She was carried like this for most of that day, she was hot and tired so I didn't blame her, just wish someone could have carried me...
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
A monkey on my back
She was carried like this for most of that day, she was hot and tired so I didn't blame her, just wish someone could have carried me...
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Day 11 Coming to you from north of Hollywood.
Memorable? Yes this trip will be that. A lot has happened since the flat in Oklahoma City. There is good news and there is bad news… The good news is that we get much better gas mileage and the bad news is that we had 800 dollars worth of camping gear and clothing and such stolen from us. We were staying in Amarillo Texas and I didn’t even think to bring the luggage roof case attached to my van into the place we were staying. To make a long story short it was gone in the morning.
That was in Amarillo Texas. The next day we made it to Arizona and the day after (father’s day) was wonderful. I was able to go and see the Grand Canyon with my family. It was my first time there and I have to say that there are no words that would do such a beautiful sight justice so I will not even make the attempt, you must go and see it for yourself. We spent a day after that still in Arizona and the next day (the 19th) we made it to Las Vegas. That is another memorable story…
We stayed in Circus Circus (it was my first time to Vegas as well) and decided to stay for two days. Over the course of those two days we lost 80 dollars (remember I am unemployed so couldn’t blow much more than that). My wife and I were feeling a little sorry for ourselves for not winning anything and then it happened. Our second night there (the night of the 20th) a fire broke out on our hotel floor at about midnight and we had to evacuate the building until almost 3 a.m. When we finally were able to return to our room we luckily didn’t have any damage to our things. I called the main desk and said that there was no way we were going to be paying for staying there that night because for half the night we were outside waiting for the fire to be safely extinguished. I called again in the morning to make sure that before I checked out there would be no charges for our second night there and was pleasantly surprised to find that they must have accidentally taken off both nights so we ended up staying free. I guess sometimes Lady Luck shows herself in unexpected ways.
My trip should be over in a few days but the memories of it will linger for some time (and hopefully if I am any kind of a father my kids will look back on this trip with nostalgia and love). I lived in Monterey California about 5 years ago when I was studying Arabic and so we will be returning there in 2 days time to stay with some old friends who we haven’t seen since I lived there. My journey will finally end when I stop at my best friend’s house in Sacramento California and pick him up to come with us for the final leg up to Portland Oregon.
Please let me know if there are any of you who live in or near Portland Oregon (my blog email is on the right hand side)… Maybe we could get a beer and hang out.
Take care.
Zachary Scott-Singley
That was in Amarillo Texas. The next day we made it to Arizona and the day after (father’s day) was wonderful. I was able to go and see the Grand Canyon with my family. It was my first time there and I have to say that there are no words that would do such a beautiful sight justice so I will not even make the attempt, you must go and see it for yourself. We spent a day after that still in Arizona and the next day (the 19th) we made it to Las Vegas. That is another memorable story…
We stayed in Circus Circus (it was my first time to Vegas as well) and decided to stay for two days. Over the course of those two days we lost 80 dollars (remember I am unemployed so couldn’t blow much more than that). My wife and I were feeling a little sorry for ourselves for not winning anything and then it happened. Our second night there (the night of the 20th) a fire broke out on our hotel floor at about midnight and we had to evacuate the building until almost 3 a.m. When we finally were able to return to our room we luckily didn’t have any damage to our things. I called the main desk and said that there was no way we were going to be paying for staying there that night because for half the night we were outside waiting for the fire to be safely extinguished. I called again in the morning to make sure that before I checked out there would be no charges for our second night there and was pleasantly surprised to find that they must have accidentally taken off both nights so we ended up staying free. I guess sometimes Lady Luck shows herself in unexpected ways.
My trip should be over in a few days but the memories of it will linger for some time (and hopefully if I am any kind of a father my kids will look back on this trip with nostalgia and love). I lived in Monterey California about 5 years ago when I was studying Arabic and so we will be returning there in 2 days time to stay with some old friends who we haven’t seen since I lived there. My journey will finally end when I stop at my best friend’s house in Sacramento California and pick him up to come with us for the final leg up to Portland Oregon.
Please let me know if there are any of you who live in or near Portland Oregon (my blog email is on the right hand side)… Maybe we could get a beer and hang out.
Take care.
Zachary Scott-Singley
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Day Four Across the United States (blogging from Oklahoma right now)
So we are on day four of our trip and so far we have had a lot of fun. National parks have been our lifeline during our travels because of my dog Benny. You may be asking how my luck is holding out on this trip, well if you are asking, the answer is that it hasn't been holding out at all. Today I almost wrecked my van when a tire blew off of my vehicle... Let me explain a little better, I was driving to Oklahoma City when I felt something explode on the rear of the van, the tire didn't pop, but somehow the tread on the tire blew off of it and it looked like I was driving on a balloon tire all of a sudden.
I had to slow down to 20 miles an hour and limp into the nearest tire center which happened to be Walmart. All in all it the price of the new tire was a few dollars shy of 100 so that was an unexpected expense (especially when gas is so high as well).
