Day 10 - Shuffe Play

I've already discussed the joy of iPods, but man, it's amazing how much music can invoke emotions.

For some reason tonight my random play on the iPod has been all over some great songs that I haven't listened to in ages. It even played my weddings first dance song. Seriously, what is the chances that it plays on a night when I'm really missing her? Well, I have 3,618 songs on my iPod, so any given time it has a one on 3,618 chance of playing, or like .02% of playing if my math is correct.

I need to work on getting some pictures on here. I am debating about putting a picture of Sam on here. Sam is what I've name my smallpox site. The thing is big and nasty, and probably not a good first picture to put on, so I'll probably hold off for now.

My appetite has been in the dumps lately, I just haven't been able to eat big meals. I have been trying to snack throughout the day to compensate for the smaller meals. What's strange is that I'm not even hungry after I work out, when I'm usually famished by the end.

I'm also mad at the USPS. My wife mailed out a few things to me last Thursday, and it was supposed to be a one day delivery and it hasn't arrived. No wonder why they are going out of business.

The weather is starting to get hot. It was well into the 90's today. We haven't had any noticeable rain in ages. It look likes we'll get a break in the temperature in a few days, you know, now that it's September tomorrow.

Day 9 - Hats

Sometimes strangers do something that really are neat. Yesterday something like tat happened to me.

Our team received a box of hand knitted stocking caps. They were made by a group of ladies called Prpylaeum Knitting Club in Indianapolis, and all are between 55 and 80+ years old. They make hats for deploying troops. The hats were all in army-ish colors. Every Soldier on the team received a hat. We also took a group picture for the ladies, of course we had the hats on in the picture.

We told the ladies about what our team will be doing and it sounds like they will be making scarves for children in Afghanistan. Overall its neat to think that some lady made some hat for some guy she'll never meet. Just pretty neat.

I'll have to take a picture of the hat.

My small pox immunization site is hurting. It's normal for pain between days 8-10. Supposedly the pain lasts for 24-48 hours.

That's about it, I'm tired and want to get to bed.

Day 8 - My Birthday

Happy Birthday to me! I'm 31 years old today. Today was my first birthday spent away from friends and family. I did get a ton of Facebook wall posts from people today, so that was nice. I also had lots of birthday wishes from all my fellow Soldiers. Today was actually the day we celebrated all the August and September birthdays, so it was pseudo-cake on my birthday. I only had one voicemail though, and that was my brother. I'm kind of sad that no one else tried to call me today.

Today was a pretty busy day though. Happily I managed to make it to the gym today. I've been able to do some type of a workout on most days since I've been here. Another plus is we haven't been doing group PT. Nothing really wrong with big organized group PT, but I like to just do my workout and get it done.

I didn't bring a chair with me and I'm starting to kick myself for not bringing one. A person can only sit for so long without some type of back support. The PX (Post Exchange) here isn't that great and doesn't have any in stock. Actually their refrigerator is broken now, so there is no cold drinks to buy. Thankfully I've been keeping a case of Powerade in the fridge in the barracks, so I can get something.

Today has been a random day on the old iPod. That means I've been engrossed in so many songs that I haven't heard in ages. It's been kind of fun. It's also fun when I hook the iPod up to a little speaker that I have and the barracks turns into a big sing along.

Somehow saluting has become a joke for the enlisted folks. They find it absolutely hilarious when I'm walking to chow and I get saluted 50 times on the way there. It seems like they are laughing at every salute.

This post is a little sporadic, but I'm not in the mood for a themed post, plus its my birthday and I'll do what I want to.

Day 7 - iPods and Missing Stuff

Another day down, another day closer to be home. Today marked the one week anniversary of this mobilization. It seems like a long way off, but you have to focus on the little milestones.

A few nights ago, my wife asked me what I was doing during the weekend and it hit me that weekends were done for a year. There won't be any weekends. There won't be any family gatherings. There won't be any of those things or events that mark the passage of time and the gatherings of family and friends.

