Grime is a game about shock and awe.
A long time ago I was a squid, I mean, I'm still a squid, but I was then too. I'm an ordie (I.Y.A.O.Y.A.S) and we... ah fuck it im not explaining this all over again just read this for the gratuitous exposition. My ascent to floor boss of the armory was fast, part because my competition were other ordies and we pride ourselves in being some of the dumbest people doing the dumbest job in the dumbest military on earth.
My unfair advantage is that at the time I played AoE,C&C, and Sid Meiers: Alpha Centauri obsessively and maxed out my resource management stat before I showed up to MEPS. I ran the armory like a bar where the first drink spilled would be the last drink spilled, and for a time I was literally Isaac from the opposite of love boat to every fighter squadron, navy seal, marine, nuke, MP and anyone else who required a gun or explosive to get through the day.
And then 9/11 happened, and the navy went from floating fortress of peace to howling visage of Azrael barreling full speed toward the middle east hella quick. Didn't bother me none though, because the one thing that strategy games taught me above all is that in systems designed for war there is no such thing as peace, only "staging periods." And what you do in those times define how it goes when hell shows up.
So when hell finally did show up we stayed calm and carried on. Our armory became well known as one of the most efficient, dependable and solid in the fleet, which is a big deal. Oh right, I guess civilians wouldn't know that military services like laundry and commissary are the same as the regular world just no Yelp. You have to figure out on your own which Popeyes to go to.
Being good at this job was the worst decision I ever made in my life, because forward bases in the war theater were going up fast and I was asked (just kidding, ordered) to go and help. I thought to myself, "I can't possibly teach people to play Command and Conquer that fast." Turns out I was right.
So I got dumped off in the dirt here, there, wherever. In places I couldn't pronounce working with shitty master chiefs and gunnies. Issuing weapons to people, and only the weapons returning. Working with press-ganged citizens who were way more scared of us than the enemy, and fellow NATO military who took to the work of demolishing the next two fertile crescent generations, like their bitch ass daddies and daddies' daddies' did before them, with pure, unadulterated glee. We get to be heroes, after all.
As I watched Kabul fall in the safety of my home on the other side of the world, trying to avoid thinking of the people I trained there who are long dead or will certainly die soon, the friend who picked me up from the airport in San Diego after my final WESTPAC because the Navy was too cheap to pay for my ride home texed "How do you feel?" I told them, "We lost that war 20 years ago. I'm relieved we are finally ready to admit it."
Shouts to info. Run, don't think, just run. Rip TB, Rip TC rip Tall - T. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jobs.
