monotony

The monotony of it all has begun. I knew it was going to happen. I have heard the tales and read the stories, but never thought it would actually happen to me. But alas, it has. BOREDOM is setting in and taking it's sticky, gooey, hold upon my life here on this base. My days are getting longer and the time off getting shorter because we for whatever reason can't seem to find anything more productive to do but work. If I really enjoyed working that much I would have to call it a hobby instead of WORK. Even the strykers that used to elicit such oohs and ahhhs are now nothing more than an occasional 'cool a stryker'. This is not a good sign seeing as how I still have 6 months left in this God-forsaken land of Iraq. I feel like a little hamster running in that wire ball just hoping to make it to some sort of new destination. The harder I run the faster the ball goes and I still don't get anywhere but the same place I started. We process people to leave this place every day and it's getting harder and harder to be happy for them....just knowing they are leaving is making us all a little more edgy lately. Don't get me wrong, this is awesome duty up here and I'm seeing things and doing things even the rest in my battalion will never get the opportunity to do, but I'm bored of the monotony.

sand, sand, everywhere sand!

Ok, I'm not trying to be a hater of the sand, BUT....it's getting ridiculous with all the freaking sand storms lately. AND with the sand comes more mortar attacks. This is nuts! I can feel my lungs filling up with sand. My eyelashes are coated in sand. My nose is full of sand. Did I mention I hate the sand?!
On another note....Toby Keith was on base lastnight for a USO concert and I was fortunate enough to score a front row pass! Woohoo....touched Toby's hand it was great! Now when I hear American Soldier or Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue I can be like.."Dude, I saw him sing that while I was in Iraq!" I know, I'm a retard, but it's still pretty cool.
My whole night shift got busted for sleeping on shift lastnight by my LT. Whoops. Well, not all of us were racked the hell out, just the vast majority. Have you ever gotten into trouble by your mom and you are just waiting for dad to come home because you KNOW you are in for a whoopin' but you just don't know when? That's what it feels like around work now. We are just waiting for the ass whoopin. I have a feeling we will be baby sat for the rest of the time we are on nights. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. I'm out for some much needed sleep (that I didn't get to finish lastnight on shift, HA!)

TTFN!

update

Well, after two nasty sand storms, a couple of mortar attacks and a partridge in a pear tree I'm still alive. I'm starting to settle into my routine of work, eat, sleep, work-out, rinse, repeat. The time is going surprisingly fast, but I'm sure once all the newness wears off the dreaded ground hog day effect will take hold. I'm trying not to see or do all the base has to offer in the first month as to have SOMETHING to do later on since we can't leave the wire (which from what I have been hearing is not such a bad thing). The pool is nice and has VERY nice scenery (wink, wink-I'm thinking of enlisting into the Air Force-HA!). I'm already sick of the DFAC food and thank God for Taco Bell and Cinnabon! The advancement results came out today and I did not advance, but at least I did pass the damn thing so I will have a whopping 1 point to carry over to the fall cycle. Oh well, I was at least in the 60th percentile...which I don't think that is saying much. Thanks for all the well-wishes and the continued support.

NG

I have arrived

I finally made it to this lovely country called Iraq. It's, how should I say it......interesting. Ok, that's not the most descriptive portrayal, but right now I'm tired so just bear with me. I have been here for about 5 days and it's been the most surreal experience of my life. I will save the story of my flight up here and my bags being left behind for another day. I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm here, I'm alive and Hadji has been pretty active the past couple of days around here. Well, I'm off to work (nights) so this post will be short and sweet. I still can't get my mind around the fact that Dude, I'm in Iraq!

