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