The Helpful Hubby and The Soaking Cycle

Hey fellas, how would you like to really impress the wife? How do think she would she like it if her girlfriends, co-workers, and even her mother were envious of her good fortune? What could you do on a regular basis that could improve your relationship, elevate your worth in her eyes, and probably alleviate a smoldering grudge that you may not even be aware of?

After that question you might have a few ideas. Attend to the yard more often. Take the garbage out before it spills over on the floor. Keep the inside of the car cleaner. Nope. None of the above or any of the other ideas that you might have right now. So, what's the answer? Do the dishes.

What? Yup, and I'm going to tell you why this really works.

When I was a younger married fellow I was the typical male who got home from work, grabbed a beer or made myself a drink, kicked my shoes off and soon thereafter sunk my butt into the recliner. I had already learned not to ask when dinner would be ready. That never seemed to go over too well. So, like a lot of you guys I'm multi-tasking. Drink in one hand--remote in the other. About this time haven't you ever noticed how quiet the wife gets? Did you ever think that she's trying to keep the steam from billowing out of her ears as she starts to get dinner ready for you and the kids. (That's the "grudge" showing.)

It doesn't matter if your wife has been home all day with the kids or if she also holds down a full time job. The fact is she worked all day just as hard as you did and if you've ever had the kids by yourself for an entire day (god forbid the entire week) you know how exhausting that is.

So why the dishes, you ask. Were you the one worrying about what to fix that night? Were you the one that had to stop off at the store on your way home and fight the afterwork crowd at the grocery store? Probably not. I promise you that if you do the evening dishes things will really improve for you.

Watch the wife tomorrow night when she gets home. Let's say she gets home at a decent time after working 9-5. It's 5:30 or so and what does she do as soon as she gets in the door. Maybe the shoes come off and she gets a moment to change into more comfortable clothes. Maybe you chat about how your days' went for a few minutes if you're not usurped by the kids welcoming Mommy home. But very soon after that she's in the kitchen getting stuff out of the frig because she knows that everyones hungry. Isn't that right? Notice how much time has gone by from when she got home to when she's starts getting busy in the kitchen. Not much of a breather for her is it?

Now let me tell you why it's important that you take over the dish washing chore. First of all, all of us guys need to show that we appreciate all of the care and effort that your lover invests in preparing the evening meals. We need to show some gratitude as opposed to sitting down and eating like we're in the chow hall and then hurrying off to the couch, recliner, garage or whatever. Nope, this does not make the ladies happy so I'm going to help you out and teach you the best way I found to do the dishes.

First off, it would be nice if you stayed at the table until she finished her meal. This is a good start. Just as she's taking the last couple of bites let her know that you will be doing the dishes and that you want her to relax, kick back, put her feet up. She'll probably protest at first but be insistant and tell her that you want to show her how much you appreciate all the work she put in this night. Get up and start clearing the table. All of a sudden she's going to feel a little guilty and she'll want to help. This is when you give her a hug and a kiss and walk her into the den or living room or where ever her favorite chair is and convince her that you are serious and for her not to worry about this sudden bizarre behavior.

The next few steps are important so pay attention. Run straight hot water in the sink and use Dawn Dish Liquid. Not too much as Dawn really produces the suds and not the kind with added lemon oil or an oily fragrance because they don't cut the grease as well as the original formula. Carefully but the dinner dishes and silverware in the full sink.

This is my favorite part of doing the dishes--I call it "The Soaking Cycle".

While the dishes are soaking it's important that you cover the leftovers before you put them in the frig. When the table is cleared, the dishes are soaking and the left over food is properly stored it's time for a break. It's TV time!

When you suddenly take your chair just ten minutes or so into the dish washing chore you are going to get a strange look. Let her know that everything is under control and that you're just letting the dishes soak for a bit. Now it doesn't matter what television program is on because there are going to be commercial breaks. It's during the commerical breaks for the next hour or so that the rest of the kitchen get's cleaned and the dishes get washed and put away.

When she gets used to you doing it this way there won't be any problems but when she gets to work tomorrow she will be bragging to her workmates about what a great husband she has. As soon as she has the opportunity her mom, her sisters, and her best friends will all hear about what you are doing for her and why. Heck, when she gets home tomorrow night you might even get a treat.

It sure worked for me.

Good Luck Guys, Let me know how it went for you.

