So it's finally come time for me to bid a fond farewell to the folks here at CJTF-101. Not quite yet, but soon enough. That being said, I've decided to go ahead and make my post-deployment (and thus, final) entry on this here deal.
Over the past few months, I've had a lot of things happen. Some positive, some negative, and some neutral. That being said, I really don't have much to say on all of it. Yeah, it was definitely the worst deployment I've been on of the three (including this one), and yeah, I never want to go on another IA for the rest of my time in the Navy, but I fully understand and respect the fact that I'll probably have to, anyway. So, I went and made an order for a Dell XPS m1530, one of the top gaming laptops.
Aside from that, these past couple of months have been one instance of Army drama after another. They've tried taking me from night shift to put me on days, where I wouldn't have done one bit of good. They've tried taking other people from night shift, and doing the same with them. Then they tossed around the idea of completely swapping personnel around from the days to the nights, and then changing people around in terms of what they do in the Helpdesk.
Yes, it's been a hectic couple of months.
But, that's alright, because it's all almost over. I've got a new place to stay lined up, the electricity and cable set to turn on before I get there, and everything else is all taken care of. What's more, I was able to reduce the number of seabags I'm taking with me from the four I came with down to two.
In the end, if I could impart only a couple things on anyone for this whole thing, it would be to come with plenty of entertainment, brace yourselves for a culture shock, and don't expect the worst, because this place, despite my initial (and current) complaints, could be a lot worse than it really is.
No, it's no Qatar, but it's definitely better than other places out there.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Monday, June 2, 2008
Anchors Aweigh
It's been a while since I've posted anything here, and my views have somewhat radically changed since the last entry, so I figure that I'd go ahead and post some more updates on how life is out here.
First off, I've gotten another e-mail from another individual (not entirely sure if I spoke of this in my last entry, because it was, after all, so long ago) who, as it turns out, is my real replacement. I've decided to go ahead and uphold the virtues of the OPSEC program and all that good stuff, and to that end, I won't say exactly when he's getting here, but I will say this: because of that date, my stay here has been truncated by a significant amount. Why is that, you ask? Well, my friends, let me bring you up to speed.
I was outside, sitting in the guard shack for my weekly dose of guard duty (most of those in the building where I work stand maybe one or two nights per month... I stand about one or two nights per week of it), when all of a sudden a Master Chief walks by, does a double-take when he sees that it's a Navy guy in the window, and comes back to say a few words.
This Master Chief, as it turns out, is the Command Master Chief for the entire country, as it turns out. And I have the distinct pleasure to have him come by and decide to talk with me. This, for whatever reason, lifted my spirits significantly. As we're talking, he asks me where I'm from, where I'm going, and how much longer I have here. So I tell him, "Well, Master Chief, I've heard from a couple different sources that the Navy has a regulation out saying that two people can't occupy the same Noble Eagle number for more than fourteen days?"
To my ultimate satisfaction, he replies, "That's correct."
Furthermore, he goes and tells me that as the Command Master Chief for the entire country, he can work where he wants, when he wants, and doing generally whatever he wants. And that one of the benefits of this is that he can tell me exactly who my replacement is, when he's getting here, and when I can expect to leave.
"I already know who my replacement is," I told him, "And he sent me his itinerary of when he should be here, so... how do I go about getting the wheels turning to get out of here?"
So he refers me to a YN2 at the NAVCENT detachment down the road. Says to get in touch with her, and ask for the Warrior Transition package. So when I go inside for my two hours of roving guard duty, I write up a quick e-mail and send it her way.
The next day, I check my e-mail, and lo and behold, I have not just one, not just two, but five different e-mails from five different people! So I look through, and it turns out that forty-five days before you plan on getting underway from this place, you start the outprocessing... process.
Since that day, not a lot has happened, really. The birds outside of the building where I work are picking up in how loud and how long they go nuts with their chirping. And unfortunately, over the past few weeks, it seems to me that I've been a lot more susceptible to insanity from all that noise. Or growing a bit less patient with it. Or something.
Anyway, turns out the Navy was never my enemy. My views were just a bit too narrow and hateful to discern that. The Navy might not be perfect, but in relation to what the Army has going on, the Navy is perfection incarnate.
And now, back to the last two days of my four-day liberty.
First off, I've gotten another e-mail from another individual (not entirely sure if I spoke of this in my last entry, because it was, after all, so long ago) who, as it turns out, is my real replacement. I've decided to go ahead and uphold the virtues of the OPSEC program and all that good stuff, and to that end, I won't say exactly when he's getting here, but I will say this: because of that date, my stay here has been truncated by a significant amount. Why is that, you ask? Well, my friends, let me bring you up to speed.
I was outside, sitting in the guard shack for my weekly dose of guard duty (most of those in the building where I work stand maybe one or two nights per month... I stand about one or two nights per week of it), when all of a sudden a Master Chief walks by, does a double-take when he sees that it's a Navy guy in the window, and comes back to say a few words.
This Master Chief, as it turns out, is the Command Master Chief for the entire country, as it turns out. And I have the distinct pleasure to have him come by and decide to talk with me. This, for whatever reason, lifted my spirits significantly. As we're talking, he asks me where I'm from, where I'm going, and how much longer I have here. So I tell him, "Well, Master Chief, I've heard from a couple different sources that the Navy has a regulation out saying that two people can't occupy the same Noble Eagle number for more than fourteen days?"
To my ultimate satisfaction, he replies, "That's correct."
Furthermore, he goes and tells me that as the Command Master Chief for the entire country, he can work where he wants, when he wants, and doing generally whatever he wants. And that one of the benefits of this is that he can tell me exactly who my replacement is, when he's getting here, and when I can expect to leave.
"I already know who my replacement is," I told him, "And he sent me his itinerary of when he should be here, so... how do I go about getting the wheels turning to get out of here?"
So he refers me to a YN2 at the NAVCENT detachment down the road. Says to get in touch with her, and ask for the Warrior Transition package. So when I go inside for my two hours of roving guard duty, I write up a quick e-mail and send it her way.
The next day, I check my e-mail, and lo and behold, I have not just one, not just two, but five different e-mails from five different people! So I look through, and it turns out that forty-five days before you plan on getting underway from this place, you start the outprocessing... process.
Since that day, not a lot has happened, really. The birds outside of the building where I work are picking up in how loud and how long they go nuts with their chirping. And unfortunately, over the past few weeks, it seems to me that I've been a lot more susceptible to insanity from all that noise. Or growing a bit less patient with it. Or something.
Anyway, turns out the Navy was never my enemy. My views were just a bit too narrow and hateful to discern that. The Navy might not be perfect, but in relation to what the Army has going on, the Navy is perfection incarnate.
And now, back to the last two days of my four-day liberty.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Tempus fugit
"I can't believe the kind of stuff that's being allowed to happen during the dayshift," I said with a bit of a frown on my face.
"Yeah well," he replied, "I just don't give a damn anymore."
So it's been a month or so since my last post, and I can't say that it really matters. At this point, I believe my complaints have been taken as nothing more than mere bitching, and people have decided that it's really not worth all the anti-Navy propaganda that I've been spewing from it. Anyway, I shall forge on with this particular post, and who knows, we might get a bit more as time goes on as well.
The conversation above is actually the tail end from a conversation that I had with one of the E-6's at work a few days ago. The sad thing is that with two months under my belt, I can honestly say that I'm actually starting to care about this place, and how the Helpdesk looks to outsiders. The somewhat bright part of this is that when your superiors don't care, you're free to do what you will. Free to make up your mind as to how you go about doing things.
It's kind of like choosing between the light side and the dark side of the force. Personally, I choose to make myself stand out from the clods that just do the bare minimum, if that. I keep my workspace clean, I address officers and senior enlisted types with the respect that's due to them. Even if I don't particularly care for them for one reason or another.
But I digress.
I got an e-mail from another individual that's turned out to be my real replacement. The female I'd gotten the e-mail from before is actually the replacement for one of the individuals on dayshift, much to my dismay. At first, I wasn't concerned about it because I felt secure in the knowledge that I'd be getting an E-4 to replace me, and I'd have a bit of leeway to decide how things proceeded. Instead, I'm getting an E-6 to replace me, and if dayshift has anything to say about it, he really will be coming to nightshift to replace me. This sucks because the one E-6 that we have on nightshift is a junior one, and he's probably one of the cooler bosses I've had in the entire time I've had in the Navy.
He's been in for seven years, and has an air about him that reaks of "I don't care". This isn't to say that he's not professional about work. Quite the contrary, as a matter of fact. It's just that it's been my experience that the senior enlisted types in the Navy typically tend to be hardasses that have their own set way of doing things, and bend as much as a piece of raw pasta to the notion of doing things the lax way. Fortunately, however, he'll be getting here late enough in the deployment to where it won't matter what he does. If he turns out to be cool, so much the better, but we'll see.
In the meantime, I'll just keep on keepin' on. I'll answer questions that the two of them send to me to the best of my ability, and make sure that they're better prepared for this than I was when I was sent out here. I'm not much into charity, but I can't and won't let other people suffer the same problems I did. Not when it can be helped.
Also, I finally got in touch with the detailer last night and got my follow-on orders from this place. And I gotta say: it's a beautiful thing to know what's happening with me in four months.
That said, there's nothing else to say. The Army is continuing to be cool in some ways, retarded in others. But I'll leave it at that for now. ADD taking hold and all that jazz.
"Yeah well," he replied, "I just don't give a damn anymore."
So it's been a month or so since my last post, and I can't say that it really matters. At this point, I believe my complaints have been taken as nothing more than mere bitching, and people have decided that it's really not worth all the anti-Navy propaganda that I've been spewing from it. Anyway, I shall forge on with this particular post, and who knows, we might get a bit more as time goes on as well.
The conversation above is actually the tail end from a conversation that I had with one of the E-6's at work a few days ago. The sad thing is that with two months under my belt, I can honestly say that I'm actually starting to care about this place, and how the Helpdesk looks to outsiders. The somewhat bright part of this is that when your superiors don't care, you're free to do what you will. Free to make up your mind as to how you go about doing things.
It's kind of like choosing between the light side and the dark side of the force. Personally, I choose to make myself stand out from the clods that just do the bare minimum, if that. I keep my workspace clean, I address officers and senior enlisted types with the respect that's due to them. Even if I don't particularly care for them for one reason or another.
But I digress.
I got an e-mail from another individual that's turned out to be my real replacement. The female I'd gotten the e-mail from before is actually the replacement for one of the individuals on dayshift, much to my dismay. At first, I wasn't concerned about it because I felt secure in the knowledge that I'd be getting an E-4 to replace me, and I'd have a bit of leeway to decide how things proceeded. Instead, I'm getting an E-6 to replace me, and if dayshift has anything to say about it, he really will be coming to nightshift to replace me. This sucks because the one E-6 that we have on nightshift is a junior one, and he's probably one of the cooler bosses I've had in the entire time I've had in the Navy.
He's been in for seven years, and has an air about him that reaks of "I don't care". This isn't to say that he's not professional about work. Quite the contrary, as a matter of fact. It's just that it's been my experience that the senior enlisted types in the Navy typically tend to be hardasses that have their own set way of doing things, and bend as much as a piece of raw pasta to the notion of doing things the lax way. Fortunately, however, he'll be getting here late enough in the deployment to where it won't matter what he does. If he turns out to be cool, so much the better, but we'll see.
In the meantime, I'll just keep on keepin' on. I'll answer questions that the two of them send to me to the best of my ability, and make sure that they're better prepared for this than I was when I was sent out here. I'm not much into charity, but I can't and won't let other people suffer the same problems I did. Not when it can be helped.
Also, I finally got in touch with the detailer last night and got my follow-on orders from this place. And I gotta say: it's a beautiful thing to know what's happening with me in four months.
That said, there's nothing else to say. The Army is continuing to be cool in some ways, retarded in others. But I'll leave it at that for now. ADD taking hold and all that jazz.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
FTN
It has been a couple weeks since I last posted, I guess. I dunno, really. The days blend seamlessly in with each other down here. I wake up around 7:00 PM and walk to work, and then get off at 7:30 AM and walk back to my room and talk with friends and loved ones back home, and then go to sleep, only to repeat the cycle the next day. But I do apologize, anonymous commenter, I'll try to keep things a bit more up to date. It's been hard lately to keep the motivational juices flowing. I find it hard to wake up and roll out of bed early enough on that one day per week I feel like showering.
Oh yes, I only shower once per week.
It's not because they're enforcing water rations, or because I'm uncomfortable in communal showers. No, it's because I just don't feel like it. I don't feel like a whole lot anymore. Ever since I've gotten here, I've fallen into somewhat of a rut. A depressive rut. But on the bright side, this rut has within it, a schedule. A set series of events that all I need to do is repeat every single day with little or no deviation, and things go by relatively uneventfully.
This past week and a half or so has been pretty humdrum, to be honest.
Yet it's been stressful.
And relieving.
Relieving in that I got an e-mail from my replacement a few days ago. I won't divulge the name, rank, gender, or any other information. But I will say this: seeing that e-mail was the highlight of my time here. Knowing that I've got one foot out the door of this... this hell on earth.
Stressful in that I deal with some of the most incompetent boobs in the history of incompetent boobs. I've had semi-high-ranking Army officers yelling at me to fix their keyboards. But it can't be just any keyboard. It has to be a keyboard with a "translator matrix" installed for Farsi. Upon further inspection, this matrix looks to be nothing more than Arabic lettering painted on the keys in white out. And the solution to the problem? After all this yelling... after all this self-important bullshit he throws at me, it turns out the moron is plugging the keyboard into the wrong computer.
