Miah Washburn reading

Rough Men Stand Ready is now in its FOURTH run! We have had a couple very successful nights during our readings at Rogue Hall on the campus of Portland State University and Berbati’s in downtown Portland. Below are some photos of our amazing night. Remember we still have one more reading coming up this weekend. Check our Facebook page for more information! Not only will we have a group of amazing writers and poets but 4 Spirits Distillery will be there as well for a bourbon tasting.

A Rock or Something has published an anthology of war stories written by combat veterans and those who love them. The anthology is called Rough Men Stand Ready. Buy your $10 copy by contacting Tommy Houston at Tommy@arockorsomething.com or come to one of our upcoming events:

January 17th * 7pm – Come see us read at Rogue Hall on the PSU Campus

January 18th * 7pm – We will be reading at Berbati’s downtown

January 26th *7pm – 4 Spirits Distillery will be doing a tasting of their bourbon and vodka during our reading at

Bar alla Bomba at E Burnside and 11th Avenue.

Cora Davis and Jessica Washburn with their local television commercial debut.

Rock or Something Productions is filming our first paying commercial spot today for Splat Action Paintball in Mollala, Or. Look at the kids having an amazing time. All the children used are family members of veterans.

We have teamed up with local film maker and super-star Jeremiah Scott, who will be the DP and production director.

A Rock or Something crew getting ready to shoot their first commercial. Miah, Heather, and the rest get their coffee and plan the day.

Bravo Company – 2/162 – Viking Ninjas of JRTC

JRTC stands for Joint Readiness Training Center. This was not as fun as it sounds. The only weed there was of the noxious variety. The Army carved out a big ugly chunk of land in the middle of Louisiana we all called the Box. US Army units from all over would send a unit of unfortunate soldiers there to suffer all the heat, humidity, and bugs the South had to offer. I had been there six times during my prior service years. If I were asked to design Hell, the Box at JRTC would be my starting point, the top rings.

We were counted again once the bus stopped, just in case one of us had decided to jump out the window during the trip from Fort Hood, then we trudged through the gaggle-fuck of finding our equipment and putting it on. We walked like a giant turtle exodus to a set of WWII barracks.

The air was different in the South, like the smaller trees made it taste different. I heard the buzzing and chirping of bugs, as loud as power-line transformers, from every direction. The First Sergeant stood with his arm pointed in a Moses pose at a row of weather and rodent ravaged two-story buildings. I looked right past them, thinking that our barracks couldn’t be the old buildings with the paint peeling from the wood siding and windowpanes so old the glass appeared to have melted.

He told the platoon sergeants two of the six buildings were condemned and we weren’t to go sleep in those ones before he hurried off to a meeting, leaving us to figure which two. Each platoon took a building and Second Platoon lugged our shit into the nearest one. I told SFC Salerno that my squad would sleep on the top floor, because I hoped it would be easier to survive a fall than to have the top floor land on us.

We had no training that night and we weren’t slotted to head into the Box for three days. I emptied my bags and refolded all my T-shirts, underwear, and socks placing each carefully in the wall locker. I hung my two changes of civilian clothes and Hawaiian Shirt up. I always told my guys to have a Hawaiian Shirt and a flask on their packing list. When they asked why I told them a Hawaiian shirt could trick your mind into thinking you’re on vacation in some exotic land. Of course you never really consciously forget that you’re in a shit-hole eating bad food from plastic pouches and actively exploring new diseases you can’t pronounce, but if even one tiny, little part of your brain buys it, well then maybe you can hold on to some sanity in a fucked-up situation. The flask, well, that was to carry alcohol.

We stayed in a very remote part of Fort Polk, miles away from the normal folk who lived and worked on the base. The old barracks sat right on the edge of the swamp surrounding the Box. While smoking on the top-floor metal fire escape, I saw a motor pool full of tanks, a circular road cutting through the weeds that was no doubt a running path, and almost a mile away there was a small PX, or Post Exchange, the army’s convenience store. I called for Eric to follow me and slid down the fire-escape ladder because I knew that as soon as the rest of the battalion discovered the PX they would descended upon it and buy them out of cigarettes and beer within an hour.

An hour later we returned victorious with three twelve packs each and a carton of Marlboro Reds. It was a good night. Even Lieutenant Chris Kent our platoon leader said we did a hell of a job securing supplies for the men. LT Kent had to have been a Viking in his previous life. He was tall, bulky without being fat, and had a bit of a clumsy streak, but he could take apart a weapon in a minute, fix it, and shoot the hell out of it. The more he smiled the more his eyes squinted and there was no doubt whether or not he liked someone. With me he spoke mostly with squinted eyes. Another thing about Kent was he always surprised the hell of me. One day I would hear him speaking Russian, the next Korean, the next he’d pick up a musical instrument and play. That night he found a guitar and the entire platoon sat around the front of the beat-down barracks and sang every Jimmy Buffet song we could remember.

