My stepkids,

have a great sense of humor, and a fairly cruel stepmom.

At 0610, I climbed out of bed, thinking, what a nice morning for a hike! I need some company!

Because they are children, and not very wise, all three got up and agreed to a happy trudge.

Six miles (1:48, with 50lbs of crap) later...I took them out to breakfast (getting them out of bed had required bribery), and they turned to some serious napping. They're just now starting to roam around again.

Heh.

I have to admit, I was impressed. Number One Son often accompanies me on jogs and trudges, and so I wasn't surprised that he hung in there (and considering that he's carrying only a 2-quart canteen, there's no reason he shouldn't have). Number Two Son and Girl Child, however...really wanted to stop after the first three miles, but kept going. Then they really wanted to turn around at the point that would have made for five miles, but they had the stopwatch and CamelBack, so they just kept tromping. Good on them.

I have got to get Number One Son to stop thinking it's moto to run the last couple of blocks, though. Maybe if I give him the pack and vest for that part...

Just because

I don't have anything to say doesn't mean I shouldn't blog, I guess. Because then the bar starts creeping up in my own mind, and then I'm not posting because I don't have anything important to say.

Ha! As though anyone comes here for important.

In recent adventures...

It came to my attention that an upcoming Army evolution will involve a timed trudge with gear. One of my comrades remarked that he was buying a new set of boots for this trudge (which is 6.2 miles). He will be buying the shiny high-speed-low-drag Oakley boots, which he has never had before, and which are just-recently-authorized for wear.



I came home and remarked to the Mister that buying a new pair of boots that one has never had before, shortly before and specifically for a hump (that's Marine for trudge - in the Army it seems one "ruckmarches" or "rucks") seemed like a recipe for blisters. And, I concluded, silly. Because c'mon, it's only 6.2 miles.

The Mister agreed, then made a shockingly insensitive observation.

It's not very far at all, he said. But, Abby, you haven't done that stuff since you left the Marine Corps. It might not be easy anymore, because now you're 30.

Hmmm. Could be true. So I busted out the trusty 20-lb weighted vest (close enough to body armor, I figured), and my awesome-but-not-sexy Belleville boots.



(just as a side note, for any deploying reserve or Guard types I might have, they will often issue these boots during your mobilization. Snatch them up if you get the chance, or request them if you can see them on the shelf at supply)

I took off in the evening with Number One Son and a three-mile course ('cause, you know, a three-mile course done twice is a six-mile course). We should, I told him, walk briskly. Really awesome performance would be 15-minute miles, the sucky minimum we would accept would be 20-minute miles.

So we trudged. And trudged and trudged, and sweated a little, and drank some water. As another side note - taking a teenage boy with you provides not only someone to carry the water, but provides extra incentive to not be a slow wimp.

We finished at 1:37, for 16:15 miles, which I felt was pretty respectable. The vest did kick my ass - I highly recommend it if you feel the need to suffer more. Walking with it wasn't rough at all, but it did limit any running to a very slow shuffle. I knew that would suck, but when we got close to the end I really wanted to see if we could hit 1:36, hence the hustle. Alas....

I was feeling pretty good about myself until the next morning. When I woke up and...couldn't move. I'm almost recovered now, and we'll be doing it again with a little more weight either tonight or tomorrow.

After that (of course), I finally got the standard we'd be trudging to in the upcoming event.

• 55lbs. or a third of your body weight (whichever is less) to include IBA, Weapon, LBV and Ruck
• 10 Kilometers = 6.2 miles
• 3 Hours or less
• Go / No-Go grade
• Mostly flat surface

I'm not overwhelmingly concerned, but I figure I'll dry run it a couple more times just to ensure I don't suck when we do it.

Civic obligation MET!

Well, that was a bit of a disappointment. Went down, checked in, got assigned to a district criminal court.

Had lunch, drank coffee, was ready to go in for the voir dire part, and...case settled (or something), no jury required. Thank you for your time, here's $6, have a great day.

[sigh]

I was number 52 of 60, so I probably wouldn't have made it on the jury anyway, but I was hoping for a little more of a learning experience in return for a day of my time.

Civic duty

Remember the jury duty notice I got before I went to Court Licks? Yeah. Well, I got it postponed, but because I really kinda at least want to go see what this is all about, I did not request an exemption.

And that postponement...well, it was good for about a month.

So off I go today, with a vague and crappy map of the downtown area. What fun.

Huh?

A quick click over to CNN led me to this headline - I am not kidding - Obama says he's 'been very consistent' on Iraq

I doublechecked and realized I was indeed on CNN and not on the Onion.

Consistently defeatist, wrongheaded and obtuse, perhaps.

"The belief that we have a national security interest in making sure Iraq is secure, I've been saying consistently,"

Huh. See, I pay pretty close attention, and that's not what I have taken away from the Senator's statements.