There've been other issues like this since I've been here, and I've come to look forward to those types of issues, to be honest. Usually, the people are more than willing to admit they're computer illiterate, and treat me with the respect that someone that's there to help deserves. But just as prevalent are the "keyboard douches", constantly thinking they know more about what's wrong than I do.
Throwing technical terms like "matrix" and "drivers" and "incompatible" at me.
Too bad they're using them in completely incorrect contexts. I might not be the brightest male in existence, but by no stretch of the imagination am I a moron.
I don't have to help them. I really don't. What are they gonna do to me? Punish me for an Article 92? Who gives a flying fuck? The Navy obviously doesn't. I e-mailed as many Navy people as I could when I first got the chance in regards to getting my follow-on orders for where I'm supposed to go beyond Afghanistan, and they blew me off for two weeks.
Deciding that I don't care what happens to me anymore in terms of the Navy, I contacted my detailer, my old career counselor, and another detailer. I figure although they're pretty likely to blow me off if I just contact any one of them, they have to prove to the others that they "legitimately care" about my issues.
And low and behold, I get a response.
A few of them.
My old career counselor tells me they were "just working" the problem, and that it's in the process of being finalized.
My old senior chief tells me that I should watch how I talk in them e-mails, lest I piss off the detailer, and get fucked further.
And my detailer finally grows a pair and decides that he'll talk to me. He tells me that I've got plenty of time to get orders elsewhere, and we'll cross that bridge when we get to it (in a nutshell).
But what really gets me is that the career counselor went so far as to say, and I quote, "The detailer recommends you go to a ship for twelve months to get your ESWS pin. He says it'll really help your career in the long run, but you can go to a shore command if you want to..."
Go to a fucking ship? To get my fucking ESWS pin?
What's an ESWS pin you ask? The ESWS pin, or Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist pin, is a soon-to-be-mandatory uniform device that you can get to further show how "shit hot" you are. But wait, what's this?
My title... what's that say? Does it say... IT2(SW) Shaw?
Why yes, I do believe it fucking does.
That's because I already have my fucking ESWS pin, and have had it for nearly two fucking years, if not two years on the nose.
Pardon the vulgarity, but it pains me to realize that the people who are supposed to know all about me don't know much at all beyond that fucking 2.0 evaluation I got for being a fatbody.
Yes, I'm obsessing.
It's my right.
The Navy is going to fuck me over somehow or another before this is all over.
But I digress.
This post is a bit too long, right now. I'll post more later on or more likely tomorrow.
Oh yes, I only shower once per week.
It's not because they're enforcing water rations, or because I'm uncomfortable in communal showers. No, it's because I just don't feel like it. I don't feel like a whole lot anymore. Ever since I've gotten here, I've fallen into somewhat of a rut. A depressive rut. But on the bright side, this rut has within it, a schedule. A set series of events that all I need to do is repeat every single day with little or no deviation, and things go by relatively uneventfully.
This past week and a half or so has been pretty humdrum, to be honest.
Yet it's been stressful.
And relieving.
Relieving in that I got an e-mail from my replacement a few days ago. I won't divulge the name, rank, gender, or any other information. But I will say this: seeing that e-mail was the highlight of my time here. Knowing that I've got one foot out the door of this... this hell on earth.
Stressful in that I deal with some of the most incompetent boobs in the history of incompetent boobs. I've had semi-high-ranking Army officers yelling at me to fix their keyboards. But it can't be just any keyboard. It has to be a keyboard with a "translator matrix" installed for Farsi. Upon further inspection, this matrix looks to be nothing more than Arabic lettering painted on the keys in white out. And the solution to the problem? After all this yelling... after all this self-important bullshit he throws at me, it turns out the moron is plugging the keyboard into the wrong computer.
There've been other issues like this since I've been here, and I've come to look forward to those types of issues, to be honest. Usually, the people are more than willing to admit they're computer illiterate, and treat me with the respect that someone that's there to help deserves. But just as prevalent are the "keyboard douches", constantly thinking they know more about what's wrong than I do.
Throwing technical terms like "matrix" and "drivers" and "incompatible" at me.
Too bad they're using them in completely incorrect contexts. I might not be the brightest male in existence, but by no stretch of the imagination am I a moron.
I don't have to help them. I really don't. What are they gonna do to me? Punish me for an Article 92? Who gives a flying fuck? The Navy obviously doesn't. I e-mailed as many Navy people as I could when I first got the chance in regards to getting my follow-on orders for where I'm supposed to go beyond Afghanistan, and they blew me off for two weeks.
Deciding that I don't care what happens to me anymore in terms of the Navy, I contacted my detailer, my old career counselor, and another detailer. I figure although they're pretty likely to blow me off if I just contact any one of them, they have to prove to the others that they "legitimately care" about my issues.
And low and behold, I get a response.
A few of them.
My old career counselor tells me they were "just working" the problem, and that it's in the process of being finalized.
My old senior chief tells me that I should watch how I talk in them e-mails, lest I piss off the detailer, and get fucked further.
And my detailer finally grows a pair and decides that he'll talk to me. He tells me that I've got plenty of time to get orders elsewhere, and we'll cross that bridge when we get to it (in a nutshell).
But what really gets me is that the career counselor went so far as to say, and I quote, "The detailer recommends you go to a ship for twelve months to get your ESWS pin. He says it'll really help your career in the long run, but you can go to a shore command if you want to..."
Go to a fucking ship? To get my fucking ESWS pin?
What's an ESWS pin you ask? The ESWS pin, or Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist pin, is a soon-to-be-mandatory uniform device that you can get to further show how "shit hot" you are. But wait, what's this?
My title... what's that say? Does it say... IT2(SW) Shaw?
Why yes, I do believe it fucking does.
That's because I already have my fucking ESWS pin, and have had it for nearly two fucking years, if not two years on the nose.
Pardon the vulgarity, but it pains me to realize that the people who are supposed to know all about me don't know much at all beyond that fucking 2.0 evaluation I got for being a fatbody.
Yes, I'm obsessing.
It's my right.
The Navy is going to fuck me over somehow or another before this is all over.
But I digress.
This post is a bit too long, right now. I'll post more later on or more likely tomorrow.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
So it's been a while since my last update. Although I doubt that there's many people out there who actually read this on a regular basis, I figure I'll go ahead and make at least this last update here to let those of you who actually are reading this know what the skinny of the situation is. There may be more entries later on down the road, but I can't say for sure, as my attention span is rather limited, and I don't feel like committing myself to anything.
Anyway.
I got to Kuwait at the very end of the night on the 29th of February, much to everyone's joy (for tax-free pay). And that began my actual countdown of time to get back to the USA. Over the next ten days, we'd be sitting in Kuwait, listening to people ask their stupid questions, which led to other stupid questions. I saw MA1 get more heated than I'd ever seen him get, and I really didn't care at all. As far as I was concerned, we could stay in Kuwait for the rest of the time I needed to serve, doing nothing.
But alas, we were finally able to get out and do the last bit of training we needed to do, and then we were flown out a day later.
So I got here to Afghanistan on the 11th or so, and it's been relatively painless.
The people from the other branches that I work with are laid back, but man there's a lot of drama between the day and night shifts.
But I've got closure to the question of where I work and what I do.
I work at a helpdesk, doing actual IT-related work. As it's the first time in the four years I've been in the military that I'm actually doing my job, I'm actually quite shaken by the whole thing. Fortunately, the vast majority of the job is stuff I already know (reinstalling software over and over, maintaining accounts, and so on), but there's also other random issues that I have to deal with.
I've also had no further luck in the orders department. The detailer told me I'm a dirtbag because I failed two physical readiness tests (funny, I never thought my ability to run was directly related to my level of professionalism... live and learn, I guess), so my choice of duty stations is very limited, and I'm probably looking at serving my last three years in the Navy in Hawaii.
...Which I don't want to do.
But since when has the Navy cared about what I do or don't want?
One more hour of this shift left.
Anyway.
I got to Kuwait at the very end of the night on the 29th of February, much to everyone's joy (for tax-free pay). And that began my actual countdown of time to get back to the USA. Over the next ten days, we'd be sitting in Kuwait, listening to people ask their stupid questions, which led to other stupid questions. I saw MA1 get more heated than I'd ever seen him get, and I really didn't care at all. As far as I was concerned, we could stay in Kuwait for the rest of the time I needed to serve, doing nothing.
But alas, we were finally able to get out and do the last bit of training we needed to do, and then we were flown out a day later.
So I got here to Afghanistan on the 11th or so, and it's been relatively painless.
The people from the other branches that I work with are laid back, but man there's a lot of drama between the day and night shifts.
But I've got closure to the question of where I work and what I do.
I work at a helpdesk, doing actual IT-related work. As it's the first time in the four years I've been in the military that I'm actually doing my job, I'm actually quite shaken by the whole thing. Fortunately, the vast majority of the job is stuff I already know (reinstalling software over and over, maintaining accounts, and so on), but there's also other random issues that I have to deal with.
I've also had no further luck in the orders department. The detailer told me I'm a dirtbag because I failed two physical readiness tests (funny, I never thought my ability to run was directly related to my level of professionalism... live and learn, I guess), so my choice of duty stations is very limited, and I'm probably looking at serving my last three years in the Navy in Hawaii.
...Which I don't want to do.
But since when has the Navy cared about what I do or don't want?
One more hour of this shift left.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Grand Finale
So I lost my legs today.
Both of them.
And what was remaining of my patience.
Alright, so I didn't really lose my legs, but in the training scenario I did, because of a grenade that wasn't originally there when I went to clear a room, but whatever. The entire day was a bust, having only had two real things to do: the convoy exercise and the land nav course, where we had to find our way to various points using nothing more than a compass and a map. The convoy exercise was relatively straightforward, but it was frigid outside, and that aggravated my illness. It made it hard to breathe, and I could feel my fever flaring.
Oh, and as it turns out, it's a good thing I didn't go to medical about this: all they do is give you an IV or three and some motrin. lawl, what a ridiculous regimen. And yeah, they would've held me back for three weeks, since they only have flights into Kuwait when a class completes.
But anyway, yeah. At one point in the convoy exercise, I was standing up in the back of the humvee when we came to a stop to get better fire coverage of our area. And without warning, the driver (a Drill Sergeant) gunned it, and I nearly fell out of the truck. Which, with an additional 70 lbs of body armour on, would've been especially bad. I'm thinking smashed nose at best, broken neck at worst.
The land nav course was of little consequence, so I won't talk about it here.
But from there, Jarvis decided to take advantage of that time and give us some "opportune training", in the form of a "wedge formation" in marching.
And what made me lol about this is that I'll probably use the wedge formation as often as I use the Pythagorean theorem. My math teacher told me I'd use it on a constant basis, but in the end, I never have since I graduated from high school.
So yes, more busy work. Followed by cleaning our weapons, which I'd already cleaned days before, and since then only fired two blanks through. Needless to say, there wasn't much for me to clean.
From there, we were let loose to the barracks to get into our wet weather gear to go and wash the humvees that the southern Drill Sergeants had dirtied up with their reckless mudding. One last muster of the day, and I was back in my berthing on my bed, gasping for air.
Let it be known that I can't stand the Navy anymore, because of a certain lack of self-accountability and condescending people. And I've lost some respect for the Army as well, because it's more or less just like the Navy in all the ways I can't stand.
My patience is shot. My health is shot for the moment (thanks to the Navy's countless and doubtlessly useless immunizations). And I'm hating this.
A little over six months to go.
Gonna be without the internet for the next two weeks or so, and even then I probably won't post much here anymore, anyway. But know this: unless you volunteered for an IA, you're in for a potentially terrible experience, and maybe even if you did volunteer.
My thoughts on the Navy at this point? Don't join if you haven't already and are considering it.
Is it a family tradition? Be a trend-setter.
Do you need money for college? Rob a bank.
Do you want to see the world? Get off your lazy ass and get going, you don't need the Navy to do that.
Over and oot.
Both of them.
And what was remaining of my patience.
Alright, so I didn't really lose my legs, but in the training scenario I did, because of a grenade that wasn't originally there when I went to clear a room, but whatever. The entire day was a bust, having only had two real things to do: the convoy exercise and the land nav course, where we had to find our way to various points using nothing more than a compass and a map. The convoy exercise was relatively straightforward, but it was frigid outside, and that aggravated my illness. It made it hard to breathe, and I could feel my fever flaring.
Oh, and as it turns out, it's a good thing I didn't go to medical about this: all they do is give you an IV or three and some motrin. lawl, what a ridiculous regimen. And yeah, they would've held me back for three weeks, since they only have flights into Kuwait when a class completes.
But anyway, yeah. At one point in the convoy exercise, I was standing up in the back of the humvee when we came to a stop to get better fire coverage of our area. And without warning, the driver (a Drill Sergeant) gunned it, and I nearly fell out of the truck. Which, with an additional 70 lbs of body armour on, would've been especially bad. I'm thinking smashed nose at best, broken neck at worst.
The land nav course was of little consequence, so I won't talk about it here.
But from there, Jarvis decided to take advantage of that time and give us some "opportune training", in the form of a "wedge formation" in marching.
And what made me lol about this is that I'll probably use the wedge formation as often as I use the Pythagorean theorem. My math teacher told me I'd use it on a constant basis, but in the end, I never have since I graduated from high school.
So yes, more busy work. Followed by cleaning our weapons, which I'd already cleaned days before, and since then only fired two blanks through. Needless to say, there wasn't much for me to clean.