Terrence Plank
eagledoc1@sbcglobal.net

What I Hated Most About Vietnam (It Isn't What You Would Expect)

As a medic with the 3rd Battalion, 506th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division I spent a year in Vietnam. Those years were from the fall of 1967 to the fall of 1968. At the age of 20 I was one of the older enlisted men.

But this story isn't about the action that we saw but about some of the discomfort we endured. Specifically this story is about that big hump on my back that you see in the photo here. There is a logical (militarily speaking, of course) reason that I look so weighed down--80 pounds of logic.

There is a difference in the way that recon teams are resupplied and the way that combat platoons are resupplied. Platoon size elements were resupplied about every third or fourth day. Our rucks in this situation probably averaged between 50 and 60 pounds and most of that was M-16 ammo, M-60 machine gun ammo as everyone carried at least 100 rounds for the machine gunner, and, sometimes, M-79 grenades for the grenadier. Others, like myself and the RTO had additional weight to carry as did others depending upon their specific job and the mission.

Anyway, about every third day or so a Huey 1H helicopter supported by one or two gunships would land on an LZ that we had secured to bring us ammo, c-rations, water, sundry packs, mail, replacements, etc. 

It was different when I joined a 6-man LRRP (Long Ranger Reconnaissance Patrol) team. There was no resupply during our 5 day missions. So, everything we needed we had to carry on or in our rucksacks. As you can see in the photo I look a little burdened.

There were a lot of things that were down right unpleasant during my tour in Vietnam with the Screaming Eagles. Fire fights, mortar attacks, booby traps, mosquitos as big as hummingbirds, and leeches in every stream that we crossed, and I could go on and on, but, the thing that I truly hated was that damn rucksack.

As you can see and pretty well figure out this isn't a pack that you just pick up and toss on your back. Nope. We would help each other get these rucks on or a trooper would sit in front of his ruck, secure the shoulder straps and one or two of us would pull him to his feet.

Let me back up a bit. You need a little background. I was a platoon medic and shock force medic for the first four months in country. The Shock Force was a reinforced platoon that was used for special missions and we were involved in protecting the District Chieftans villa in downtown Phan Thiet during the Tet of 1968. This was twenty two very intense days of fighting and if someone wants to know more just type "Tet of '68, Phan Thiet" in your search box.

After Tet I was assigned to a six man recon team. The proper name for it is Long Range Reconnaisance Patrol. Now, Webster's Dictionary defines reconnaisance as the act of surreptitously going behind enemy lines to spy on and gain intelligence on the enemy. There were no lines in Vietnam, as everyone knows, but reconnaissance is vitally important to any combat unit. It was our mission to locate and observe NVA (North Vietnamese Army) activities and Viet Cong movements. Our job, basically, was to be inserted into an area (by helicopter) quite a ways from our objective and then move (hump) quietly to the area of interest and locate the enemy. This was not a "search and destroy" mission that the larger units were involved in but a spy mission basically. We would (as quietly as possible) search the suspected area for signs of the enemy and set up in locations where trails and villages could be surveilled without us giving away our position. That means no noise, no snoring, no coughing, no smoking, etc., etc.

Our job was to count how many enemy we saw, take note of the kinds of weapons they were carrying, what direction they were traveling, and to try to interpret their intentions. We were supposed to do all of this without being detected but way too often the teams and the enemy would meet up in some fashion (like on the same trail!) and then the fire would fly until we could be extracted or reinforced.

All of this was an every day occurrence, so to speak, so you get used to it. What I couldn't get used to was that god awful ruck sack.

And let me remind my readers that this took place in South East Asia, Vietnam obviously, where the temperatures near the coast averaged in the 90's and over 100 degrees further inland. Even during the monsoon season the temperatures didn't go down much. It just got steamier and wetter. You become accustomed to the heat but constantly battle severe dehydration, malaria, jungle rot, snake bites, and booby traps.

Looking at the photo you can see that it looks rather heavy. Right? You see canteens sticking out in various places (three are pretty easy to see) my rolled up poncho liner that I slept on, ammo pouches and the round tubular looking thing on top is called a LAW. That stands for light anti-tank weapon. It's a rocket. This particular mission in the area around Song Be was rife with tunnels. We carried the LAWS to blow up the entrances.

