Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI

Chapter I: In the Beginning there was Matt...Chapter I: In the Beginning there was Matt...

It was probably a dark and stormy afternoon on that particular sixth day of May in 1985 when, to my family's great misfortune, I was born. Birds sang songs of joy, children could be heard laughing, but that was outside... inside the hospital, tears of sorrow and pain were shed as I came out into the world. As much fun as it would be to indulge you in my adventures as a child, I only have a couple of memories, one of me taking hold of a roll of toilet paper and running around the house, I believe I was around three when I rolled the inside of the house, but I'm not sure how young I was. Other than that and a few other memories, I don't have too many memories before my preschool days, so there's not much I can tell you about me except for that I caused as much trouble then as I do now.

I remember a few things about my days at preschool, I know everyone was scared of me, when I looked mad kids ran...but I honestly have no clue why. I never picked on anyone except for this one kid, but believe me, he deserved it. That guy took my seat, so I had to show him who was boss, I could go into detail on what I did, but I'll just say he got in trouble when it was over and I got my seat, go me. I also remember that we had naptime, and the teacher used to threaten us, she'd say this old man that looked like Santa Claus would take us away and make us work on a farm if we didn't sleep... now I'm no expert on law, but threatening little kids... doesn't that seem at least a little bit against the law? It also ruined my image of Santa, he was a slave laborer, which would explain how he got all the toys really... and the sad part about this is I'm not making any of it up, I had a strange childhood. My next memory of preschool would have to be my first crime too I suppose, one of my friends got this stuffed toy for his birthday and I had it when he left, he forgot it and I took it home, I still have that somewhere. My last memory has to be my favorite. There were these two older guys, I believe they were in middle school at least, but they were always there, I guess their mom was the teacher or something, but they always tried to pick on us. One time they locked us in the toddler playpen outside, but, me being the stubborn one I am, just climbed up over the wall and unlocked it, screw those guys, I was little, not a wuss. That about covers most of my memories and experiences as a child, now we move onto the next time period.

 

Chapter II: The Edumacation Of Matt... The Elementary Years...

Ah, the good ol' days on Kindergarten... was there a better grade? All we had to learn was the alphabet, the days of the week, and the months of the year. All of which I already knew, so I had the year off, go me again. The teacher was cool, she was nice and all, but she did smoke when we were supposed to be taking naps, yeah, that's right, another lawbreaking teacher. Well, I didn't know it was wrong, never even thought about it until later really, so I would just watch, I never could sleep during naps, I was quite the hyper little child, who knew? This was an important year for me, because it marked the first time I ever really got into trouble, it was about halfway through the year and it was during recess. I told the teacher I needed to go to the bathroom, but no, in her infinite wisdom, she decided I could hold it. Now, any rule following child would've waited, but anyone that knows me knows I had something to say about this. So, I went under one of the treehouses, whipped it out, and peed right there on the playground. Of course, a crowd had gathered around and this one little bastard told on me, so I lost my recess. I mean, honestly, was it so bad? I told her I had to go. I have a lot of memories from that year, but nothing too special, it was a pretty boring year for the most part, I hadn't quite become the smartass I am now yet... that would be a couple of more years.

Now we move onto first grade, I still wasn't as evil as I am now, but I was getting there. As you all know, I don't do homework, never did. This was the first year of homework and would be the first year I chose to find a better way to get it done. Every morning I would get dropped off early, so I would always be alone with the teacher and this one other girl that sucked up and always did her homework. Well, I would wait for her and the teacher to go off and talk and such, whatever they did every morning, and when they left the room, I went to the basket, got her homework, erased her name and put mine. Always got A's and never got caught. C'mon, was that not ingenius? The li'l bastard inside me was growing every day. Other than that, the year was pretty uneventful, I did have my first real friend in that grade, but I never have been able to keep friends long, he moved after second grade.