From there, we were let loose to the barracks to get into our wet weather gear to go and wash the humvees that the southern Drill Sergeants had dirtied up with their reckless mudding. One last muster of the day, and I was back in my berthing on my bed, gasping for air.
Let it be known that I can't stand the Navy anymore, because of a certain lack of self-accountability and condescending people. And I've lost some respect for the Army as well, because it's more or less just like the Navy in all the ways I can't stand.
My patience is shot. My health is shot for the moment (thanks to the Navy's countless and doubtlessly useless immunizations). And I'm hating this.
A little over six months to go.
Gonna be without the internet for the next two weeks or so, and even then I probably won't post much here anymore, anyway. But know this: unless you volunteered for an IA, you're in for a potentially terrible experience, and maybe even if you did volunteer.
My thoughts on the Navy at this point? Don't join if you haven't already and are considering it.
Is it a family tradition? Be a trend-setter.
Do you need money for college? Rob a bank.
Do you want to see the world? Get off your lazy ass and get going, you don't need the Navy to do that.
Over and oot.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Full Metal Jacket
The title isn't what you guys think, really. It's kinda funny, but... lemme explain.
Today started off on the wrong foot entirely. The douche Senior Chief that sleeps opposite from me decided that he needs to take it upon himself each morning to wake up everyone in the berthing at the time he deems necessary to get everyone out to the grinder by muster time set by the First Sergeant. That's all well and good, but...
a) He's not in charge of everyone in the barracks, just his side (that's his platoon).
b) Our muster time was set for 8:00 AM, and he felt I needed to be awake at 7:11 AM to make it on time.
In light of the second one up there, I did get out of bed when he started barking out reveille crap, but I went as slow as I could possibly move in order to prove a point; to myself if to nobody else. Sure enough, even moving as slow as I was, it only took me ten minutes to take care of the morning routine, including bathroom crap, making my bed, and getting dressed.
7:21 AM.
So that gave me roughly half an hour to just lay there on my bed, fuming at this idiot's behaviour. What ever happened to self-accountability? I mean, really. I've never been late to muster. If anything, I've been early to the vast majority of them. So why the hell does this guy feel he needs to take it upon himself to rouse me from sleep that, in my sickened state, I desperately need before I need to be?
Whatever.
And as I lay there, another one of the Senior Chiefs (this one, the only one I actually like) comes by and asks me if I'm gonna get ready to go. I hold up my watch, he laughs and keeps walking.
Five minutes to eight, and I finish throwing on the rest of my gear, and walk out to the grinder.
And I make it there at 7:57 AM.
The First Sergeant makes it there at 8:07 AM, and almost all of fourth platoon is late as well.
Even more fodder against that jerk.
But I digress.
From here, we went and marched to a training site where we learned how to check people and vehicles entering the base. I got volunteered to be the guy to check the vehicles/people at the tier 2 portion of the whole deal, and man, did I suck big time. Of course, it didn't help that Drill Sergeant Watson, the one playing the part of potential friend/foe, had one of the most deadpan expressions ever, throughout the entire thing. The first mistake I made was to let him reach into the vehicle and grab a Pepsi can, which he threw at all three of us security people.
"Your entire team is dead, high speed," Drill Sergeant Jarvis said.
"Roger," I replied, "Lesson learned."
"And I've got an idea for you, high speed," he continued, "You're gonna transfer into the United States Army, and you're gonna become a mighty fine Drill Sergeant. But first, you gotta speak up like you got a pair, hooah?"
It's funny: no matter how derogatory he can be, I just can't help but be amused by it. His nickname of "high speed" is roughly on par with "shipmate" for dirtiness, but it's just... it's funny.
Anyway, I went around the van with Drill Sergeant Watson, telling him to open different parts of the vehicle so that I could inspect it. When he opened the rear passenger door, and I saw a few rolls of toilet paper, and some paper towels, I had to assume that in the imaginary world, these represented more than what they were at face value.
"Drill Sergeant," I started, "What would be considered as 'suspicious' in this simulation?"
"Anything you think would be suspicious, high speed," he replied.
"So... like these rolls of toilet paper, then?"
"I don't see what's so suspicious about toilet paper."
"Well no," I replied, "But then, I didn't see what was so suspicious about a can of Pepsi, either."
Finally, Drill Sergeant Watson laughed and broke the illusion.
"Alright, well it's your call," Drill Sergeant Jarvis laughed, "If you feel uncomfortable, give the call."
I shrugged it off and went around and finished inspecting the vehicle with Watson.
"Alright," Jarvis started, "How's the vehicle?"
"Good to go," I replied.
"Good to go," he repeated, "And what about our individual?"
"Still not good to go."
"Alright, so what do we do next?"
"I inspect him?"
"You inspect him?" he asked, "Why you?"
"Because I have the capability to do so, and my other security guys have their paws full of M16's."
"Yes, you do have the capability to do so, but don't you think that you should put your other security team to use?"
And then he motioned to the other guys I'd failed to notice behind the concertina wire.
"Ahhhh," I replied, "Right."
"Ahhhh," he repeated.
"Follow me, sir," I told Watson.
He didn't move. I started walking toward the concertina wire, and he picked up a good solid stride right behind me.
"He's gonna do exactly what you tell him to do," Jarvis said.
I eyed Watson over my shoulder for a few steps, but ultimately smirked it off and kept walking toward my destination.
And seconds later, I had his arms around my neck, giving me a good squeeze.
"You're dead," he said.
He let go and I turned to face him and Jarvis. Fortunately, they were both smiling, so it wasn't too big a failure.
"Never take your eye off the guy," Jarvis said, "Always maintain complete control."
"Roger," I replied, and ushered Watson the rest of the way into the inspection area.
And that was it for that particular run of failures. At that point, the sky was threatening to open up on us, so we got taken back in groups to grab some rain gear. And wouldn't you know it, right when I got safely back in the van with my gear on, the sky literally did open up, and let loose one hell of a downpour. The others in the van made jokes about how everyone back at the site were gonna be soaked, and Watson laughed and laughed.
And when we got there, everyone was just standing in the rain with the most miserable expressions on their faces.
We joined them pretty quick.
Fortunately, my platoon had headed for cover in one of the buildings we were using for practicing breaching and the like. And I got to shine once again with my level of suck for this crap. I was standing in front and off to the left of the door, and Jarvis came and more or less kicked it in to get in.
"Whoops, my bad," he said, "But that's why you don't stand in front of the door, high speed. Violence in action."
Yet another lesson learned!
Aside from there, the only lesson I'd learn is that I excel at kicking down doors. After that, we had lunch, and then one final lesson before being taken back to the barracks via bus. After a bit more training there, we were let go until our final muster of the day at 4:50 PM. Which would later be canceled, and we'd be set free for the day at 4:00 PM on the dot.
Score.
Aside from that, not much else to report. Went to the exchange and got me a copy of the Military Appreciation Edition of Microsoft Office 2007 for $80.00, and an 8Gb iPod Touch for $240. And this is where the title of this post comes in:
Throughout the entire day, I had several people come up to me and ask, "Are you okay there, Shaw? You're not gonna go all crazy and kill us, are you? Because if you are, just remember... I'm your friend... right? Just asking, because you have that 'Full Metal Jacket' look on your face."
Yes, well... stress and sickness will do that.
Out.
Today started off on the wrong foot entirely. The douche Senior Chief that sleeps opposite from me decided that he needs to take it upon himself each morning to wake up everyone in the berthing at the time he deems necessary to get everyone out to the grinder by muster time set by the First Sergeant. That's all well and good, but...
a) He's not in charge of everyone in the barracks, just his side (that's his platoon).
b) Our muster time was set for 8:00 AM, and he felt I needed to be awake at 7:11 AM to make it on time.
In light of the second one up there, I did get out of bed when he started barking out reveille crap, but I went as slow as I could possibly move in order to prove a point; to myself if to nobody else. Sure enough, even moving as slow as I was, it only took me ten minutes to take care of the morning routine, including bathroom crap, making my bed, and getting dressed.
7:21 AM.
So that gave me roughly half an hour to just lay there on my bed, fuming at this idiot's behaviour. What ever happened to self-accountability? I mean, really. I've never been late to muster. If anything, I've been early to the vast majority of them. So why the hell does this guy feel he needs to take it upon himself to rouse me from sleep that, in my sickened state, I desperately need before I need to be?
Whatever.
And as I lay there, another one of the Senior Chiefs (this one, the only one I actually like) comes by and asks me if I'm gonna get ready to go. I hold up my watch, he laughs and keeps walking.
Five minutes to eight, and I finish throwing on the rest of my gear, and walk out to the grinder.
And I make it there at 7:57 AM.
The First Sergeant makes it there at 8:07 AM, and almost all of fourth platoon is late as well.
Even more fodder against that jerk.
But I digress.
From here, we went and marched to a training site where we learned how to check people and vehicles entering the base. I got volunteered to be the guy to check the vehicles/people at the tier 2 portion of the whole deal, and man, did I suck big time. Of course, it didn't help that Drill Sergeant Watson, the one playing the part of potential friend/foe, had one of the most deadpan expressions ever, throughout the entire thing. The first mistake I made was to let him reach into the vehicle and grab a Pepsi can, which he threw at all three of us security people.
"Your entire team is dead, high speed," Drill Sergeant Jarvis said.
"Roger," I replied, "Lesson learned."
"And I've got an idea for you, high speed," he continued, "You're gonna transfer into the United States Army, and you're gonna become a mighty fine Drill Sergeant. But first, you gotta speak up like you got a pair, hooah?"
It's funny: no matter how derogatory he can be, I just can't help but be amused by it. His nickname of "high speed" is roughly on par with "shipmate" for dirtiness, but it's just... it's funny.
Anyway, I went around the van with Drill Sergeant Watson, telling him to open different parts of the vehicle so that I could inspect it. When he opened the rear passenger door, and I saw a few rolls of toilet paper, and some paper towels, I had to assume that in the imaginary world, these represented more than what they were at face value.
"Drill Sergeant," I started, "What would be considered as 'suspicious' in this simulation?"
"Anything you think would be suspicious, high speed," he replied.
"So... like these rolls of toilet paper, then?"
"I don't see what's so suspicious about toilet paper."
"Well no," I replied, "But then, I didn't see what was so suspicious about a can of Pepsi, either."
Finally, Drill Sergeant Watson laughed and broke the illusion.
"Alright, well it's your call," Drill Sergeant Jarvis laughed, "If you feel uncomfortable, give the call."
I shrugged it off and went around and finished inspecting the vehicle with Watson.
"Alright," Jarvis started, "How's the vehicle?"
"Good to go," I replied.
"Good to go," he repeated, "And what about our individual?"
"Still not good to go."
"Alright, so what do we do next?"
"I inspect him?"
"You inspect him?" he asked, "Why you?"
"Because I have the capability to do so, and my other security guys have their paws full of M16's."
"Yes, you do have the capability to do so, but don't you think that you should put your other security team to use?"
And then he motioned to the other guys I'd failed to notice behind the concertina wire.
"Ahhhh," I replied, "Right."
"Ahhhh," he repeated.
"Follow me, sir," I told Watson.
He didn't move. I started walking toward the concertina wire, and he picked up a good solid stride right behind me.
"He's gonna do exactly what you tell him to do," Jarvis said.
I eyed Watson over my shoulder for a few steps, but ultimately smirked it off and kept walking toward my destination.
And seconds later, I had his arms around my neck, giving me a good squeeze.
"You're dead," he said.
He let go and I turned to face him and Jarvis. Fortunately, they were both smiling, so it wasn't too big a failure.
"Never take your eye off the guy," Jarvis said, "Always maintain complete control."
"Roger," I replied, and ushered Watson the rest of the way into the inspection area.
And that was it for that particular run of failures. At that point, the sky was threatening to open up on us, so we got taken back in groups to grab some rain gear. And wouldn't you know it, right when I got safely back in the van with my gear on, the sky literally did open up, and let loose one hell of a downpour. The others in the van made jokes about how everyone back at the site were gonna be soaked, and Watson laughed and laughed.
And when we got there, everyone was just standing in the rain with the most miserable expressions on their faces.
We joined them pretty quick.
Fortunately, my platoon had headed for cover in one of the buildings we were using for practicing breaching and the like. And I got to shine once again with my level of suck for this crap. I was standing in front and off to the left of the door, and Jarvis came and more or less kicked it in to get in.
"Whoops, my bad," he said, "But that's why you don't stand in front of the door, high speed. Violence in action."
Yet another lesson learned!
Aside from there, the only lesson I'd learn is that I excel at kicking down doors. After that, we had lunch, and then one final lesson before being taken back to the barracks via bus. After a bit more training there, we were let go until our final muster of the day at 4:50 PM. Which would later be canceled, and we'd be set free for the day at 4:00 PM on the dot.
Score.
Aside from that, not much else to report. Went to the exchange and got me a copy of the Military Appreciation Edition of Microsoft Office 2007 for $80.00, and an 8Gb iPod Touch for $240. And this is where the title of this post comes in:
Throughout the entire day, I had several people come up to me and ask, "Are you okay there, Shaw? You're not gonna go all crazy and kill us, are you? Because if you are, just remember... I'm your friend... right? Just asking, because you have that 'Full Metal Jacket' look on your face."
Yes, well... stress and sickness will do that.
Out.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
So, Let's Review...
Alright, for lack of anything really new and interesting to enter today (although there will be a bit of news here after this first bit), I've decided to go ahead and tackle some of the assumptions I'd posted earlier on that people had given me to think about.
1. It's a lot of fun, it's good for your career, and a once in a lifetime experience.
This one has yet to be proven or disproven, but given that the Navy ain't a career, I think it's on a one-way trip to oblivion.
