First duty station

My first duty station is Korea. I didn't request it, nor did I want it. I requested every place WARM. Korea was the absolute last duty station preference. I don't want to be cold....

On the brighter side, I will be complete with my PL time and at my second duty station before some of my classmates report to their first duty station.

School dates

I received my follow on school dates this week. My BOLC II is at Ft Sill from Nov 2 until Dec 20. My BOLC III (MPOBC) is at Ft Leonardwood from Jan 7 to Mar 20. In my downtime, I will be at Ft Leonardwood. I don't know where my first duty assignment is going to be next.

FLX 2 complete

We finished our second week of field exercises. Fun stuff! Last week we were fortunate enough to come back nearly every day to shower. This week, not so lucky. We left early Monday morning and returned Friday evening. My level of funkiness was aweful. Everyone smelled so we didn't notice it on each other. Thank goodness. We were told initially that we would return every 72 hours to shower....nope!

A couple funny events happened this week. When the port-a-potty service finally came to clean the potties on Thursday, they discovered that someone threw a blank into the port-a-potty. Training was halted and everyone was returned to the FOB. We were yelled at by our 1SG and told that we wouldn't have pizza that night (our one privilage since showers were out of the question) and that our weekend pass "might" be revoked. Then we had to pull "shit detail" and stand in full battle rattle at the port-a-potties, search the people who were using the facilities, and then inspect the area after use. YUCK! Oh yeah, we had our pizza that night and we had a three day off post pass.....

Friday, my squad was OPFOR. Three of us were at the first objective. For the first group that came thru, my role was to be an informant that turned on the friendly forces. I took a smoke grenade (our version of an IED) and hid it on the small of my back. The friendly forces noticed that I had something and were doing really good on intructing me what to do, THEN..... I heard the infamous words "take it out and throw it". Well, I did. I took it out, pulled the pin, and then threw it just behind the group of soldiers. lol, they were upset, I just smiled.

It's hoTT outside!

We've been coming back from the field on a daily basis (a pleasant surprise) to shower. The temperature has been in the upper 90's with the heat index in the 110's - 120's. We weren't supposed to return from the field yesterday but there was a severe thunderstorm in the area. A private on Sand Hill (basic training side of Ft. Benning -- for those non-military folks) was struck by lightning; and we had over 20 heat casualties (3 serious enought to be sent to the ER). People were dropping left and right. Luckily only one person from my platoon was a casualty, he just needed to sit in the air conditioned truck for a few minutes. Apparantly, the ones who were dropping weren't eating their MRE's. I know that they suck and have 3000 calories in them, but I'll eat it to not allow myself to become a heat victim. I only fell victim to fire ant bites, heat rash, and a blister on the back of my heal the size of a silver dollar.

We had our land navigation practice test on Tuesday morning. If we passed, we didn't have to go out again the next morning. I passed because I knew that I wasn't going to wake-up at the butt crack of dawn (aka 0230). 44 out of 110 failed so they went out again the second morning, Wednesday. On the final day, 17 had to go out again. The entire company passed. Thank goodness, no one was recycled due land navigation failures.

Last night we came back and spent the night in the barracks. Today we conducted squad movements and expected to spend the night in the field. But NO, we came back about 1300, ate a MRE, showered, and are currently resting for our 7 mile tactical ruck march.

The Kilo Papas

For the last couple weekends, a small group from my platoon have been going out to dive bars in Eastern Alabama to sing karaoke and enjoy adult beverages. Yes, we are allowed to drink.

The guys have now named themselves the Kilo Papas.... Everytime we go, they sing "You've lost that loving feeling". Way too funny.

big gun to the little girl

We are leaving for the field tomorrow. Weapons were assigned last week. I was assigned the M249 SAW, one of the big guns. We are completing the final preps tonight. August is the hottest month down here, so we are so excited.

My branch

I'm branched MP!