During a deployment there really isn't a concept of a work week or a holiday or any of that. It's basically business as usual any day of the year.

The one thing thing that always seems to help is iPods. I cant imagine what it would be like not having thousands of songs at your fingertips. Most of the folks here have an iPod and they definitely get their use. Most wear them to bed, and I'm one of them. At home I never wear one to bed, but here it's one of those things that you do.

I've been trying to think of the main reason why I wear one to bed and I think that I have it narrowed down. By putting my headphones on and listening to some music of my choice it helps stimulate one sense to your choosing. All your other senses are dictated by everyone else.

Sight, someone is always around. There is no concept of privacy. The lights in the room are determined by a set schedule. Want to stay up late? Tough, lights are out at 2200 (10:30 pm).

Sound, noises are everywhere. People talking. Someone playing music. Someone opening or closing their wall locker. A door slamming.

Smell, almost no control on this. Today our entire area of the barracks reeked. It was the trash, which by the way is emptied daily.

Taste, there isn't a lot of options in what you eat. It's there and you don't have 1200 dining choices like you have any other night in the civilian world.

The only thing that you can quickly and easily remedy is sound. You can put on some music and escape to whatever pleases your ears. Right now for me it is Zac Brown Band.

I typically set the sleep timer for my iPod at 90 minutes. No use just listening to it all night long while I'm asleep.

On the theme of the passage of time and things that will be missed, I'll be missing one tomorrow. It's my 31st birthday. Normally my wife and I would be getting a big fat steak at Peterson's, but tomorrow will be Army food, unless I spring for delivery Chinese food.

Day 6 - Army Food

Well, another day is gone. Since yesterdays post wasn't that appetizing, I'll talk about something slightly more appetizing, Army food. Army food gets a pretty bad rap it's it deserved for the most part. I can't really speak about the food that I'll be eating in Afghanistan, but I can comment on Army food in general.

If you ever lived in a dorm and ate the food you have experienced what a good Army meal is like. It's food, there is a little taste and it's better than no food. At our mobilization station the food is not that bad by Army standards, but it's not as good as most dorm food. The one thing going for the chow hall (technically called a DFAC) here is that they have a really good salad bar. I've been eating salads twice a day since we wont be eating any lettuce once we get to Afghanistan.

Typically the best meal of the day is breakfast. It's usually the one meal that you can always count on to be ok. Lunch is usually a weak point and dinner is usually slightly better than lunch.

It seems like most days start to revolve in the meals. Lunch means the day is about done and dinner means the day is almost over.

One interesting thing is that at this chow hall they serve cold hard boiled eggs on the salad bar. Two guys in the unit are eating dozens of them a day. A few days ago they ate over 75 between the two of them. Think of that, 75 eggs! That's over six dozen. Amazingly the chow hall has not ran out.

Sometimes meal snare not too bad. Yesterday they had fried shrimp which wasn't too bad. But then again, yesterday they made the worst gravy for breakfast that I had ever seen. Usually biscuits and gravy is a pretty safe bet, but they destroyed the recipe. I'm not sure if it was just a powder mix that had to much water, but whatever they did was awful.

Tonight, I actually decided to go to the Subway near our barracks and eat there. Yes, I passed up free food for a mediocre sub, but it was a good choice. It was nice to eat something that wasn't institutionalized.

On a side note the temperature the last few days has been unbelievable. It's so nice to have mild days.

If anyone has any questions, go ahead and ask.

Day 5 - Smallpox Vaccine

Today was another day down. Just wish that we had a fast forward button to hit to skip to the end. I also am mad that I don't have my wireless keyboard for the iPad. I keep pressing "n" or "v" instead of the space bar, so I havenavbunchofnwords like that. It's quite annoying.