2. You'll make a lot of cash over there. An insane amount.
Yeah, this one is already looking good, and I'm not even over there yet.
3. You're coming back a first class.
I have some major doubts about this one, particularly given how many second classes make up the total IA strength we have going on this one, and of those, a good deal of them are IT's.
4. When you get back, I'll be your detailer. You'll go through me and have your choice of shore stations.
My final opinion of the Navy hinges on this one. Preferably, I'd like to go to Florida and get me some of that thar instructor duty, and get me a house and settle down. I start negotiating for orders a month or two after I hit the sand in Afghanistan, apparently.
5. Not many people go outside the wire. 90% of you won't ever leave the safety of the base.
According to just about every Drill Sergeant we've heard, this is a complete falsehood. We'll all get a chance—more than once—to go on a convoy patrol. Huzzah.
6. Most of your stress will come from getting used to the Army way of doing things.
Hahaha, nope. The vast majority of the stress I've gotten over the past couple of weeks alone have been from my Navy peers. The majority of them are being all-too-typically Navy, and their imitation of the Army staff is getting under my skin worse than any parasite ever could. No, this one is most definitely a false assumption, but then, I knew it would be from the start.
7/8. Assumptions either proving there would or wouldn't be downtime in South Carolina.
There is and isn't a lot of downtime in the training here. When we do have it, it's quickly filled in with mindless repetitive tasks like, cleaning our weapons even though they were cleaned mere hours ago after we finished firing, and are still clean from said cleaning session. Although I've gained a new respect for Army grunts due to having some pretty cool instructors down here, it's painfully apparent that the Navy as a whole follows the same gameplan.
And there we have it for the assumptions.
News...
Saturday wasn't fully our own—much like it wasn't last week—but then, it wasn't fully theirs, either. The only thing that we had to was go to the simfire range and learn when to shoot versus when not to shoot. Sounded pretty straightforward, really, but in the end... we had the usual level of machismo going on from some of the asshat males (and I'm sure we had some females doing the same):
"Remember, guys: you gotta kill the women and children, too, before they grow up to become terrorists themselves."
This is coming from a man with so much grey on his head, I'm surprised he hasn't been kicked out for high-year tenure. What got me about this particular guy was that when we were all done and released for the weekend, he had his own three kids over to visit him. Had I been more tactless and far less caring, I would've said, "So kids, ask your father to explain to you his stance on Arab women and children. It's quite amusing."
But of course, I digress.
The simfire range was pretty simple, but my particular group got shafted with all but one scenario filled with peaceful endings, and we didn't legitimately get to shoot at any of the targets whatsoever. It was odd, though, because there were rioters outside one of the checkpoints, just shouting. Alright, that's fine... sticks and stones and all that. But when one of the local law enforcement showed up with an AK47, and the rioters went and snagged the weapon from him, pulled him off the truck, and proceeded to bash in his trachea, sorry, but I'm gonna open up.
And I did. I took careful aim and shot the one man who'd grabbed the weapon off the cop (and was pleased to see on the playback that my shot had, in fact, hit true and only gotten him).
Then I was grilled by the Drill Sergeant on why I did what I did.
"With due respect, Drill Sergeant," I told him, "If I saw one of them grab a weapon, and then seriously injure one of their own, I didn't want to risk seeing what they'd do to me."
"Alright," he replied, "I'm just making sure you can defend your actions."
In my head, my logic was sound, just to make sure that's clear.
Anyway, once we were done with all that, we went back to the barracks and were cut loose to clean them up and prep them for inspection. I went up to the clearing barrel to go through that ritual that'd made—I'm willing to wager—all of us pretty complacent about it. Particularly since it's not anywhere near as bad over in the country we were going to.
I pulled the charging handle back, didn't see a round in the chamber, let it go, and squeezed the trigger.
BAM!
One of the blank rounds that'd been in the blue training magazine we'd been told to put in fired off, and flew to the ground. It wasn't that loud, really—maybe about as loud as a firecracker—and the shell looked the same as it had before it was fired. Still, I got a slap on the shoulder, and a warning put out to everyone: "Make sure you take out your blue mags, people."
Yeah, complacency is definitely bad when it comes to weapons. Still, I'm fortunate to catch on after at most one mistake.
After that, I went out in town with one of the other guys I'd gotten to know. Stopped at the Army Exchange to look around, then caught a $25.00 cab to go to a pretty huge mall setup downtown, and watched JUMPER. To be honest, the story—if there is one—is pretty weak, but the gimmick and effects are phenomenal. And best of all, Hayden Christensen isn't a complete bitch like he is in the other movies I've seen him in (episodes two and three of Star Wars, anyone?).
From there, we went and checked out a store that specializes in military gear to try to find me a neoprene face mask and some gloves (it's been getting cold here, and I've been told Afghanistan gets even worse during the winter months), but no luck. They did have some gloves, and they felt awesome (the name "2nd Skin" was actually quite apt), but I didn't feel like paying $40.00 for them. So we went to Wal-Mart to look for some stuff, and the first thing I wanted to do was to get a new el cheapo watch.
For those of you that don't know, I've got some serious OCD issues, and when it comes to watches, I have some crazy criteria that they have to meet before I'll settle on one. In no particular order, that criteria is:
1. It has to be rather small and stream-lined.
2. It has to have a masculine design, while still following number 1.
3. If I can get some metal in there with the plastic, so much the better.
4. Due to how much I can sweat, plastic/rubber bands are great. Metal is an alright last-resort.
5. The font has to look good. Not too tall, not too short.
6. The watch face itself has to be laid out in a relatively minimalistic design, but not too minimalistic.
That in mind, it took me a good twenty minutes or so to find the right watch. And once I did, I still had some complaints with it, as it's silver with bronze highlights. Everything else is acceptable, however, so we went on. Got me a few movies (Army of Darkness, Inside Man, and the Riddick trilogy on a single disc), some silver sharpies to ID my stuff, and a 4Gb thumb drive.
From there, on to Chick-fil-a, and then back to base at 9:00 PM.
Huzzah.
Just a little bit more shopping today for some extra niceties. Might get a DS, might not. We'll see.
Over and oot.
1. It's a lot of fun, it's good for your career, and a once in a lifetime experience.
This one has yet to be proven or disproven, but given that the Navy ain't a career, I think it's on a one-way trip to oblivion.
2. You'll make a lot of cash over there. An insane amount.
Yeah, this one is already looking good, and I'm not even over there yet.
3. You're coming back a first class.
I have some major doubts about this one, particularly given how many second classes make up the total IA strength we have going on this one, and of those, a good deal of them are IT's.
4. When you get back, I'll be your detailer. You'll go through me and have your choice of shore stations.
My final opinion of the Navy hinges on this one. Preferably, I'd like to go to Florida and get me some of that thar instructor duty, and get me a house and settle down. I start negotiating for orders a month or two after I hit the sand in Afghanistan, apparently.
5. Not many people go outside the wire. 90% of you won't ever leave the safety of the base.
According to just about every Drill Sergeant we've heard, this is a complete falsehood. We'll all get a chance—more than once—to go on a convoy patrol. Huzzah.
6. Most of your stress will come from getting used to the Army way of doing things.
Hahaha, nope. The vast majority of the stress I've gotten over the past couple of weeks alone have been from my Navy peers. The majority of them are being all-too-typically Navy, and their imitation of the Army staff is getting under my skin worse than any parasite ever could. No, this one is most definitely a false assumption, but then, I knew it would be from the start.
7/8. Assumptions either proving there would or wouldn't be downtime in South Carolina.
There is and isn't a lot of downtime in the training here. When we do have it, it's quickly filled in with mindless repetitive tasks like, cleaning our weapons even though they were cleaned mere hours ago after we finished firing, and are still clean from said cleaning session. Although I've gained a new respect for Army grunts due to having some pretty cool instructors down here, it's painfully apparent that the Navy as a whole follows the same gameplan.
And there we have it for the assumptions.
News...
Saturday wasn't fully our own—much like it wasn't last week—but then, it wasn't fully theirs, either. The only thing that we had to was go to the simfire range and learn when to shoot versus when not to shoot. Sounded pretty straightforward, really, but in the end... we had the usual level of machismo going on from some of the asshat males (and I'm sure we had some females doing the same):
"Remember, guys: you gotta kill the women and children, too, before they grow up to become terrorists themselves."
This is coming from a man with so much grey on his head, I'm surprised he hasn't been kicked out for high-year tenure. What got me about this particular guy was that when we were all done and released for the weekend, he had his own three kids over to visit him. Had I been more tactless and far less caring, I would've said, "So kids, ask your father to explain to you his stance on Arab women and children. It's quite amusing."
But of course, I digress.
The simfire range was pretty simple, but my particular group got shafted with all but one scenario filled with peaceful endings, and we didn't legitimately get to shoot at any of the targets whatsoever. It was odd, though, because there were rioters outside one of the checkpoints, just shouting. Alright, that's fine... sticks and stones and all that. But when one of the local law enforcement showed up with an AK47, and the rioters went and snagged the weapon from him, pulled him off the truck, and proceeded to bash in his trachea, sorry, but I'm gonna open up.
And I did. I took careful aim and shot the one man who'd grabbed the weapon off the cop (and was pleased to see on the playback that my shot had, in fact, hit true and only gotten him).
Then I was grilled by the Drill Sergeant on why I did what I did.
"With due respect, Drill Sergeant," I told him, "If I saw one of them grab a weapon, and then seriously injure one of their own, I didn't want to risk seeing what they'd do to me."
"Alright," he replied, "I'm just making sure you can defend your actions."
In my head, my logic was sound, just to make sure that's clear.
Anyway, once we were done with all that, we went back to the barracks and were cut loose to clean them up and prep them for inspection. I went up to the clearing barrel to go through that ritual that'd made—I'm willing to wager—all of us pretty complacent about it. Particularly since it's not anywhere near as bad over in the country we were going to.
I pulled the charging handle back, didn't see a round in the chamber, let it go, and squeezed the trigger.
BAM!
One of the blank rounds that'd been in the blue training magazine we'd been told to put in fired off, and flew to the ground. It wasn't that loud, really—maybe about as loud as a firecracker—and the shell looked the same as it had before it was fired. Still, I got a slap on the shoulder, and a warning put out to everyone: "Make sure you take out your blue mags, people."
Yeah, complacency is definitely bad when it comes to weapons. Still, I'm fortunate to catch on after at most one mistake.
After that, I went out in town with one of the other guys I'd gotten to know. Stopped at the Army Exchange to look around, then caught a $25.00 cab to go to a pretty huge mall setup downtown, and watched JUMPER. To be honest, the story—if there is one—is pretty weak, but the gimmick and effects are phenomenal. And best of all, Hayden Christensen isn't a complete bitch like he is in the other movies I've seen him in (episodes two and three of Star Wars, anyone?).
From there, we went and checked out a store that specializes in military gear to try to find me a neoprene face mask and some gloves (it's been getting cold here, and I've been told Afghanistan gets even worse during the winter months), but no luck. They did have some gloves, and they felt awesome (the name "2nd Skin" was actually quite apt), but I didn't feel like paying $40.00 for them. So we went to Wal-Mart to look for some stuff, and the first thing I wanted to do was to get a new el cheapo watch.
For those of you that don't know, I've got some serious OCD issues, and when it comes to watches, I have some crazy criteria that they have to meet before I'll settle on one. In no particular order, that criteria is:
1. It has to be rather small and stream-lined.
2. It has to have a masculine design, while still following number 1.
3. If I can get some metal in there with the plastic, so much the better.
4. Due to how much I can sweat, plastic/rubber bands are great. Metal is an alright last-resort.
5. The font has to look good. Not too tall, not too short.
6. The watch face itself has to be laid out in a relatively minimalistic design, but not too minimalistic.
That in mind, it took me a good twenty minutes or so to find the right watch. And once I did, I still had some complaints with it, as it's silver with bronze highlights. Everything else is acceptable, however, so we went on. Got me a few movies (Army of Darkness, Inside Man, and the Riddick trilogy on a single disc), some silver sharpies to ID my stuff, and a 4Gb thumb drive.
From there, on to Chick-fil-a, and then back to base at 9:00 PM.
Huzzah.
Just a little bit more shopping today for some extra niceties. Might get a DS, might not. We'll see.
Over and oot.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Repetition is... Repetitive
So why the hell does the military as a whole feel that it constantly needs to repeat itself? We spent the entire day today inside one classroom or the other, and only the first half an hour or so of it was stuff that I'd never heard before, and that's because it was heavy weapons training.
We go to fire tomorrow, and I'm not particularly looking forward to it, but then I am, because it's the last day we have to worry about firing weapons of any sort. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed firing the M16, and shooting a grenade launcher should be fun... I guess... but I just don't want to do any of this anymore. I want to get this deployment started as soon as I can to get it finished as soon as I can.
Oh, and by the way, Chief, I found out that I can't get my FMF pin, because I'd need to actually be attached to a Marine battallion, which I've been told is pretty rare for us IT's. It could be another misinformed opinion, but that's just what I've been told.
But anyway, after the heavy weapons training, we all poured outside onto the grinder to be dispersed for a quick break, and then it was back into the classroom for some training on cultural awareness.
To be honest, before this started, I was worried that we were gonna be in for the same ol' CMEO crap, and I was dreading it from the very beginning.
But when the instructor, Sergeant Hage (pronounced Hawzsh) came up and started talking with a very Arabic accent, I knew this was something different.