It was February in the south so the night was cool and smelled sweet like tree sap. We drank and took pictures of each other to send home. When the sun went down we all went in the barracks and kept singing, smoking, bullshitting, and messing around. I never saw a group of people so incredibly content, completely peaceful, and genuinely happy. We had the shoulder-grabbing-and-smile-without-having-to-say-a-word type of understanding. This was it, the family I was looking for. I lacked nothing but hardly had anything.

If you were to ask our colonel, the training at JRTC was a huge success. Bravo Company in particular showed such an improvement that his higher ups fought over the opportunity to put us in special roles for the upcoming deployment. The two-star general came down to see how the training was going and saw an assault planned by Captain San Miguel and executed by the company. This visit was purely routine, but the general left so impressed he told one of his aides to use “those Oregon boys” as his personal QRF, or quick reaction force. When this got out all the battalion commanders wanted us too. It was nice to be wanted but we weren’t doing anything different. The real hero was Dirty Herb, his tendency to do stupid things, and his tolerance for pain.

Our entire battalion lived within a war-like scenario for a month on a fake FOB, or forward operating base. A series of tents of all sizes made up the FOB, some with hundreds of cots and others housed logistic needs, like industrial-sized washing machines or mailrooms or chow-halls. Every tent was wired with electricity and every wire lead to a diesel-generator. These generators became so commonplace in training and in combat that I can’t pull up a single memory of being at war without the smell of diesel or a low hum. A few tents within the FOB were called TOCs, tactical operations centers. A TOC was where most the bad decisions were made. Every few days we were sent to the field where all the good decisions were made. It worked like this: a real colonel would call us for a fake mission and we threw on our really heavy gear and trudged to a fake city to play laser tag. When we started beeping we’d find some shade to be dead in and smoke cigarettes until everyone else was dead. Then we would lug all our shit back to our tent to hose the mud off and start again next time we were called. All the little missions built toward the big mission at the end, when Dirty Herb turned us all into heroes.

The soldiers we played laser tag with were called the OPFOR, or opposing force. They took their jobs very serious, as they should. They were training men and women for combat, but not in the way you’d expect. Most of their training taught people how to not get themselves killed, not how to kill others.

OPFOR consisted of soldiers stationed at Fort Polk, Louisiana. The civilians hired to be Iraqis actually spoke Arabic and wore the man-dresses, head-wraps and everything like they did in Texas, but they were civilian federal employees and being such they took weekends, holidays, and sick days off. It took a while, but even us infantrymen started to see a pattern. Most of the fake missions came Monday through Friday, so on the weekends we went to firing ranges and grenade-launcher ranges, or Humvee driving courses.

We lazed around on our off time, but the rest of the FOB buzzed with busy little bees. The administrative, bureaucratic, and logistical jobs always went on, but the killing jobs only came when all the other jobs lined up right and the enemy had enough people to fight. After we read all the books, got tired of playing cards and jerking off, got sick of the music we brought, and wrote everyone there was to write, we were left with an amazing amount of time to think of very stupid things to do.

Our path to glory started the night before the two-star general came to watch the big battle. Fast-talking Tommy Houston bet slow-thinking Dirty Herb he couldn’t daisy-chain twenty 9-volt batteries together, lick his thumbs, and hold them for ten seconds. This turned into a competition where a young private could make a name by showing how much pain he could take. By the end of the night we found the maximum amount of batteries that could be snapped together and held for ten seconds was exactly 42. I know this because Dirty Herb wouldn’t volunteer to do 43. Still, 42 was more than the 20 they had bet in the first place so Tommy had to hand over his prized possession, the Anna Nicole Smith Special Edition Playboy. Dirty Herb left directly to the port-a-john.

The 9-volt batteries they drained that night were supposed to be used in our laser tag harnesses. Without the batteries they didn’t beep, and without the beep we didn’t die. We became ninja-vikings who could not be killed. We fought like maniacs and fired our blanks at the OPFOR and no matter how much they fired back we kept advancing. Our battalion commander would tell us later that he had never been so proud of his infantry boys. He had personally heard the general lean over to one of the majors and say, “Those Oregon boys are the types of soldiers I want on my QRF.”

This project is really amazing. I thought we would open up the submission process and get a shit-ton of ‘No-shit-there-I-was’ stories, but that hasn’t been the case. The reality is so bizarre: these war-hardened, steely-eyed killers have given me poetry and humorous stories more than anything else. It makes complete sense when I think about it. The biggest surprise of all is how well put together these stories and poems are. Many of them have brought tears to my eyes.

The anthology will be out at the beginning of this summer and it will be called ROUGH MEN STAND READY. This is after the quote that is attributed to both Orwell and Churchill. It is also the quote I have tattooed to the inside of my right forearm. This will be the first of a series and with it will come readings up and down the I-5 corridor in the NW. I will do everything in my power to make that grow across the country and those of you who know me know I am a tenacious and determined man.

Our brother at The Oregonian, Mike Francis, was kind enough to give us some play on his blog. Check out his link:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/oregonatwar/2012/02/grimm_tonight_and_yes_theres_a.html

Enlist in the AROS ARMY!

Come down at 7:30 tonight and watch GRIMM at The Rogue Hall.