Second grade was where I really started to shine as a smartass, it was also my first year in the gifted program, apparently someone decided I was smart enough for their little qualification test... which I took and aced by the way, I was a smart smartass. So I went to gifted everyday, that was just boring, and when they tried to get me to sign up again for the next year they said I might miss recess, so of course I made the right decision. I quit the gifted program. Well, that year was fun, I made the class enjoyable with my witty comments, the teacher was cool...except of course for that day she through desks and cursed at everyone... is it me... or did most of my teachers break the law in some way? One more important thing about that year, it was the first time I saw a nude woman. We had national geographic magazines in there, and most had pictures of tribal women nude, nothing special, but hey, I was a kid, that stuff makes impacts. The last thing I have to mention about this grade is Wade Chandler, who most of you know, and I think he's cool now, but we had the greatest times making him cry in that grade... everything set him off. It was often our goal for the day to make him cry, and we usually succeeded... there's a good chance I'm evil.

Third grade... I was becoming more and more of a pain in the ass with my comments. It was definately good times. It also marked the first time I got a call home from school... and why? Because that little snitch Eric Stephens told on me for something stupid. We were waiting for buses to be called and I said something, then the teacher told me not to say another word... so of course I said "word." When she asked what I said, he told on me and I got into trouble, she said I had to sit on the stairs at recess for five minutes, so I just shrugged and said it was fine. She took that as an insult and called home, can you believe that crap? Talk about your all time shafts. That year also marked my first role in a play, it also marked the end of my acting career, cause I got the dumbest role in that play, and since none of you know what role I got, I will tell no one. It's stupid and embarrassing. The punishments for all my comments in that class were just stupid and pointless. I was sent into the hallway where I had to number from one to one hundred and then come back inside, isn't that retarded? I used to go home and do it when I got bored, fold them up so I wouldn't have to do it in the hallway, I am a crafty one. I even remember getting sent out once for doing my assignment. We were all told to stand up and close our eyes, then imagine a gentle breeze. Well, I started thrashing about and she asked what I was doing, I said my breeze became a tornado. Again, completely innocent and I get punished. She never said it couldn't grow from a gentle breeze to anything. It's not my fault she wasn't specific. The only other thing that happened that year was my suspension from afterschool, which, again, was not my fault. I got wrote up three times, the first time was for kicking someone, who deserved it very much. The second was for having an argument with the aforementioned crybaby from second grade, and the third was for hitting the teacher in the head with a dodgeball. That requires some explanation, first, it was a dodgeball, so inherently, he should have dodged, and second, it was an accident, he said throw all the balls to him so he could put them away, and I did, it just happened to hit his head. How could anyone not see my innocence? That about ends it for anything too special in that year.

I'd have to say fourth grade was my favorite year in elementary school. I had a great teacher, and I made fun of her a lot more than any of the others, but she was cool with it, rarely ever got onto me for most of it. Usually she would even laugh along. That year pretty much went by rather fast, nothing impactful happened really, although, about halfway through the year they were trying to put me back in gifted, I had hoped they'd forget about me, but they cornered me in the hallway as I was coming back from lunch and had me sign up for fifth grade, which was a mistake, I had that class the next year. Not too much to tell about that year really, it was great, but nothing big happened.

Fifth grade was pretty cool, I didn't like the teacher she was old, and as we all know, old people just suck, it's a fact, the older one gets, the suckier one gets. Plus, I had gifted, and that class sucked, had to learn latin... yeah, glad I learned latin, because that has helped me oh so much in life. Plus, I didn't really fit in with the better part of the class, there were a few groups of people, it was a small class, and everyone had their group. Danny Tarantino and I were in a group... there was one with Amanda, Erin, and Katie... then that one girl, that always hung out with the teacher... then the other group was Jeremy and Wade... Pendley was in that class... but he was his own group and everyone who knows him knows why... he had plenty of company in his head, so it couldn't have been too bad for him. Seems like there was someone else in that class, but I can't remember who... I also had my first crush that year, and then my second one, the first one I'll never forget, but I didn't see her again until that D.C. trip in eighth grade, still have no idea why. Li'l Mustard was in my class that year, he was an awesome little dude, it really sucked when he moved away, everybody loved that little guy. I'll never forget that year, mostly because it was the last year of recess... they just ripped recess away from us in middle school... no help, no gradually getting us out of it, just cold turkey. It was also the last year I had a birthday party... I believe it was the last year until this past year that anyone outside my family even acknowledged my birthday. Never really bothered me, I don't even tell anyone anymore, it's easier to be alone, plus, as most of you know, I can keep myself entertained.