And it was the first and only thing we'd been taught in the past two weeks that I was completely attentive and awake for the entire time. I listened with all the attention I could muster as he went to explain the subtle differences between Islam and Muslim, and how not all Arabs are Muslim, not all Muslims are Islam, and so forth. He went into detail about the Islam faith, and how Bin Laden isn't Islam, nor is he a man, but is in fact, "just a person with a lot of money and time on his hands".
He even went so far as to explain his own beliefs, and said, what I believe, is probably one of the coolest religious statements I'd ever heard:
"If I wanted to convert to Christianity, I'd go and read a bible. I wouldn't go and as ask a Christian to explain their faith to me, because maybe they wouldn't be a good Christian."
He then went on to say that he doesn't care one way or another what other people believe, because we're free to believe what we will.
I've never had anyone talk about religion in such an indifferent sounding manner.
And with that classroom experience, I gained some respect for the Islam religion. I'll never become Islam, myself, because I'd sooner be polytheist than to believe in a single almighty entity, but that's neither here nor there.
Once that was over, we were cut loose for lunch. What sucked about this was that once again, CDR Burgess thought that he'd go ahead and take charge of the platoon, and told us to be back in the classroom by 12:30 PM, which gave us a little over half an hour to eat lunch, or do what we had to do.
I went back to the barracks and reorganized my locker, and then headed out.
And once I got there, it turns out the actual muster wasn't until 1:00 PM.
I could've taken a nap, but because Burgess had to be top dawg, I missed out on that opportunity.
And unfortunately, personnel recovery was the next block of instruction. For four hours.
Three breaks in between: five, ten, and five minutes, respectively
I'm gonna do a data dump of everything I learned in that class just to spite every instructor who's ever taught me about the Codes of Conduct.
If I'm ever captured, short of treason, I'll do what I have to to survive and get rescued. I'll be damned if I follow some stupid rules that sound like some childish cops and robbers variant.
The laws of conflict state that before capture, you're a legal combatant, and can use force to accomplish your goals, but once you've been captured and have been escaped, you can no longer use force. Self defense is still authorized, however.
I lol'd.
We go to fire tomorrow, and I'm not particularly looking forward to it, but then I am, because it's the last day we have to worry about firing weapons of any sort. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed firing the M16, and shooting a grenade launcher should be fun... I guess... but I just don't want to do any of this anymore. I want to get this deployment started as soon as I can to get it finished as soon as I can.
Oh, and by the way, Chief, I found out that I can't get my FMF pin, because I'd need to actually be attached to a Marine battallion, which I've been told is pretty rare for us IT's. It could be another misinformed opinion, but that's just what I've been told.
But anyway, after the heavy weapons training, we all poured outside onto the grinder to be dispersed for a quick break, and then it was back into the classroom for some training on cultural awareness.
To be honest, before this started, I was worried that we were gonna be in for the same ol' CMEO crap, and I was dreading it from the very beginning.
But when the instructor, Sergeant Hage (pronounced Hawzsh) came up and started talking with a very Arabic accent, I knew this was something different.
And it was the first and only thing we'd been taught in the past two weeks that I was completely attentive and awake for the entire time. I listened with all the attention I could muster as he went to explain the subtle differences between Islam and Muslim, and how not all Arabs are Muslim, not all Muslims are Islam, and so forth. He went into detail about the Islam faith, and how Bin Laden isn't Islam, nor is he a man, but is in fact, "just a person with a lot of money and time on his hands".
He even went so far as to explain his own beliefs, and said, what I believe, is probably one of the coolest religious statements I'd ever heard:
"If I wanted to convert to Christianity, I'd go and read a bible. I wouldn't go and as ask a Christian to explain their faith to me, because maybe they wouldn't be a good Christian."
He then went on to say that he doesn't care one way or another what other people believe, because we're free to believe what we will.
I've never had anyone talk about religion in such an indifferent sounding manner.
And with that classroom experience, I gained some respect for the Islam religion. I'll never become Islam, myself, because I'd sooner be polytheist than to believe in a single almighty entity, but that's neither here nor there.
Once that was over, we were cut loose for lunch. What sucked about this was that once again, CDR Burgess thought that he'd go ahead and take charge of the platoon, and told us to be back in the classroom by 12:30 PM, which gave us a little over half an hour to eat lunch, or do what we had to do.
I went back to the barracks and reorganized my locker, and then headed out.
And once I got there, it turns out the actual muster wasn't until 1:00 PM.
I could've taken a nap, but because Burgess had to be top dawg, I missed out on that opportunity.
And unfortunately, personnel recovery was the next block of instruction. For four hours.
Three breaks in between: five, ten, and five minutes, respectively
I'm gonna do a data dump of everything I learned in that class just to spite every instructor who's ever taught me about the Codes of Conduct.
If I'm ever captured, short of treason, I'll do what I have to to survive and get rescued. I'll be damned if I follow some stupid rules that sound like some childish cops and robbers variant.
The laws of conflict state that before capture, you're a legal combatant, and can use force to accomplish your goals, but once you've been captured and have been escaped, you can no longer use force. Self defense is still authorized, however.
I lol'd.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Final Score... Bleh.
Final score all tabulated and such was 34. And they didn't hesitate to tell you if you did better the prior day, even if it was only by one point.
I've been taking pictures the entire time, and I'll be posting them upon my return (unstable wi-fi doesn't really do a lot in the way of promoting photo uploading). A lot of people did very well today in comparison with yesterday, and I think that it's primarily because the targets beyond 100m were painted white, and in contrast with a very vibrant green background, they contrasted quite well.
I'm a tad bitter at the results, having fallen two points short of getting Expert, but whatever. I don't even know if we'll be getting ribbons for having done this through the Army, but I guess we'll see. If I do, it's one more thing to put on my purchase list for things to buy when I return. If I don't, well... that much is obvious.
Full day at the range again, so aside from my score, nothing further to report public-side.
Out.
I've been taking pictures the entire time, and I'll be posting them upon my return (unstable wi-fi doesn't really do a lot in the way of promoting photo uploading). A lot of people did very well today in comparison with yesterday, and I think that it's primarily because the targets beyond 100m were painted white, and in contrast with a very vibrant green background, they contrasted quite well.
I'm a tad bitter at the results, having fallen two points short of getting Expert, but whatever. I don't even know if we'll be getting ribbons for having done this through the Army, but I guess we'll see. If I do, it's one more thing to put on my purchase list for things to buy when I return. If I don't, well... that much is obvious.
Full day at the range again, so aside from my score, nothing further to report public-side.
Out.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
The Doctor is In...
Still surgical.
Still lethal.
If I wanted someone dead, it'd happen.
Well, 35/40 times.
Of course, the actual qualification shooting is tomorrow, but I have a feeling it's gonna be more of the same.
To be honest, today was probably the best day of actual training I've had that wasn't a Saturday. We woke up at whatever time we felt like—the first official muster was at 7:15 AM—and then got our crap together to go. Donning our body armour and anything else we wanted to put on to combat the cold, we got issued our MRE's for the day before we got on the bus, because there'd be no delivery of them to the range today.
Got to the range, and it was straight-forward. The guy who was in front of me was shooting horribly wrong, even for my "no real method of shooting" standards. For the prone supported, he rested the weapon itself on the sandbags, which is a no go for one primary reason: you lose control of the weapon. Not in the "oh my gawd, he's shooting everyone with his uncontrolled recoil!" kinda way, but in the "having to pivot his weapon on a central point instead of moving the entire thing as a whole to transition from target to target" kinda way.
And because of that, he didn't qualify.
Throughout the first magazine of rounds he was doing it, the Drill Sergeant for our section of the range was back there telling me how not to do it like the other guy was doing it. And when it was all said and done, the other guy comes back and asks, "Was that guy telling you what I was doing wrong?"
"Er, uh," I replied, "No, Chief... he was telling me how to improve on your methods."
And with that, he stormed off, and I took my place. It was exactly as before with whether I hit or miss: I knew immediately if I'd hit or missed it, not because the targets either would or wouldn't fall down, but because I'm fully aware of where each shot is going, and unfortunately, there's no way to correct it once it's outta the death tube.
But in the end, I got my score. As I said at the beginning, it was 35/40, which is one under the required score count for Expert marksman.
But still, for practice... I'm a sharpshooter.
It was because of my score as compared with the rest of my platoon, though, that got me chewed out.
"You got a 35?" Drill Sergeant Jarvis asked.
"Hooah," I replied, giving in to the Army way of doing things.
"Do you love me?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied, without missing a beat.
"Then you need to get out there and teach your team what you're doing and how to improve, hooah? I pride myself on getting 100% qualification on the first time out with each of my platoons, and this is no exception. That's the first thing you should've done when you got off the range, hooah?"
"Hooah," I replied again.
That's the closest thing I've ever gotten to being chewed out by our Drill Sergeant, and to be honest, there's no way to fix it to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Because if I go and tell everyone that the way that I got my score was a healthy regimen of video games and holding my breath, and just being attentive, he's gonna tell me that...
a) I need to employ the fundamentals to get my score to 40, guaranteed.
b) The reason I got what I did was because I didn't use the fundamentals.
So it's pretty much a lose, lose situation. But, I dun care, really. I just need to make it through another week of this, then it'll be on to Kuwait.
Still lethal.
If I wanted someone dead, it'd happen.
Well, 35/40 times.
Of course, the actual qualification shooting is tomorrow, but I have a feeling it's gonna be more of the same.
To be honest, today was probably the best day of actual training I've had that wasn't a Saturday. We woke up at whatever time we felt like—the first official muster was at 7:15 AM—and then got our crap together to go. Donning our body armour and anything else we wanted to put on to combat the cold, we got issued our MRE's for the day before we got on the bus, because there'd be no delivery of them to the range today.
Got to the range, and it was straight-forward. The guy who was in front of me was shooting horribly wrong, even for my "no real method of shooting" standards. For the prone supported, he rested the weapon itself on the sandbags, which is a no go for one primary reason: you lose control of the weapon. Not in the "oh my gawd, he's shooting everyone with his uncontrolled recoil!" kinda way, but in the "having to pivot his weapon on a central point instead of moving the entire thing as a whole to transition from target to target" kinda way.
And because of that, he didn't qualify.
Throughout the first magazine of rounds he was doing it, the Drill Sergeant for our section of the range was back there telling me how not to do it like the other guy was doing it. And when it was all said and done, the other guy comes back and asks, "Was that guy telling you what I was doing wrong?"
"Er, uh," I replied, "No, Chief... he was telling me how to improve on your methods."
And with that, he stormed off, and I took my place. It was exactly as before with whether I hit or miss: I knew immediately if I'd hit or missed it, not because the targets either would or wouldn't fall down, but because I'm fully aware of where each shot is going, and unfortunately, there's no way to correct it once it's outta the death tube.
But in the end, I got my score. As I said at the beginning, it was 35/40, which is one under the required score count for Expert marksman.
But still, for practice... I'm a sharpshooter.
It was because of my score as compared with the rest of my platoon, though, that got me chewed out.
"You got a 35?" Drill Sergeant Jarvis asked.
"Hooah," I replied, giving in to the Army way of doing things.
"Do you love me?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied, without missing a beat.
"Then you need to get out there and teach your team what you're doing and how to improve, hooah? I pride myself on getting 100% qualification on the first time out with each of my platoons, and this is no exception. That's the first thing you should've done when you got off the range, hooah?"
"Hooah," I replied again.
That's the closest thing I've ever gotten to being chewed out by our Drill Sergeant, and to be honest, there's no way to fix it to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Because if I go and tell everyone that the way that I got my score was a healthy regimen of video games and holding my breath, and just being attentive, he's gonna tell me that...
a) I need to employ the fundamentals to get my score to 40, guaranteed.
b) The reason I got what I did was because I didn't use the fundamentals.
So it's pretty much a lose, lose situation. But, I dun care, really. I just need to make it through another week of this, then it'll be on to Kuwait.
Monday, February 18, 2008
I'm Surgical, Baby
Took that line from a friend of mine: Jake back in Virginia. And to be honest, it actually fits this post quite well.
In the past few days, things have been kinda rough and tumble as we've gotten different things taken care of. Most importantly, we were given time on Friday to fire some rounds down the range. 160 rounds, to be exact, and it took a lot of us a lot longer than I think it should've. Because I mean hell, out in the field, I doubt the insurgents are gonna give you a good hour or two to launch so many rounds at them.
Friday actually caused me a bit of grief early on in the morning, because I had to go to the optometrist. Well, as I'd figured, they didn't have me there for much more than to tell me that I didn't need to be there. We had to wear our body armour and our helmets and all that jazz for going to the range, and when we got to medical, they had us ground all our equipment and stack our M16s before we could go inside.
Once inside and comfortable, the HM3 told us, "I know you already grounded your weapons and stuff, but... if you've already got your UVEX inserts and all that, you don't need to be here, and you can leave."
But as annoyed as I was with that, I was glad that I didn't have to stick around for something I didn't want to stick around for. So, I went back outside, got my gear back on, hopped on the bus, and nearly had my tailbone shattered from an impatient Drill Sergeant who didn't want to wait for me to take my seat before he put his foot down on the pedal.
Now take 170 lbs, add 70 lbs in kevlar and all that, and you've got quite a bit of weight to fall backwards onto a metal stump sticking out of a bus seat.
Yeah, ouch.
But, I survived, and made it to the range without any further incident.
Once I got there, we had range safety procedures drilled into us again by not one, not two, but three different people.
I blew them off completely. I was daydreaming about coming back home from a deployment that hadn't even started.
And you know what? The world didn't explode. Nobody died. There were no mishaps throughout the day. Not from me, and not from anyone else.
You know why?
It's common sense crap.
