Normally all I want to do is kill some time with a cell phone game, not become entrapped into some story.

 I'm still going back in the Army, but I've decided to go the easy way this time. First time I joined, as some might know, I did the Infantry route. Now this time I've picked up my trumpet again and decided to go into the Army Band. I used to be pretty good back in high school, but that was many years ago, so it's a process of rebuilding my chops to be able to perform again. I should be fine, my private lesson instructor said that I should have no problem getting in. I'm fortunate because I live 20 minutes from the Armed Forces School of Music, meaning I can go up there to meet people. Face time is a good thing, if they recognize me and like me, there's a good chance they'll accept me.

As for gaming, I've been trying out Crackdown for the first time. It's not as bad as I initially thought, once you start getting agility orbs it starts to get better. The control system is kind of wacky, but once you learn to leap that hurdle all is okay. It did spark more interest in Saints Row 2 again, I guess the sandbox aspect of it all attracted me back to the other game.

Yesterday Battlefield 1943 came out but it may as well of came out today. I hardly played any of it because of EA not having enough servers.  That's a pretty shitty excuse in my book, but hey - it is what it is.  What little time I did play I really enjoyed. I do see the 3 (4) maps not being enough, but hopefully with all the attention the game has gotten at launch they realize the people still want to play it!  We'll have to wait and see.

Two nights ago, my band nerdiness came out in full force. I went to the local DCI show in Suffolk, VA. DCI is 'marching musics major league.'  All kids 21 and under that are pretty damn good at playing their instruments. Watching them brought me back to when I marched back in 1997. It was a one of a kind experience. to make it even more enjoyable, the corp that I marched with, Carolina Crown, won 1st place.  Beating the ever popular Cadets of Bergen County, or as they are being called this year - Holy Name Cadets. It's so awesome to watch them do good. I had a blast.  I'll leave this blog with a video of what DCI is.

Here is a DCI Drumline: 

And here is a brass warmup in DCI

And finally, here is what they do when together on the football field:

Man I'm such a nerd, this shit get's me so amped. I love DCI!

I'll start off by mentioning that I was in the Army Infantry for 4 years.  The unit I belonged to was A Co.  2-2 INF, arguably the best damn unit in the Army's history. ;) 

Anyways, when Fallujah popped off we were stationed about an hour away from there, but rumor started floating around that they were going to call us up for the fight. We were itchy, we couldn't wait for the opportunity to engage into a real battle. Aside from Baritz (spelling) and Baqubah, every other fire fight we had was reacting to an ambush or reacting to an IED. Other then that we waited anxiously for the fight to come to us. So with the rumor floating around that Fallujah was a hotbed still, and that the higher-ups were planning an offensive attack, we prayed they would let us into the fight. After all, that's what we joined the Infantry for. Sure it sounds crazy, but that's a different story. Infantrymen are a different breed of human, they don't run from the fight- they pray for it.

Fallujah was the largest military operation I was ever a part of. This game that was going to be released was about the Marines. As soon as I heard that I was already against it.  1st platoon of A. Co (Army) spearheaded the mission.  When the ground invasion began they were the first people to kick down a door and hit the rooftops. There's actually a book written by a friend of mine, SSG Bellavia explaining this, it's not some huge secret.  Konami just chose to not mention ALL of the facts.

Well the reason I was against it was because of all the losses that we suffered while in the battle. We lost our Seargant Major due to sniper fire, our Commanding officer from a home raid, his replacement our Executive Officer (whom i'm kicking myself for not remembering how to spell his name) got killed with a rpg through the chest.  Vandayburg, a friend of mine also got an RPG in the neck.  It's overwhelming to try to think of them all. Too many people were killed those days, and it really bothered me that Konami wanted to publish a video game glorifying anything close to that.  I understand that the intentions were to try to get people to understand what real war is like, but nobody will know what its like to lose so much in such little time. When a unit loses it's chain of command, that's so demoralizing it's hard to explain.  

What sucks the most is I feel like such a hypocrite.  I love COD4/WaW - yet I'm against this because it hit too close to home. I contradict myself with my own gaming preferences. I'm not upset that the game got cancelled, not in the least bit. Too many brave soldiers AND marines died there, and I don't want to glorify any of that.  

Now before I started writing all this I had it all prepared in my head, after I started going through some memories it's all somewhat lost to me now. It angers me that the Marines are (typically) going to get all the glory from a fight that we shared. Oh well, it's a cold world - I should get a jacket.

Anyone that's interested, the book written by Bellavia is absolutely amazing and it's easy to read.  I highly recommend it.  It focuses on his platoon rather than mine, but understandably so.  They were in the thick of it, I was just on the roof tops.

War is not pretty, it's unpredictable and unscripted. Even the most trained can fall in battle.  Godbless the fallen soldiers and marines, they motivate me to be a better person today.

First thing I did was cleared the cookies, but I think the problem wasn't so much that.

Using the link in the article that was posted by Ryan seems to be what we most likely all have in common.   

Instead, goto http://www.battlefield-heroes.com and log in using your EA information.  Then clicking on play now -should- start the download.  

Make sure to scroll down to the end of the user agreements before you click OK. I'm not sure if this is necessary, but it doesn't hurt to be sure.  

I'm pretty sure the most important part is making sure you are logged into your EA Account.  If I can help I will, but I'm computer-stupid.  But when I did all of the above, I got it working for me.  Hope it helps.