I'm a soldier - these shoulders hold up so much - they won't budge - and I will never fall or fold up

The title of this post is cribbed from the Eminem song "Soldier" and I use it in this case to refer to Panos who is my good friend, old college roommate and drinking buddy, partner in crime, and now draftee in the Greek Army. He'd probably rather I use the quote "You want me on that Wall, YOU NEED ME ON THAT WALL" as spoken by Jack Nicholson from A Few Good Men, but my convention is only to use topical song quotes for my titles and it's a bit late in the game to start switching it up now. Besides in this case I don't think anyone, outside the Greek government, really wants or need him standing on that wall.

The good news is that he sent a mass e-mail out to all his buddies this morning (our time) saying that he has drawn one of the (relatively speaking) easier assigments in boot camp that saves him from the worst of the grunt work and may shorten his assigment from one year to 10 months. He may also be assigned to their Presidential Guard and this "would be good, because they are stationed in Athens and usually they have every other day off. Unfortunately they have to wear the traditional uniforms, which include a sort of kilt like thing and part of the duty is to guard the tomb of the unknown soldier. This means I can't move, smile, blink, etc and since the Olympics are here this year, I may show up on the internet somewhere."

I like the sound of it too because a) if there's anybody in the Greek Army that could use every other day off it's Panos; b) it hardly sounds like hazardous or back breaking duty; c) I'm inclined to think that he's less likely to accidentally shoot himself in this capacity; d) it would be a trip to see him in pictures on the interntet or in US newspapers; e)there's no way in hell he can stand at attention for a long period of time without a shit eating grin spreading inexorably from ear to ear; and f) in the US we call a "kilt like thing" a skirt and there will be no end of fun ways to make fun of the goofy Greek soldier smiling over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in a skirt.

Semper Fi Malaka.

Rage Against the Chalupa - or Who likes Taco Hell anyway?