I know that I've already talked about vaccines, but I didn't do enough justice to the smallpox vaccine monster. This vaccine is something else. Our pustule has been growing everyday since the inoculation. Right now mine is about dime sized. Thankfully today didn't itch as bad as it did yesterday. The itching is about enough to make you go crazy.

To make matters worse, tonight after my shower the pustule thing broken open and leaked some of the fluid. We get the site examine tomorrow to make sure that the vaccine "took", so I'll ask them if the rupture was a big deal.

I'm waiting for my lymph nodes in my arm pit to start hurting. That will probably be the next milestone for this thing.

I have sent quite a bit of time reading about the vaccine and it's really a no joke vaccine. They are exposing you to live vaccina. So you have to worry about spreading the vaccina to other people as well as other parts of your body.

Then you add on the possible complications that can happen and you have something that you have to take care of properly for about a month.

You have to keep it covered. You can't touch. You have to wash your hands after changing the dressing. You don't want to touch it with your towel. Then you happen to read about the real smallpox disease. Then you look at the pictures and you realize how awful it would be to get.

Tomorrow should be a full day of training, so it's time to get some sleep.

Day 4 - Drug Test

Wow, only a few days and already I'm starting to forget the few interesting "blog-worthy" things that come up during the day. It would probably make sense to write them down as they come up.

Today was just another day. Ate three meals, drew some equipment, had meetings, a briefing, and did some work. It's like the days flash by and wham, it's time to to go to sleep. It feels like long days, because it is. About 14 hour days to be exact.

We did have a drug test this morning. Nothing unusual there. Drug tests are a pretty regular part of life in the morning. It's just always tough to get the timing right in the morning.

I usually drink a lot of water right before bed, but not last night. I didn't want to have to go in the middle of the night, and I didn't want to feel like I was going to explode in the morning.

Of course about an hour before wakeup I had to go. I decided I would see if I could tough it out until the test.

I wake up at 0500 and I have to go bad. There was no way that I was going totable to make it another hour until the test.

Anyways, I ended up going to the bathroom and after getting to the drug test site and drinking 3 cups of coffee was able to go.

Definitely not the most fun way to start the morning.

Day 3

Sleep, it's something that most people take for granted until they lie in bed awake or until don't get enough. It's something that's somewhat easy to remedy....if you aren't in the military.

With the never ending long days, sleep is something that you begin to think about a lot. You wake up super early 99% of the time. We are currently in open bay type barracks and thankfully, we aren't super packed in here. In my area we have someone in every space, but the top bunks are unoccupied. That means that I'm within 25 feet of a dozen or so guys. Add in the chance of waking up at other peoples noise and you have a nights sleep that isn't as peaceful as you have at home.

Do you ever hit the snooze button at home? Not here you don't, your wake up call is typically one of four things.

First you wake up when the big overhead lights are turned on. When this happens what proceeds is a mad dash to the sinks to shave. We have 8 or so sinks for about 4-5 dozen it her individuals.

The second way you wake up is by the sudden influx of noise from the big group of people waking up at the same time.

The next way you wake up is by setting an alarm. Typically the alarm setters want to take a shower or beat everyone else to the sinks.

The final way that you wake up is by the noise that the alarm setters make as they get ready. It is probably one of the things that tick me off more than anything. One, because you are making noise and two because you just messed up that valuable 15-20 minutes of sleep that I had left.

Whats interesting is that I started this post last night and I fell asleep while writing. I guess that is fitting for the post.

So far the days have not been that bad. They've been long but not extremely demanding. We have been in-processed. We are cleared medically. We have received immunizations and briefings. The routine has started.

My small pox vaccine site is starting to grow. Last night it was pimple-like. The itching hasn't set in for me too bad yet. For some of the others it appears to be worse. Thankfully my joints are not hurting as bad as they initially did from the anthrax vaccine. I also am congested, not sure if it's me getting sick or a side effect of something.