But as far as my performance on the range goes, yes... I was quite surgical. We had targets at 75, 150, and 300 meters. And with few exceptions, I hit every single one of them.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
It started out with us "shotgunning" our M16s once again to let the Drill Sergeants see that our weapons were in fact, clear of any rounds in the barrel. Once I did that, I walked up to the First Sergeant to get my eight 20-round clips.
"Lane twenty-nine," he told me.
"Roger," I replied, and headed down the range to my lane.
And when I got there, I was dismayed to find that not only was their no computerized monitoring system there, there were no targets for me to fire at down range.
"Did he tell you twenty-nine?" someone asked from behind.
"Yeah," I said, looking back at him.
"Well, go ahead and take twenty-eight," he said, "And I'll take twenty-seven."
So I did as he said, and as I started setting up in that lane, I was called out and told that that lane was to be used for people who hadn't zeroed their weapons days prior to do just that. So, I gathered up my crap and stood idly by in the sand behind the lanes with the most distraught and confused look I could possibly muster, hoping a passing Drill Sergeant would see me and set things straight.
"Which firing order are you?" she asked, pulling me to another lane.
"Uh," I replied, "Uhhhhhh..."
"Are you first?" she asked.
"Uhhhhhh..."
"No, you're second. You'll go after this man does."
I nodded and took a seat, putting my gun into the v-notch stake in the sand. I sat there and watched (and took some pictures of) one of the few people in my platoon I really can't stand. I watched him as he took his sweet ol' time firing his rounds off at targets that did nothing more than fall down and reset themselves into the same place time and time again. At the very least, his shots at the 75m target should've been in quick, successive bursts.
But they weren't. He took his time, and to his credit, he didn't miss a single one.
But then it was only 75m away, and that's not far away at all.
In any stance.
I watched him go through all his rounds, getting the gist of how things were done.
Without our armour on, we'd go and fire from the prone supported position. We'd fire five rounds at the 75m target, 10 rounds at the 175m target, and 5 rounds at the 300m target, for a total of 20 rounds fired. Then from there, we'd get another magazine from the monitor, and fire from the kneeling position. Five rounds at 75m, and then five more rounds at 175m. From there, we'd put our weapon on safe and assume the prone unsupported position, fire five more rounds at 175m, and then the final five at 300m.
From there, we'd go back and repeat the process for two more magazines. Then we'd put on our body armour and repeat the entire ordeal for the last four magazines.
The monitor would watch, and give us audible feedback of our performance. A simple "hit" or "miss" report based on, obviously enough, whether we hit or miss the target.
So there I sat... through all 160 of his rounds. It took him roughly forty-five minutes to do it.
Once he was done, it was my turn. Or so I thought. His monitor stood up, raised his hand in the air and waited for a minute or two. When no Drill Sergeant came to check them out, he shrugged, and took his place in the sand.
I was pissed.
This douchetard was taking my spot? I wanted to get in, get my rounds off, and get the hell off the range and doing something else. Anything else. But, whatever.
So I sat there and watched him as he put his eight magazines on a small ledge near his position, and watched as he basically did a self-serve kinda deal. He'd run out of rounds, eject his magazine, and then get a new one all by himself. No big deal, we're adults here... if you can't get your own magazine, well... you suck.
Once he was done half an hour later, he called me up. I picked up my M16, brought it to the v-notch stake in the lane, and then proceeded to lay my magazines down on that same stand he'd used.
But no, he'd have none of it.
LT Hanke was his name. I'll never forget it. I'm pretty vindictive.
He grabbed up my magazines and put them to his right, far out of my reach.
And then he proceeded to walk me verbally through everything I'd just watched twice.
I could feel my blood boiling as he talked. He had such a condescending air about him, I wanted to slap him upside the head. Say, "Look, douche, all I need you to do is tell me whether I hit or miss, and if my barrel is placed right. Other than that, stfu, and leave me be."
But he's an officer, so I couldn't do that.
Quick sidenote: I don't care who you are, from the senior enlisted in my chain of command to the CNO. My respect isn't given out of tradition or requirement. No, you'll get what I like to call "pseudo-respect". It's just enough respect to make you think I actually care. You have to earn my respect just like everyone else does.
And this guy was sucking at it, big time. Treating me like a child, this guy was losing credit pretty quick.
Anyway.
I took my position and fired away as quickly as I could to show those cretins that it was possible to maintain a superior level of accuracy while at the same time moving faster than molasses uphill in the winter.
And you know what I got from that?
"Slow down there, shipmate. They're not going anywhere."
No, I thought, Maybe not now, but they will when it comes time to actually qualify, douche.
I can't tell you how much of a pet peeve of mine it is to be called "shipmate". Most people use it as a detrimental way, and I don't care for it at all.
So, I kept up my pace regardless of his incessant coaching, which he wasn't supposed to be doing. "Don't tell them where they miss if they miss," the First Sergeant had repeatedly told us, "Just tell them if they miss. If you tell them how they're missing, they'll aim to compensate, and we want them aiming center mass every time."
This is key, as it would lead to my downfall here shortly.
On my second to last magazine, the female Drill Instructor paid me a visit, and I could hear her talking with LT Hanke as I fired. I couldn't hear what she said, exactly, but I heard Hanke say, "...but he's doing it pretty consistently."
Aiming to impress, I took a bit more time on my first shot at 300m.
"Remember," she said, "On that 300m target, you gotta aim up a bit to compensate."
So I took her words to heart, and squeezed the trigger.
"You hit center mass!" she yelled.
I squeezed again.
"And again!"
And again.
"God damn!"
And once more.
"That's the most impressive shooting I've ever seen, sailor. Good job!"
When she walked off, Hanke paid me respect in his own little way. "Nice shooting, Tex."
Yeah. Thanks, douche.
All said and done, I did very well up until the very last rounds in my last magazine. Because Hanke stepped up his coaching, and I did exactly what I shouldn't have: I aimed to compensate for how he said I was missing. And when you do that at huge distances, even the smallest corrections can have major consequences.
I completely missed four of the five shots I fired at the 300m target.
They didn't even register anywhere on the printout.
Asshat.
Bleh, but still, I scored an average of 34 out of 40 rounds for each 40-round printout, which put me ten points ahead of the 24 points needed to qualify.
Oh yes. Surgical.
The weekend was empty of anything except for a bit of training in the morning. And today, all we had was some map training and some IED training, and a bit of "SHOTEX" (injections) later on, followed by a cookout.
On that note, I leave you.
And Happy President's Day, all.
In the past few days, things have been kinda rough and tumble as we've gotten different things taken care of. Most importantly, we were given time on Friday to fire some rounds down the range. 160 rounds, to be exact, and it took a lot of us a lot longer than I think it should've. Because I mean hell, out in the field, I doubt the insurgents are gonna give you a good hour or two to launch so many rounds at them.
Friday actually caused me a bit of grief early on in the morning, because I had to go to the optometrist. Well, as I'd figured, they didn't have me there for much more than to tell me that I didn't need to be there. We had to wear our body armour and our helmets and all that jazz for going to the range, and when we got to medical, they had us ground all our equipment and stack our M16s before we could go inside.
Once inside and comfortable, the HM3 told us, "I know you already grounded your weapons and stuff, but... if you've already got your UVEX inserts and all that, you don't need to be here, and you can leave."
But as annoyed as I was with that, I was glad that I didn't have to stick around for something I didn't want to stick around for. So, I went back outside, got my gear back on, hopped on the bus, and nearly had my tailbone shattered from an impatient Drill Sergeant who didn't want to wait for me to take my seat before he put his foot down on the pedal.
Now take 170 lbs, add 70 lbs in kevlar and all that, and you've got quite a bit of weight to fall backwards onto a metal stump sticking out of a bus seat.
Yeah, ouch.
But, I survived, and made it to the range without any further incident.
Once I got there, we had range safety procedures drilled into us again by not one, not two, but three different people.
I blew them off completely. I was daydreaming about coming back home from a deployment that hadn't even started.
And you know what? The world didn't explode. Nobody died. There were no mishaps throughout the day. Not from me, and not from anyone else.
You know why?
It's common sense crap.
But as far as my performance on the range goes, yes... I was quite surgical. We had targets at 75, 150, and 300 meters. And with few exceptions, I hit every single one of them.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
It started out with us "shotgunning" our M16s once again to let the Drill Sergeants see that our weapons were in fact, clear of any rounds in the barrel. Once I did that, I walked up to the First Sergeant to get my eight 20-round clips.
"Lane twenty-nine," he told me.
"Roger," I replied, and headed down the range to my lane.
And when I got there, I was dismayed to find that not only was their no computerized monitoring system there, there were no targets for me to fire at down range.
"Did he tell you twenty-nine?" someone asked from behind.
"Yeah," I said, looking back at him.
"Well, go ahead and take twenty-eight," he said, "And I'll take twenty-seven."
So I did as he said, and as I started setting up in that lane, I was called out and told that that lane was to be used for people who hadn't zeroed their weapons days prior to do just that. So, I gathered up my crap and stood idly by in the sand behind the lanes with the most distraught and confused look I could possibly muster, hoping a passing Drill Sergeant would see me and set things straight.
"Which firing order are you?" she asked, pulling me to another lane.
"Uh," I replied, "Uhhhhhh..."
"Are you first?" she asked.
"Uhhhhhh..."
"No, you're second. You'll go after this man does."
I nodded and took a seat, putting my gun into the v-notch stake in the sand. I sat there and watched (and took some pictures of) one of the few people in my platoon I really can't stand. I watched him as he took his sweet ol' time firing his rounds off at targets that did nothing more than fall down and reset themselves into the same place time and time again. At the very least, his shots at the 75m target should've been in quick, successive bursts.
But they weren't. He took his time, and to his credit, he didn't miss a single one.
But then it was only 75m away, and that's not far away at all.
In any stance.
I watched him go through all his rounds, getting the gist of how things were done.
Without our armour on, we'd go and fire from the prone supported position. We'd fire five rounds at the 75m target, 10 rounds at the 175m target, and 5 rounds at the 300m target, for a total of 20 rounds fired. Then from there, we'd get another magazine from the monitor, and fire from the kneeling position. Five rounds at 75m, and then five more rounds at 175m. From there, we'd put our weapon on safe and assume the prone unsupported position, fire five more rounds at 175m, and then the final five at 300m.
From there, we'd go back and repeat the process for two more magazines. Then we'd put on our body armour and repeat the entire ordeal for the last four magazines.
The monitor would watch, and give us audible feedback of our performance. A simple "hit" or "miss" report based on, obviously enough, whether we hit or miss the target.
So there I sat... through all 160 of his rounds. It took him roughly forty-five minutes to do it.
Once he was done, it was my turn. Or so I thought. His monitor stood up, raised his hand in the air and waited for a minute or two. When no Drill Sergeant came to check them out, he shrugged, and took his place in the sand.
I was pissed.
This douchetard was taking my spot? I wanted to get in, get my rounds off, and get the hell off the range and doing something else. Anything else. But, whatever.
So I sat there and watched him as he put his eight magazines on a small ledge near his position, and watched as he basically did a self-serve kinda deal. He'd run out of rounds, eject his magazine, and then get a new one all by himself. No big deal, we're adults here... if you can't get your own magazine, well... you suck.
Once he was done half an hour later, he called me up. I picked up my M16, brought it to the v-notch stake in the lane, and then proceeded to lay my magazines down on that same stand he'd used.
But no, he'd have none of it.
LT Hanke was his name. I'll never forget it. I'm pretty vindictive.
He grabbed up my magazines and put them to his right, far out of my reach.
And then he proceeded to walk me verbally through everything I'd just watched twice.
I could feel my blood boiling as he talked. He had such a condescending air about him, I wanted to slap him upside the head. Say, "Look, douche, all I need you to do is tell me whether I hit or miss, and if my barrel is placed right. Other than that, stfu, and leave me be."
But he's an officer, so I couldn't do that.
Quick sidenote: I don't care who you are, from the senior enlisted in my chain of command to the CNO. My respect isn't given out of tradition or requirement. No, you'll get what I like to call "pseudo-respect". It's just enough respect to make you think I actually care. You have to earn my respect just like everyone else does.
And this guy was sucking at it, big time. Treating me like a child, this guy was losing credit pretty quick.
Anyway.
I took my position and fired away as quickly as I could to show those cretins that it was possible to maintain a superior level of accuracy while at the same time moving faster than molasses uphill in the winter.
And you know what I got from that?
"Slow down there, shipmate. They're not going anywhere."
No, I thought, Maybe not now, but they will when it comes time to actually qualify, douche.
I can't tell you how much of a pet peeve of mine it is to be called "shipmate". Most people use it as a detrimental way, and I don't care for it at all.
So, I kept up my pace regardless of his incessant coaching, which he wasn't supposed to be doing. "Don't tell them where they miss if they miss," the First Sergeant had repeatedly told us, "Just tell them if they miss. If you tell them how they're missing, they'll aim to compensate, and we want them aiming center mass every time."
This is key, as it would lead to my downfall here shortly.
On my second to last magazine, the female Drill Instructor paid me a visit, and I could hear her talking with LT Hanke as I fired. I couldn't hear what she said, exactly, but I heard Hanke say, "...but he's doing it pretty consistently."
Aiming to impress, I took a bit more time on my first shot at 300m.
"Remember," she said, "On that 300m target, you gotta aim up a bit to compensate."
So I took her words to heart, and squeezed the trigger.
"You hit center mass!" she yelled.
I squeezed again.
"And again!"
And again.
"God damn!"
And once more.
"That's the most impressive shooting I've ever seen, sailor. Good job!"