Something else I would like to explain is about my home and job. I have neither as of yet, but it isn't for lack of trying. I have gone to job fairs, posted my resume all over the net (ie. monster.com, usajobs, hotjobs, etc). I am willing to relocate anywhere in the US or Europe and yet I still can't seem to find work. Something I have to admit is that I have been putting off telling you all about that because it is something I am embarrassed by. My other friends who have left the military have all found work or perused school and I have yet to become a productive member of society. Another thing is that school begins in August for both my children and we still don't know where we will live or if I will even have a job by then (knocking on wood right now). That is enough of my pity party, I just thought I should be honest with those of you who have been so loyal to me during my deployment to Iraq, my homecoming, and my exodus from the US Army.
Take care
Zachary Scott-Singley
I had to slow down to 20 miles an hour and limp into the nearest tire center which happened to be Walmart. All in all it the price of the new tire was a few dollars shy of 100 so that was an unexpected expense (especially when gas is so high as well).
Something else I would like to explain is about my home and job. I have neither as of yet, but it isn't for lack of trying. I have gone to job fairs, posted my resume all over the net (ie. monster.com, usajobs, hotjobs, etc). I am willing to relocate anywhere in the US or Europe and yet I still can't seem to find work. Something I have to admit is that I have been putting off telling you all about that because it is something I am embarrassed by. My other friends who have left the military have all found work or perused school and I have yet to become a productive member of society. Another thing is that school begins in August for both my children and we still don't know where we will live or if I will even have a job by then (knocking on wood right now). That is enough of my pity party, I just thought I should be honest with those of you who have been so loyal to me during my deployment to Iraq, my homecoming, and my exodus from the US Army.
Take care
Zachary Scott-Singley
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
TRIP
So it starts this Sunday, what you ask? Our road trip across America, we will be driving from North Carolina to Oregon. It will be wonderful traveling with my family and showing them some of the things that make this country great.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Sunday, March 12, 2006
A Question Someone Asked Me
Q: Can people win the war?
A: Yes, people can win the war (that is if we are talking about the war in Iraq). My caveat to that is that people from the United States (in particular our military) can not win the war. The people who can are the Iraqis, and that will happen only if they decide they want freedom.
Think about it like this, when you were 16 years old, if your daddy gave you a car you were happy, but it really didn't mean anything to you. If you wrecked it you are back where you started, so you drive it hard and don't really take care of it, however, if you bought your car on your own. You paid for it with your own hard work, and you earned it for yourself then you have a vested interest in that car and you will take the best damn care of it as you can.
The same goes for freedom. You can not give freedom to someone or to a group of someones without them taking it for granted (I am speaking about people who haven't really had it; it is different for a country to be liberated because they are just returning back to the freedom they had before). Look at our revolutionary war, if we had someone else fight it for us and kick out the British we wouldn't be where we are today, there is no way we would have appreciated our given freedom and we would not have been ready to stand on our own legs. The same goes for Iraq. If they really wanted to be free they would have been ready to fight for their own freedom.
That is why I believe that we have the problems with the "insurgency" there. The Iraqis aren't ready to get rid of them themselves because they don't appreciate what our idea of freedom is, and they weren't ready to sacrifice to get their own version of freedom.
A: Yes, people can win the war (that is if we are talking about the war in Iraq). My caveat to that is that people from the United States (in particular our military) can not win the war. The people who can are the Iraqis, and that will happen only if they decide they want freedom.
Think about it like this, when you were 16 years old, if your daddy gave you a car you were happy, but it really didn't mean anything to you. If you wrecked it you are back where you started, so you drive it hard and don't really take care of it, however, if you bought your car on your own. You paid for it with your own hard work, and you earned it for yourself then you have a vested interest in that car and you will take the best damn care of it as you can.
The same goes for freedom. You can not give freedom to someone or to a group of someones without them taking it for granted (I am speaking about people who haven't really had it; it is different for a country to be liberated because they are just returning back to the freedom they had before). Look at our revolutionary war, if we had someone else fight it for us and kick out the British we wouldn't be where we are today, there is no way we would have appreciated our given freedom and we would not have been ready to stand on our own legs. The same goes for Iraq. If they really wanted to be free they would have been ready to fight for their own freedom.
That is why I believe that we have the problems with the "insurgency" there. The Iraqis aren't ready to get rid of them themselves because they don't appreciate what our idea of freedom is, and they weren't ready to sacrifice to get their own version of freedom.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Something Interesting I found in the News
Pace: Torture, Killings Widespread in Iraq
By ED JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer SYDNEY, Australia -
Human rights abuses in Iraq are as bad now as they were under Saddam Hussein, as lawlessness and sectarian violence sweep the country, the former U.N. human rights chief in Iraq said Thursday. John Pace, who last month left his post as director of the human rights office at the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, said the level of extra-judicial executions and torture is soaring, and morgue workers are being threatened by both government-backed militia and insurgents not to properly investigate deaths.