Day 2

Paperwork, the Army has a never ending stream of the stuff. It never seems to end. Its nearly indescribable the amount that you have to fill out. Everything needs signed and filled out completely. One good thing is that our full personnel file is no longer actually even in a folder. It's all electronic.

The conversation to the electronic personnel file in my humble opinion has bee a good move. I now can easily look at my entire file. I can look back and pull documents that were made 10 years ago. Even with the nifty electronic packets, we still have to manually fill like every form like we have been doing for years.

Filling out forms and other paperwork has been on of the trademarks of these last two days. I should have kept track of the number of times that I've signed something yesterday and today. I think that the total number would probably surpass the number of signatures for our mortgage.

I guess with all this paperwork it explains why we now have three pen pockets on the sleeve of our uniform.

Day 1

Day one is officially done, and today I had the pleasure of experiencing one of the hallmarks of being in the military: shots.

Shots, probably the thing that I dread more than anything else in the military. I have bad a phobia of needles for as log as I can remember, and in my 10 1/2 years in the military has been on of those necessary evils.

I have received countless shots and blood draws through my time in the military and it never gets any easier, and today was no exception. Granted, it was the gauntlet like I received when I first came in, but still even one is an experience.

Today was only three immunizations with no blood draws so it was a good day compared to some. A little TB test which isn't THAT bad. Then there was my third in the anthrax series. The shot itself is different because it burns about 30 seconds after you receive it. The real downer for me with the anthrax vaccine is all my joints ache for a few days post-vaccine. It's not bad pain, just this dull ache deep inside my joints.

Then I received the infamous small pox vaccine.

I was born after the eradication of small pox in the US, so this was a first for me. The vaccine itself is a series of about 15 small pricks with a two pronged fork like tool. The real fun starts afterwards though. A small itchy open lesion that you can't itch, can't touch, and probably should barely look at. You have to make sure you don't touch it while drying off post shower.

I'm sure that over the course of the next few weeks I'll have a better idea what the small pox vaccine is like, but as of now, I'm just going off of what others have told me and what I've read.

In other news the adjustment to being on active duty continues. After the amount of training I have had since May, it's not at much of an adjustment, but it's never easy being taken from two weeks with your wife and family.

So far, I only have one additional item to my forgot at home list, my iPad Bluetooth keyboard. Thankfully my wife is going to mail it along with a headset to me. Thanks sweetie!

Until next time.

Day 0

400 Days, that's how long they cut your orders for when you are deploying. That includes your mobilization time, your time “in-country”, and the terminal leave at the end. Today is “zero” day, it’s the report day, so it doesn’t count as one of the 400 days for the deployment.

I think calling today a zero day is fitting. It about sums up how you feel the first day. You have said all your good byes. You’ve kissed your family good bye. You’ve packed up all your “stuff” into a few bags. You’ve made the trip to wherever you are going for your mobilization site. You’ve had your first formation with your team. You’ve started to unpack and settle into the place you’ll be calling home for the next few weeks. You’ve constantly been racking your brain about what you have forgotten to bring with you…

For me, the racking your brain about what I have forgotten starts almost immediately. So far, I’ve identified a few things that I didn’t bring and either forgot or neglected to pack. Luckily, after 10 ½ years of doing this stuff, I’ve gotten pretty good at packing my gear and forgetting to pack some things isn’t as big of a deal as it once was.

So far on day “Zero”, I have forgotten the following things: a large power strip and my headset for Skype. Not too bad really, I should be able to pick both these little things up here or on my pass before I head out for the actual deployment.
I know that over the next few days that I’ll remember or think of other things that I forgot, but overall I’m pretty pleased about what I’ve forgot. Yeah, I know that it sounds funny to be happy about forgetting something, but believe me…there are some things that you don’t want to forget. Those things are usually essential items that you need. ID tags, boots, running shoes, a razor, soap, etc.

Tomorrow we start all the processing into Active Duty. It will be a long day full of briefs and medical stuff. It’s one of the necessary evils that you have to accomplish