shoot move communicate

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.