I Am Amazed

Every time I get on this blog and see a comment from a reader thanking me for it, I am amazed.

I have never seen myself as any great writer. In fact, I have often lamented to my daughter and my husband that I wish I had the gift of expression that they do. My husband writes wonderfully, with lots of humor and imaginative material. My daughter writes prose and poetry, the like of which brings me to tears, it is so incredibly moving. When comparing myself to them I seem a piddly writer at best.

I read once somewhere that an author should write about what they know or would love to know about. I am assuming that if you love it than the research will be done more completely and with more joy than trying to learn about something you just cannot stomach. Makes sense. So, I guess writing about my Army training and career set me off on this path of writing about something I have experienced. Enjoyed. And know a little something about. This meets all requirements as far as I can tell.

I am, at heart, an optimistic person. I have not always been but that is what happens when you meet the love of your life, get a life and then decide that life is good, regardless. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely trials - one I am going through right now is the process of trying to get the love of my life over here to Korea. The process itself is not hard but the people processing it are less than... well, less than. It is a depressing process. However, the Soldier's Creed plainly states that "I will never quit" and I won't. I may complain - loudly - but I will not stop trying. This is good I think when serving your country requires great sacrifices from both you and your loved ones.

Today as I was contemplating who I could get angry with, without losing my rank, a pheasant strut by outside my office. A pheasant! Out for a leisurely stroll, relaxed as could be. I thought to myself that since I had joined the Army I had seen wonderful things (like a sunrise - LOL! - anyone who knows me knows how I detest mornings...) and experienced wondrous things (like my body actually doing some pretty intense physical exercise!)... so, would getting angry really accomplish anything in the long run? No. It will just give me an ulcer. And I have enough issues.

May God bless you and show you wondrous things! And may you focus your eyes and see.

Artemis in Seoulland

I saw Alice in Wonderland today. I can totally relate to the disorientation of finding myself in a place where I don't know anyone and where they speak in strange tongues.

It started with the 14 hour flight that seemed just like falling down a rabbit hole. I ate strange foods and found myself becoming someone other than the woman I am used to being. I am a world traveler.

I have been transformed from a civilian wife, mother, sister, daughter and friend into a soldier. There are adventures to pursue, enemies to overcome, people to assist and cases to prepare. It is a busy life. A good life. The only thing that would make it perfect is if I could do this with all my family and friends close by.

I would be ecstatic to have my husband here by my side! Soon please!

And while I can see several of the characters from the movie in my new life here, I have yet to find the Mad Hatter... I see myself as Alice, but what if, the Mad Hatter, is me?

Time Travel Is Oh, So Military

Leaving my husband was difficult, as usual. It is always hard to have my heart ripped from my chest as I walk away, not really knowing when I will see my best friend again and the pieces of my heart returned to their rightful spot. He, on the other hand, informed me that he did not even shed a tear, knowing he would be seeing me again very soon.

Skype helps.

The flight from Atlanta to JFK was a nice appetizer to the main course that consisted of 14 hours in a coach seat on a stuffy airplane as we flew from JFK to Incheon, South Korea. Not bad really. I sat next to a fellow soldier, Korean born, lucky me! He graciously showed me how to eat the Korean food served on the flight. It was awesome! I love to experience new foods. It makes me happy.

I was very happy. Twice.

Once at the Incheon Airport, I went through security and customs quickly. Easy squeezy. I love being in the military. It definitely has its perks. Once finished with the official business, we signed in for the next bus to Yongsan which left at 8am. Oh, did I mention the time difference?

I left Atlanta on Sunday, February 28th at 5:30pm. I arrived in Korea on Tuesday morning at 5am. I completely skipped Monday. Totally. And completely. All those years when I worked in the office wishing I could skip Mondays... all I had to do was join the Armed Forces to do it!

Just another perk being in the military offers - Time Travel! Sweet!

In-processing today was painless and I ended up having from lunch time on to get settled into the hotel, have something to eat, go chase down chargers for electronics... etc... The Dragon Hill Hotel is very comfortable, would meet my husband's 3 C's (clean, comfortable and... I can't for the life of me remember the other "C" - I keep wanting to say "cuiet"), and in no way prepares me for barracks living I am sure!

I have traveled forward in time, video called my husband, caught up on Facebook and updated my blog... overall a very productive day. Now if only I could not scratch the very itchy small pox vaccination spot... to spread that would be very bad... pray for me.

I am off to bed - it has been a long Sunday and Tuesday.

Duty Calls

So, here I sit at home. The night before I leave for my new duty station.

It is probably the last time I will see my black lab Worf. He is 14 this summer and I cannot take him with me. He and our other dog, a medium size terrier mix named Fozzie, will have to go to a foster home until my two year assignment is done. I also have a lovebird, Jiggy, who will be staying with friends until we get back. The only pet we will get to take is our kitty Remy. Thank goodness we can at least take her.

