Goin' Away

Out and Back

2009-04-19T03:11:00.000-07:00

So yesterday, 18 April 2009, I went outside the wire. Nothing big, we went to lunch with a demining company that works around Bagram. We went out in MRAPs, really big trucks. They have a com system that allows everybody to talk to each other without yelling, and somehow, the driver had music going through too. We started out going to the gate, but the road was still blocked from the flood. The road was no longer flooded, but the fence was down, so it was blocked for security reasons. So we had to go the long way around. Once we left the post the ride got real bumpy, but it was ok because of the 4-point seatbelts, it was a fun ride. When we got out to the site, there was a canopy set up with a table, chairs and snacks. Those of us along for the ride sat down, ate the snacks and drank tea. The Majors, Gunny and the contractor who came along discussed the contract for HDI, the demining company, with the CO of the company. The rest of us talked amongst ourselves, and took pictures. Then lunch was brought out. There was a lot of food, big bowls of rice, sheep (?) and tomatoes roasted on skewers that looked like swords, chicken, and some yummy flat bread. In the middle of lunch, there was a controlled detonation of the mines that were found that day, yes I took pictures, and video. But my internet connection is narrow, and it takes forever to load any pictures, and quite often they don't even load at all. After lunch, the outgoing Major was presented with a rug and a plaque for his contributions to demining and the local villages. Then we returned to the base, another bumpy ride. I nodded off for a while; it took even longer to get back to our area due to traffic. It was 1600 when we finally got back, we left at 1000. Back at the office I played a few games, chatted with Josh Beilie (Little John from TRF, now living in Alaska) on Facebook. Then it was 5pm, so I went to my room. I figured that I was tired from guard duty the night before and waking up early, but I found out in the bathroom that I was sunburned. Someone forgot sun block... I burn under any high wattage light bulb, or so my Mum says. So I watched Twilight - OMG I loved the movie too! Then I went to bed. I am still tired today, luckily it is a low battle rhythm day, and nothing is happening, thus I am writing here. The outgoing Major left this morning, so now the new Major is officially in charge. So now we get to get used to another style of leadership. He seems cool enough though. As of this post, I have 2 months, 8 days, 8.5 hours until I go on R&R!!

Falling Fillings

2009-04-14T22:56:00.000-07:00

So I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning. Now I am wishing that I hadn’t. First off, the showers were cold. Not almost warm, but ICE COLD! So I just got my hair wet to put up and got a baby wipe bath. So then I go to the chow hall and all the bananas are green, as usual, no gripes there. But a nice yellow banana makes a better day, especially after a workout the previous night. So I get in to work and everyone is getting ready to go on the mission this morning, which is why I couldn’t sleep in at all this morning. For the past week or two I have been meaning to go to dental Sick Call because I thought I could feel a cavity, and I have had a chipped tooth since Kuwait. I chipped it on a twizzler, now that is talent!! So while I was munching on some jellybeans this morning, big thanks to Saybrook United Methodist church. They sent me Jolly Rancher jelly beans – YUM!! So any way there was a crunchy bit in one of the jelly beans so I dug it out – I know, yummy… And it looked rather like dental cement, I felt around my mouth and I found a hole. Boo. So I announced that I was going to dental sick call as one of my fillings had fallen out. Now I have an appointment at 1130 to get it drilled and filled. This time the dentist will put a silver filling in. But I have an opportunity to get a coin in exchange for the Mine Action Center Patch that I wear (I will try to get a picture of it posted later).
In other news I have really started to do PT on a scheduled basis. The other day the two Majors ganged up on me and asked how my running was going? I said that it went, twice… So now I am going to the Aerobics class on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, when I don’t have duty. I am also going to try to get some walking in on the days I don’t do Aerobics because walking helps me shed inches.
This place is worse than Houston as far as flooding goes! Luckily though the flooding is scattered enough that the porta-pottie sucker trucks can eliminate some of the more inconvenient small flooded areas. Like the pond in front of the female latrine: insert picture here - the wireless here sucks >(

OWWWUUUUCH!!