"Under Saddam, if you agreed to forgo your basic right to freedom of expression and thought, you were physically more or less OK," Pace said in an interview with The Associated Press. "But now, no. Here, you have a primitive, chaotic situation where anybody can do anything they want to anyone."
Pace, who was born in Malta but now resides in Australia, said that while the scale of atrocity under Saddam was "daunting," now nobody is safe from abuse. "It is certainly as bad," he said. "It extends over a much wider section of the population than it did under Saddam."
Pace, currently a visiting fellow at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, spoke as sectarian tensions in Iraq push the country to the brink of civil war. There has been a surge in religious violence in Iraq since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in the mainly Sunni city of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, and a spate of reprisal attacks against Sunnis.
The situation has been made worse by extremist Shiite militia operating within the ranks of the Interior Ministry, said Pace, who singled out the Badr Brigade, which makes up a large chunk of the Iraqi security services and military. He said militia and insurgents are responsible for threatening morgue staff in Baghdad not to perform autopsies on bodies of apparent victims of torture and killings. "They are told it is not necessary, and not in their interests," he said, adding that both militia and insurgents were "trying to minimize any chances" that their activities could be investigated and prosecuted.
Pace, who spent much of his two years in the post in Iraq, said he visited the morgue in Baghdad once a week when he was in the city and regarded it as a "barometer" of the level of violence in the country. He declined to provide more specific details about the threats, citing fears for the safety of morgue workers. He said that around three-quarters of the several hundred bodies brought to the morgue each month were categorized with "gunshot wound" as the cause of death -- a phrase Pace says is a euphemism. "Nearly all were executed and tortured," he added.
Iraq's interior minister, Bayan Jabr, is a member of Iraq's biggest Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, which ran the Badr Brigade. Badr claims it is no longer an armed militia. But former Badr commanders hold key posts in Interior Ministry commando units, which are regarded by Sunnis as nothing more than death squads. In November, the U.S. Army raided an Interior Ministry bunker in Baghdad and found 158 tortured and starved Sunni prisoners. "They have caused havoc," said Pace, referring to the Badr Brigade. "They do basically as they please. They arrest people, they torture people, they execute people, they detain people, they negotiate ransom and they do that with impunity."
By ED JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer SYDNEY, Australia -
Human rights abuses in Iraq are as bad now as they were under Saddam Hussein, as lawlessness and sectarian violence sweep the country, the former U.N. human rights chief in Iraq said Thursday. John Pace, who last month left his post as director of the human rights office at the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, said the level of extra-judicial executions and torture is soaring, and morgue workers are being threatened by both government-backed militia and insurgents not to properly investigate deaths.
"Under Saddam, if you agreed to forgo your basic right to freedom of expression and thought, you were physically more or less OK," Pace said in an interview with The Associated Press. "But now, no. Here, you have a primitive, chaotic situation where anybody can do anything they want to anyone."
Pace, who was born in Malta but now resides in Australia, said that while the scale of atrocity under Saddam was "daunting," now nobody is safe from abuse. "It is certainly as bad," he said. "It extends over a much wider section of the population than it did under Saddam."
Pace, currently a visiting fellow at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, spoke as sectarian tensions in Iraq push the country to the brink of civil war. There has been a surge in religious violence in Iraq since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in the mainly Sunni city of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, and a spate of reprisal attacks against Sunnis.
The situation has been made worse by extremist Shiite militia operating within the ranks of the Interior Ministry, said Pace, who singled out the Badr Brigade, which makes up a large chunk of the Iraqi security services and military. He said militia and insurgents are responsible for threatening morgue staff in Baghdad not to perform autopsies on bodies of apparent victims of torture and killings. "They are told it is not necessary, and not in their interests," he said, adding that both militia and insurgents were "trying to minimize any chances" that their activities could be investigated and prosecuted.
Pace, who spent much of his two years in the post in Iraq, said he visited the morgue in Baghdad once a week when he was in the city and regarded it as a "barometer" of the level of violence in the country. He declined to provide more specific details about the threats, citing fears for the safety of morgue workers. He said that around three-quarters of the several hundred bodies brought to the morgue each month were categorized with "gunshot wound" as the cause of death -- a phrase Pace says is a euphemism. "Nearly all were executed and tortured," he added.
Iraq's interior minister, Bayan Jabr, is a member of Iraq's biggest Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, which ran the Badr Brigade. Badr claims it is no longer an armed militia. But former Badr commanders hold key posts in Interior Ministry commando units, which are regarded by Sunnis as nothing more than death squads. In November, the U.S. Army raided an Interior Ministry bunker in Baghdad and found 158 tortured and starved Sunni prisoners. "They have caused havoc," said Pace, referring to the Badr Brigade. "They do basically as they please. They arrest people, they torture people, they execute people, they detain people, they negotiate ransom and they do that with impunity."
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