I look around and see years of "collecting." I cannot even begin to sort through it all. There are things we need to get rid of, sell or give to charity. Things that will have to go into storage and then of course the things I want to take with me (which is really everything since I really want my home over there, not here...)

I want my husband and all his ecoutrements. I am not sure how long it will take to get him over there, but I am hoping that things will go smoothly and it will be soon. It has already been six months that we have had to be separated. I don't like it. Neither does he. That is a good thing though seeing that we are married and spending the rest of our earthly lives together.

I want my family and my friends. Is that too much to ask?

Books. I must have my books. All of them. I don't care if I have to stack them all over the new place. I want all my books.

Art. I want my art. And all my art stuff. Just in case it is pouring rain in the summer and I don't want to go out on the weekend - I will have something to do besides read all those books. Just for variety. Because we all need variety.

Saying I am anxious about this move is an understatement. I have been having attacks all day. I need more time. More time to see family and friends. More time to analyze our belongings and to separate them into categories.

I need more time to just be.

The Army doesn't see it that way though. They want me now. At the Yongsan Garrison. In Seoul, South Korea.

Duty calls.

A Call for Forgiveness

So - I have been at AIT (Advanced Individual Training) since October 31st. I had to wait two weeks to get into a class. It was details every day all day...
Raking leaves, sweeping sidewalks and general cleanup, errands for the Sergeants, etc., to keep us busy while waiting for an instructor.

I have been training as a Paralegal - a 27D now for about 2 months. The training itself has been easy but, the living with 100 other women on the same floor in the barracks has truly been a chore... well, there are a few battles that I will have for life - and I would give my life for them - but there are some that really shouldn't be here.

I am the barracks mom. Of course.

I have struggled with getting an internet connection, with a broken laptop, with Sergeants hell bent on taking over all my personal time.

Personal time? What's that?

A need for sleep and various other issues over the past two and a half months and basically let all you wonderful readers down. I apologize wholeheartedly and will try very hard to do better.

My schedule here Monday through Friday (for those curious souls out there) is as follows:

4am wake up (or sometimes 5am if they are feeling generous)

5-7am Physical Training or "PT"

7-8am Detail and cleaning of our room

8-8:30am Breakfast (Chow!)

9-12:30pm Class

12:30-1:30 Lunch (Chow!)

1:30-5pm Class

5-6:30pm Personal Time (Ha! This is spent cleaning and responding to different orders from the Sergeants - new tortures are provided for entertainment every day!

6:30-7pm Dinner (Chow!)

8-8:45pm Night Accountability Formation

9pm Lights Out!

On the weekend it goes something like this:

6am Wakeup! (Yay - we get to sleep in!)

6:30-11am Bay Maintenance (getting ready for inspection)

11am Inspection

1pm Release on post pass

8pm Evening Formation (on Sunday it is 7pm)

11pm Lights Out (except when it is at 10pm - depending on the Sergeant on duty, or if it is Sunday when it is 9pm)

That is my life in a nutshell - or maybe nuthouse is a better description... :o)

Life in the Army really isn't that bad if you don't mind being flexible and spontaneous. Those are two virtues you MUST cultivate.

In fact, they really need to add those to the Army Values list...

The Last Days of Pompeii (aka Army Basic Training)

I got the last of Dela's blog notes from BCT. After this, I'm relieved of duty and she will begin to update her blog again.

Wed. Oct. 14

Today was Omaha Beach day. It was raining buckets again so it was cancelled. They are taking no chances with the live fire I guess. There is a RUMOR (on the PNN -- Private News Network) that a bullet ricocheted and hit someone at this exercise at one time. I have not been able to verify this though. There are so many safeties in place for trainees that if it did happen, it had to be a freak accident.

Instead of Omaha, we had a locker inspection. Mine was the first locker inspected. I had nothing I wasn't supposed to have so there were no worries for me. The only comment Drill Sergeant had was when he was holding two handfuls of letters from my hubby. "I suspect that there is no fraternization going on with you." I told him, "No, my husband certainly would not approve." :) One of the other privates had a bag of leftover food from her MRE's and two others were found fraternizing. They were disciplined quite severely. They lost pay and had extra duty. Such stupid things to do and especially so close to graduation. DUH!

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Thur. Oct. 15

Today I spent half the day at Dental being a Battle Buddy. I missed PT in Full Battle Rattle. Bummer. It was pretty grueling from what I have heard. It included a 1/2 mile run, 50 yard sprint, drag your battle buddy, fireman carry your battle buddy, then carry two 25 lb. jugs across the field over an obstacle, and hang from the pull up bar for 30 seconds. UGH! It will be nice if I don't have to make that up!

Tonight we worked on our Berets (shaving and shaping) [editor's note: I have no idea what "shaving" a beret entails. Do they come with whiskers?] and everyone got excited for when Victory Forge is over and we could legitimately wear them. Hooah!

