Camping (again)

Sorry for the relative silence - this time we ended up in the ghetto block of the Big Army Campsite, and we don't get wireless. Our MRX (I actually have no idea what that stands for, although I'd guess Mission Readiness Exercise) has kept us quite busy the past several days, and so this is the first evening I've had time (or energy) to walk around with an open laptop and a hopeful expression.

I guess I got lucky in that I didn't have to be out here running missions on the first day of the MRX. The downside? That was because I was attending UPL training.

My Army folks out there just started laughing. See, the UPL is the Unit Prevention Leader. Basically, the Urinalysis Czar. The job is nice in that it means I won't have to be an observer for a pee test for another year. Bad because it means I'll have to handle warm and slightly damp plastic jars of warm piss.

You win some, you lose some.

After that wonderful day (yes, we did conduct a training urinalysis. Yes, I did have to handle pee. Yes, it was warm), it was all high-quality training, all the time.

No, seriously. It was, of course, an organization not part of the yahoos mobilizing us that provided said training.

Lots of good civilian role players, lots of pyro (devices that make smoke and noise and fire), etc etc. I got whacked once and injured once. Yesterday's injury was a testament to how difficult it is to move a 140-pound woman (me) wearing combat gear. My "body" only needed to go about 75 feet, and between the armor, helmet, and my "dead" status, it didn't even have to be gentle. It's not very hard to drag someone six or eight feet to cover, but sclepping someone who's dead weight, while packing a lot of extra gear yourself...well, it'll kick the ass of pretty much anyone.

Today's wound resulted in a field IV for SSG Abby. The specialist sticking me hit the vein on the first try, and although there was blood, there was no real pain.



(I swear, by the time the real Big Trip starts, I'll have possesion of the normal digital camera so you all aren't subjected to cell phone photos anymore)



Alas, the same cannot be said for the gentleman I had to stick on the following iteration. I got the IV going, but it was more of an adventure than my poor "casualty" probably would have liked.

And, a final note to any female NCOs who may read here. I think - by which I mean I suspect but am not certain - that my male soldiers lie to me more because I am a woman. So, gals, if your boys ever nod and tell you they know how to work an M240B, that they've done it a million times, that they are damn proficient to nth degree...well, have them demonstrate. Or you will find yourself on the hood of the truck during a test fire explaining the concepts of "open-bolt weapon" and "brass to the grass." Using a lot of four-letter words.

Highly efficient

yep - that's us.

We actually had a down day yesterday. Now, since we've all volunteered to be here, we obviously deserve to be treated rather like especially dull privates. Thus, we are not permittd to leave the post, to consume alcohol, or to wear civilian attire. Nonetheless, we embraced our day off, jumped through a few hoops, and went fishing.

We even caught a few.



I caught a lot of fish, but that one is about average. Oh well - it beat doing anything for which there are sign-in rosters.

And now it's back to regular grind, which started with more shots in the hours before sunrise, and now seems to be set on "do nothing" until a class which - I kid you not - is scheduled to run from 2200 to 0600.

And no - it's not a class that involves doing anything in the dark.

That's obviously pretty high on the stupid scale, and our Leadership is out driving around asking (for the third and fourth time), if that block of time is typo or simply a really dumb idea. But forcing logic on the mobilization process is like trying to teach Sparky to land the space shuttle.



Yeah. I'm thinking it's going to be a long night.

On the positive side, we have a crack team of guys who've made it their mission in life to ensure we've always got a five-gallon coffee jug at these training evolutions. We might have to write those guys up for Distinguished Service Crosses after this.

More fun

than should probably be legal. Yep - we recently had NBC day! Of course, it's not "NBC" (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) anymore - now it's CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear - pronounced Sea-Bern).

Anyway, it's the same old routine. Mask on, mask off. Suit on, suit off. Suit on, help your buddy change suits.

The buddy part, of course, was a hoot.



That's me, of course, having my trousers removed in the Army-approved manner. This was not as amusing as when I had to remove my buddy's. See, practice suits are just handed out without regard to size. I had a giant one. My partner, who is a little more sturdy than I am, got a smaller one. And did I mention there's an elastic strap on the back of the jacket that one pulls up through one's legs and fastens at the bottom of the front zipper? Yeah. My partner's was pulled tight as a fiddle string.

