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

Navy fun with full battle rattle

Well, I have finally made it through my first leg of my training and I am now on my second leg. The first was a couple of weeks of processing and now I'm onto my fun training of death by power point and all kinds of other fun training to prepare for my ultimate duty station. Of course I'm trying to maintain OPSEC right now so my details are limited.

I'll try to post again in a couple of weeks. I don't have a lap top and internet access is few and far between where I am. I'm borrowing my roommates lap top for this post.

Out for now, peace!