 

Chapter III: The Edumacation of Matt... The Middle School Years...

This chapter is going to be rather boring and short, I suggest skipping it, but it is part of my education, just not that fun because the three years of middle school were when a lot of my real family problems manifested, so I was usually too preoccupied to cause too much trouble. Sixth grade was pretty much boring... the year went by rather slowly because nothing fun happened. To be honest, I'd rather skip this chapter completely...so I'm pretty much gonna since it's my bio and I'm writing it. So let's give a quick overview, sixth sucked, boring. Seventh was equally crap, although I did come out of my shell again and cause quite a bit of trouble. I also got ISS for the first time in that year, and for what you might ask? Selling candy...that's right, candy...but thank god they stopped me, made room for some more drug dealers. They were really on top of their jobs that day, those bastards. Then that's where life started getting great...by the end of the year I had been kicked out and forced to go live with my dad, and most of you know what a stand up guy he is. So while over there they made me go to church, which is ironic really because it was while I lived there that I started despising most anything religious. So over that summer a few things happened, I realized who my real friends were when I left and no one cared, I started to hate church related crap, and I burned the flesh off the bottom of my feet, now talk about fun...that's a long story, one can ask if curious. Then school started while I was there, and I went to Gainesville, which was fun, I was asked out for the first time, I was popular, and I had the highest grades in all the classes, but I chose to come back to West Hall because I thought my real friends were there...can anyone say mistake? Well about halfway through my Gainesville experience, I go camping over the weekend, on that Saturday my toe was hit with a hatchet, now this story serves mostly to tell the real character of my family members. They didn't stop camping and go home, my dad dropped me off at my cousin's house and went back to finish camping. Did I get taken to the hospital? No...I got band-aids...oooh...that helped. Plus, I went to school on Monday and everyone stepped on it. Around December of 8th grade I went back to West Hall and it pretty much sucked. Oh, one other thing happened while I was at Gainesville...that best friend I mentioned that left after second grade, turns out he was over there...also turns out he became a huge asshole and a pothead...he wasn't my friend anymore when I left. I made my third best friend in 8th, Josh Grier, and I still remember seeing him at school as he was leaving, still remember every second of the last time I saw him. I found out what happened the next day at the store before school, I picked up the newspaper...read it on the way to school...I could go into more detail about the days that followed, but I just don't want to. After that I stopped keeping close friends, never made any real attempts to talk to anyone or get to know anyone. Never wanted a best friend again, still don't really. Like I said, this chapter sucked, and hopefully you skipped it.

 

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Chapter IV: The Edumacation of Matt... The High School Years...

What can I say about high school really, it sucked. Ninth grade was rather boring, didn't really do much, classes were all rather mundane. It was all right near the end, but the first six months or so just sucked. Nothing really good happened until tenth grade, that's when I had French...now I hate the French, everyone knows this, and that class is why. I hated the language, the culture, the people, all because of that teacher originally. But it was still the most fun I ever had at school just because of the people in the class. What happened in eleventh? Not really much of anything...once again I was a smartass in the classes I actually chose to open my mouth and in the rest of the classes as with the rest of the day I said little to nothing to anyone. I've tried for months to recall something that happened worth talking about and yet I come up empty handed so I guess I'll just skip high school all together and just talk about work. My first job was at Hollywood Video...yeah, that hellhole. I made very little money working there, simply put I worked over 40 hours a week and my paycheck of two weeks barely broke $200...sad, huh? My hours actually made the place a pretty good place to work because the assholes that were in charge took the better hours so they'd be free to do less work, leaving the good people in charge when I was there. I worked there for almost a year and I got one raise...for 20 cents...that's just enough to piss you off, isn't it? I only left there because it had just got a new manager that was in some way related to the antichrist. He hated me and I really hated him. He wanted to fire me from day one, but seeing as he had no reason except for the fact that I cussed him out in front of customers on many occasions he could only get back at me by cutting my hours. I didn't have any bills to pay so I really didn't care so his plan didn't work how he wanted. Eventually I just got pissed because I was spending more time getting up and getting ready to go to work than I was actually working so I went to work at the mall making a lot more. I didn't work there for very long because again I pissed someone off. When people are put in charge that clearly don't deserve to be, I let them know, and it usually gets me screwed over, but it was still worth it. Needless to say I had to quit there too. I didn't work for the rest of the summer because I didn't want to and then eventually went to Blockbuster...why? I don't know to be honest...but I barely made it through the first of the year there before I had enough of that. From January until December I didn't work, then I went to bootcamp.

