Preparing for a deployment

[JB]

I know that war is hell no matter what war you go to but, this is the
>closest that I have seen that describes going to war in the present is
>like. None of it is made up or in the least untrue.
>
>
>1. Sleep on a cot in the garage.
>2. Replace the garage door with a curtain.
>3. Six hours after you go to sleep, have your wife or girlfriend whip
>open the curtain, shine a flashlight in your eyes and mumble, "Sorry,
>wrong
>bunk."
>4. Renovate your bathroom. Hang a translucent plastic sheet down
>the middle of your bathtub and move the showerhead to chest level.
Keep
>four inches of soapy cold water on the floor, stop cleaning the
toilet.
>Leave two to three sheets of toilet paper on a used roll or for best
>effect, remove the toilet paper altogether. For a more realistic
>deployed bathroom experience, stop using your bathroom and use a
>neighbor's.
>Choose a neighbor who lives at least a quarter mile away.
>5. When you take showers, wear flip-flops and keep the lights off.
>6. Every time there is a thunderstorm, go sit in a wobbly rocking
chair
>and dump dirt on your head.
>7. Put lubricating oil in your humidifier instead of water and set it
on
>'high" for that tactical generator smell.
>8. Don't watch TV except for 1970's era movies shown in the middle of
>the night. Have your family vote on which movie to watch and then show
a
>different one.
>9. Leave a lawnmower running in your living room 24 hours a day for
>proper noise level.
>10. Have the paperboy give you a haircut.
>11. Once a week, blow compressed air up through your chimney making
sure
>the wind carries the soot across and on to your neighbor's house.
Laugh
>at him when he curses you.
>12. Buy a trash compactor and only use it once a week. Store up
garbage
>in the other side of your bathtub.
>13. Wake up every night at midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly
>sandwich on a saltine cracker.
>14. Make up your family menu a week ahead of time without looking in
>your food cabinets or refrigerator. Then serve some kind of meat in an
>unidentifiable white sauce poured over partially cooked noodles. Do
this
>for every meal.
>15. Set your alarm clock to go off at
>random times during the night. When it goes off, jump out of bed and
go
>to the shower as fast as you can. Simulate there is no hot water by
>running
>out into your yard and breaking out the garden hose.
>16. Once a month, take every major appliance completely apart and put
it
>back together again.
>17. Use 18 scoops of coffee per pot and allow it to sit for five or
six
>hours before drinking.
>18. Invite at least 185 people you don't really like because of their
>strange hygiene habits to come and visit for a couple of months.
>Exchange
>clothes with them.
>19. Have a fluorescent lamp installed on the bottom of your coffee
table
>and lie under it to read.
>20. Raise the thresholds and lower the top sills of your front and
rear
>doors so that you either trip over the threshold or hit your head on
the
>sill
>every time you pass through one of them.
>21. Keep a roll of toilet paper on your night stand and bring it to
the
>bathroom with you. Also bring your gun and flashlight.
>22. Go to the bathroom when you just have to pass gas "just in case"
>every time.
>23. Announce to your family that they have mail, have them
>report to you as you stand outside your open garage door
>after supper and then say: "Sorry, it's for the other Smith."
>24. Wash only 15 items of laundry per week. Roll up the semi-wet clean
>clothes in a ball. Place them in a sack in the corner of the garage
>where the cat pees.
>After a week, unroll them and without ironing or removing the mildew,
>proudly wear them to professional meetings and family gatherings.
>Pretend you don't know what you look or smell like. Enthusiastically
>repeat the process for another week.
>25. Go to the worst crime-infested place you can find, go heavily
armed,
>wearing a flak jacket and a Kevlar helmet. Set up
>shop in a tent in a vacant lot. Announce to the residents that you are
>there to help them.
>26. Eat a single M & M every Sunday and convince yourself it's for
>Malaria.
>27. Demand each family member be limited to 10 minutes per week for a
>morale phone call. Enforce this with your teenage daughter.
>28. Shoot a few bullet holes in the walls of your home for proper
>ambience.
>29. Sandbag the floor of your car to protect from mine blasts and
>fragmentation.
>30. While traveling down roads in your car, stop at each overpass and
>culvert and inspect them for remotely detonated
>explosives before proceeding.
>31. Fire off 50 cherry bombs simultaneously in your driveway at 3:00
>a.m. When startled neighbors appear, tell them all is well, you are
just
>registering mortars. Tell them plastic will make
>an acceptable substitute for their shattered windows or they can just
>put sand bags over them.
>32. Drink your milk and sodas lukewarm.
>33. Spread white gravel throughout your house and yard.
>34. Make your children clear their Super Soakers in a clearing barrel
>you placed outside the front door before they come inside.
>35. Make your family dig a survivability position with overhead cover
in
>the backyard. Complain that the 4x4s are not 8 inches on center and
make
>them rebuild it.
>36. Continuously ask your wife to allow you to buy an M-Gator.
>37. When your 5-year old asks for a stick of gum, have him find the
>exact stick and flavor he wants on the Internet and print out the web
>page.
>Type up a Form 9 and staple the web page to the back. Submit the
>paperwork to
>your spouse for processing. After two weeks, give your son the gum.
>38. Announce to your family that the dog is a vector for diseases and
>shoot it. Throw the dog in a burn pit you dug in the neighbor's back
>yard.
>39. Wait for the coldest /hottest day of the year and announce to your
>family that there will be no heat/air conditioning that day so you can
>perform
>much needed maintenance on the heater/air conditioner. Tell them you
are
>doing this so they won't get cold/hot.
>40. Just when you think you're ready to resume a normal life, order
>yourself to repeat this process for another six months to simulate the
>next deployment you've been ordered to support.

[Steadfast]

Or you can go hardcore and move to Palestine across the road from an Israeli checkpoint. Make sure to paint a large sign on your temporary residence in large red letters. HAMAS' HEADQUATER'S

Hang in Effigy a look a like for GWB from your flag pole for good measure.