Obama reiterated his commitment to his withdraw plan again. “I will call my joint chiefs of staff and give them an assignment and that is to end the war,” he said.

Well, ok. 'Cause running on a promise to prioritize an immediate end to our activities in Iraq doesn't sound like the plan of a man who believes we have a national security interest in making sure Iraq is secure. But maybe I missed something, being just an old dumb sergeant and all.

[rolls eyes, heads to fridge for more beer]

Stupid huuurts! (Part II)

It's really not easy being Abby these days.

I was cutting...cucumbers or onions or something yesterday. I finished chopping, scooped up the cutting board and knife, and lost control of it, sending the knife to the floor.

Well, not directly to the floor.



As far a dropping a paring knife point-down onto a toe, it was about as painless as it could have been.

I should probably be wearing a helmet, at the rate I'm going.

cleaning at midnight

(not really, but if I was a slightly more domestic chick, I sure would be)

Dad is driving down to visit, and is currently racked out in his vehicle, in Oklahoma.

Not as far away as I would hope he'd be, considering we have some pretty decent work ahead of us making the house look decent tomorrow.

Ah, well. That's why I have stepchildren, and a bullwhip.

Stupid huuurts!

There I was, at the range. I burned through about 150 rounds of .45, then decided to put a few through the M9. Whereupon, I hurt myself.



Yes - it seems I chambered the fat part of my left index finger. My best guess (since it happened rather rapidly), is that somehow my slingshot slide-release technique that functions just fine with the 1911 doesn't jive so well when rapidly applied to the M9.

See - this works just fine and I have never hurt myself doing it.



It's the same way I grab the slide to clear a stoppage, so I figured it would be best to always grab the slide that way. For some reason, today, the first time I chambered a round in the M9, the above approach translated as the one pictured below.



No - I don't know how that happened. But I'm fairly certain I'll be extra aware of what I'm doing with that finger every time I handle an M9 from here on out.

And, just as an extra, because I found it on the camera, here's a picture of Sparky on the dining room table. Apparently, while I was at Court Licks, the chilluns went on a spree of photographing him on various prohibited surfaces.



Just something to keep in mind, for those of you who might find yourself at our dinner table.

I've been remiss

in my performance of happy dances.

Of course, along with all the other gun nuts out there, I did the Heller happy dance (that links to the entire decision, FYI). Seriously - you mean the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right? Next major Supreme Court surprise - the right to breathe in implies an individual right to breathe out.

Anyway. A win.

Now, I'm not going to put my freebies from Uncle Sugar on the same plane of importance as the Bill of Rights, but I'm also doing the happy dance about the recent GI Bill upgrade.

The Post 9/11 GI Bill will provide up to 100% of your tuition. In addition, the program provides a monthly housing stipend, and a stipend of up to $1,000 a year for books and supplies. If you attend less than full-time you will receive a portion of the payment based on the number of units of study.

...

100% - 36 or more total months
100% - 30 or more consecutive days with Disability related Discharge.
90% - 30 total months
80% - 24 total months
70% - 18 total months
60% - 12 total months
50% - six total months
40% - 90 or more consecutive days

For Active Component folks like the Mister, this is pretty simple. For Reversists like moi, however, it will require clarification. Some of these service amounts include time on active duty other than on "mobilization orders," some don't seem to. There's also the always-interesting question for what is probably the most mobile demographic in the US this side of migrant fruit pickers - how is the state determined?

Fortunately, the DoD always pays someone to figure this crap out and put it in a pamphlet written simply enough that even soldiers can understand it.

[pauses, does math] My last mob was 14 months and change, I did a six month tour at SILLYCOM, there's probably another six months of active duty for various schools and exercises...and, well, there's a good chunk of time left on my current enlistment.[rubs hands, does Mr. Burns impression] Eeeexcellent.

This is gonna be a sweet deal no matter how they break it down.

What can one say

about this sort of thing?

Postcards showing police dog-in-training Rebel, a German shepherd born in early December, are causing a furor among the region’s Muslims who believe dogs are "ritually unclean," the Daily Mail reports.

[sigh]

Sometimes, you really gotta wonder if the clash of civilizations crowd is on to something.

I mean, I try. I do. I really do.

But any group of people who can get their knickers in a twist over this...



The ritual oppression of all things female is bad. The general disdain for secular learning and genuine expansion of knowledge...also bad. But affecting great offense at a cute puppy on a public-safety flier?

This crap needs to be booted back to its miserable hovels in fly-infested third-world hellholes. Most ricky tick.

I did not know there was a market

for this sort of thing, but a stop at the Fort Worth Star Telegram website enlightened me. Did you know you can buy handmade FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Latterday Saints) clothing? On the internet?