2009-03-20T07:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I did some PT (physical training) last night. My buddy Oxner invited me on a short 1 mile run. I didn't stop to walk so I counted it as a success. She just started a workout program called P90X. It is a terribly wonderful workout. My job involves a lot of sitting. Needless to say I am so sore today. I have tried streching on and off all day, I think that if my job involved a little more activity, I might not be so sore. Sigh...
So today is my birthday. There are 2 DQs on base here so I treated myself to a Snickers Blizzard at lunch. I didn't tell any one about my birthday until it was too late for anyone to do anything about it, mostly to avoid some crazy Army tradition involving pushups. Speaking of tradition, I just got a messsage on MySpace from Cogan, a buddy from 1ID. He asked if I had any near-beer this birthday. While I was with 1ID we deployed to Iraq and I had my 21st Birthday there. It sucked! This video prooves it! But then the cake was thoughtfull. It is a lemon poppyseed MRE cake with a chem-light stuck into it.

It is dreadfully borring here on BAF and I hope it stays that way. I have a count down on my Desktop at work that is currently counting down the time untill I leave for good, and until I leave on R&R. I have about 4,200 waking hours left untill I go home for good. That is give or take a week or so. We don't realy know the exat date/time we will be leaving. Something about a horse pushing a cart. Oh well.
Thanks for all of the well wishing and prayers.
Untill I feel like typing again!

Getting Settled in

2009-03-03T07:18:00.000-08:00

So I am now settled in to a room, by myself this time. I bought a TV from one of the guys who was leaving, and I bought an Xbox from the PX. The package I bought usually comes with Kung Foo Panda and Lego Indiana Jones, but since the PX is “the best place to buy anything while being a soldier” or something like that, it came with another game for free! I have never heard of it though, I think it is called Blue Dragon… Oh well. My new room has a book shelf and a TV shelf. I am going to put in a 2 x4 clothes rack to hang up my uniforms and jackets. I am also thinking about getting another set of plastic drawers for my cold weather gear as most of it is still in my duffel bag. Although in a month or so I shouldn’t need any cold weather gear.
I had tower guard for the first time on the 1st of March. My shift was from 2100 to 0500. But we wound up getting relieved at around 0600. Usually tower guard is pulled by one American soldier and One Afghanistan soldier. But since there are only male Afghanistan soldiers, the female American Soldiers pull the tower guard with another female, so that was good. The night shift is the hardest, I was given the afternoon of the first off to sleep, but it was as if there was a conspiracy against me getting sleep. It seemed like if anyone wanted to have a conversation, they did it right outside my b-hut, and then someone barged into the hooch and yelled for one of my roommates, sheesh, at least he could have knocked like a civilized person. So I got up a little earlier than I expected so I went and got some chow, then reported to my tower. It was OK at first. Then we started getting tired so we started singing, just little silly songs. I did the Princess Pat, and then we went into other Girl Scout songs. From there we started into Disney songs. Then we got tired again. I walked outside around the catwalk in the cold morning air to try to wake up, it worked, but then I went back inside. It was definitely the longest 8 hours ever. The next times I have tower guard are all second shift that starts at around 1300, thank goodness.
I have given up TV for lent, so I have been reading. I am on my second book so far. Now that I have internet in my room, I will have something else to do so my books should last a little longer. I am currently about halfway through the third Twilight book, Eclipse. Oh my, those books are good! I heard that the movie was fairly close to the book, so I am going to pre-order it on Amazon.com. I was looking at some books at work and noticed that sometimes the Barnes and Noble price is lower than the Amazon price, and sometimes it’s the other way around. So I’ll be comparing now. Speaking of online shopping, the PX, both the big PX and the smaller North PX Shopette, does not have any gel or hairspray! So I went online to find some. I did and I am thinking that I might should have ordered sooner as I am almost out of gel. Well If I do run out, I’ll think of something.
Every person who comes into Afghanistan has to go through the Day 2 briefings. The Mine Action Center (MAC) is responsible for the Explosive Hazards Awareness Training. Since I work in the MAC I have to be able to give the briefing. Usually the other two guys, Loughran and Stoeger, give the briefs. But today Loughran had guard duty, and we were expecting 300 people, so I got to give it for the first time today. The other instructor said that I did ok for the first time. He said that I started out ok but then I got nervous. I didn’t remember being nervous. But maybe I just forgot to breathe. When we were practicing at the office that was my only problem, I try to talk so fast that I forget to breathe. So I need to work on that a bit more. But Loughran has guard duty again in a day or so and then R&R will come around sooner or later so I will get plenty of practice.