Dude, brace yourself. I'm going to try to unhook this gently so it doesn't fly loose and snap you in the balls, but...

It's one of those things that's funny as can be in rehearsal, and yet you hope you never, ever have to do in real life. Because if my buddy's worn out one chemical suit, and we have to do team suit changes because the environment's still poison, well...that's pretty much the definition of really bad day.

The reasons why we're here

We had a formation at 0700 today. Not much to look at - around 15 of us standing in the dirt with our rifles, getting ready to start the day's classes. 

 

The company commander took charge of the formation, put us at ease, and started to talk.  He reminded us of the date which, I'm ashamed to say, had slipped some of our minds.

 

That day, that attack, all our dead countrymen, he reminded us.  That moment, that morning, was why we were standing in a formation, preparing, saddling up again.  Ours not to wonder at the method, but to apply ourselved to our appointed tasks in response to that day.

 

Then the mood lifted, and we promoted a PV2 to Private First Class.  E-2 to E-3.  The PFC is 19.  He was 12 when those buildings came down.

 

The difference between sixth grade and a soldier.  That makes it seem like a long time.  It doesn't feel that way to me.

Camping

In the wilds!  OK - so the tents have wood floors, bunkbeds and wall lockers.  And electricity.  And there's a PX (trailer).  And internet connectivity.  But the connectivity is spotty, and the tents are tents, so it's the field and we're roughing it.

 

We aren't going to be out here for very long, but I suppose it's a box that must be checked.  And we all know that those boxes will be checked.  Boxes get checked, or Soldiers die.

 

Sorry - I let the mob' bitterness win for a second there.  I woke up with a case of the chapped heinie this morning, and never really got my false motivation level where it belongs.

 

One interesting thing they've done with the "FOB" (forward operating base) concept here is play a recorded "call to prayer" over loudspeakers at the appropriate times.  One of those occurred as we were dragging bags into our tents.  One of our specialists, another recovering jarhead for whom this will be the second Big Trip, looked and me and shared his opinion.

 

"I really didn't miss that at all."

 

Sometimes, when I was in Iraq, the sun would be going down.  Dust would hang in the air, and it would be a thousand degrees.  The whole country seemed to smell of burning trash, human shit and rage.  And then the mosques would start up with the prayer call.

 

I don't speak Arabic, but I know what it always sounded like to me - You're about as far from home as you can get.  This place might as well be Mars, for all you understand about it.  Learn fast. 

 

 

Thinking Martha Stewart thoughts

So there we were, sitting around bullshitting. I know - Soldiers sitting around bullshitting - who'd'a thunk it? It may even have been raining.

We were talking about that coolest of military toys, the real reason we all stay in - the chemlight.

(Seriously - there's the next generation of Army recruiting right there, even with a war on. Heck, especially with a war on. Join the Army, go to Iraq, and get armloads of chemlights for free! All the chemlights you could want! Even the special high-intensity bright ones!)

Somehow the conversation drifted to kitchen applications for the mini-chemlights. The ones that are like two inches long.

It first occurred to us that one could use them in Jell-o. Like fruit, only better. One doesn't want to eat chemlights, so it would be more of a centerpiece sort of thing, but still unique and eye-catching. We thought it would be a particularly groovy look with grape Jello and a Halloween theme.

But then we realized that although glowing Jell-o would be cool, we could do better. Chemlights in a festively-theme hunk of ice (probably formed in that same Jell-o mold) bobbing in a bowl of punch. At night. For a party.

Because let's be honest - Jell-o and punch are both already cool, but they'd be waaay more cool if they glowed.

It was enough to make me wish I had access to my kitchen.

[pauses, thinks]

Hold on - they are sending us home on pass in a few weeks...

Ugh

It was one of those 0415-wakeup mornings, and last night was a sleep-after-midnight thing.  So I set my alarm carefully, knowing that oversleeping was not an option.

 

In the hours so dark they really aren't even "pre-dawn," I lurched out of the rack, stripped off the shirt I sleep in, got halfway into my uniform T-shirt, and realized I couldn't hear any of the guys hurtling around in the hall.  So I glanced at my watch.  0315.

 

[sigh]

 

I did enjoy that "extra" hour.

 

It was a long day of IED lanes, and frogging around with vehicles.  The whole thing culminated with a stirring hour on "Sexual Assault Prevention."  At 1900.  The poor instructor must have thought we were ruder-than-average students, since even the guys standing in the back of the room were falling asleep.

