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A soldier died today. He wasn't in my squad or platoon or even my troop. In fact, he wasn't even in our entire area of operation. The only way we knew about it was due to the blackout in the MWR.

Tonight during my guard shift an Afghan decided to light up a joint of hashish. The smell brought back memories, but I wasn't too happy. During fighting season these Afghan guards are going to be worthless and will probably give our position away in the middle of the night more than once. Hopefully they get shot instead of us.

The trip to Germany was never on the official schedule until I arrived in Italy. In basic I dropped my ranger contract for my duty station of choice and chose Italy. In between Basic and airborne school I found out I was pinpointed for the 1st 503rd infantry regiment of the 173rd airborne combat team (or brigade).

After airborne school I took leave back home in Colorado. A buddy of mine was also going back to Colorado so we decided to buy our plane tickets together. My father had accumulated a bunch of flyer points with a particular airline and decided to use them to buy us tickets back to Denver from the Atlanta airport in Georgia. Unfortunately we couldn't leave the day of airborne graduation so we hitched a ride to the Atlanta airport and found a nearby hotel that was running a discount for soldiers. That night we drank at a local bar and smoked cigarettes on the balcony of our hotel room. I began to finally feel like I was on the verge of adventure, the kind you only read about in books. The next morning we flew back to Denver where an old friend of mine picked me up and we met up with my battle buddy's brother. I-70 was a sight for sore eyes after 4 months in Georgia.

The next 23 days of leave felt like one long drunken weekend. If I wasn't at some bar watching the Avalanche play while drinking copious amounts of Fat Tire, I was at a friends house drinking copious amounts of keystone ice and playing my bass guitar. I was always thinking about getting laid, but it never really happened. I met a lot of women, but didn't care. It was nice enough just having a beautiful face around.

It got to the point where all I knew to do was drink. When I wasn't doing that I was eating or working out. It felt wrong at first to not have a drill sergeant around telling me what I had to do that day. Not having some sort of formation to look forward to was hard to deal with. Listening to the civilians whine about their easy lives got on my nerves and I broke down one night in front of my friend. It was a bit of a culture shock I suppose. I really can't explain it. The Army had changed me.

The last night of my stay in Colorado I drank until I puked. I passed out next to the toilet and my brother got a choice photo of me with one arm still resting on the porcelain. That morning my flight left at 8am. In order to make it in time we had to show up at DIA around 6. My brother woke me up in the bathroom at my friends house at 4:10. We had about an hours drive back to my parents house where my bags were and an hours drive from there to the airport.

I met my friend at the terminal and we were boarding without a second thought. We flew from Denver back to Atlanta where we had government tickets to our final destinations. My buddy was on his way to Vilsec Germany to be a part of a mechanized infantry unit, while I was on my way to Vicenza Italy to be a part of an airborne, light infantry unit. He was jealous, but we promised to hang out before we deployed to Afghanistan. I was leaving much sooner than him. The 173rd was deploying at the end of that year and his unit wasn't leaving until about march or may of next year.

I was still drunk by the time we got to Atlanta. We sat around the airport and ate a bit before finding a hotel room. His flight left the next day and mine a day after that. The hotel we stayed at last time was still running their 40$ a night offer for soldiers so we hit that up. That night we drank again and I never really recovered until I got to Italy.

When it came time for my flight to leave Atlanta I met up with a bunch of the guys I went to basic with. We were all tired and a bit anxious. No one knew what was really going on and I was still hung over so I stayed mostly to myself.

We flew from Atlanta to the Kennedy airport in New York, the layover was about 3 hours and we were back on a plane across the pond to Venice.

I have no idea how long the flight was. I just remember falling asleep before we took off and waking up in the air like it was no big deal. I've been on many planes before and I was never afraid of flying, but for some reason during the last flight I think I finally got used to it. I wondered if this was how my father felt and went back to sleep.

I woke up in Venice and we followed the crowd off the plane to baggage claim. There we met up with a few sergeants who were a part of some courtesy patrol and they organized some transportation for us to Vicenza where the US Army base was.