Finaly In Afghanistan

2009-03-03T06:37:00.000-08:00

12 February 2009
Since I haven’t had internet access I have been saving what little has happened as word documents on my computer. Now I have internet – YEAH!! I have told some people that I would be at FOB Sharonna. Things have changed, as they often do in the Army. When we arrived at Bagram Airfield (BAF) we found that there was a need for a topo guy (or gal as the case may be) at the Mine Action Center (MAC) on BAF. As of now it’s me. I will be working with an Australian Major, a Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant, and another SPC and a PFC. The hours are easy for being deployed, 0800 ‘till we are done, tonight it was 1900, but it could also be 1700 or 2200. BAF used to be a Russian base, so it is mined like crazy so there is plenty of work to do at the MAC, also the database has passed through many hands, and it shows, so I will also work on that so it will make some kind of sense for whoever replaces me.
BAF is one of the larger bases in Afghanistan, as airfields tend to be. The main drag, Disney, is about 4 miles long. The base, excluding the runway and flight line, is not that wide. Most everything is on or just off of Disney.
BAF is an airfield, so there are all sorts of planes taking off and landing at all hours. It is funny how the largest ones, C17s, make hardly any noise, and the smaller ones, some sort of fighter, are so loud! Today was overcast and drizzly all day. This morning as I was on my way to work I saw 2 of the fighters taking off and I could see the glow of the exhaust –COOL!! :)

In Kuwait

2009-02-07T23:23:00.000-08:00

So the plane left at 2000(8:00pm) Eastern Time. We stopped in Shannon Ireland for about an hour, and we landed in Kuwait City at 2000(8:00pm) Kuwaiti time on the second of February. After we deplaned we sat in buses on the tarmac waiting for the baggage detail to unload the plane. But they had to wait until the fuel truck disconnected from the plane. So the buses took us to a staging area with water and porta-potties - YEAH!! We finally left the airport at around 2200(10pm) on our way to Army LSA Ali Al Saleem. We swiped out ID cards in (now my pay is tax-free and I am getting extra combat pay) and were briefed about the rules on the LSA. We then signed up for Space-R. Space-R is an interesting thing, we signed up and our names were put at the bottom of the list. but whenever an R&R flight came in we were bumped down on the list. Evidently their computer system was messing up as we later found out. There are 4 categories of people trying to get on flights. Groups of soldiers on ULNs (Unit Line Numbers), Space Blocked soldiers and civilians, people returning from R&R, and people getting into country for the first time - like us. But usually groups of 20 soldiers - like us - have ULNs and get out on the very next flight. But not us. I found out later that we had something like that and were supposed to fly through Manis (in Tajikistan) but some leader decided that wouldn't work for him. So here we are on day 6 and we finally have a ULN because our LNO(Liaison) is tired of looking at us. Yeah for persistence!! So we will be on the next passenger flight out of here, assuming that one is not reconfigured...

Finally Goin'

2009-02-01T15:18:00.000-08:00

Well here I am at the Atlanta Airport waiting on the flight to Kuwait. I woke up this morning at 3 am to be ready by 430. The bus left at 5 am and we got to ATL at 2pm(Eastern time) we needed to be at the airport by 2 to check in for the flight. but the flight doesn't leave until 8pm. So we have been waiting. Luckily there is a USO here and there were Hooters Girls there for the pre Superbowl party. The USO volunteers were giving out raffle tickets for phones, t-shirts and caps. The guy across from me had 3 tickets, he was close quite a few times, then he won a phone(a go phone). They called a few more numbers and another one of his tickets came up, so he gave me his second winning ticket and now I have a free go phone that I won't be able to use for a year. Hopefully the minutes won't expire before I can use them. I might give it to one of the soldiers getting off of the Kuwait shuttle plane we are about to get on.
We are in the international terminal, so the running joke is every time we hear a boarding announcement some one asks ooh, you wanna go there instead?! Of course we want to go somewhere else. But we might get into trouble. On the up side there shouldn't be any small children crying on this flight :)
My bags weighed about 185 lbs. I can barely get my rucksack off of the ground. But I packed according to the packing list, so it is not my problem. My next update will hopefully be from Afghanistan, and will include an address!

Yeah Camp Shelby!