You can see that my camouflage isn't finished yet We had just started applying it when the battalion clerk, photograher, and historian asked us if we wanted our photos taken. Jerry Berry is his name and he wanted $3 for the photo. Since we didn't carry any money on us he took an IOU and I finally got to pay him back at a battalion reunion 30 years later.

So you see I'm carrying a bunch of stuff. But that isn't the half of it. What you can't see are the 21 magazines of M-16 ammo (378 rounds); four baseball size hand grenades, five smoke grenades, a claymore mine, a small medics aid kit that weighed about 4 pounds, LRRP (lerp) rations for 6 days (just in case) and, oh yah, 9 more canteens of water! The minor stuff that didn't weigh much were things like dry socks, a second pair of glasses, insect repellant, water purifications tablets, camouflage sticks, additional IV fluids, etc.

Now why in the heck would anyone carry 12 canteens of water? What is that 3 gallons and each gallon of water weighs a little over 8 pounds. That's about right. LRRP rations are dehydrated food packets and it takes a half of a canteen of water to make one meal. We would eat two meals a day so that's five to six canteens just for the rations during the mission and the rest to use for drinking. We would use a little water to brush our teeth and then swallow. Remember, we did not want to leave any evidence of our existence in enemy territory.

But there is a logistical reason for carry the dehydrated food packets versus C-ration cans. The first reason is noise discipline. You don't want to be making much noise as you sneak around the jungle. The second is trash discipline. You don't want to leave anything behind that would let someone else know that we were in their backyard. The third reason is that LRRP rations weight much less than cans of food. Of course, that benefit was offset by the amount of water we had to carry. However, if you knew that there were decent water sources where you were going and you had plenty of water purification tablets (makes the water taste like crap, by the way) you wouldn't need to play pack mule. But this wasn't the case in any situation that my team was in.

Instead of walking around like a homeless person carrying every can they find we could pack up our wrappers and other trash and secure everything in our rucks. This way no one could follow our trail (hopefully).

Now I hope that no one invisions the six of us walking down some country road. Often we had to cut our way through the jungle like what you see in the old Tarzan movies. Or we had to climb hills by grabbing sapplings, vines, limbs, or what have you to help pull ourselves up. The most aggravating things were the "wait-a-minute-vines". You see all of the stuff sticking out every which way from the ruck so it wasn't hard to get a vine or two wrapped around something. So you whisper "wait a minute" and that's how the vines got their name.

So, from about March of 1968 until I left Vietnam in October this ruck sack was my burden. Let me say that when I arrived in country I weighed a healthy 165 pounds. By the time October came around I was down to 140 pounds. You think that that blasted rucksack would lose a little to help me out. Hell No!

Terry Plank
"Malpractice"
terrenceplank@yahoo.com

Glossary of Terms:

LRRP: Pronounced "lerp". Long Range Reconnaisance Patrol
Combat Platoon: Pre-Tet: 26-30 heavily armed soldiers. Post-Tet: 18-20
M-79 Grenade: Each grenade wieghed 1 lb. And there were different types for different purposes.
Smoke Grenades: canisters of different colored smoke for the purposes of marking LZ's, letting jet pilots and gunships know where to attack, etc.
Hump: Hike two thousand to five thousand kilometers to our designated hunting grounds. About 1 and half to 4 miles through thick jungle or up and over pretty tall hills and mountains.
LRRP rations: a packet about the size of a video tape that contained a dehydrated orange juice bar, your choice of dehydrated Chili and Beans, Chicken and Rice, or Turkey and Rice, and small amount of toilet paper. Of course, the food promoted constipation.
C-Rations: small, olive green colored cans of food. Each packet would contain things like crackers and cheese, turkey loaf, peanut butter, ham and lima beans, pork and beans, a hot chocolate pack that was accompanied by three cookies, and the like. You opened these cans by using a P-38 can opener. I have one on my key ring from 1968.
M-60 Machine Gun: this is a belt fed weapon. It was easier if everyone (except the platoon leader and RTO) carried additional ammo as one man wouldn't be able to carry more than a few hundred rounds on top of the rest of his gear.
RTO: radio-telephone operator. He carried the 12 pound PRC 25 radio that had a telephone handset attached. You've seen these in the movies.
LZ: an area large enough to accomodate one or more helicopters is called a landing zone. The open areas that paratroopers parachute onto is called a drop zone.
Claymore Mine: Also called an "anti-personnel mine" this gray colored slightly curved contraption held a one pound block of plastic explosive called C-4 behind thousands of small metal pellets. Two plastic coated wires were attached to the trigger mechanism that you depressed or you could set the mine up as a booby trap with a trip wire.
Poncho Liner: small camouflaged comforter that we slept on (and wished that I had washed more often!)
3/506th Infantry: reformed in the spring of 1967 at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky as a continuation of the "Band Of Brothers" battalion who fought with distinction in World War II.
Purification Tablets: iodine tablets that helped to combat the impurities in water. Tried it with fizzie tablets, Kool-Aid and what not. Didn't help.
"Malpractice": my radio call sign and nickname but not because I was practicing medicine without a license. (which, of course I was but there's another reason the name came about.) I'll leave that for another story.
Sundry Pack: Large boxes that held things like cigarettes, candy, toothbrushes, tooth paste, and other things that I can't remember but that we all looked forward to sharing.
Phan Thiet: a seacoast city sixty miles north of Saigon

