A Sunny Day: Peacekeeping is Magic

Another sunny day, since I've gotten to Equestria that's the only kind of day I've seen- well minus a few storms the pegasuses or pegasi, or whatever it is they prefer, set up. I honestly don't understand most of what happens around me. Eventually you stop questioning it and learn to stand in your little tower and guard the wall like the grunt you are. When you aren't busy wasting time and tax payers money you can sit on a tank, smoke, bitching about command, and complaining about this "not being what I signed up for" which is  funny to hear. You see, if anyone would just look at the papers they signed it would be pretty apparent that this is exactly what they signed up for, just not what they wanted to signed up for.  I've only ever seen one of the ponies up close. Her name is Harshwhinney, or so I've heard. She comes every now and then to ensure our military presence is limited to agreed capacity...they seem to be a bit wittier than the indigenous people America's dealt with in the past.

"YO! Tom, got a fresh pack a cigs, lookin fer someone to share 'em with." That's Carl Thompson. With all the time I've spent with the guy listening to his stories about 'back on the family ranch' I could write an autobiography on the guy. He and I are kinda assholes to each other but its all in good fun...most of the time

"Thompson, do you ever get tired of talking in that stupid accent?"

"Do ya ever get tired a being a condensendin asshole?"

"not usually, no- would you just give me some smokes? Its been like two days, alright?"

"awl raight than, jus' take em' and stop bein such a nancy  about it" tom said laughing as mockingly as possible, and just like that another eight hours of sitting in the shade of an ACP, cradling a M-16A2 that's needed to be put out of service for the past thirty years, overheating in my out-dated web gear, and getting one step closer to lung cancer. conversation was the same thing as always, the same movies we've watched at leat thirty times in the rec tent, why being here not home sucks, and what pop stars we'd bone.

"ya know Tom me and you are kinda like Forest n' Bubba, cept I ant black and you can't run"

"you know what the real difference is?"

"No, can't say as though ah care either," he replied with his usual smirk.

"The difference is Forest Gump didn't have to fill out a stack of paperwork to change a damn light bulb, and there were no talking horses" Carl scrunched his face a bit, contemplating my words for a bit longer than it should have taken him, and then with a bright sunny face he replied:

"Ah like what ah said better"

...

That night was more crap, you see I had the night shift on the watch tower my gate one. It may not sound that bad but tonight my shift was with Rick. The guy gets me into more trouble than Carl and watches more porn than Pee Wee Herman. So there I was standing in the plywood tower adjacent to Its twin about forty feet to the right, and there stood Rick. to either side of the entrances to FOB Ponyville were light poles, on the left side of gate one was the bane of my existence: the damn flickering light bulb.  I've been filling out paperwork and griping up the chain for seven months now. All I hear is "security clearance this" or "requisitions is tied up" and an and endless tidal-wave of paper work. Every thirty-six seconds the damn thing gives just a second of agony when it flutters out with an annoying clicking sound and then clicks back on. I don't even need to keep a look out, ponies have no aggressive tendencies on the whole, and so I spend my time glaring at the damn light bulb. But not Rick, he spends his time gingerly groping his rifle and staring into the distance. I envy his rifle, the lucky bastard got an M203- I mean, its not like he's ever going to have a reason to use it, but still it looks cool. In my contemplation I had not noticed the slowly rising grin on Rick's face. He turned to look at me, I returned his wandering gaze just as I was about to inquire as to why he seemed to be so happy when the words shot out of his mouth, "you ever thought about riding that sweet piece-a pony ass that comes around to make sure America still want ta play nice?" I wanted to believe he was joking, his resolute silence and un-breaking smirk told me this was not one of his jokes.

"Rick, what in the name of god is wrong with you?"

"Well it isn't my fault that they don't wear pants, I mean those sweet mare parts are jus-" I had to cut him off.

"Just stop, seriously. You want to be a fucking psycho do it on your own time okay?" He looked back at me already prepared to respond,

"Sounds like someone's trying to  hide something, eh?" I couldn't tell if I was blushing but he really stopped me in my tracks. I truly couldn't give a witty response so I just told him to go to hell. The rest of the night rolled on in silence, around six AM the sun peeked up giving a pink tint to the sky. Rick and I were relieved, as we walked away he bumped me in the shoulder and giving a sly grin he said "your secret's safe with me"

...

My clothes clung to my body, my sweat soaked into the canvas of my cot. The sun beat down on me even through the thick canvas of the barrack tent. I may have gotten some sleep even in these awful conditions, if it weren't for my good friends. "Yo Tom, wake up!" My eyes shot open as my helmet hit my chest. Standing over me were Carl and Rick. I couldn't hold back and snappily replied to the rude awakening:

"what the fuck do you assholes want? can't you see I'm sleeping?"

"Well, ah always thought ya wanted to meet the ponies n' all but I guess the princess has gotta get his sleep," how Thompson actually came up with a response without a ten second delay is beyond me, he probably practiced it on the way to wake me.

"What do you mean meet the-" Rick cut me off leaning un-comfortably close to my face,

"Its pretty simple, you get to go talk to the ponies about books or math or gay porn or whatever it is you're into, carl gets to...be carl, and I'm gonna go try to see what STD's Equestria has to offer"  The two of them broke out into laughter (Carl a few moments after Rick) as I climbed from my cot and strapped up in my web gear. I wasn't sure what was going on, but one thing was evident: this was going to be a long, hot day... and more trouble than it would be worth.