1717 Southwest Park Ave.

Portland, OR 97201

(503) 219-8000

A Rock or Something will be celebrating Miah Washburn’s world network debut on GRIMM episode 12 “Last Grimm Standing” and we want you to be a part of it.

If you have been seeing all the cool things we’ve been up to and want to volunteer, get involved, or simply have a beer with us: Come down!

 Miah will be on CHANNEL 8 NEWS today at 4pm talking about A ROCK OR SOMETHING. Watch it. Get involved.

CALL FOR EXTRAS

First thing first. We need you to be an extra on GRIMM! The shooting will be this Thursday, February 23rd, so you’ll have to be free. This goes for veteran family members too, so if your brother served in Iraq or your Grandpa in WWII, you count. Send your name and phone number to sean@arockorsomething.com and I will get all the time and place to you. All the information I have right now is that we will be extras on a bus in an episode at the end of this season.

TV SHOW

More good news! I completed the Studio A instruction block. We will be able to use the studio soon, but I need help before we can get the show on the air. Below I will list the positions needed to put on a show. Look through them and if you feel you can fill one of these positions email me at sean@arockorsomething.com. Not all the position need to be filled before we can put the show on because there are volunteers at MetroEast, but we want you… to help put the show on.

Producer – Responsible for program concept, structure, content, and arranging talent. Sean Davis and Robert Gebarowski are currently putting this together but will take ideas.

Director – Works with crew and talent on lighting needs, camera placement, etc. During the show gives instructions via intercom to crew.

Tech Director – Pushes the buttons in the control room. Switching from camera to camera. Controls volume levels and monitors sound.

Audio Tech – Supervises microphones, booms, lav mikes, etc…

Character Generator Operator – Controls and Designs visuals of show, from title to credits.

Video Operator – Responsible for recording the show and cueing up any pre-recorded material.

4 Camera Operators – Each camera is assigned a number. There are 4.

Floor Director – Works on the studio floor supervising camera ops, audio techs, and talent while talking to director in booth.

Editors – helps create the final project through post production.

We also need writers and talent. Right now we have Miah Washburn and Todd A. Robinson, but we need more!

Get involved. Contact us now and we will get you through the classes and blocks of instruction so you can operate any of the equipment and be proficient at any of these jobs.

THE BOOK -

We are in the midst of securing the grant that will pay for our first anthology. The deadline for stories is the end of March. Get those stories, poems, essays, and even Private’s Gripes in to sean@arockorsomething.com. I have some hungry editors eagerly awaiting the opportunity to work with you and your story before publishing it in our magazine.

We are meeting our mission statement before we’re officially off the ground.

The Quixote Club actor Army Infantry Veteran Josh Davis has gone on to get his second acting part on stage in a production written by Navy Veteran Archie Washington: Josh will be playing the part of BOUNCE in a one-act play entitled THE KNOCKOFFS directed by Nannette Taylor.

THE KNOCKOFFS will air on March 4th on live television for PART TIME PLAYHOUSE. More information to come.

We are filing for our 501 (c) 3 status thanks to your donations.

With this we will be able to apply for grants and corporate donations from the big businesses around Portland. Thank you so much. We have found a way to expedite the process so we should be official with state and federal governments hopefully within the month. As of now we are incorperated with the state, we have a company bank account, and we are in the planning stage of many different projects. Those projects are listed below:

The Anthology: We have received 75% of the 500 needed to run our first edition of soldiers stories. This isn’t something we need to wait for our non-profit status to go through. I have collected a number of stories but we still need more. All the stories in the anthology will be about how the military life affected the writer and they will be written by soldiers, family members, and others directly affected (without giving anything away this includes embedded reporters who never “officially” served). The journal will be called ROUGH MEN STAND READY and it will be brought to you by A Rock or Something Productions and OPERATION HOMEFRONT. We look forward to this partnership and watching how this project grows.

The Television Show: Sean and a couple volunteers went through the orientation for the station on the first of the month. Another wave of volunteers are going through the orientation this Saturday. If you are interested contact us. We will need a whole crew to make this happen. Sean will be going through the block of instruction for STUDIO A next Tuesday and Thursday night. After this he will be able to check out that studio for a four-hour block of time. Once we get enough people through the instruction and orientation we will have a show, but we need volunteers, we need people who want to get involved, we need you!

Acting Classes: These classes will be free and open to veterans and family members. We have a few very talented instructors involved in these classes. We are currently waiting for Miah to get back from his annual training in Tailand to get this underway.

GRIMM Viewing Party: As many of you know our own MIAH WASHBURN will be a featured character on the next episode of GRIMM on NBC. We are currently searching for a venue to watch him. The episode will air on February 24, two days after he returns from the other side of the world.

Thanks to you we met our first goal, but we have many more on the horizon. We have now raised enough money to file for our non-profit status and we will be doing so this Thursday, but now our eyes are set on the first anthology. The deadline is the end of March, and we will need a few months of working with the writers to get it all down, but we are currently raising money for the print costs. Even a dollar helps.

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO BELIEVES ENOUGH IN US AND WHAT WE’RE DOING TO HAVE DONATED THEIR HARD EARNED MONEY.

Believe me, we don’t take that lightly. Now, Charlie Mike.