The Job

I have one of the most exciting jobs I ever had. I support the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) teams, which in lamen terms is the bomb squad of the navy. My command supports a number of teams spread out across Iraq. My two main jobs are to transport robots and maintain the armory.
The robots are pretty exciting. The job requires me to fly in helicopters and transport robots to different bases. The different teams will notify me when one of their robots breaks down or gets blown up. Then I swap their bad one with a good one. I take it back to the repair facility and get it fixed so it can be ready for the next team who needs it. The importance of this job is to ensure that the teams have robots that are fully working at all time so they don't need to put on a bomb suit and walk down the lines to disarm Improvised Explosive Devices (IED). My favorite part of the job is getting away from the desk and flying for a few hours. Riding on helicopters is like riding on a roller coaster, but for a longer period of time. Plus I don't have to wait in line for hours to get on the ride.
My second job is to maintain the armory. Basically I'm incharge of issuing out weapons and ammo, reporting the status of the weapons to my higher chain of command, and setting up range times at the shooting range. It's not as involved as the robots, but still an important job.
My regular job in the navy is an electronics technician, so I'm not used to doing jobs like this, but I love to learn new things. It really beats sitting behind a desk all day, pushing paper and finding stuff to do to fill my time.
A collateral job that I have volunteered to to do out here is Mail Petty Officer (Mail PO). It's fun to be able to act like Santa Clause everyday. I go to the post office and bring back all the care packages for everyone at my command.
Then if anyone who's ever been in the military knows that your job doesn't just end there, especially being low on the totem pole like I am. There's other various jobs that we get tasked with, whether it's helping another department out or doing janitorial duties. It's the part of the job that sucks but is a necessary evil.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's Thanksgiving over here. I'm gonna take a break in the story telling to wish you guys a good one. Being over here and realizing how much you give up to do your job, you start thinking about all the people and the things in your life that you are greatful for. I can't wait to get back and enjoy the good life again. One of the things I wanted to do before I left was to tell everyone of my friends how much I am gonna miss them. I don't know if they know how much they have made an impact on my life, even the ones who I barely get to spend time with. All my friends have something in their personality or have shown me some kind of love that I incorporate into my life. A small look in to my past, I didn't have the greatest childhood growing up and most of the time I look at it as a pretty shitty one. I also know that I could have had it a whole lot worse. But it's what I have to work with and I still find myself at the age of 27 trying move past all those issues. The main thing I'm taking from it is how can I learn from it and hopefully do the right thing for my future kids.
Everyone that I consider my friends has helped me to get out past all of those feelings and move on. And I don't think they know how they do it and I don't know if I know how to explain it to them. I try in my own way to show them love and try to give back as much as I can. So the thing that I am most greatful for is everyone who has been there to impact me in a way to become a better person. Plus I'm way thankful for my family too who support and love me and want to see me achieve all my goals. Having them give me the words to keep myself motivated out here and see beyond all the drama I have to deal with, helps me keep pushing forward till the day I leave.
I hope all of you have a Happy Thanksgiving. Eat alot of Turkey. And for all my friends that are vegetarian, eat a lot of Tofurkey. And may all your wildest dreams come true.

The dinner.

The Thanksgiving dinner was pretty elaborate, compared to the mundane food we eat everyday. The dining facitily really puts in the time and effort to make our experience as enjoyable as possible. Of course the food is no where as good as our friends and family can make it. They decorated the place up with streamers and goofy looking Indian center pieces. They had ice scupltors and food scupltors. It's a little slip away from reality of being in the middle of the desert. They did have sparkling bottles of grape juice, which some of us pretended to be guzzling down on chamagne. Some people acted a little too real with that. I think they were having flashbacks to the days when alcohol flowed freely and they didn't have worry about the consequences of consuming at the end of a hard day's work. Plus on these rare occasions we get to have pictures with guys like this. He looks important with a hat like that.