2009-01-29T16:27:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of recent updates, there is Internet available but finding time when I am awake enough to walk over there and finding a buddy is difficult. So I am writing this on my computer in the barracks and will save it and upload it later. On The 16th or 17th of December I finally left Ft Belvoir to go to Camp Shelby. We flew into the Laurel - Hattiesburg Airport. It is SMALL! There are two gates and the plane had around 20 seats. There were 7 people on the plane. We flew from Reagan in DC to Memphis, TN. Our plane to Memphis arrived 30 minutes late because of an A/C problem. So we figured we had another 30 minutes to get to our terminal at the opposite end of the airport. Just before we got out of the first terminal, we heard the FINAL BOARDING CALL for our flight - oh noes!! So we start running, I had a heavy back pack and a bulky laptop case, and it has been a long time since I was in any kind of decent physical condition... We finally arrive at the gate, sweating. And we wait in the doorway to the tarmac for another plane to take off, and as we are getting on our plane, we see our duffel bags - Yeah! And we sit on the plane for another 10 minutes... grrrr. When we got to Camp Shelby, we stayed with the Replacement Company for a couple of days. The day we arrived we watched 7 hours of briefings in about 3 :) The next day we were told to start in processing with Medical at 0900. When we got there we were told to come back at 1300 - i.e. Nap Time! Medical in processing was easy mostly because we already did all of it at Camp McCready. All I needed was another shot in a series, Hep A I think. Then we went on to in process personnel. We didn't even start the first station, because we didn't have orders to Camp Shelby (we still haven't finished in processing, we have orders to Vicksburg, MS - the unit's Headquarters) that night, Thursday, we packed up and got to our Unit, the 168th ENG BDE. We are then told that we need to arrange transportation home, or wherever, for leave starting Saturday (in two days), and we also needed to be ready to go to Wal-Mart to get supplies to put in a footlocker to put into the conex (shipping container) that is leaving the next day! We were able to get it all done, surprisingly. The next morning we tried to in process, but the lady’s computer was down. She wanted us to come back later in the day but First Sergeant said that was not going to happen because we were going to be released at 1500! The flight I booked left New Orleans at 8ish on Saturday. The people I wound up sharing a ride with, decided to leave when we were released, so we arrived in New Orleans at around 5. Since we had plenty of time we decided to hit Bourbon Street. We went to Rockfish Grill, Yummy. When the waiter took our orders, he called me sir! So I wound up getting a free Dessert. It was the best Bread pudding EVER. So at Dinner I started off with a nice Mojito. After dinner we walked up and down the street and found some other nice drinks. One place had 2 for 1 Daiquiris ;D One for each hand! Fun. At the hotel we decided that we would stay out until midnight. We headed back at 10... Dylan was getting into New Orleans at midnight so I invited him to stay at the hotel with us, but he thought we were staying on Bourbon Street and he didn't want to be that far away from the airport. So we met up at the Airport the next day, after security found the Gerber on my belt that I forgot about, oops. My flight was delayed by 30 minutes, and Dylan's was delayed by about an hour. I was still a little hung over, first ever and because I was not properly hydrated. So my plans for being home mostly included cleaning my room and relaxing. But no, I had to clean the house, and mostly by myself because Dylan would conveniently disappear. And then Mum wanted the Christmas Decorations put up. The night before I had to return to Camp Shelby, I threw stuff out of the way to make my room appear to be cleanish.

Thanksgiving 2008

2008-12-01T13:08:00.000-08:00

On Monday Rea and I show up in the classroom at 0830 as always. The instructor tells us that since we are finished with the course we can lay low until they figure out our orders. By Tuesday, the 25th of November, we figure out that with the Thanksgiving 4-day weekend fast approaching it is unlikely that we will have orders before then. So I start looking for flights home for Thanksgiving and the last weekend of the Texas Renaissance Festival . After going back and forth trying to decide if, and how long it's worthwhile, I find a reasonable flight leaving DC at 0545 Thursday, and returning Sunday afternoon and at a decent price too. So I tell Mum and Dylan so that I have a ride from the airport when I arrive. When Dylan and I get home, Mum tells Dad to go out to help Dylan with the groceries (the excuse he had to pick me up) Dad just smiled, but that just means he was very happy to see me, where as if the secret was kept from Mummy, she would have shown her emotions much more energetically. The only regret I have from Thanksgiving weekend is that it was so rushed. When I arrived at the house, I had to pack up all of my Ren. Faire costumes, and overnight things, pack up the vehicles with our contributions to the Thanksgiving feast, and everyone else's weekend stuff. Then we were off to the Ellis house for Thanksgiving dinner - 2 hours late... We all drank, ate, drank, ate, and drank some more, and were merry too. Then it was time to part and head up to the festival site.
I woke up at 6:30 am and could not go back to sleep, I was so excited! I dressed up as a pirate, because the boots I ordered the second weekend had come in while I was away, and it seemed more comfortable than my German dress in the heat. But it was weird not to be German, So on Saturday I dressed in my German Dress and felt better. So Saturday night I had to head back home because according to Mum I needed to be at the airport at 7:00 am for a 9am flight. Even though the weekend flew by and I was hardly at home to relax, it was amazing!

