so here's my next entry 14 days later. i find the longer i put this off the less i want to do it because it gets harder and harder to summarize what's going on. but here i go...
the last two weeks have had their share of ups and downs. we're still doing a lot of training and my body has completely switched to a 5 hours a night pattern. if i for whatever reason have the opportunity to sleep longer, my body wakes up anyway. that's not to say i would be opposed to a siesta style of day. some of our classes are long and lack any resemblance of excitement.
since my last post... we've gone through quite a few lanes of training. the height of last week was learning how to identify i.e.ds (improvised explosive devices) and going through an urban/sandy obstacle course with simulated artillery and 50cal rounds going off. we were huffing and puffing and all kinds of sweaty, but it was awesome nonetheless. my executive officer was on my four man assault team but they made me the team leader. it was a total blast running up behind barriers and firing off blank rounds while your teammates blitzed up to the next point of cover. being the tallest, i had the honor of holding the barb wire up for everyone to crawl under. the exercise probably only went for 10 minutes, but by the end i was one sweaty nasty thing fully taking on the look of a real soldier with dirt in my teeth and everywhere else i thought should be safe from the grime. it probably didn't help that i shoot lefty and the rounds were dirty so every time i fired a puff of dust would blast my face. luckily we wear eye protection though.
after a three days of this high speed training we had quite the surprise waiting for us. we were supposed to have last sunday off to recover from the hard days but when we got in saturday night we found out our unit had been picked to guard the fob (forward operating base). okay, that's cool, we can pull our weight. the fun news was still to come. we had to guard the base for 24 hours by ourselves. the minimum number of soldiers it takes to guard this thing is 8... and we had 11. so for 24 hours we rotating 3 people in and out of the guard duty to get sleep here and there. when my turns came up... all three... i couldn't sleep. so by the time the monday night rolled around i'd slept about 3.5 hours in 48 hours. i don't think awesome quite covers how great this opportunity was. but we embraced the suck and drove on. when we finally finished at 5 am... we were told part of the duty was to clean all the showers in the base (there's 5) and the mwr tent and the computer lab. this was about the point where most of the soldiers were acting drunk due to the lack of sleep. that actually helped because they were too goofy to get upset. long story short... it was an interesting 2-3 days. the best part of it though was being able to call andrea so much. i worried that when i get overseas it will get harder to stay in touch. but we'll see.
as for what i'm up to now... we've moved into our mos (military occupation specialty) specific training. i was a bit nervous about it since it requires me to be a reporter again. but so far it's pretty fun. i'm still not a fan of our computers/editing software (they'd make better boat anchors than they do functioning laptops), but that's why i brought my mac. we're writing stories, shooting video and then editing it all together. the best part is our instructors aren't set on teaching us the "army" way of doing things. this is especially good news since i find most army publications/broadcasts to be incredibly boring. i've also gotten the chance to help create press releases and briefings for high brass officers since i'm now a staff sergeant. fun stuff.
i'm still wearing the supply sergeant hat but the more i sign out the less i have to worry about.
also, i believe i know when my 4 day pass is going to be so i'm really looking forward to hitting the streets of new york with andrea. hopefully we'll get on letterman, have a picnic in central park (minus the side of mugging), and just have a great time remembering what it's like to be *with* your spouse.
hearing from all of you (all 6-7) really does make my day. and those of you looking in on my beautiful bride, thank you... especially my family, who are just completely awesome. i pray everyday thanking God for all of you and for how you bless my life.
well that's it for now... until next time, nomeste
p.s. oh yeah, i'm hoping to run the hood to coast *in* iraq. kind of like that astronaut who ran the boston marathon on a treadmill in space. but i'll do it for reals. any support/prayers you can give me to get ready is appreciated.
25.6.07
11.6.07
aim breath squeeze
i'm sorry i'm not getting more of these posts put in... our internet is shotty and my time to write these is limited. so since my last post we've since moved to the fob (forward operating base). it's about 100 degrees hotter out here. we generally work about 18 hour days and drink just as many gallons of water to stay cool. with all 50 lbs or so of gear it gets really warm really fast. i was beginning to think i was beefing up my shoulder muscles but now i'm wondering if they're not just swollen from carrying so much weight.
our training so far has been pretty good. alot of it so far has been power-point presentations a.k.a. power-nap presentations. we're learning about the iraqi culture, islam and how to speak basic arabic. we also have done some cool medical exercises and hopefully we'll all get combat life-saver trained, which unfortunately for me means giving and receiving an i-v. we also took three nights of combatives training. cool stuff on how to choke someone out or get out of certain holds. look out paul! the only thing they didn't go into that i wish they had was take-downs. all our training started on the ground. i found being tall comes in handy even if the other guy is stronger. one guy had me in a pretty good head lock but i just twisted my head sideways and stood up inverting him upside down. he was infantry so that made it even funnier. we've been to several ranges to qualify on our weapons. last thursday we took our rifles to the range and fired at popups... getting down to a proper firing position with an extra 4 inches of plating between you and the ground isn't all that easy. after we qualified on the popups... we had to shoot at close range targets with our gas masks on. if it wasn't hot before... it sure was then. then we waited until dusk to do a night fire. i somehow got put on ammo detail and had to go last. so while the soldiers who went first and still had some light got 30 out of 30... the rest of us had to guess on most of our shots. you could hear the target go up but i had to wait until the chest section glowed red. i couldn't even see the front sight post. i just centered my rifle and fired away. the target would go up for 8 seconds and the chest would glow for a split second after four of those seconds. i felt like i was shooting e.t. i somehow ray charlesed (that's a verb now) 14 targets... passing is 7. not bad for completely guessing on where the stinking thing was. another day we also got to fire while moving. that had me pretty nervous. all it takes is some idiot tripping or pointing their weapon in the wrong direction and bam... someone gets a purple heart before leaving the country. luckily everyone shot smart. and today... four of us got to fire the m2 50 cal gun. it's the one that you see mounted on top of humvees. pretty cool weapon. everyone but me qualified because i had the worst luck. i was in the last firing order, again due to ammo detail... and the weapons were starting to really heat up and get gummy. so the first gun i tried would only fire twice before jamming... then i'd have to pull the bolt back and try again. after 50 rounds and a really sore arm, they moved me to another gun that promptly went dead. finally on my 3rd gun i started to get some rounds down range but ran out of bullets before i could even come close to qualifying. luckily we didn't have to qualify.