Once we got there we were rushed into processing. However, as soon as we reported to staff duty we were told that we were going to be sent to Germany to be a part of a different unit. At first I was a bit upset, everyone was. However, Germany didn't sound so bad and as long as I wasn't going back to the US I was happy. We spent the next six days in Vicenza doing PT and random details, waiting for more of us to show up so they could schedule a bus over the mountains into Germany.

I'll never forget meeting the brigade sergeant major. One day during PT formation he walked up to all of us and asked who ran under a 13 minute 2 mile. I slowly raised my hand with 4 other guys and that morning we ran with the sergeant major. He took us up and down one of the small mountains in the middle of Vicenza and through the town itself. We estimated that we ran about 10 miles overall and I had never felt so broken from running. Everything from the soles of my feet to my hamstrings and quads were burning. Walking to formation the next day was a challenge.

I did it though, and I got to see more of Italy than the rest of us who were being sent to Germany.

It snowed another foot or so today. Its been snowing for about 4 days now. The locals were supposed to have a Shura today, which is basically a political meeting amongst the governors and the elders of all the surrounding tribes. The whole thing was going to be hosted by the ANA and the ANP with security being provided by us.

I was thinking that for the next year I won't see a single woman. There are the occasional military females that run through out combat outpost, but they have lost almost all their estrogen so I don't even count them. There are also the local females, but they cover their entire bodies so I can't count them either since I never see them.

A few days later we were on a bus to Schweinfurt Germany. The entire trip took about 12 hours. Somewhere in the mountains of Austria we stopped at a McDonalds to rest a bit and get something to eat. There were 14 of us and we felt like we were on top of the world. We were Army-badass with no borders to limit us.

Sometime around midnight in Schweinfurt Germany on a Friday night a bus pulls past the gates at the Conn Barracks US Army base. We pull up to what looks like a fire station and we're told to get out. We stand outside the bus for a few minutes and I'm thinking the bus driver has no idea what’s going on.

Finally we see a soldier in a maroon beret and he tells us to follow him around the corner. We shuffle inside the squadron staff duty office and wait for my future platoon sergeant to show up and take us to our new rooms.

He is a small man, moves fast, talks faster and changes subjects often enough to keep our attention. He explains to us about him, a little about the 1-91 and says a few things about us and Germany. After that we walk about a mile across base to our new rooms.

I was carrying a duffel bag on my back, a backpack on my front, a smaller non-army duffel bag in my left hand and a garment bag in my right.

Once we arrived we picked our rooms and was given a general direction to where the shopette would be. We were told to show up at formation around 6 am on Monday morning, but until then we were free to do what we want as long as we stayed on base and didn't drink.

We weren't actually supposed to drink until we finished in-processing, but no one ever follows that rule. We actually wouldn't start in-processing for a week later. The fourteen of us met up with 8 more of our basic training buddies on the floor below us and the month of madness before deployment ensued.

The unit was gearing up for deployment, which meant lots of drinking during off hours and no one really paid much attention to the new guys so we didn't have much trouble keeping our noses clean.

Germany from the day we showed up on October 30th to the day we left on December 10th was always cold, windy, and often raining.

During the week we would wake up at 5:30 in the morning to be ready for PT formation at 6:30 and salute the flag at 7. Afterwards we would eat breakfast and head over to staff duty until our NCOs gave us some sort of the task for the day. It was usually something that involved preparing us for deployment. The main body was shipping out on the 29th of November, but since we showed up late we weren't scheduled to ship out until the 10th of December.

From the first weekend in Germany to the last, we were all constantly drinking, smoking, and fucking. Even the squarest amongst us were drug along to some whore house and convinced to drink copious amounts of alcohol. Every Friday immediately after we were released there would be a small line at the ATM to withdraw about 500 Euro per person. We would run straight from there to the gate where there were always taxis waiting. The first destination would usually be some small bar downtown where we could pregame and try to pick up on women who could barely speak any English.

From the small bars downtown we would walk to the first dhoner shop to grab something to eat. From there we usually hit up some other bar or start clubbing. We always tried to avoid the popular places amongst the Americans for fear of running into our leadership or the courtesy patrol.