Road Trip!!!

2008-11-19T16:48:00.000-08:00

On Thursday night, the 13th, Mum calls me to tell me that Dylan would be home on the 15th of November at 0630, yes AM! So on Friday at lunch time I go to the rental car place on post to reserve a car for the weekend. The clerk makes sure that I don't need it right away as they were all out at lunch time. I don't need the car until 1700 (5:00 pm) so everything is aces. At 5, my battle buddie (a.k.a. friend, ride, fellow soldier) drops me off to pick up the vehicle. I then run to the PX to pick up a map of the area that would include Virginia and North Carolina, all the way down to Camp Lejeune (near Jacksonville, NC). The only thing that I could find is a US road map, fine, I already have one of those at home... :* So it is now 1730 and I am trying to go southbound on I 95 south of Washington DC, talk about rush hour! So I pull off to get some dinner, and by the time I am finished and check out, traffic is rolling at a decent pace. I had originally planned to try to make it to Fayetteville, NC and thus Ft. Bragg to spend the night, but by the time 2100 (9:00pm) rolled around, I realized that it was a- to far out of the way, and b- to far away to make it there any time before 0300. So I decided to cut off of I 95 and stop at a decent sized town that looked as if it would have a few hotels. Goldsboro, NC has one (1) hotel advertised on Highway 70 and this hotel is on the bypass (I now know it is on the northern bypass) So I miss the exit/entrance for the bypass and head through town... EVERYTHING is closed. So I turn south, following the business route that I think I am on, next thing I know I am passing through forest again. I tell myself that I am going to stop at the next clean-looking place I see. And there it is in beautiful Mount Olive, NC! I take the exit ramp on two wheels in my Dodge SUVette. I check in and it is midnight when I finally hit the hay. It had been sprinkling throughout the whole trip, a heavy drizzle here, light rain there, on and off from DC. At 3 in the morning a storm came through, thunder, lightning, fierce winds, the whole deal. I was glad to be in a room in a nice cozy bed.The rest of the trip the following day was mostly uneventful. I arrived at the reception tent at around 1100 (Mum called with the time change, and I verified by calling the update number). The announcer just notified all of the family members that the plane had landed and that the marines were unloading the plane and securing their weapons and would be about 2 hours out. Yeah, cheers and applause! So at about 1500 (3:00 pm) the buses show up and the Marines form up and march in to the confines of the barriers, the barriers were so that they could be formally dismissed before the family members rushed in to greet their Marine. As they were dismissed, I scanned the dissolving formation for Dylan. Then I went over to the bag piles to look for him. I asked a few members of his unit if they had seen him, and they told me to look for the gut carrying the big box. I finally found a Major to ask. He turned out to be in charge of Dylan somewhat and lead me to the office where Dylan was dropping off the secure items. Fortunately enough as I entered the building he was coming down the stairs. We went off to find his bags then we parted ways to change and meet up later to secure his car and boxes in storage. After that we went out to eat at the Texas Roadhouse. Oh My Gosh - that place is awesome, first off they have peanuts in the waiting area and you leave the shells on the floor (CRUNCH, CRUNCH as you walk) then you can pick your own steak from the window! No report on desert as I was almost too full to even walk out the door! Since we ad both been traveling most of the past couple of days we turned in early even for me at 1930 (7:30 pm) The Next morning we met for breakfast at IHOP and then went to an electronic store for Dylan to get a laptop. The silly boy paid for and waited for the guys there to install Microsoft Office. So as we waited I looked around for things to spend my combat pay on and we played a bit of Rock Band. I left at around 1300 (1:00 pm) to head back north to Fort Belvoir. At 1500 (3:00 pm) just south of Rocky Mount, NC a white Dodge Charger entered the freeway, since he and I were pretty much even speeded I pulled in to the fast lane to allow him on and then pulled back in front. A few minutes later I glanced in my rear-view and saw flashing red and blues - Damn! Evidently, I was going 84mph in a 70. Why? asked the cop. (Well) I thought (Cause I didn't know you were a cop!) But I said, Oh I have been driving for too long. - LAME! License and Registration, oh - A rental car... Is this Texas address valid? (GRRRRR get this over with!) Yes sir, it's my home of record. Blah, Blah, Blah, here is a ticket and a court date, January 16th in Nashville, NC. No I don't know the address or phone number to discuss the fact that you will be in Afghanistan serving our country at the time, but I am sure you can find it by calling information, Good Day. (AssHole!) So once I got back to Belvoir, I figured I would go to the Library at lunchtime to find the phone number. Bad news, the library is closed on Monday - Who knew? So Tuesday I get the information and call the office of the District Attorney. Surprise, Surprise, they don't settle out of state residents, I would either have to hire an attorney or appear in court. "$#%&*^&%$@!#^%#$@@*!" Luckily I am in the Army and have free legal council! So I go to the JAG office and say the magic words, "I am deploying" and I am in with an attorney in a matter of minutes. He calls the same number, identifies himself as an attorney with the Department of the Army, and she tells him that they will pull the case to settle it with a fine tomorrow. Why couldn't that do that with me? GRRRRR! So today, the 19th of November, I return to JAG he calls up the DA's office and they have reduced the charge to improper equipment - no longer a moving violation, woohoo!!! - and the fine is $146.00. The attorney also types up a nice letter and I am off to the post office to buy a money order and send the letter and money off Registered mail with return receipt.
~~Happy Ending~~