 

I just topped off the day when I went in to move laundry from the washer to the dryer.  Only to realize that it washes much faster if you turn the washer on.

 

Yes, ladies and gentlemen.  Your tax dollars pay me to be at the pointy end, and I had my ass kicked by a washing machine.  Be afraid.  Be very, very afraid.

Slow day

We finished off our Combat Lifesaver training today.  That was actually a quality class, which we made sure we communicated to all involved.

 

"The part where you had instructors with recent combat experience in the subject they were teaching?  That was great."

 

We stayed a little late so our PFC, who is a nervous little dude, could do one more live stick on a sergeant we now call "Mr. Giant Veins."  The PFC is a great kid, but he's the second junior man in the company, eager to please and, as is to be expected, prone to tripping over himself in his eagerness to do good.

 

Immediately following the conclusion of that evolution, we returned to the barracks just slightly ahead of the outer rain bands from Tropical Storm Hannah.  A quick evaluation of the weather convinced us that it was a perfect afternoon to conduct practical exercises in rack ops.  I am pleased to report that with the sole exception of a specialist who's assigned as Overworked Headquarters Slave, all the Soldiers received a "GO."  Seeing as rehearsals are key to success in any battle drill, we may still have to conduct more rack ops in the near future.

Info request

Ok, this is an odd one.  I know that at some point I saw a picture of an AR-15/M-4 on which someone had mounted a cupholder.  I'm not kidding - a rail-mounted cupholder.

 

They gave us rails. 

 

And so now I want the cupholder.  No, no, no.  Not for any sort of real-life use.  But it's a long year, and at some point, I think my whole team will probably need a laugh. 

 

So if any of you happen to know where to find such a thing, or, really, any other TRULY RIDICULOUS rail-mounted accessory, drop me a line in a comments or with the email button.

Commence Scam Operations...

Time - now.

That's what we've got going on this afternoon, after we all successfully made it through the "live stick" portion of CLS. I'd never done it before, so I was mildly concerned about damaging one of my soldiers, but I hit a nice vein on the first try and all was well.

This evening promises to be a hoot, with another fascinating COIN (that's COunter INsurgency, for anyone who isn't aware) brief on the schedule. The Army has decided to renounce all its prior religions and affiliations, it seems, and offer our total devotion to the philosophy of General Petraeus. The Army has decided to wholeheartedly embrace COIN with an enthusiasm not seen since they embraced Velcro.

Which is fine, really. I mean, hey - it seems to be working better than whatever we called our prior strategy.

But really - the briefs. Now, remember, all our predeployment training is run by a specific organization that exists strictly to mobilize and demobilize soldiers. A lot of the folks who hang out in that specific organzation...well, they've been hanging out there for a while, and have no actual deployed experience. And there doesn't seem to be any...umm...any requirement as far as an area of expertise.

I would say that 80% of the Civil Affairs folks here have at least one deployment to either Iraq or Afghanistan. I'd venture to guess at least 50% have two.

So I'll stipulate that there is some population of deploying soldiers that really benefits from having a series of briefs wherein a random soldier with a random background reads verbatim from a set of slides boiling our national counterinsurgency philosophy down to a few easily digested phrases. I'm sure that helps some people. Really.

But...having stipulated that these briefs are very valuable in their own right, I would think that we could enhance their value to deploying civil affairs soldiers significantly. Since we're required to have several phases of COIN briefs, it would be vastly more useful if we had someone who had recently worked in CA, PSYOPS or SF in the theater of operations come down here and discuss how the Army change in philosophy is effecting the way we (CA) "support U. S. national objectives by assisting the government of a host or occupied area to meet its peoples’ needs and maintain a stable and democratic civil administration."

But that's just one gal talking. Since I doubt my proposed solution will be adopted in the next several hours, I'm going to cease and desist bitching. My immediate priorities include a nap and a little PT.

Awkward AND Annoying!

The past 18 hours have pretty much revolved around people peering at my crotch. The day started with a 0445 pee test, continued into a CLS class in a hot building, and was broken up only by the mandatory pre-deployment PAP smear and GYN checkup.

I escaped that room as quickly as possible, and found my sergeant (who'd driven the truck over) racked out. Apparently, he adopted this particular napping posture to express his solidarity with his fearless leader.