That wasn't the only rule we followed. The 14 of us all bought cheap prepaid cell phones so we could all stay in touch and agreed to never go anywhere alone. However drunken fights were practically unavoidable.

About a week after we showed up another unit stationed at Conn Barracks were coming back from a year long deployment in Iraq. The 172nd was an infantry unit that hadn't seen any combat all year long. They were also regular infantry while we were airborne and while we were a smaller unit, we had more paratroopers wearing combat infantry badges than they did even after a whole year in Iraq. They came home pissed, they came home anxious, they came home with lots of money, and they came home jealous. We were getting ready to deploy to Afghanistan and we were being told by everyone that our combat infantry badges were practically guaranteed. For some reason the 172nd had it out for the 1-91 and ever since they came home, going out on the town was never the same.

Every Monday morning, someone was missing from formation. They were either on bed rest, or visiting the aid station, getting stitches for some fight the weekend prior. A squad member of mine left the bar for five minutes to get some money from an ATM and was jumped by three guys. The first weekend in December another guy got his wallet stolen and thumped on by five other guys. The first day I spent with my squad we spent all day looking all over Schweinfurt for my future team leader who was missing.

Eventually we started skipping the clubs and going straight to the whore houses just to avoid the 172nd.

The clubs themselves were fun, but not worth accidentally starting a fight. When we showed up in Germany there was already one club that shut down and another one that wasn't allowing the 1-91 in. It wasn't because we were the ones starting the fights, but because the 172nd had all the cash. That, and the owners knew they wouldn't fight amongst themselves.

I only had one favorite club in Schweinfurt anyways. Still no idea what it stands for but W3 was the place to be. It was brand new and even at the end of the month there were still very few Americans who knew about the place. It also supported the largest women to men ratio and I don't think I ever saw an ugly one there.

The one thing that took me a bit of getting used to was the large population of younger people at the clubs. In Germany you can drink at a club if you're 16 years old. and much of the crowd was between 16 and 20. There were very few people older than that ever. It was a bit awkward to come straight from America where sex is so taboo and be rubbing up against 16 year old girls in a hot, sweaty club. However, I eventually relaxed and enjoyed every minute of it. Everyone in Europe was beautiful, and I felt like I was living rich.

It was a bit frustrating as well, and often, after a long night of clubbing, the whore houses were our only release.

My first experience with a whore was one late night after playing beer pong at the barracks, three of us weren't ready to call it quits yet, but we didn't want to go to the club. The other two guys got the idea to go to a place called house 10 and I was down for a new experience. The whore houses in Schweinfurt are literally houses with the living room converted into a bar. Some of them are just large apartments.

House 10 was run by an older lady and as soon as we showed up we were given coronas and cigarettes. We sat around for a bit until one girl pulled a friend upstairs. There were about 5 girls there that night and my other friend kept urging me to pick one. I had 300 euro on me and when a small blonde caught my eye I asked her if she wanted to go upstairs.

She led me up to a decent sized room with a giant bed covered in a leopard print bed sheet with leopard print pillows and a stuffed leopard resting next to it. The scene was something straight out of some hot action flick with rich Japanese gangs and shit. She asked me if I wanted to take a shower. I debated for a second, but thought it a good idea. I was drunk, tired, and probably smelled like cigarettes and alcohol so I ablidged. When I walked back into the room she was looking sexier than before and I was rejuvenated. For 150 euro I got one full hour. She began to undress and when all that was left were her high heels held on with calf long leather straps I told her to stop. I made her keep them on and I enjoyed every second of the next hour.

When my friends heard my story of spending an hour of ecstasy with an amazingly beautiful woman for 150 euro they all wanted to go. I spent the next 4 nights at house 10 and the women there began talking about me to each other. My last night there They all came in the same room after I finished with one of them. They all were looking at me, talking to each other in German or polish or one of those languages. I mentioned something about them talking about me behind my back and one of them spoke up, telling me I'm too sweet, in the only English she knew.

Eventually we calmed down though and I ended up spending most of my free time at some coffee shop where they had fast internet and nude art on the walls.

The trip to Afghanistan still came too soon for me to settle down in Germany.