Lifestyle in Baghdad

So the living conditions are really comfortable here considering that we are in a combat zone. I live in a trailor. There's 3 rooms to a trailor 2 people to a room. It's alot better than when I came here last. I live in a tent with up to 16 other girls for six months. There are bathroom trailors with flushable toilets and warm showers with access 24/7. The bathroom trailor is about 50 yards away so it sucks when you wake up in the middle of the night needing to go pee. It's one of my comforts of home that I miss, having the bathroom 10 feet away from my bed. The dining facility is opened 4 times a day. It's all you can eat food. So you never go hungry here but it's the same old same old. At least we don't have to eat MRE's at all. You can even tell what day of the week it is by what they're having for dinner. It's one of those survival skills we learn in the desert.
So we have a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs. Now for the Luxuaries. We have a gym on base that is 24 hour access. No membership fees required. There's a Post Exchange where we can do all the shopping we need. It seems to have a lot of stuff, but none of what you want or need. A movie theater that may not play the most up to date movies but it's there for your enjoyment. A phone center and internet cafe. Fast food resturaunts. Taco Bell, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Subway, Cinnabon, Popeye's Chicken, Mr. Green Beans Coffee. It's a no brainer that I pick the D-Fac to eat at but sometimes I have to fall back on these reliable sources to be open if I happen to miss chow because of the work I do. There's a Library somewhere. I don't know. And then there's an MWR building where you can go to with different events every night. Like domino tournaments, spades, and Salsa nights. They try there best here to the morale up.
I keep pretty busy here. Sometime I partake in some of these luxuries in my off time, but mostly sleep or read a book.
The thing that first came to mind when I saw what it was like over here is that they really bulid this place up. You see where a good portion of this War money is going to. And all I think is that America is never leaving this place. So a tid bit of information that I can give you no matter if you're Republican, Democratic, Liberal, or whatever. No matter which politican says that if they get into office they'll pull all the troops out of Iraq, know that they are full of shit. They're just trying to say whatever they can to get your vote. So if you're relying on the at one statement please reconsider. This place has been built up to be the biggest U. S. Embassy ever. Oh and also they maybe pulling troops out now, and I see it as a morale booster for Americans. But don't think that they have any plans to continue pulling troops out. I say this because I see more and more trailors and tents being put up for living purposes. We get access to the news over here. But I stop listening to it. I feel like the media is very distorted and I hate hearing about all the bad that's going on over here and how they report very little about what good is going on here.
I've had the same thoughts that alot of you have had. There's alot of days where I wonder why the hell are we all over here. I wish I had the answer. But since I've been over here I have also seen the acts of violence go down. I've been given information that makes sense to what the U.S. wants to accomplish. It looks like a huge mess, and it is. I'm pretty low on the food chain to know exactly what the intentions and the goals of our leaders are. But I hope beyond hope that they are doing it for the good of everyone. But who really knows?

My Final Destination

So we leave Kuwait in a C-117, I'm sure that's right. No, not a C-130, I know cause I've ridden in a C-130 and the plane we flew in was bigger than that. Just as uncomfortable but bigger. These flights are always fun for the first timers. The pilots like to do a combat land which for the adventurous folks, it's quite fun. But for the nauseous, I'm too scared to fly folks this is not going to ease your phobia.
We arrive late in the evening or early in the morning, all I know is my internal clock is all jacked up. The Commanding Officer had us all sit down in the conference room to explain a few things about why we are here to support his command, some ground rules for the base, and when we will be leaving home. At first he give us a date that is later than the year that we had all signed up for. (By now the group that I had travelled with from Ft. Jackson has dwendelled down to 12 of us.) The looks on everyone's face from the news is why did I voluteer for this assignment? That's the excitement of being in the military, you never know what news is going to be flying your way. Since that night the day that we are leaving country has changed a hundred times. The update of the last date is a pretty joyous one for all of us, but has been told to us that it's not set in stone. Basically be prepared for another change and it won't be as good as this last update. Just to let everyone know, I can not post specific dates. It's all about operational security and keeping the enemy unaware of our plans. So if I sound vauge it's because I have to be.
They give us until noon to rest up before starting work the next day. There are now 12 people to relieve the folks who have already been here for 4 months. And the command doesn't quite know what job they are going to have me fulfill. That's nice. It's seems like all my experiences when I get to a new command, they know I'm comming but they don't know what to do with me yet. The first couple of days I was here in country have been unproductive. Hey what do I care I'm still getting paid. I know that there are going to be alot worse days to come ahead. Might as well enjoy the slow days when they come. I'll leave off here and get into the details of my job and living conditions for another blog.