[sigh]

The bright side is that I fully expect to be allowed - in fact, encouraged - to keep my trousers firmly pulled up and in place for the remainder of this mobilization.

The party just never ends

I haven't had much for y'all the past couple of days. We were on the range with our trusty M4s and shiny new M68 CCOs over the weekend. Tell you what - only the Army could make new toys, free ammo, sunshine and range time suck.

Got my team qualified without any major drama, although one needed a couple of tries and the other one will have to return to the zero range once they get him a front sight post that's, like, you know, straight up and down.

We did something today, but it was such an irrelevent check-the-box evolution that I've already forgotten what it was. Something with a sign-in roster.

The fun part after that was the retrieval and dragging upstairs of our unit's Big Black Boxes.



That's the ever-popular Stanley Mobile Job Box. The trusty old-school wheeled Contico is also popular. These make a fabulous sound when you drag empty ones up three flights of barracks stairs. We did have to call the entire operation to a halt so we could rustle up the officers who'd packed theirs full of crap, as we are not dedicated enough to schlep field-grade officer knick-knackery any further than required.

I have no idea why anyone would have packed one of those full coming here, since we'll probably need the space to pack all the not-really-necessary crap out of the piles of gear they keep issuing.

Highlights of this week are anticipated to include Combat Lifesaver training, the issue of more crap, and plenty of last-minute changes. Hilarity may well follow.

The upper body workout of Satan

The Interceptor Body Armor is good stuff. I've got a couple of wicked chunks of shrapnel at home on a shelf I pulled out of mine last tour. I am a believer. There's always word of something newer and better out there, but this stuff is nothing to turn up one's nose at.

However...in the ongoing attempt to make even combat as safe as is physically possible, and, in fact, to let nobody ever die for a lack of equipment, the Army has added, by my count, six pieces of additional crap to the IBA since the last time I had one. And, since they are new to us, and since this is a training environment, we are staring out by wearing every single piece of the system.

Ugh.

When I last did this, we wore the vest, plates, collar and throat pieces (well, gunner wore the throats). There was some other arm stuff I wore when riding in the turret, but most of our guys opted for mobility and skipped that when they were dismounted. And pretty much nobody ever wore the much-maligned "pecker protector."

It's a fine line between protection and agility, and it gets sorted out as time goes on. But as for the first day back in this system, attaching all available bits and pieces had us all grumbling this morning. Well, wearing all available pieces had us grumbling this morning. Attaching all the pieces had us grumbling last night.



"How the Hell does this..."

"What in the fuck is the supposed to be for?"

"How many damn pieces are there here?"

[sigh]

A bitching Soldier, they say, is a happy Soldier.

Free Stuff!

Okay - that might not be entirely accurate. Crap the Army gives me is not, I suppose, technically "free." You've paid for it, and, with only a one-year exception, so have I.

But I got a big bag of cool stuff, and I didn't have to fork over any cash, so that's good enough for me. We call it RFI - Rapid Fielding Initiative.

The long and short of it is - all the cool stuff that's out there that hasn't had time to filter through the Army's procurement and distribution process is simply handed to us during mobilization.

We kicked the old ALICE pack and frame to the curb, and got this adorable pair.



Aren't they cute? On the right we have the Great Big MOLLE Rucksack. Beats the heck out of the old metaland-pipe frame on the ALICE packs we were using. It's also supposedly a big improvement on the briefly-attempted plastic ALICE frame that seems to have crashed and burned shortly after release. One the left we have the companion assault pack, which can be attached to Giant Ruck or carried separately.

For carrying stuff one might want faster access to, they really hooked us by providing this year's premiere ensemble - the MOLLE Rifleman's Kit.



Although I'm not sure entirely why we were issued eight zillion rifle magazine pouches, it's a nice setup. However, experience in an M1114 teaches valuable lessons, and so the interesting part is minimizing the "pieces of flair" to keep one's sides and back more or less clear. I have a much easier time envisioning a requirement to unass my truck at a high rate of speed without hanging up than I do envisioning a situation in which I need 360 rounds and can't get to a fellow soldier or my vehicle.

We also have a Giant Pile of Extreme Cold Weather clothing, but that picture didn't turn out very well, and who wants to look at a giant heap of long underoos?