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Chapter V: Bootcamp...

Now, a lot of people have asked me "Why the Marines?" and I've told so many people so many different answers when the answer was simply to get away from everyone and everything that I knew...well, almost everyone. When I decided to go it was before I met someone that actually wanted me to stay. When I left no one really cared, which answered the question that I always had. Would anyone notice if I were gone? That question was quickly answered when I came back. That answered why I left, but not so much why the Marines...I could've joined any service and simply left. I chose that service because I thought it would be something I could be proud of, at the time I had nothing to call my own, I had nothing of my own. Some people pretend to want independence but live at home as long as possible because they're afraid to let go. I had to prove that I wasn't, that I was more than everyone thought I was. Everyone thinking you'll fail can either help or hurt your ambitions depending on how you look at it. I, as everyone knows, am not exactly an optimist. So everyone thinking I can't do something makes me do it. Well, there's the reasoning behind it, not the best, and looking back I probably wouldn't have done it because right before I left I found my reason to stay, but it was a little late at that point.

I left for bootcamp little over a year ago on Dec. 14th 03. I left out of Atlanta with a few other people. Now, when you watch the videos you see a Drill Instructor get on a bus and start yelling at everyone to get off the bus. Well, we got a van...honestly...a van. It was about a six hour drive to get there and I'd say the worst part of it was stopping at IHOP for dinner, especially when IHOP was right next door to Hooters. There were six guys in that van, not including the driver, and all six were about to spend the next few months under stress with no female contact, so I came to the conclusion that the driver was a sadistic son of a bitch for subjecting us to that. I mean, Hooters was right there...c'mon...Anyways, it was around 9 p.m. when we got there and we sat outside in the van waiting for the Drill Instructor to come out and get us. Everyone hears stories about how mean they are but he was a decent enough guy. He merely opened the door of the van, and asked us nicely, in a tone loud enough for us all to hear, to get out of what was apparently his van and step onto his yellow footprints. Well, he asked us to move a little bit faster, and he was quite motivating because we moved a little bit faster than we had been. While we were standing outside on the footprints he gave as that speech they give about the rules and where we were now at. He then asked if we had any questions, and nobody did. When we responded to what he was saying he asked us nicely to say it again because we weren't loud enough. It must have been windy or something because he had trouble hearing us throughout the night. I was beginning to think his hearing was messed up, but I chose not to bring that to his attention. That went on for a few minutes before we finally went inside, made our phone calls home to let our families know we made it there alive and then we were herded into a classroom where we sat for about four hours sleeping with our heads on the desk. I'm not about to go over every single detail of every day in bootcamp because this would turn into a novel and I've no plans of publishing a book so this is going to be the shorthand. If anyone wants the longer version of anything, the simplest way to get it is to ask. That being said, the next few days were all filled with getting shots, going to dental, getting uniforms issued and learning the basics of bootcamp. The only night I clearly remember is the second night, it was the first time we got to sleep in a rack and it was freezing in that squadbay and we weren't allowed to sleep under the blankets because we hadn't been taught how to make racks yet so we wouldn't be able to fix them in the morning. I woke up every few minutes shivering which sounds bad, but I love that. See, my theory is waking up as many times as possible in the night is awesome as long as you don't have to get out of bed to do anything. If you sleep all through the night, then wake up and immediately have to start the day, that kind of sucks, you can't go back to sleep. But if you wake up all throughout the night you keep getting to go back to bed, it's a simple joy, but it is something I take pleasure in at night. Moving on...all this crap happened in the first week, and we hadn't even met our Drill Instructors yet, which was kind of disheartening at the time, it was like it was a waste of a week. We met our Drill Instructors at the end of that first week. Everyone made that day out to be so bad that in my mind I had this big scenario played out that would make it horrible...well obviously nothing will ever live up to the way I can imagine things so it wasn't that bad at all considering what I expected.