    

Muzzle Your Mouse 2

Since I'm new to this format I see that my first post held only a headline. So let's try this again.

I know that you are excited about starting your own home business. You might be so excited, almost out of control excited, that you may want to muzzle your mouse for a while. We see phenomenal possibilities of untold wealth, more leisure time than you've ever had, exotic cars, mansions, and traveling to exotice places in the offerings that we see advertised and that come into our e-mail boxes.

Some of us are like little kids in a candy store. It's just impossible to chose one or two kinds of candy. We want it all, don't we? Heck, I be alot of you even lost sleep when you first saw the possibities of creating a huge downline ($$$) or of promoting the hottest product on the market to millions of people and you know, without a doubt, everyone buys it.

But hold on friends. You might be like me and you might just have to Muzzle Your Mouse.

Hi. My name is Terry Plank. I'm a newbie too and I want to share some of the mistakes I've made recently that I blame on this fantastic Candy Store of Opportunity we call the internet.

I had to retire early in September because of health reasons so I find that I have a lot of time on my hands. Since I can't play golf everyday and don't have the money to travel and I needed to find some way to make more money than what Social Security pays. What better way than my own home business using the internet. Right?

Unfortunately, when we got our first computer I got into the habit of clicking on everything and every offer that I saw. (Just an aside, here, let me tell you that my family didn't get our first color television until I was ten years old. So, I have a tendancy to go gaga over all of this new technology.) So I'm on the computer just having a grand old time with the mouse and really becoming infected by "The Candy Store Syndrome" I call it. My son calls me "Mr. Clicky" and he's had to bail me out a few times because of downloaded viruses and such.

Now, please understand, this isn't all my fault. Now that I'm looking for a home business another type of illness affected me that makes me buy almost everything that comes along. I call this one "The Newbie Virus". This virus makes every offering look like gold bullion coming to you by the truck load and the next thing you know you're clicking away, pulling out the credit card, and just going nuts with those dollar signs in your head.

I hope this isn't you. In our excitement to get a business going, find multiple streams of income opportunities, the best MLM ever invented, etc. we can get a bit carried away. We are going to need to muzzle the mouse, get control of ourself, get a plan and a direction that fits our personality and lifestyle and stick to it. Ignore all of the other offers coming in and just work what we can handle. When we have that figured out and working then maybe we can take on one or two other money making projects but not before.

If we are going to learn to control the mouse then maybe we also need to learn to hobble our credit cards. It's just too darn easy to grab the darn thing and start pressing buy now buttons. Oh, a piece of advice concerning credit cards. If you want to protect your identity it might be a good idea to get a free PayPal account. They will protect your card number from running amok over the ethernet and also track your purchases and your earnings.

Get educated! Find good training programs and dig in. Marketing on line is a whole different animal than what we've done in our day jobs. Even professional sales people will find this type of marketing and selling very different from what they've been trained to do. If you want to compete with all those who are already making a living on the internet than you will need to learn how to do that or you won't succeed.

I'm getting organized. I have a plan and a direction. I have two excellent training programs that I learn from every day and, most importantly, I am starting to implement what I've learned these past few months. And as I learn more and more I see more and more opportunities opening up. It really is very, very exciting.


Best of luck to those of you just entering the home business arena. Just remember that it takes a little self discipline to do this right.

Terry Plank
eagledoc2@gmail.com