My personal highlight was the part where we chicks each got four desert tan Patagonia sports bras. That's one item we know the supply sergeant won't want back when we come home!

This is a dramatic improvement in issued gear over what I received when I did this in 2005. If we didn't want to use woodland ALICE gear clipped awkwardly to our DCU IBA that time, we had to go out and buy our own stuff. That sucked, and I'm glad we're not doing it any more. They're giving us what we need, at the beginning of the process so we can train with it, and everything matches.

Of course, there are more supply issue evolutions ahead of us, so we'll see how much crap we finally end up with. But if it continues to progress as well as the RFI did, I am prepared to be happily impressed.

All fun

all the time.

I've executed another move, and am back at the Groundhog Capital of the Eastern Seaboard.

We've made the jump from pre-mobilization to actual mobilization. Which means that things are about as annoying and confusing as can be imagined. They will remain annoying as long as we're here, but the confusion should ease in a day or so.

I got another anthrax shot today, narrowly passed a hearing test (I was sitting next to some LTC with a very active digestive tract, which didn't help me trying to catch the tones), and listened to several excruciating briefings.

Your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen. However, it's not all dreary from that perspective. In my next post, I'll tell you about RFI - Rapid Fielding Initiative - in which process we receive a giant bag of really cool stuff.

Thanks

for all the kind words. It sucks the big one that the furry critters in our lives have such short lifespans in comparison to ours. But dog people (and, yes, cat people too), know that going in.

The saving grace of this happening right now is that things are very busy, so I haven't had too much down time.

Again, thanks for your support in this crappy time.

Sad day

We lost Casey today.

After a period of decline and a couple of scary days, she finally reached the point where mercy was the only option.

So I drove home from the Reserve Center (crying), and up to the vet (crying). Fortunately, the Mister handled the drive back (crying).

I've not had to do that myself, and it is truly one of the godawful things about being a grownup.

I've always been a fan of the idea that if there is any kind of Heaven, it involves our dogs, and that they are probably waiting for us in some sunny field, chasing squirrels and rolling in the grass. I did have to modify that a little for Casey, since her heaven would, based on her criminal record, probably feature black children on bicycles, riding slowly enough to catch.



Good dog. Good dog.

All this much fun

and a paycheck, too!

After a most enjoyable respite that largely involved nudity and good food, it's back to the grind. It's a sleeping-in-my-own-bed grind for a few more days, though, so that's nice.

Now...somehow, between three days ago and this morning, my belt has disappeared. My spare belt is packed up, but I remember seeing my primary one just last night.

[sigh]

The Mister has got to be counting the seconds until I get out of here for the duration, and his life is again free of giant heaps of foliage green crap strewn around the house.

Home

for a couple of days.

Have I mentioned lately how much I adore air conditioning, beer and yes, even hysterical dogs?

Escaped!

Not from the greater San Antonio area (yet), but I did get away from lovely Camp Rustic by throwing myself into a 15-passenger van that was headed to Gandalf AFB and pretending I had some pressing business here.

Lord knows that as we wind down, I have no pressing business there.

I thought I'd share with y'all a couple of shots of our lovely quarters. They're really not too bad, as little hut-things go.



Occupancy is 12 - six per side on cots. That's a little tight, but not awful. We have two female huts, and so we've got a little more space than that to stretch out. Concrete floors, little heaters, fan system.



There's a big long line of 'em - 17 in our row. I thought about taking a picture of the interior, but decided we can all do without that shot.

A plumbing problem in their latrine building has forced the men to share ours (we managed to get our own building after much lobbying). Normally, when we have to share a latrine, we designate and hour in the morning and an hour in the evening as "female shower time." It normally works out so we have a good hour on one end of the day, and a less desirable one on the other end.

But now...we are a little giddy with power, because, as our time here is short, a powerful ally sided with us and the men have the designated times.

Overheard yesterday from a male: You mean if I'm busy between 2000 and 2130, I don't get a shower?

Female soldier with shit-eating grin: That's about how it works! You get another block of time in the morning, though!
It truly is the little things in life that keep one going.

(an aside - it would be truly difficult to maintain this schedule for long. Not because of the shower issues, but because of the washing machine access. There are two washers and two dryers in each latrine, and it's very difficult to get your laundry done in a latrine you can't be in most of the day. We'd have to give the men the greater share of the day if we were going to be using the arrangement for very long)