When she walked off, Hanke paid me respect in his own little way. "Nice shooting, Tex."
Yeah. Thanks, douche.
All said and done, I did very well up until the very last rounds in my last magazine. Because Hanke stepped up his coaching, and I did exactly what I shouldn't have: I aimed to compensate for how he said I was missing. And when you do that at huge distances, even the smallest corrections can have major consequences.
I completely missed four of the five shots I fired at the 300m target.
They didn't even register anywhere on the printout.
Asshat.
Bleh, but still, I scored an average of 34 out of 40 rounds for each 40-round printout, which put me ten points ahead of the 24 points needed to qualify.
Oh yes. Surgical.
The weekend was empty of anything except for a bit of training in the morning. And today, all we had was some map training and some IED training, and a bit of "SHOTEX" (injections) later on, followed by a cookout.
On that note, I leave you.
And Happy President's Day, all.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Operation Impending Doom
At the request of someone quite special, this entry has been aptly named, I believe.
Long story short, this has been the single longest week of my entire life. And it's not even over yet.
We've had gear issued to us each day that we've been here, and we finally got our weapons given to us yesterday. And for all those of you that think that it's cool carrying around an M16 all the time, please... let me be the one to burst your bubble.
From the get go, the Chief who was issuing us our weapons said, and I quote, "Don't let these weapons become a burden. Because once they become a burden, you'll become complacent."
Well, within the first hour of getting my weapon, I looked at it as a burden. Not being particularly physically superior, the weapon gets heavy after only being carried for fifteen minutes. Then there's the fact that you have to "clear it" (a fun li'l ritual, lemme tell you) before you go into any building. Add to that the fact that you can't go into select locations with it, either. These locations include the mini-mart, and of course... the bathroom.
To fully clue you all in on how much this sucks, do the following.
Go down to your local grocery store buy a watermelon. Now, carry this watermelon with you wherever you go. Don't bother attaching a sling to it, because you'll never use the sling anyway, except for when you go to eat. Now, go drink a lot of water, or some other fluids. You have to do this because you gotta remain hydrated! And once you have to go to the bathroom real bad, pass the watermelon off onto someone else. If you live alone, go to your neighbor and ask them to watch it for you. If you have no neighbors, I'm sorry to say that you're SOL, as without someone to watch that watermelon for you, there's no damn way you're gonna relieve yourself.
Assuming you've made it this far without your bladder bursting and/or your colon exploding, congratulations. Now, for the next six months, continue to carry this watermelon with you wherever you go, and finding someone to watch it whenever you have to go into a store and/or a bathroom. If the melon starts to rot, replace it. Not because the smell is bad, but because you need the full weight of the melon to fully immerse yourself in the illusion.
If I'm starting to sound pretty disgruntled, or whatever, well... you've got it all wrong, my friend. No, I'm not disgruntled. I'm disillusioned.
You see, when I first got here, everything was grand, because the Army was doing everything that the Navy hadn't been doing. They'd give us instructions once, and that was it. There was none of this repeating shit, because the leadership thought we were too stupid to catch on the first time. It was fantastic. I didn't have to sit through stuff that didn't apply to me on a daily basis.
But then it happened, as I knew it would have to eventually: the Army started repeating itself. The topic? Range procedures.
Range as in gun range.
Now granted, I know that this is a very important topic, and it requires quite a bit of emphasis if the point is to be made.
However, comma, I don't need to hear the four principles of guns and so forth. Why not, you ask? I may be no expert in the field of marksmanship, and I'm no member of the NRA, but quite frankly, I've played enough first-person shooters to know how to hit a target, seen enough movies to know what can happen when the shit hits the fan (i.e., Full Metal Jacket), and I've had some hands-on experience with weapons throughout my entire life.
And today, I managed to zero my weapon in nine shots. Not perfect, but I was in the top three. And for not doing anything that they recommended to ensure I got zeroed, that was pretty damn good.
Granted, I did plant my elbows firmly on the ground. Granted, I did get the sights aligned as I was supposed to. But there was one thing, one very crucial thing that they told me I needed to do that I didn't: I didn't breathe.
They told us all that in order to get those shots where they needed to be, we needed to breathe, and on the end of the exhale, to squeeze the trigger and hold.
But I didn't. Instead, I held my breath the entire time, squeezed the trigger, and held.
And the results on the screen showed that although I didn't get the shots where they were supposed to be (within a 3cm circle), they were closely grouped (within a 1" circle). Needless to say, that was pretty damn good to someone who doesn't pride himself a mercenary.
But I digress.
Since then, the day has improved a bit. We just finished moving into our new barracks, and I've managed to seclude myself away from the others a bit, because we've got larger beds, and larger lockers. So, I've got a bit more of a semblance of privacy than I had. It's just unfortunate that it won't matter but for a small portion of the day.
Still, I'll take what I can get.
In other news, I found out the other day that there's some shit going down in Afghanistan. My confidence in coming back unscathed is waning, as is my confidence in the other positive assumptions I've made for this deployment.
But we'll see.
Long story short, this has been the single longest week of my entire life. And it's not even over yet.
We've had gear issued to us each day that we've been here, and we finally got our weapons given to us yesterday. And for all those of you that think that it's cool carrying around an M16 all the time, please... let me be the one to burst your bubble.
From the get go, the Chief who was issuing us our weapons said, and I quote, "Don't let these weapons become a burden. Because once they become a burden, you'll become complacent."
Well, within the first hour of getting my weapon, I looked at it as a burden. Not being particularly physically superior, the weapon gets heavy after only being carried for fifteen minutes. Then there's the fact that you have to "clear it" (a fun li'l ritual, lemme tell you) before you go into any building. Add to that the fact that you can't go into select locations with it, either. These locations include the mini-mart, and of course... the bathroom.
To fully clue you all in on how much this sucks, do the following.
Go down to your local grocery store buy a watermelon. Now, carry this watermelon with you wherever you go. Don't bother attaching a sling to it, because you'll never use the sling anyway, except for when you go to eat. Now, go drink a lot of water, or some other fluids. You have to do this because you gotta remain hydrated! And once you have to go to the bathroom real bad, pass the watermelon off onto someone else. If you live alone, go to your neighbor and ask them to watch it for you. If you have no neighbors, I'm sorry to say that you're SOL, as without someone to watch that watermelon for you, there's no damn way you're gonna relieve yourself.
Assuming you've made it this far without your bladder bursting and/or your colon exploding, congratulations. Now, for the next six months, continue to carry this watermelon with you wherever you go, and finding someone to watch it whenever you have to go into a store and/or a bathroom. If the melon starts to rot, replace it. Not because the smell is bad, but because you need the full weight of the melon to fully immerse yourself in the illusion.
If I'm starting to sound pretty disgruntled, or whatever, well... you've got it all wrong, my friend. No, I'm not disgruntled. I'm disillusioned.
You see, when I first got here, everything was grand, because the Army was doing everything that the Navy hadn't been doing. They'd give us instructions once, and that was it. There was none of this repeating shit, because the leadership thought we were too stupid to catch on the first time. It was fantastic. I didn't have to sit through stuff that didn't apply to me on a daily basis.
But then it happened, as I knew it would have to eventually: the Army started repeating itself. The topic? Range procedures.
Range as in gun range.
Now granted, I know that this is a very important topic, and it requires quite a bit of emphasis if the point is to be made.
However, comma, I don't need to hear the four principles of guns and so forth. Why not, you ask? I may be no expert in the field of marksmanship, and I'm no member of the NRA, but quite frankly, I've played enough first-person shooters to know how to hit a target, seen enough movies to know what can happen when the shit hits the fan (i.e., Full Metal Jacket), and I've had some hands-on experience with weapons throughout my entire life.
And today, I managed to zero my weapon in nine shots. Not perfect, but I was in the top three. And for not doing anything that they recommended to ensure I got zeroed, that was pretty damn good.
Granted, I did plant my elbows firmly on the ground. Granted, I did get the sights aligned as I was supposed to. But there was one thing, one very crucial thing that they told me I needed to do that I didn't: I didn't breathe.
They told us all that in order to get those shots where they needed to be, we needed to breathe, and on the end of the exhale, to squeeze the trigger and hold.
But I didn't. Instead, I held my breath the entire time, squeezed the trigger, and held.
And the results on the screen showed that although I didn't get the shots where they were supposed to be (within a 3cm circle), they were closely grouped (within a 1" circle). Needless to say, that was pretty damn good to someone who doesn't pride himself a mercenary.
But I digress.
Since then, the day has improved a bit. We just finished moving into our new barracks, and I've managed to seclude myself away from the others a bit, because we've got larger beds, and larger lockers. So, I've got a bit more of a semblance of privacy than I had. It's just unfortunate that it won't matter but for a small portion of the day.
Still, I'll take what I can get.
In other news, I found out the other day that there's some shit going down in Afghanistan. My confidence in coming back unscathed is waning, as is my confidence in the other positive assumptions I've made for this deployment.
But we'll see.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Boot Camp Redux?
Not quite.
As it turns out, this place is most definitely not bootcamp 2.0, or bootcamp in any way, shape, or form. No, the only thing that this places bares a resemblance to bootcamp in is that we have open-bay living conditions. What this means, to all you non-military types, is that we have a big bedroom, with a lotta bunks in here.
So all my Navy readers, sorry, I ain't gonna use Navy terminology if I can avoid it. I don't have much time to go in the Navy at this point... just another three years... and I plan to do my time and get out. Sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear, but I've had it with the Navy in these past couple of weeks. Three different sets of orders within the same number of weeks can really get under your skin, as can the rest of the joy of the processing for this whole shebang-abang.
But I digress.
We only had to muster at 12:45 PM today, so I slept in until 10:00 AM.
"Man, you must've gotten a good nights sleep," the guy in the bed next to me said, "You slept damn near twelve hours..."
"Actually, a bit over twelve," I told him, "Which is odd, because I usually max out at twelve."
But anyway, I woke up and got dressed. Decided to skip breakfast since I didn't know where the chow hall was, I decided to wait until later and get Scott to show me the way. Read me my book for the next few hours, and then went out to the muster, where we were assigned our platoon number.
But before that, the senior NCO for the training camp showed up and introduced himself, followed by the following inspirational gem of insight: "What's the first rule of first aid? To shoot the fucking motherfucker shooting at you, and to make sure you kill him before he kills you first. I like to call that 'preventive medicine'."
And it's funny, because as I was bitching to myself in my mind about how they were breaking us down, I started to joke with myself about them breaking us down even further. Perhaps into... sub-platoons?
And no sooner had I been assigned to my platoon than the Drill Sergeant was breaking us down further. Into squads.
So there it was. I was now in my specific li'l family unit.
IT2(SW) Terrance Shaw, Charlie Company, First Platoon, First Squad.
And then we were given our goofy li'l chant to call out when we were told to assemble.
As a company, we're to yell out, "One team, one fight, hooah!"
As a platoon, we're to yell out, "Mad dogs!" followed by barking three times.
Yeah. This is very adult, mature stuff. Rowr.
But anyway, to be honest, the Drill Sergeant is actually pretty damn cool.
"Don't get offended if I call you 'high-speed'," he said, "Because you're only here for like, three weeks. So there's really no time or point in getting personal. It's not derogatory, it's simply a name that I've come up with for all you guys coming through here."
Anyway.
After that introduction, we were re-introduced into some basic facing and marching maneuvers, followed by a brief rundown of what was happening this week, and then... yeah. Went and did still more medical and dental processing, and then came back to the barracks, where I read up some more on the book, and then had Scott come by and show me where the chow hall was. We went and ate, and then went to the mini-mart to pick up some things.
And here I be.
Tomorrow we get more gear issued out to us (three sea bags full, they said), and then the following day, our weapons. Turns out I only get an M-16. Not as cool as dual-wielding an M-16 and M9 would've been, but less to worry about as far as accountability goes, so I think I'll live.
And of course, our first day of PT in the morning. I wasn't worried about it to begin with, but after hearing what the Drill Sergeant had to say on it, I'm now even less worried (if that were even possible) than I was before.
"I'm not here to whip you into any kind of physical shape," he said, "No, I'm here to make you into a competent combatant. So the shape you're in now is the same shape you'll be in when you leave in three weeks, unless you go out and do your own PT throughout the day."
lawl, bootcamp 2.0 indeed.
As it turns out, this place is most definitely not bootcamp 2.0, or bootcamp in any way, shape, or form. No, the only thing that this places bares a resemblance to bootcamp in is that we have open-bay living conditions. What this means, to all you non-military types, is that we have a big bedroom, with a lotta bunks in here.
So all my Navy readers, sorry, I ain't gonna use Navy terminology if I can avoid it. I don't have much time to go in the Navy at this point... just another three years... and I plan to do my time and get out. Sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear, but I've had it with the Navy in these past couple of weeks. Three different sets of orders within the same number of weeks can really get under your skin, as can the rest of the joy of the processing for this whole shebang-abang.
But I digress.
We only had to muster at 12:45 PM today, so I slept in until 10:00 AM.
"Man, you must've gotten a good nights sleep," the guy in the bed next to me said, "You slept damn near twelve hours..."
"Actually, a bit over twelve," I told him, "Which is odd, because I usually max out at twelve."
But anyway, I woke up and got dressed. Decided to skip breakfast since I didn't know where the chow hall was, I decided to wait until later and get Scott to show me the way. Read me my book for the next few hours, and then went out to the muster, where we were assigned our platoon number.
But before that, the senior NCO for the training camp showed up and introduced himself, followed by the following inspirational gem of insight: "What's the first rule of first aid? To shoot the fucking motherfucker shooting at you, and to make sure you kill him before he kills you first. I like to call that 'preventive medicine'."