The first phase of training was mostly just PT, martial arts, knowledge and drill...that lasted for about four weeks. Nothing but getting ready for all these tests and none of it really paid off because we were still wearing uniforms without nametapes and we couldn't blouse our boots until the end of the first phase. Bootcamp didn't get fun until second phase. The rifle range. That's where it got fun. The initial hazing part was over, we were doing what we were supposed to and we didn't get into as much trouble so that meant less time on the quarterdeck. The rifle range consisted of two weeks, the first was nothing but learning how to shoot, the second was nothing but shooting. The last day of the range was qual day and then the next day we packed our packs and hiked back to our squadbays. Qualification day was awesome...except for that bastard that lied to me. Coaches were on the firing line to assist us, letting us know where our shots landed and helping us adjust sites. My coach was pretty cool and said that if I shot two possibles he'd give me a Powerbar (happy now?). A possible is on the rapid fire portion of the shoot. You have to shoot ten rounds in like a minute. If all ten rounds hit the center of the target it's a possible. Now, out of the entire company I was the only one with two...but I have yet to see that damned power bar. Oh...believe me when I tell you, he's on the list, Jai...Anyways, I shot expert that day and we left the range the next day. I didn't do the hike because I just got a stress fracture and I already knew I was getting dropped because of my injury.

I sat around in MRP for five or six weeks...I was healed in like two, but it's a very long process to prove you're not injured. Especially when you're only healed up to the level well the pain is tolerable like I was. I just wanted to graduate and get out of that place, I hate routines and that place is all about doing the same thing everyday and honestly I was just bored. When I went back to training I went to a platoon that never gave us time to read or write letters which made things hard, especially near the end when I was trying to plan for graduation. I was in that platoon for like five weeks and we got mail three times. We were able to write letters more than that...but how can you make plans with no feedback? So my graduation got fucked up...everyone was there except for the one person I needed to be there...all of the people that said I couldn't do it were there, but the only person that knew I could, just didn't want me to wasn't and I'll never forgive myself for not being able to arrange her being there, but there was no way to arrange it with no feedback...As far as training went for the last phase, it was A line which was more shooting in a lot of different situations. The best was the night shoot, it was a clear night, it was really a beautiful sunset...we got to stand out there and wait for the sun to go down before we could shoot. Then we finished the night by shooting off tracer rounds which made it look like a firefight from Star Wars. After that we went to Basic Warriors Training which consisted of the gas chamber, the 40 ft rapel tower-which I fell off of by the way...of course if you know anything about me you can see such things happening- and a few courses that were really long and just consisted of us low crawling, hopping over walls and running around getting nice and muddy and finally the MOUT (Military Operations in Urban Terrain) course which required us to get in through the second floor window of a building for no reason that I could find and then use a rope to climb out the other side. But it was still fun all the same. When that was all over we came back and got ready to go out and do that Crucible...now people would have you believe that's a lot harder than it is. The only problems really are the lack of sleep and food...but I can go days without eating and I function better on less sleep for the most part. The Crucible started at 2 a.m. when we took a nice long stroll out there, slow paced of course...when we got there we dropped out packs and started on our first of many courses, most of which served no purpose other than to make us muddy. It's hard to go into detail about the events because they really weren't that challenging. The first day was long and stupid, lasting until like one in the morning. We slept for about three hours then got up and started our second day. Around the middle of the day we hiked out to the rifle range to shoot ten round -ten whole rounds...yeah, that was worth it...-then hiked back. We did some more stupid events then went to sleep around two in the morning. We woke up long before the sun came up and started our ten mile hike back. When that was finally over, the Crucible was over. We went straight to Warrior's Breakfast and we all got really sick because we hadn't eaten in two days, and we hadn't eaten real food in months. This was actual food, and a lot of it. The rest of bootcamp was just uniform maintenance and graduation practice, so we spent a lot of the time in the bathroom on the toilet taking naps...or at least I did anyway. I graduated and stayed home the rest of the month of May, basically being lazy and playing video games for the most part until I went to SOI...

 

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Chapter VI: The School of Infantry...