A church service completed my night. We leave for Victory Forge on Saturday!

*We also ordered our Battalion and Platoon t-shirts. I thought they were cool. And I just had to get 2 shot glasses. :)

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Fri. Oct. 16

Today we spent packing Victory Forge. Making sure we had everything we needed for the week in the field. And, of course, we had to make sure our weapons were clean.

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Sat. Oct. 17

Not a typical Saturday. Today we leave for Victory Forge. Never really thought this day would ever come. It seemed both quick in its arrival and long in getting here. Breakfast was at the DFAC. A decent meal for our sendoff.

We were motormoved to our F.O.B. (Forward Operating Base) and threw our stuff in tent. Our tent held all 2nd platoon females. All 23 of them. Our cots were 10 inches apart. Much too close for comfort. We motormoved a short distance away and practiced direct and indirect fire. We were there all day. It was pretty chilly out and a lot of the day was spent sitting, waiting on our turn. Then we did it all again in the dark with NVG's on. It was a fairly easy day and it would have been even better if the weather was just a little bit warmer. My fireguard shift was frigid!

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Sun. Oct. 18

Not a typical Sunday either. We were up in the dark and motormoved to the range for Omaha Beach (we are doing it -- finally!). In Basttle Buddy teams we had to traverse an obstacle course (barriers and tires, walls, barrels, etc.) firing live rounds at the "enemy" (pop up targets). We were each followed by a drill sergeant to ensure safety. It really was easy and despite the chilly morning the day ended up being quite gorgeous.

We were then moved, by bus, back to the F.O.B. where we had chow and a little personal time.

It was dark so fast that I had to "bathe" and change clothes, arrange my stuff and roll out my sleeping bag in the pitch dark. Joy!

It is a bitter cold night and I have fireguard in the middle of the night. Brrrr! Someone said our nights were going to down to 28° F! Mega BRRRR!

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Mon. Oct. 19

This morning was super chilly. We can see our breath but not feel our fingers, toes or noses. I have definitely been in the South too long. My blood has thinned. After breakfast we were told we had ECP duty today. ECP is "Entry Control Point" and consists of staggered barricades, barbed wire, a tower and weapon points. There is also a vehicle search area. Our first rotation would be to providce extra security for the ECP in case of attack. If attacked and in need of us, they would call us in over the radio. We would then respond as we would for direct fire. We posted at our patrol point and waited.

It was a nice break to stand around and plan our response, chat with the drill sergeants. It was starting to warm up into a nice, sunny day. We heard gunfire and soon after were called into action. Our maneuver squad eliminated most of the opposition before the flanking squad ever got there. It was a well planned response. We were later told that an enemy sniper had been concealed and shot us all dead. Oh well. It was a really good time anyway.

The maneuver squad was then posted at the ECP to relieve the other platoon and we went back to the tent to await our turn. Since security was a 24 hr assignment, we were told to sleep when we could. I napped a bit but was mostly just enjoying some down time.

We waited all day. And most of the night. Our ECP orders ended up being from 11 pm to 2 am. It was SO COLD! Even the drill sergeant was not immune to the temperature. (I thought they had classes on how to be immune to the cold, pain and no sleep but this is not so.) I was hoping we would get attacked just so the adrenaline rush would warm me up, but alas, nothing happened. I manned a SAW on the right side of the twoer facing the woods and pretended to shoot phantom enemy which were really only shadows. Bummer.

I was sure glad to crawl into that sleeping bag finally! Warmth!

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Tues Oct. 20

An early morning march of about 3 miles greeted us. We marched to a range for another live fire exercise. First a "dry run" with blanks and then again with live rounds.

In squads, we went up a hill in a wedge formation until we heard gunfire. Then we dropped to the ground and the two teams in the squad used the 3-5 second rush to bound from cover to cover until we were all on line. Once on line we moved forward to a grey wall. Over thew wall we went and all posted up in various spots to hit pop up targets down range. My squad was very successful and we all got "go's". We had no safety violations and executed our manuever well. We ended up being at the range all day.

A motormove took us back to the FOB where we climbed into our sleeping bags. Cold and exhausted.

I slept pretty well despite it all.

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Wed Oct. 21

Motormove to the MOUT range. It was still dark when we got there.

All day we practiced entering a building, clearing rooms, safely going upstairs (the video guy got us doing this ) covering a team exiting one building and entering another, how to use cover and concealment in an urban terrain, etc.

Once everyone did this in squads we practiced some more. Once night fell we donned the NVG's and executed our drills once again. Practicing direct fire maneuvers in the dark was the only really hard part of the day. I continued to roll my ankle on the pine needles, rocks, holes, etc. found everywhere here. I am not sure it will ever really have a chance to heal correctly. It just seems to get worse each day. I hope I make it to graduation.