I have a dream......and it involves little people.

So the story continues....on to another land. So I left Ft, Jackson. My two Aunts and my brother came to visit me one last time and give me some family support as I sail the fair seas. I forget how long the flight lasted but we were able to take a pit stop in Ireland for 6 hours. One last time to let the alcohol influence my way of thinking for a year. {I think I might of made the decision to go to war while I was influenced.} When we got off the plane at 3 a.m. the flight attendants handed us a ten dollar voucher to spend at the bar in the terminal. Sweet, they're paying us to wait. Oh contraire, I get to the bar a order a drink, in which I selected a Scrumpy Jack, and the bartender tells me my voucher is no good here and the only thing I can get is a sandwich at the end. No thank you, I've been on a plane since San Diego, they've been feeding us every 3 hours, I want a drink Damnit! And I want this voucher to pay for it. Well of course I sucked it up, he had the Scrumpy Jack and I didn't. It's ok, I didn't become scrumpy after about 3 of them and I slept well on the plane.
We landed in Kuwait. My first thought of this place is that I felt like I was on the set of Star Wars were Luke Skywalker lived. Nothing but sand everywhere. In your face, in your eyes, in your ears, in your nostrils, and yes your mouth. Yummy!
There we had more training. Mostly, learning combat shooting techniques, convoy, and IED identification. They transferred us from a nice coushiony base into the middle of the desert, as if we weren't there already, with a couple of tents, some porta-potties, and MRE's. Meals-Ready-to-Eat. There were no showers, no sinks, no flushable toilets. Only the comfort of about a hundred or so strangers who we've had to come to trust pretty quickly in two weeks. We camped out for 3 days. One of those days was the 4 of July. I remember, I didn't have a barbque or fireworks. MRE and a flashlight, close enough. So I got my sober self to sleep on the floor of the tent with twenty other people. I've woken up from situations like this but usually because I was passed out drunk.
The training was tough, only because it's hot as hell and I'm suffering from jet-lag. You expect me to stay awake in a humvee with those conditions and the humming sound coming from the engine. Ambient doesn't have a strong enough dose to work faster.
After the practical training, we get back to the talk about lessons learned and kill us with more power point. Again they have to stress the Laws of War and Rules of Engagement. It's important, our leaders send us out here to fight their battle but if we are caught in a fire fight and don't act completely humane to such rational people, then we got to go through trial after trial to defend ourselves because we were ordered to go into Iraq, deal with a high stressed situation, just to have our lives on the line in the court of law. Not to mention that most of the troops on the front lines are just barely out of high school, not knowing what the real world is like and probably haven't really thought of what this job entails. They're doing it cause it pays better than Mcdonalds and you have the sense of comming out like a hero. Or you don't have the money to pay for college or healthcare. The government knows that and takes full advantage of the situation and lures in the crowd. Under all these conditions if you're caught making a mistake in a war zone, then you've got to deal with the Law possibly not having your back because American society doesn't like violence. I could go on and on about Law of War and Rules of Engagement and all the frustrations I feel daily with the way life is out here, but it gets boring reading about somebody crying about a situation they put themselves in. Yeah I put myself here. Why? Well I'm trying to make my way through life in an American society that loves captialism, making the rich richer by making the poor poorer. All I want is to live comfortably, get out of debt, save for a future and produce cool little people like me to make the world a better place. Plus drink beer on the beach in San Diego.

I'm Not Procrastinating!

So I know I've let a couple days go by and haven't continued my story. I want it to be known that I'm not Procrastinating. I have that habbit, but it's not the case this time. I've just been busy. Super busy. And probably will be the next couple of days. I do want to finish this and keep you informed. So I'll be continuing the regular scheduled programs ASAP. Until then chew Big Red, cause Ricky Bobby does. Very Nice! Anyways, I've been couped up at work way too long.