Camp McCready to Belvoir

2008-11-09T10:40:00.001-08:00

Wednesday and Thursday we finished up all of the classroom time with First aid - lots of gory pictures, Intro to the Army's Sincgars radios, a review of the 9-line medivac request, and Calling for fire (mortars and the like). On Wednesday afternoon, I was voluntold that I would be a driver, cool, I like to drive, especially Humvees! -no that is not sarcasm :) So as a driver I have to be at the classroom at 0615 on Friday morning. Since our class is so small, 12 people now, our convoy will be instructor led, we will drive the course and discuss the treats instead of reacting and having a convoy commander make the decisions. The first threat is a culvert, it usually has a huge mortar round in front of it. We discuss the procedure - Back up, while the convoy commander calls EOD, and perform security measures. So we are told that the next threat will be a far-ambush and we are to just drive through it and fire our weapons(we don't have blanks for the exercise so it will be bang, bang, bang...) So we are driving along minding our own business, and BANG, pow, pow, pow, pow... Smoke canisters are flying etc... the vehicle in front of me STOPS, so I stop too. We get word over the radio to back up, so I do as fast as I can go. I am cursing the vehicle in front of us because we were told to drive though, and what the *** are they thinking?!?
The air clears, the shooting stops, and the instructors tell us to cut the engines and circle for an AAR (after action review) We settle the confusion, Truck 2 (we were Truck 3) commander told the driver to stop and backup. The gunner in our turret was given an atta-boy for his attention, an reaction. The opfor (opposition force) gave me an wtf-wow for backing up at 90 mph (an exaggeration). And over all it worked out OK, because the instructors were thinking what on earth are they doing, and realized that the bad guys would be thinking the same thing. So all was well.
When we got back to the classroom, I had to pop smoke to get back to the Fort Jackson SRP site to clear medical. The ride over there was OK, but when I finished, the other driver was nowhere to be seen, so I hung around waiting for him. Luckily I over heard another NCO saying he was going back to the battalion, so I asked him if by that he meant McCready. He did so I was able to get a ride back, and get back before noon when we were moving out to the airport. We arrived at the airport at 1300 ish, the plane to DC left at 1730. So Rea and I drank some and ate some as we waited. We arrived in DC at 1900 and one of Rea's buddies in DC picked us up from the airport. Since we would be a little while in processing at Belvoir, we dropped the buddy off at his apartment. After four hours of chasing our tails and hanging around the AIT barracks we found the housing POC (point of contact) So by Midnight we were able to get to bed. I was up at 0500 for breakfast and the convoy. Friday was a long day! Saturday was more leisurely, we hooked up with some of our buddies from AIT and a few of Rea's co-workers and walked around the National Mall, went to the Smithsonian - Natural Science, and made our way to Lincoln, then we walked to the Metro at Arlington Cem. We ate dinner at Sin/e(there is supposed to be an accent over the e). Much nicer than Friday. Sunday I took care of some errands at the PX and walked all of the way over to the Starbucks on post to access the Internet(map below). Rea hooked back up with me just now and let me know that tomorrow, Monday, we have a 0430 formation to move to the 0500 AIT PT formation. >:( GRRR. To make matters even better, it is a run day, I am not trying to get hurt. More to follow!!

