I've still got parts three and four of my R&R trip to write, but I figured I shouldn't neglect keeping you all informed of my life since returning, either.
Well, I've been deployed for over a year now. The passage of time is rather weird, here. Individual hours, days, or even weeks go by incredibly slowly. Months, on the other hand, go by fairly quickly. Overall, this year has gone by a lot faster than I expected.
The latest word is that we should leave at the very end of May and get back in early June, after which we should have block leave in July. I don't know exactly when they shut down our unit's APO address, but we're supposed to ask everyone to stop sending mail by May 1st, as it may not get delivered to us if you send it after then.
I've already started my search for a place to stay, too. I've identified six possibilities so far, but will need to have somebody take a look at them to help me decide which to try renting. I'm doing it this way so that I'll have a place to stay as soon as I redeploy, and won't have to compete with the rest of the Brigade once everybody else starts looking upon redeployment.
I'm currently scheduled to attend the Recruiting and Retention Course in November, then sometime around January I should be moving to a recruiting station yet to be determined. I could be assigned almost anywhere in the country, and barely have any say in the matter.
Now, I don't particularly want to do recruiting, but it does have its incentives. I wouldn't have to go to Iraq for about four years. It would be a pretty relaxed assignment. On the other hand, I won't get to train soldiers, I won't get many long weekends, and I won't get the wonderful pay incentives of being deployed.
My younger brother got married on March 1st, just after I got back from leave. I *probably* could have gotten my leave extended to go, but I didn't think of it until it was too late, and I would have had to get from Australia to Texas on my own dime. Nevertheless, it didn't happen.
Shortly before going on leave I sent my GPS and digital camera ?n for warranty service. The GPS had come back while I was gone, and the camera came in a few days after I got back. They had replaced my GPS with a brand new one, and my camera underwent substantial repair. Unfortunately the menu navigation buttons on my camera don't work right anymore, so I'm going to see about sending it in again.
I got back from leave, and the patrol schedule had changed dramatically. It was a little confusing at first, but I've got it now. I'm not sure if I like it or not, though. They also changed the JCOP while I was gone. They installed showers and an air-conditioned sleeping tent. It's a lot more pleasant to stay there, now.
Shortly after I got back, before I could even begin to understand our new schedule, we were assigned to the Aerial Reaction Force. This basically meant we were on call 24/7, and every night between 10pm and 2am we would fly *somewhere* to do a high-value targeted raid. We were on the detail for about three weeks, and captured a handful of mid-level leaders of suicide vest, sniper, and bomb-making cells.
It was a nice change of pace from the daily routine. Every night we'd have something new to do, and we were actively going out and aggressively seeking the enemy. I wish we had been doing these sorts of things the whole time we were here, really.
One night, we went pretty far up north, and it was pretty interesting to actually see terrain. There were hills, cliffs, spurs, draws, and plateaus.
On another one, we picked up these three guys and were moving them to the landing zone to take them in. Once the helicopters started to land, the guy I was moving quite suddenly decided he didn't want to cooperate anymore, and just stopped walking. He started to try and twist his shoulders to get me to drop him, so I decided to just pick him up and throw him on my shoulder. As I was bending over to pick him up, one of my guys ran up and grabbed him, and between the two of us we pretty easily got him into the helicopter.
While we were on the detail, we got extended a couple of times. Normally this wasn't an issue, as we'd get a few days notice that we were going to continue. The last one was a little more unexpected. We had finished the detail, and the next couple of days we were off to get prepared for our normal operational schedule. That night, with nobody expecting it, we got a call saying we had to fly out and go grab some guy. We got everything ready, and went out for the night. We ended up dropping three 500 pound bombs on a house to destroy it and the bombs rigged inside it.
A few weeks ago we went up north a little ways to take pictures and log people into a database for background checks and to make little ID cards. Part of this involved getting the names of everybody. Me being the pedant I am, I wanted to ensure that the names we took down were both accurate and could be pronounced mostly-right by almost anyone reading the ID card. To do this, I was taking the names off their Iraqi ID Cards and translating it into our Latin character set.
This was extremely difficult since I can't read Arabic all that well, I'm especially bad at hand-written Arabic, and some of the IDs had very poor handwriting, water damage, and/or were simply quite faded.
My skill seemed more than adequate to the three interpreters we had on hand that day, though. I would frequently ask for their help, and after helping me with one ID card and seeing that I could struggle through a couple more, they would go find something else to do, usually not very work-related, either, like sitting around BSing with soldiers or locals or something. All three interpreters decided independently of one another that my poor ability to struggle through the IDs was quite enough to allow them to just take the afternoon off and chill. I did get considerably better at reading hand-written Arabic, though.
On a more academic note, a few weeks ago I was asked if I wanted to compete to be inducted into the Sergeant Audie Murphy Club. For those of you who don't know, the club was started in 1986 as a semi-official way to recognize outstanding non-commissioned officers with exceptional leadership potential. It spread Army-wide in 1994. I wasn't very motivated to do it, but I thought "You know, what's the worst that could happen? It can't hurt to try for it."
Here, it involved a physical fitness test and two oral boards evaluating performance in various leadership situations and on your knowledge of Audie Murphy's history. There were ten of us at the first board, and three of us were recommended for the final board. From across the base, there were twelve people to go to the final board. Two of them didn't do well enough on the fitness test, and one didn't do well enough on the oral board. Of those twelve, nine of us were recommended for induction into the Sergeant Audie Murphy Club. The final decision is made by the Corps Command Sergeant Major in Baghdad, after being reviewed by the Division Command Sergeant Major in Tikrit. It's highly unlikely either of them will make any changes to the recommendation sent by the Command Sergeant Major here.
We don't have a timeline for when the final decision will be returned here, nor when the actual induction will occur.
About a month ago I decided to start using my heart rate monitor again while I was working out. I was quite surprised to learn one day, while sitting at the computer typing a letter (this one, I believe), that my resting heart rate was only 58 beats per minute. I've since checked it multiple times since then, and it wasn't an error. I also checked it while sleeping, and my average heart rate was 51 beats per minute. Shortly after I woke up, while just lying in bed doing nothing, my resting heart rate was only 54 beats per minute.
Now, I've known for quite a while that my main hindrance to endurance exercise was pulmonary volume and efficiency, and then muscular fatigue, but I never knew my heart was in *that* good of shape. I'd still like to get my heart rate lower, but that'll happen as a by-product of working on the other two factors as well.
Daylight Savings began recently in the United States, and a couple weeks later in Europe. Last year Iraq observed it, but this year the Iraqi Government decided not to observe Daylight Savings, so we didn't change our clocks this spring. Somehow my unit didn't find out about this until the night prior to day changing our clocks, and it didn't get put out very well to the individual soldier, either. My computer also didn't know about this, and changed the time automatically. I've just been using Kuwaiti time instead, since they regularly don't observe Daylight Savings. For those curious, the timezone here is UTC+3.
I finally got around to applying at Excelsior College, an accredited online college who specifically tailors its programs for active duty military. I'm having official transcripts sent, and hopefully I'll be able to finish my degree some day!
Oh, since I frequently make mention of the weather, it's been pretty mild here, lately. About a week ago we had a little thunderstorm. Lots of lightning and a little bit of rain. It's also been very dusty lately. It's not gritty, though.
More like a fog, to include the limited visibility. The sun is usually just a brown or gray disc, and you can't really see more than about 100 meters. It's been keeping the temperatures mild, though. Highs in the nineties and lows in the fifties.
Well, that's about it for now. And remember, don't send mail after May 1st.
Cheers,
Brian |
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