Iraqi Secret

Best
of all, you will never have to kiss anybody's ass for money... ever
again

Listen up: A long time ago, I met a
man I thought I despised. I was in the Army in Fort Knox, Kentucky in
basic training. He was a little Puerto Rican guy and he was my platoon
sergeant. He was very unfair to me. Once, we were going
through tear gas training and my mask slipped off and I got sick.
During the march back to camp, I felt so bad, I fell down. I figured my
sergeant would tell some of the other guys to hold me up and help me
make it back.

However, he didn't "exactly" do
that. No, instead he yelled to the other guys... "Don't
stop for him! Walk right over him! Kick him as you go by! KICK HIM!"

I
got up and made it all by myself.

He hardly
ever let me get any sleep either. Maybe an average of three hours per
night. He made me the "goat" of the platoon. I got all the shitty
assignments. No matter how bad I felt, how little sleep I got, he just
kept pushing... pushing... and pushing me. I can still remember him
yelling at me right after I'd field-stripped my M1 rifle (that dates
me, doesn't it?) and was having trouble putting it back together.

This
guy just didn't care. Like I said, it didn't matter if I was sick,
exhausted from lack of sleep, nauseous from tear gas or whatever. He
just kept pushing, yelling and
forcing me to perform.

I

hated
him. I mean, I REALLY hated him.

Or,
so I thought. You see, when basic training was over (finally, thank
God), he had a private conversation with me. He told me not to have a bad opinion of myself. That
he
didn't. He said that during every basic training bootcamp, there is
always one guy who gets picked to be the "goat"... and... how
that guy
always gets pushed harder than the others. How the "goat" sort of sets
the standard (in basic training) for what a soldier can endure. He told
me he really cared about me. How much he wanted me to make it. How
important that was to him.

He
was telling the truth.

You
know, since that time, I've had to (as I'm sure you have also) walk
down many mean streets. For three years I was an MP in Europe operating
under extremely stressful conditions. I was selected to go through some
very special training at a certain U.S. government "facility" in
Oberammergau, Germany... the existence of which... is not even dreamed
about by any civilians and, very few
commanding officers. Even in the highest echelons of the military. I
think maybe I shouldn't write much about that but, I can tell you, the violent types I was
introduced to there are far worse than any nightmare you've ever had. I've been a prison guard and a
prison inmate. I've gone up against guys with guns, guys with knives...
and once... I had to cripple a guy twice my size who just simply gave
me no other choice.