Ft. Jackson, erm no, ...that's McCrady...

2008-11-02T07:00:00.000-08:00

Well Mummy dropped me off at the airport with no visible tears, and in full costume...

Once at the airport I hauled all of my bags to the ticketing desk and of course I found myself in line behind someone with a large bag who kept insisting that it could be carried on... about 20 minutes later I had my tickets in hand and made the whole trip without further incident. :)

When I arrived in Columbia, SC, I was under the impression that I had to wait and talk to the military liaison. Instead there was a large group of soldiers enrolled in Recruiter school who seemed to know what they were doing so I tagged along with them. We arrived at the Ft. Jackson welcome center and I was told that IRR Recalls needed to go to Camp McCready, and not to worry, there was another soldier on his way there. So with one more cab ride I was where I needed to be.

The first 3 days Our group of 20 IRR recalls and Retiree Volunteers in processed through Medical, Dental, Finance, and everything else we needed. The general consensus is the three days could be run a little smarter so there wouldn't be as much sitting around. Female Soldiers are not able to process much of anything until their pregnancy test comes back. Then we rush around trying to catch up. A few of us had to wait until Tuesday to get immunizations, including the TB test, so now we had to wait until Thursday to get that read. So I missed our first soldier class, Heavy Weapons. Luckily, there were only 5 soldiers who were able to o to the class, so the civilian instructor did not issue gear, Helmet, flak vest, canteens... etc...

On Friday we refreshed on Land Navigation, and were briefly instructed on Middle Eastern Cultural Awareness. On Monday we will go over weapons familiarity, and fire our weapons at the range on Tuesday. Hopefully I should be out of here on Friday or Saturday, and on my way to be trained at Ft. Belvoir, Virgina, or on to the Unit in Camp Shelby, Vicksburg, MS to be trained by the unit. The Topo Unit has already been trained by a guy I was in AIT with, who is also processing here with me now. Small World!

The Beginning

2008-10-08T08:04:00.000-07:00

So there I was happily attending Texas A&M, and enjoying life in the Corps of cadeds in Delta Company. When after three short days of classes, I get a phone call (voice mail) from my dad telling me that it appears that I have orders to deploy in support of Iraqi Freedom. My first thought is to try to get out of going, so I call the CO of Delta company, and go to the Trigon to try and talk to somebody there, but it is 5:01 pm and every one is gone for the day. That night I drive home to get the packet to read over. Sure enough I get to go play in the sand...again. As I am driving back I realize that it may be crappy timing in one way, I had just started school, but in another light it could not have come at a better time, as I was not almost finished with school, and the money I would make while deployed will help with school when I get back.
Upon returning to College Station, I talk once more with Levi, commander of D co, tell him that I am going to go, and I start the paperwork in the morning. One thing that was bothering me was that the first football game of the season was on that comming Saturday. I had never been to an A&M home game, or any other A&M game for that matter, and I really wanted to go. So when I turned in my uniforms, I kept one set of Bravos to wear at the game and march-in.
As the Corps marches in to any home game, each unit is announced along with the commander's name and where he/she is from. As Delta Company rounded the last turn, instead of hearing Levi's name, and hometown, the announcer said that a member of our unit, which is made up of combat veterans, is on orders to deploy again. And they even announced my name! I trid so hard not to smile from ear to ear, but it didn't work very well.
The game was great, untill the second half when A&M began to loose, they obviously didn't get the message that they were supposed to win as this would be the last game I would see this season...