so that's some of what i've been up to... otherwise i've been trying to get more than 4 hours of sleep. for the first week and a half i was squad leader... broadcast section leader... and supply sergeant. our unit is pretty small so few people have to take on multiple positions. the supply sergeant role is the one that really takes its toll. i'm driving all over post and walking across the fob constantly to fill last minute supply issues. i'm hoping things will slow down once we get to iraq.
for those worried about my sanity... i'm doing pretty well. there are some pretty funny people in my unit that help keep morale up. i'm trying to stay in touch with the family & friends. i try to call andrea daily, which helps keep me happy and motivated to keep plugging away. if it weren't for her and my daily prayers i'd probably feel more down. one of the best things i've found already from this deployment away from home is that no matter where i go... God is there for me. that may sound dumb or obvious... but i've never had to rely on it so much. i've taken Him for granted more than i realize. my prayer time has gone up quite a bit... and i even attended a church service at the fob. only 8 people showed and it was fairly interesting. it felt more like a conversion service than a reaffirmation service. but it was good nonetheless.
anyway... this is pretty long already so i'll go ahead and sign off. hopefully i'll have some funny stuff to share soon instead of a laundry list of my daily events.
peace out!
kevin
our training so far has been pretty good. alot of it so far has been power-point presentations a.k.a. power-nap presentations. we're learning about the iraqi culture, islam and how to speak basic arabic. we also have done some cool medical exercises and hopefully we'll all get combat life-saver trained, which unfortunately for me means giving and receiving an i-v. we also took three nights of combatives training. cool stuff on how to choke someone out or get out of certain holds. look out paul! the only thing they didn't go into that i wish they had was take-downs. all our training started on the ground. i found being tall comes in handy even if the other guy is stronger. one guy had me in a pretty good head lock but i just twisted my head sideways and stood up inverting him upside down. he was infantry so that made it even funnier. we've been to several ranges to qualify on our weapons. last thursday we took our rifles to the range and fired at popups... getting down to a proper firing position with an extra 4 inches of plating between you and the ground isn't all that easy. after we qualified on the popups... we had to shoot at close range targets with our gas masks on. if it wasn't hot before... it sure was then. then we waited until dusk to do a night fire. i somehow got put on ammo detail and had to go last. so while the soldiers who went first and still had some light got 30 out of 30... the rest of us had to guess on most of our shots. you could hear the target go up but i had to wait until the chest section glowed red. i couldn't even see the front sight post. i just centered my rifle and fired away. the target would go up for 8 seconds and the chest would glow for a split second after four of those seconds. i felt like i was shooting e.t. i somehow ray charlesed (that's a verb now) 14 targets... passing is 7. not bad for completely guessing on where the stinking thing was. another day we also got to fire while moving. that had me pretty nervous. all it takes is some idiot tripping or pointing their weapon in the wrong direction and bam... someone gets a purple heart before leaving the country. luckily everyone shot smart. and today... four of us got to fire the m2 50 cal gun. it's the one that you see mounted on top of humvees. pretty cool weapon. everyone but me qualified because i had the worst luck. i was in the last firing order, again due to ammo detail... and the weapons were starting to really heat up and get gummy. so the first gun i tried would only fire twice before jamming... then i'd have to pull the bolt back and try again. after 50 rounds and a really sore arm, they moved me to another gun that promptly went dead. finally on my 3rd gun i started to get some rounds down range but ran out of bullets before i could even come close to qualifying. luckily we didn't have to qualify.
so that's some of what i've been up to... otherwise i've been trying to get more than 4 hours of sleep. for the first week and a half i was squad leader... broadcast section leader... and supply sergeant. our unit is pretty small so few people have to take on multiple positions. the supply sergeant role is the one that really takes its toll. i'm driving all over post and walking across the fob constantly to fill last minute supply issues. i'm hoping things will slow down once we get to iraq.
for those worried about my sanity... i'm doing pretty well. there are some pretty funny people in my unit that help keep morale up. i'm trying to stay in touch with the family & friends. i try to call andrea daily, which helps keep me happy and motivated to keep plugging away. if it weren't for her and my daily prayers i'd probably feel more down. one of the best things i've found already from this deployment away from home is that no matter where i go... God is there for me. that may sound dumb or obvious... but i've never had to rely on it so much. i've taken Him for granted more than i realize. my prayer time has gone up quite a bit... and i even attended a church service at the fob. only 8 people showed and it was fairly interesting. it felt more like a conversion service than a reaffirmation service. but it was good nonetheless.
anyway... this is pretty long already so i'll go ahead and sign off. hopefully i'll have some funny stuff to share soon instead of a laundry list of my daily events.
peace out!
kevin
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