The Final Countdown

The final countdown is on for our departure. All the training is done, the packout is complete. Now, we will sit through some B.S. waste-some-time crappy briefs AGAIN on what not to do in country. If I have to hear that I can't even so much as look at a guy, let alone talk to one or even worse, befriend one or else the evil troll monkeys will fly out of my butt and the mythical OZ will show himself from behind the curtain and send me to military jail, I'm going to scream! AND for gosh sakes, don't let them catch me with my collection of kitty cats in the buff on my computer, I'll go to hell for that one too! (sorry bad reference for kiddie porn...I know, I know that was bad). So, I'm a little more than over the micro-management that has been ensued upon us since we arrived for this pre-deployment training. Call me crazy, but I was certain that in my 34 years of wisdom, I would be entrusted to know when I can pee and when I can't. When I can board the bus and when I can't. When I can talk and when I can't. Obviously, someone higher up thinks there needs to be an SOP for all of this crap and the peeons are following this SOP to the letter I tell ya! Someone is jockeying for a NAM! Tisk, Tisk. Medal hunters, all of the 'em. To hell with them all I say! Ok, I'm done ranting now. Can you tell that I'm ready to depart just to get away from all the political horse poopy?
The Chief's mess put on a (dare I even say it....) FREE cookout tonight with hamburgers, hotdogs, pie, cake, salad. The works really. Then the shit hit the fan. They asked 4 E-6's to take charge and finish cooking for the crew. There were large flames and women and children fleeing after that. Not sure what happened, but I thought I heard fire sirens at one point. Saturday night, the hotel will be putting on a shindig for the crew with booze, music and free food. There goes the notion of no fraternization right out the window. You get sailors + FREE alcohol + hotel rooms = Captain's Mast in the morning. This should be interesting to say the least. I personally have no desire to partake in the shinanigins that will be going on. I may take in some of the free food, but my alcohol consumption will be nill. I, after all am going off to war damnit!
I guess I need to wrap this up and call my mother. So, with that being said, I bid you fair winds and following seas until we meet again. Geez, I'm really getting cheesy hanging with all these squids for so long.

TTFN

[edit.....I actually got pretty hammered with the help of my totally awesome buddy (and he knows who he is ;o)) ]

And the verdict is.......

Well, as you can see from the addition to my title, I am going to Iraq. I didn't plan on going to Iraq when I started my adventure since I was sure I was going to the safer option to the south. But, that is not the way things have turned out. So, with as much guts and I can muster, I will be heading up north to [OPSEC], Iraq. Some of you may know it by it's alter ego of "Mortarritaville". (gosh I hope my mother never reads that!) I'm both very excited and honored to get the opportunity to go, but on the same hand I'm scared shitless!
In other news, my training team is on a much needed and deserved break this weekend for Easter. We have the entire weekend off unless you have a watch on Saturday. I plan on spending Easter morning at church and then off in the afternoon to a big amusement park nearby. It will be a lot of fun to hang out with the peeps from my team outside of our usual groundhog day environment and blow off some steam before we depart for the sand. Some of my teammates will be going with me up to Iraq, but the majority will be separated up to the other different duty stations to the south of Iraq. The past month has been a blast getting to know these guys/gals, and it sucks that after all the time we have shared, it will be soon coming to an end. These are great people and I wish them all the best.
I finished my HUMWWV training the other day and let me tell you that was awesome! Some of us took our team van out last night for dinner and a trip to Walmart (which I used the opportunity to purchase my new snazzy laptop that I'm typing on right now) and my driver thought he was still driving one of the HUMWWV's...it was great!! I don't think the other people in the van that weren't at the training thought it was too fun, but I did!
Next week, we will begin our pack-out and I will get the 3rd shot in the series for my Anthrax and my Yellow Fever shot. Spraying of our uniforms, more power point briefs and some actual mission training will be done. We don't have our exact date of departure yet and I'm sure for [OPSEC] they won't tell us. It's better that way, there are some real jugheads here that would be on the first cell phone/email/text message they could find letting Hadji and all his buddies know just when we are leaving. My roommate was talking to her family the other day and telling them that when we get our date she would let them know. When she got off the call I calmly told her that she couldn't tell them exactly when we are leaving. She asked me why not and I told her for [OPSEC] reasons and she actually looked at me and asked, "well then how are they going to know?" Is she serious? I told her that they won't and she can't tell them. Hello! I guess she would like to be one of the jugheads that lets Hadji and all of his buddies know all about what we are doing and when. Sheesh!

"let me see your war face"

I am now a trained warrior on the M9 service pistol and the M16 semi-automatic rifle. That's a scary thought. All 5'4", 120lbs of pure attitude with a gun! Things are going very well. I'm just starting to get really beat with the "high-speed" training that we are doing, but I'm own the down slope for that level and now on to combat skills training. Once that is complete, we will have a much needed break from the hard stuff until we leave the states. We have a photographer with my group, so hopefully in the near future once I get into country and get a laptop or more available internet access I will post some pictures. Obeying all rules for OPSEC of course.

My Own Hero....I really appreciate all the well-wishes and support. I hope you are enjoying active duty and you get to see some sand time too!! I haven't been able to check in on you in awhile, so I expect to see some outstanding posts when I'm back up and running!

TTFN