The group's site seems to focus largely on children's outfits, so you could outfit your short people to look like this:



A good look for tearful goodbyes as government agents take your children away, it seems.

Anyway, if that's your bag, the site is FLDS Dress, and it looks like you might be able to place special orders if you want something similar for the taller folks in your life.

The Man strikes again

As always, I picked up the "crud" my last couple of days playing Army, and got off the plane hacking and sneezing (Mom, Dad - thanks for the immune system that allows me to resist illness until right before I come home, virtually guaranteeing that every homecoming in my life will be a festival of phlegm).

We stopped at Walgreens for Advil Cold & Sinus, which, apparently because you can use it to make meth, is now a controlled substance. I picked up my little I-want-cold-meds tag and proceeded to the pharmacy, where a nice little pharmacist asked for my driver's license.

She took it, got me my 20 caplets, and proceeded to start typing something into her computer.

Pardon me, I asked, but, just out of curiosity, exactly what information are you capturing?

Oh, she replied, we get your name and address and driver's license number. You know, so they can see how much of this stuff you're buying and if they think you're using it to make meth. Even though I know you're not. She smiled.

I can buy 5,000 rounds of ammunition with no ID (unless I'm buying at one of those places that likes to verify age), but they are tracking my cold medicine purchases?

Creepy.

Home (again)

and, as usual, the fabulousness that is one's very own bathroom cannot be overstated.

Money Quote

From our recent camping trip... We were toward the back of the convoy of humvees heading back to the barracks when all was said and done. At one point, there was a stop sign at which we needed to turn right. There were about twenty trucks in our convoy.

You can tell the ones who haven't deployed, said our chief instructor, because they're stopping at the stop sign.

Almost there...

We survived the "field" portion of this class. It wasn't particularly arduous. In fact, the ticks were probably the worst part of it, and led to this sign.



Yes, that sign is on the shitter. I can't imagine a tick infestation there, but it can't be a good thing. Two words, ladies and gentlemen: butt ticks. There - now you'll have a nice image to ponder [shudders].

As for me, I didn't encounter a single one the entire time we were out there. Perhaps that's because I don't like ticks, and thus avoided walking through the tall grass.

They gave us a day off today for no apparent reason, and I went to Philadelphia to walk around and see the sights. We went to the National Consitution Center, which was cool. I recommend it. Independence Hall was full for the day, so we settled for a stroll around Washington Square and then returned to our lovely quarters.

48 hours from now I fully intend to be back at Bad Dog Central, enjoying that most wonderful of all luxuries...my own bathroom.

Camping!

We're off for a few nights in tents. We have three "phases" of Civil Affairs soldiers out here. We've got what we call the "10 level," which is folks who are coming over from another field and for whom this is their introduction to what we do. We have our midlevel group, and a small group of more senior NCOs.

This is one of those entertaining fields where training often involves interacting with the local community to get people up to speed on finding key personnel in a civilian community and talking to them. The 10 level students started that yesterday, and beginning tomorrow we'll be riding around with them, doing the "teach, coach, mentor" gig.

So I'll be off the radar until the middle of next week, riding around and offering my valuable insights to new CA soldiers. It should be very special.

And if any of you are in the Court Licks area, and happen to see a bunch of humvees parked behing a convenience store, have no fear. It's not an invasion, it's a coffee break.

More thoughts from school

It wasn’t until I noticed that my Mom was telling stories about my youthful misbehavior that I even thought of seeing if I could access the blog through the Army computer system here in the classroom. Lo and behold, I can! The system doesn’t seem to jive with Haloscan, but I can post without trudging through the groundhog ambush site to the club.

Anyway...since I don't want to pay attention in any more classes, I have plenty of time to put together long, rambling posts.

We’re getting close to the end of the classroom portion of this, which is A Good Thing. We’ve pretty firmly established at this point that Civil Affairs NCOs, more than any other group in the military, have zero tolerance for foreign civilians.

We wish refugees would get real jobs and move out of camps, we loathe handing out humanitarian assistance supplies, we firmly believe that willful stupidity is an insurmountable barrier to conducting population and resource control operations with any level of force below tanks.

I’ve previously said we have only one soldier in our group who hasn’t deployed. We have a couple others who deployed as something other than CA. But among those of us who have, there is not a single one who has not had an HA (humanitarian assistance) drop that:

A – turned into a no-holds-barred brawl

B – involved handing out some asinine and truly useless item that came from some level of “Higher”

The Afghanistan folks cornered the market on B. That operation gets more international support, and so they get a wider variety of stuff. Including children’s underwear with celebrity images emblazoned on them, courtesy of (wait for it, it won’t be a surprise), the people of Japan.

