Sunday, October 23, 2011

Back early

Lookie here. I am writing on the blog and it hasn't been another month.

I went up to the Observation Post for a couple days, but after the very first day I started feeling guilty. There was nothing going on. No enemy activity hardly at all. So all I ended up doing was relaxing, sleeping, and sitting on post. It was a great time, don't get me wrong, but like I said, I was feeling guilty. I don't like sitting around not doing much on deployment. It made me feel like I was wasting my opportunity out here. For the first time. That being said, I came back after three days and got back to more exciting paperwork.

Right now it's not all that exciting on the FOB. Everyone is working on submitting their leave paperwork to send to me so that I can look over it and make sure their plans are sound. If so, I'll recommend it and forward it up the chain of command. I'm also working on Equipment Density Lists concerning all of our serialized gear to make sure we take home the correct gear and turn it in back in K-Bay. And the smoother that whole process goes, the quicker we can all go home and enjoy time with family and friends. The last thing I am focusing a lot of attention on is my duties as the Plane Team Commander on the flight home. Surprise surprise right, just another job for me. This one entails keeping everyone informed of our flight times, ensuring we all make it through customs by not having prohibited items and keeping accountability of everyone at all of our stops. Sounds exciting, I know.

Alrighty, well hope you all are doing great. Love you guys.

Ric

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Thankfully, Time Continues to Fly

I had this bad feeling that as time got closer to leave that it would start creeping along. So far that is not the case. And that is a great thing. Some if it probably has to do with how busy we have been around here lately. I thought things were crazy before, and it has certianly been turned up a notch since then. Annnnd guess what? I love it.

Last week I spent about 5 days up at one of our Observation Posts (OP). It was great to be on top of a mountain and watching all of the operations going on as opposed to being in the Combat Operations Center making all the operations happen. I liked being an observer for a little bit. Actually I am headed back up there tomorrow for another week. Then when I get back I will be turning things over to the new battery! YESSS! While I was on the OP we had our first rain of the season. At least the first rain that I have seen. Supposedly a few days prior is sprinkled a little bit. It was great to have different weather, but at the same time it was not fun being on top of a mountain in a storm. Not only was I on top of a mountain, but I was in a tower on top of the mountain. Then the lightening came. I had just gotten off post and laid down in my stretcher that was suspended about 10 ft off the ground in the tower when BOOOOM. It was like daylight in the tower. Yep, we were struck by lightening. I thought a bomb went off right next to us so I was actually glad for a second that it was just lightening. The three guys on post were luckily not touching metal and since I was suspended off of the metal I was good too. We quickly evacuated the tower though and got rained on in a bunker for about an hour. While sitting in the bunker, it reminded me of the miserable times I had freezing my butt off at TBS and I was instantly happy. It was bad, but it was no where near as bad as it was in Quantico. That's why we train that way.

I had a soldier try and knock the Marines once saying that Marines are such robots that when but in a bad situation, they accept it. While a soldier, for instance, if sitting in a fighting hole is freezing his butt off, will grab a heater and put it next to him. He is somewhat right, but mostly wrong. He is right that he and a lot of his buddies will look for a more comfortable situation, BUT he is wrong about the mentality of the Marines. When we train, we accept the bad situations because we know it is preparing us for the worst case scenario. Not because we are dumb robots. So as I was sitting in the bunker on top of a windy mountain getting rained on, with no electricity around me... I was glad that I had to sit in the snow for hours on end in Quantico with nothing to heat me up but my wet jacket. It made me harder. And it made me appreciate the fact that at least I was not getting snowed on.

Haven't gotten mail in a while but we should be getting some today. I am looking forward to that. In case you have forgotten... its past time when you can send packages, so please, no more. If you do send a package, just mark that it can go to any soldier or troop. Because I am sure after 4 months when it shows up on my door in Hawaii that nothing in it will be good.

I love you guys... and time.... keep on tickin'