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Thur Oct. 22

Everyone is excited -- today is our last day in the field. Hooah!

Validation lanes took up the whole day -- along with getting everything ready to go and policing the area. I was a little tired form doing both my fireguard and my battle buddy's. She was giving me $40 though for one hour -- how could I say no?

Overall, I really enjoyed the things we got to do. My squad works well together and firing my M16 is always fun.

Our drill sergeant let us put our weapons on burst and fire off the rest of our rounds. That was pretty cool -- there was a a lot more flame coming out of the barrel than before. I could see it clearly in the daylight.

Right before chow I had my ankles taped by an athletic trainer for the 6-mile Victory March "home". My DS caught and bawled me out for going without his permission. I felt bad because I hadn't realized I had to go through my chain of command for it.

I had some chow and while eating, the DS told me to get my stuff together and get into the 5-ton. There were about 16 of us that were chosen from among the platoons to ride the 5-ton back to the bay. My DS and I had a staring contest -- me pleading to be allowed to march with my platoon. Finally, he just looked at me and said, "Soldier! You are not marching!" I couldn't help it but I started to cry. He came over to me and asked me why was I crying?

I told him that I wanted to march -- I wanted to complete everything. He said, "I can't send you to AIT broken. If you hurt yourself more in this march, which is not required, you would have to remain here as a holdover. You have completed everything. Let me do my job."

I understood. But I didn't have to like it! On the ride back to the bay, DS Potter told me, "There is a fine line between pride and stupidity. And the only better than going to Basic Training at 40 and graduating, would be going to basic training and graduating at 41!" He really cheered me with those words.

Once back at the bay we cleaned up and got things ready for the Beret Ceremony. Seeing our Company come around the corner was a great sight! We were at the top of the hill by the drill pad cheering them all on. I wanted SO BAD TO HAVE BEDEN ONE OF THEM!! It made the night rather bittersweet.

The Beret Ceremony was nice. A little ceremony, some laughter, and a bonfire. Nice.

The best part of the day, besides being called soldiers and donning our new headgear, was making up my cheap twin mattress and snuggling under that Army green wool blanket.

Warmth!

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Fri Oct. 23

So this is our first day of recovery -- and all we have done is turn in, and clean of course, all our gear. It has to be all laid out in a particular fashion so inventory can be taken. Also this is the time for worn equipment and obsolete equipment to be replaced or taken away. It was a frustrating day with too many chiefs and not enough Indians.

And there are always those who conveniently "disappear" when any real work needed to be done.

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Sat Oct. 24

More of the same, laying stuff out, counting, scavenger hunting up missing equipment, more counting, etc., etc.

Blah.

The days are dragging! And I am having a hard time getting along with some of my battle buddies.

Ugh.

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Sun Oct. 25

Church! Bible Study! Yay!

We also had to complete one more Battlemind Survey. [I don't know what this is, but I think it's some kind of psycho-kinetic exercise. -- ed.] It was hard staying awake long enough to fill in the little bubbles. Some of my little bubbles had stray lines... hope it doesn't mess anything up. :)

These days are so long. I think I liked it better when we were insanely busy -- at least then the time moved faster!!

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Mon Oct. 26

Out processing! I fought to stay awake through the briefing. Then back at the bay we received our freshly pressed Class A uniforms. Nice!

Not much else going on besides the inventory checks, rechecks and more rechecks... I am not sure that process will ever truly end...

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Tues Oct. 27

Today was Graduation Practice. In the pouring rain. We got soaked!

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Wed Oct. 28

Today was Graduation Practice. In beautiful weather. We dried out.

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Thurs Oct. 29

Family Day! We came running across the field through smoke and simulated mortars. Cool stuff!

Lynnze and Dani found me first. Then David and Mom. It was a very happy reunion. We hung out on post for the day. It was heaven!

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Fri Oct. 30

Graduation Day -- off post. More heaven!! :)

Debutante Denoument

I got a call from our soldier today! We got to talk for an entire 12 minutes and 38 seconds!!

Okay, they're all back from Victory Forge and the result is...

She passed everything and is all set to graduate on Friday!

So Victory Forge wasn't hard and in fact was a lot of fun. The big disappointment was that she wasn't allowed to march back with her platoon. She'd hurt her ankle again during some of the exercises and the drill sergeant made her ride back. She tried to insist and even begged a little. She wanted to be with her platoon as they marched up Victory Hill. But the sergeant patiently explained that he couldn't send her to AIT broken and that if her ankle were injured any more she'd be held over. So she rode back and cheered her platoon on as they marched up the hill.

(As it turns out, keeping her from marching was a good thing. The hill is treacherous and it was dark. Many people fell, including one of the drill sergeants.)

Next week is all about administrative tasks and practicing for graduation.

Hoo-ah!