We agreed that the concept of targeted HA drops almost entirely escapes maneuver unit commanders, who seem to be big fans of just handing crap out because Iraqis (and Afghans) like crap. We’d prefer they consider our input on issues like which populations need stuff, which populations deserve stuff, and which populations might be bought for our side with stuff. Our mission is really, really, really not to put a smile on a child’s face. It really, really, really is to wean the people of these countries off their dependence on American handouts.

But of course, soldiers like children and, since the current policy on war trophies sucks, it seems that the one thing everyone wants to take home is a picture of them handing a Beanie Baby to an urchin. We have had no luck convincing any of them that Beanie Babies are not Humanitarian Assistance items, and, thus, CA should not be responsible for them.

[sigh] I thought it was just us, but I was wrong. At least I know I’m not alone.

One score

and ten years ago, a woman in Michigan was, after many (very many, if you ask her) hours of labor, presented with a shrieking infant. The woman and her husband had planned to name the infant Edwin if it was male, and Rachel if it was female.

The baby was a girl but it did not, according to the legend, look like a Rachel. It looked, the story goes, like an Abigail.

The woman was Mom, the husband Dad, and Abigail was, of course, yours truly.

Today is the big Three-Oh.

I find it a little depressing to be 30, but it certainly does beat the alternative. Rumors abound that this would be an appropriate point to grow up and act like a responsible adult, but they are unconfirmed rumors, so I won't be making that a priority.

In honor of this momentous day, I have for you a picture of a groundhog here at Court Licks.



It's like a hobbit birthday, in which my guests get presents!

EDIT: Hey! I can't see the full comments with the Army internet, but I am fairly sure my Mom is NOT allowed to tell stories!

Class stretches on…

In the past couple of days we’ve covered culture (in three excruciatingly detailed classes), negotiations (in one brutal six-hour block), and a truly painful block titled “Coordinate With Interagency, Intergovernmental and Nongovernmental Organizations.” This last one involved lots and lots of discussion about how much we all value the United Nations and its contributions to building a better world.

Actually, the negotiation class was taught by a New Jersey cop and former SWAT guy who initially defined negotiation as a single sentence – Sir, could you move a little closer to the window, please?
Guaranteed laugh line in a room full of soldiers, that.

And again, although the course material is about as useful as the proverbial screen door on the submarine, the class interaction allows for us to reach consensuses on important issues for the Civil Affairs NCO.

Let me share some of those with you.

1 – Village cleanup projects are a giant waste of the American taxpayer’s dollars. Iraqis don’t care if their towns are ankle-deep in garbage. If they did, they’d ask for some of these projects. They don’t. It’s a common misconception of newly-arrived maneuver battalion commanders that paying for a bunch of some local bigwig’s cousins to pick up trash for a couple of weeks will enable these folks to see the light. They don’t care.

2 – Everybody likes to build schools because Children Are The Future. However, if there’s no system in place to hire and pay teachers, the utility of the new school is roughly zero immediately following the ribbon-cutting. If there is a system, but it’s entirely dependent on US dollars and contracting, it’s only slightly better than worthless.

3 – The nomadic subpopulation in Afghanistan is, apparently, the CA NCO’s worst nightmare, since this seems to be a group that travels around and has figured out they can get money and stuff from a wide range of US military units. Worst of all, they must be placated, since a large part of their economic heritage involves smuggling stuff across mountainous borders.

4 – Again, about the schools. Although economic growth initiatives don’t make for good ribbon-cutting pictures, we’ve decided that education without economic opportunity is bound to become either an expensive luxury, or the source of lots of well-educated Iraqis and Afghans working in other countries – neither of which is part of the overall goal.

5 – The Officer Efficiency Report should be changed to a GO/NO GO document in theatre. Far too many stupid ideas are initially conceptualized as “bullet points” on an OER. A good NCO can identify one of these ideas at 100 yards, but trying to stop one…well, imagine an armadillo on a Texas highway going toe-to-toe with a Peterbilt. Yeah. We know how that ends.

6 – The no-beer rule sucks. However, as dutiful noncommissioned officers in the US Army, we recognize that we are most effective when we train ourselves to live as warrior monks – rejecting personal comforts and vices in favor of an ascetic study of our field of expertise. Further, since we are, indeed, warriors, we must train our bodies and minds to accept deprivation. In that spirit, along with giving up beer, we have discarded mattresses, sheets and pillows in order to sleep on the ground outside the barracks. We have also taken to pouring sand and insects onto our food before eating it.

It appears that Those Who Know Best have decreed that we shall spend another week in the classroom getting made smarter. I can only hope it’s as illuminating as this first one has been.

(admin note - yes, I retro-posted this for ease of organization)

^%%$%^ Army computers

I had a nice little post for y'all, even though the wireless is down and I'm using an Army computer.

Then Blogger took a giant crap on me.

[sigh]

So, no thoughtful little post. However, when I can get up and running again on my own computer, I do have a groundhog picture to share.