yell again.

“CALLAHAN, shut the fuck up!” Sergent Moy yells at me. I point at the hundreds of men running over the defenses.

“They are everywhere Sergent. Hundreds of them.”

“That is fucking smoke Callahan. I threw it. It is for us. Your seeing shadows. If we had hundreds of GD staff to play as enemy force, well that’s never going to happen on our budget. Don’t worry, your fine. Now watch the fucking defenses, and no more false calls.”

Now thinking back on it. I’m not even sure I got what he said to me properly. He told me the smoke was for us. It was night out, real dark. Nobody can see the smoke- just me the shadows. Did he really throw smoke out for us, or am I just fucked and thinking that’s what he said, but he actually said something else.

After this little dream charade of mine, where I saw stuff I thought was real, but was a dream, saw things from shadows, I could see how mistakes can be made where innocent people are killed in war. For instance, the shadows. What if I was in a real war, and that was just some civilian walking down the road, but the shadows gave him a gun, a helmet? What could happen then where I make the mistake and actually shot? Or the opposite where there are actually enemy forces attacking the fort silently, but I just thought they were shadows and didn’t want to bother sleeping friends. What then? I think sleep deprivation is probably one of the best weapons to use against your enemy.

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I hope you enjoyed. Watch for the series finale coming up… not sure when. Just watch for it.

Cuyler Callahan

Free Flow Writing 28 March 2010

Where is my purpose? The importance in what I do? There are things I want to do, but I feel no more drive to do them, because it doesn’t seem important. I want to write, I want to write amazing stories that make people think, but for some reason the importance of doing so seems to have escaped me.

Sure I could write a great story, with great characters. A story that people can’t put down, they see the world through their eyes, they feel what they feel, they see the importance of the characters goals, and cheer them on, all the while seeing what is changing the character. They will cry with the characters, laugh with them, and truly feel almost as if they are them. This is a great story, something I want to write, but feel no drive to write.

I’ve identified what makes writing important, the need to explore themes. Stories drive our world, inspire us to do better, make us think about who we are, and if we are living the best we can. This is all important to the world, but in the end I can’t seem to make stories seem important any more. I know I could write a good story. But I can’t bring myself to put myself into it, my soul.

Why is this? Why am I not seeing that the stories I could write will be important to the readers? It makes me sad that the motivation, the love of the word I used to have when I was younger has fallen away. My action when I do not write, the stuff I do to waste time is far less important then writing, but I find myself constantly doing them. Playing video games, sleeping, drinking, wasting time on movies.

Why do I do these things more, rather then write more and put good words on paper that others can enjoy. I have been slowly writing my Soldier Qualification Serial and I enjoy it when I do that, but that isn’t something I have to create. It is just my adventures during my course. No real theme or action, just some good times to share with others.

I need to find my motivation, and the importance again to write. I love reading and have been doing so more frequently, just having finished Holly Lisle’s Talyn. I’ m now reading General Rick Hillier’s “A Sodier First”. His Auto Biography. These books are both great. Talyn is a fantasy, and yet inspires great things from its readers. ” A Soldier First” is full of great wisdoms from a great man that changed the face of Canadian Military History and made our army better and more respected then it ever has been in a long time.

These books started off as an idea within the authors mind. They both realized the importance of the written word, and they found the motivation to write their books, and their books have both had a great importance on their readers.

I need to find my motivation, sit down, and write.