And it's funny, because as I was bitching to myself in my mind about how they were breaking us down, I started to joke with myself about them breaking us down even further. Perhaps into... sub-platoons?
And no sooner had I been assigned to my platoon than the Drill Sergeant was breaking us down further. Into squads.
So there it was. I was now in my specific li'l family unit.
IT2(SW) Terrance Shaw, Charlie Company, First Platoon, First Squad.
And then we were given our goofy li'l chant to call out when we were told to assemble.
As a company, we're to yell out, "One team, one fight, hooah!"
As a platoon, we're to yell out, "Mad dogs!" followed by barking three times.
Yeah. This is very adult, mature stuff. Rowr.
But anyway, to be honest, the Drill Sergeant is actually pretty damn cool.
"Don't get offended if I call you 'high-speed'," he said, "Because you're only here for like, three weeks. So there's really no time or point in getting personal. It's not derogatory, it's simply a name that I've come up with for all you guys coming through here."
Anyway.
After that introduction, we were re-introduced into some basic facing and marching maneuvers, followed by a brief rundown of what was happening this week, and then... yeah. Went and did still more medical and dental processing, and then came back to the barracks, where I read up some more on the book, and then had Scott come by and show me where the chow hall was. We went and ate, and then went to the mini-mart to pick up some things.
And here I be.
Tomorrow we get more gear issued out to us (three sea bags full, they said), and then the following day, our weapons. Turns out I only get an M-16. Not as cool as dual-wielding an M-16 and M9 would've been, but less to worry about as far as accountability goes, so I think I'll live.
And of course, our first day of PT in the morning. I wasn't worried about it to begin with, but after hearing what the Drill Sergeant had to say on it, I'm now even less worried (if that were even possible) than I was before.
"I'm not here to whip you into any kind of physical shape," he said, "No, I'm here to make you into a competent combatant. So the shape you're in now is the same shape you'll be in when you leave in three weeks, unless you go out and do your own PT throughout the day."
lawl, bootcamp 2.0 indeed.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Assumption Entered
Alright, so today wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. But before I go on with that, I want to go ahead and get something out of the way. Gonna go ahead and take a quote from a Star Trek: Voyager episode (because of course, it’s my perrogative to do so): “Assumption entered.” Listed below are assumptions I’ve started to make based on what people have told me regarding IA’s; both to Afghanistan, and in general.
As a heads up, I probably won't be posting any major entries for the rest of processing for two reasons. First, there's not much of it left. And second, it's pretty much more of the same each day. You can expect a snazzy new photo of yours truly in my DCU's come Friday, though.
- It’s a lot of fun, it’s good for your career, and a once in a lifetime experience.
- You’ll make a lot of cash over there. An insane amount.
- You’re coming back a first class.
- When you get back, I’ll be your detailer. You’ll go through me and have your choice of shore stations.
- Not many people go outside the wire. 90% of you won’t ever leave the safety of the base.
- Most of your stress will come from getting used to the Army way of doing things.
- Your time in South Carolina will be filled with whitespace. Unlike the Navy where we could blast through the training in about five days, there’ll be a lot of downtime.
- (Conflicts with 7) There’ll be no downtime in South Carolina… unless you manage to get your rifle quals done on your first try.
There were a couple other things I was told, I’m sure, but those are the ones that stick out.
As a heads up, I probably won't be posting any major entries for the rest of processing for two reasons. First, there's not much of it left. And second, it's pretty much more of the same each day. You can expect a snazzy new photo of yours truly in my DCU's come Friday, though.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Processing, Part Deux
So today was what I considered to be the first actual day of processing. We actually got around to doing more today, and I actually managed to get a bit of stuff taken care of. The day started with me waking up at 6:00 AM to make it down to NOB to join the rest of the guys in some good ol’ fashioned PT.
And of course, when I got down there, that’s exactly what it was.
I’ll be honest: I’m not a big PT nut. Not by a longshot. I’d probably rather get laryngitis again than to have to go through PT. However, comma, I do realize that it’s a necessary evil if you don’t want to turn into a fat blob and not look your best (not to mention I actually feel better when I’m more active. What a novel concept, right? But anyway, the reason that I don’t care for PT—or at least, Navy PT—is because of all the retarded stuff that comes along with it.
I fully realize that the Navy is a team-based corporation, and that everyone has to work together to meet our shared goals. However, when I’m out there doing the whole exercise thing, having someone yell at me that they can’t hear me (and by “me”, I mean “me” in general… as in, all of us), and pouring on the enthusiasm, be it false or otherwise. If there’s people out there that aren’t chanting, or aren’t doing the exercises, by all means, let them choose to not participate. They’re only hurting themselves through failing to exercise, and hurting nobody by not chanting.
Anyway, it was a relatively straightforward PT session. We had pushups, we had crunches, and we had lunges. All this followed with some running. Really, I’m never surprised by what comes with exercising, except by what names the different facilitators call the exercises.
Once we got done there, I went back to my old command and used the showers there to get all squeaky clean, and then I went to the NEX mini-mart across the street to get me something to drink, and a snack to snack on at the processing site in what I had a feeling would be quite a bit more downtime.
As I start my car, the horn blares out on base, letting everyone know that they’re about to go through morning colors. And as the national anthem plays, I’m actually quite saddened by just how few people are stopped in their vehicles.
None.
Except me.
I don’t really buy into a lot of the tradition that the Navy practices, nor do I find a lot of pride in my work anymore (my attitude has gone downhill quite a bit since I first got here four years ago), but there’s just some things that I can’t imagine not observing. Stopping your car and respecting the national anthem by doing so is one of these things, and I have yet to fail to do it.
But anyway.
I then headed over to Dental with a copy of my orders, my tri-fold record that they’d given me from the processing site with a good handful of contact numbers on the front, and a small laminated card with even more laminated numbers, in the event that they decided to be a pain in my ace once again.
But surprisingly enough, not today. Today I had a different individual, and all she asked was that I fill out the pink slip inside my record with where I was going, how long I’d be gone, and a contact number in the event I failed to return my record.
What makes me giggle a bit about this is that when I told a few people about how this morning’s encounter went, they told me that it was unnecessary and blah blah blah. And even funnier still is that these are the same people that didn’t find anything wrong with Dental being a pain earlier on in the processing agenda.
Moving along, I got back to the processing site, and they were quick to launch into the medical and dental processing/screening/etc. for the day. They went group by group, getting to foxtrot in roughly about two hours, giving us just enough time to watch through The Longest Yard… when it wasn’t skipping in the DVD player.
But I’m happy to report that I was all set to go without any additional shots, and my medical and dental processing is finally complete and good to go so far as the IA guys are concerned, which is muy bueno. They let me go at 11:45 AM, and I headed back to my command to go out to lunch with one of the admin types upstairs, since she said she’s gonna miss me while I’m gone.
It’s actually kinda interesting to note, by the way, how much I’ll apparently be missed when I’m gone. I didn’t think that it’d be a big deal, especially for people that I don’t think I know very well, but I guess it’s a bigger deal than I originally thought.
Anyway, after all that, I went home and fell asleep for a bit, and then went out with a friend to pick up the Penske moving truck that I’d reserved. The problem with this whole thing lay in the fact that I scheduled the truck for pickup at 4:00 PM, and since processing started, I had no idea whether I’d actually be able to swing it.
Fortunately, I was, but now I’m unsure as to how it’ll go for drop off tomorrow, as it needs to be dropped off at 4:18 PM, and we have a deployment brief at 1:00, which I’m sure will span a good few hours in true Navy fashion.
The best part about it, of course, is that it’s a Fleet and Family Services Support deployment brief. Which means that in addition to the stuff that applies to me, I’m also gonna be getting talked to about crap that doesn’t apply to me. But
anyway.
That’s roughly about all that I did today. Had a conversation with a couple random Navy guys who also live in the apartment complex I live in, and in addition to some random stuff they had against the complex itself, they also said that going to Afghanistan isn’t all that bad. They’ve got the basic luxuries down there, and it’s all pretty safe. But most intriguing, was that one of them said it’d be very easy to come back with over $40,000.00.
That’s freaking amazing.
And I’ll strive to do that.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Processing and You: Welcome to Eternity
Well, another day another dollar, I guess. Today marked the first day of the whole processing to go to Afghanistan bit. And to be honest, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Which isn’t to say that it wasn’t bad, because it was. There’s seldom anything that the Navy has its grimy meathooks in that isn’t in some way, shape, or form spoiled rotten. Anyway, here’s a blow by blow analysis of what happened today… in a nutshelled format.
I woke up at 6:30 AM and headed out toward NOB. When I got there, I saw a throng of people walking down the main street on the base toward my ultimate destination. I had a hunch that they were going where I was going, but I didn’t know for sure. Nor did I really care, for that matter.
Anyway, I got to the parking lot and parked in a relatively safe spot, and then headed back to the building I was headed to: J-50, or Nimitz Hall. And sure enough, there was that massive group, all funneling into the building. So, I did my best to pace myself to get there at the end of the line, as there was quite a bit of khaki in there, and I didn’t feel too particularly… salutary. That goal being reached, I got inside, flashed my CAC to the guy at the door, and then proceeded to get horribly lost. Fortunately, I wasn’t alone in this, and was—indirectly—pointed in the right direction.
So I headed down to the other end of the building via the middle of it, and climbed up to the second floor, where I heard some female saying, “Make sure you have your medical and dental records out for this.”
Great.
Of course, this was only a problem because Dental saw fit to not want to surrender my record the previous Friday. The reasoning for this was because they didn’t want to give me less than I needed… while at the same time apparently not wanting to give me any more than I needed, either.
No matter, though. I managed to get checked in just fine and, to my surprise, they were actually expecting me today.
I say “to my surprise” because throughout the entire course of this li’l IA gem, I’d been given three different sets of orders, each one telling me to be somewhere different at a different point in time.
But as I said, I had no problem getting checked in and… well, seated was a bit of an issue here for a moment or two. You see, they had us separated into different processing groups, split this way for an easier job on their end, and I guess through that, on ours as well. So I was assigned to “foxtrot”, and when I went up front to where I was supposed to sit, I found the entire row of seats taken.
At that point, a female took the center stage and announced the basic itinerary of the day, and that if anyone needed pens or anything, that she had some available. “Do you need something?” she asked me with a hint of annoyance in her voice. “Well actually yeah,” I replied, “A seat would be nice.” She sighed in exasperation, and pointed out a seat that had been stealthed in between two officers. I took a pen, and then I took my seat.
It was at this time that I started realizing that not everyone had showed up in the specified uniform of the day: dress blues. As a matter of fact, most people had showed up in their regular working uniforms, these being the winter blues and more comfortable utilities. At that point, I decided that I’d follow suit on the remaining days in the processing week.
So as not to bore you all with the rest of the day—and because I’m actually quite bored and agitated with it myself—I’ll just go ahead and summarize.
I ran into a coworker who’d been reassigned about a year ago. He’s going to Kuwait.
I got fitted for my uniforms, which I’ll receive on Friday.
I had my medical record screened, and despite the fact that it’s the one thing I’d been taking care of in the past couple of weeks, they found a few things to get me on. Needless to say, I had no problem finding proof of the contrary right when I opened the damn folder. It’s as easy as reading a book, really, and they failed horribly. Hooked on phonics, folks. Hooked on phonics.
Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised at 11:00 AM when they cut the active duty guys loose for lunch while retaining the reserve guys to cover stuff that only applied to the reserve guys. For those of you who don’t know the Navy, lemme break it down for you: the Navy has a distinct problem with forcing people to sit through training that they’ve either been through before, or doesn’t apply to them at all. Case in point: I know what to do in the event that I’m separated from my spouse.
Which I don’t have.
But yeah, they cut us loose, and I went to lunch with the guy I mentioned earlier. Caught up on some things, and realized that not a whole lot changed in his life… certainly less than what changed in mine, which also wasn’t very much. Came back, and instantly realized that in the Navy, karma (or some twisted version thereof) is instant.
Because for the hour that we got out of training that didn’t matter at all to us, we got kept back in the building for three more hours as they finished reviewing our medical records.
Of course, what made this worse was the fact that at 9:30 AM, the female in charge of the processing site overall told us that the day was half over.
Let’s look at this logically.
If we showed up at the site at 7:30 AM for check-in and whatnot, and we were “halfway through the day” at 9:30 AM, that meant that we only had two hours left before we were cut loose.
In the end, we were finally released at 4:30 PM.
Yes, folks, this is why I love the Navy. Nothing is as it should be, or is claimed to be. It’s inconsistent, constantly tests your patience, and is overall just… well, the Navy.
I’d expected to go into the building today and leave with answers to my questions. Most importantly, of course, was where exactly I was gonna be going, and what I was going to be doing. Alas, my Noble Eagle number (a special designation for IA orders) wasn’t mentioned, and the representative from the ECRC (sorry for all the acronyms, by the way) didn’t want to go into what mine was… or anyone else’s that weren’t mentioned.
But, I can’t say that I didn’t learn anything, as that’d be a blatant lie. No, I learned that our trip to South Carolina is only gonna be three weeks long as opposed to the two months I’d been told by others.
Anyway, that was basically my entire day right there. I was gonna go to dental and try to pick up my records once more, but by the time I got done with sitting through the drive-thru at Navy Federal for my rent check this month, it was already 5:30 PM, and I’m pretty sure dental doesn’t stick around that long. So I just went back to the apartment, dropped off the rent, and then chilled for the evening. Took care of a couple other chores, but yeah… everything here is more or less the only stuff of any real consequence.
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