Soreness - (Korea) Day 35

This is a photo of a stream I cross everyday while walking to work. I was told
to never drink from it. No worries...it smells like raw sewage. I try not
to even breath while I cross the little bridge!

This morning I woke up pretty sore. I think I over did it a little playing basketball yesterday. I thought I had some spring in my step and tried to dunk, but after coming very close I just couldn't do it. I tried a number of times, but it wasn't happening. I think I may have even pulled a muscle in my back. This wasn't an issue back in the day…I can't believe I'm getting so freakin’ old!

I was able to video chat with my wife for a bit while I was getting ready in the morning. It's a hit and miss thing because I never know what time my roommate is going to get up. Sometimes he jumps out of bed and gets ready really fast and other times he gets up right as I'm leaving.

When I got to work this morning I checked with my sergeant about the open positions he was going to check on for me. He said "his guy" back in the states was already off, but he'd send him an e-mail. I'm going to stay on top of this until I get a good assignment for my next duty station!!! I then watched over SPC Long's shoulders while he prepared a summary of sorts. Each week I'll have to view the previous weeks meetings and put together a summary and post it. This is so if someone was gone and wants to see what they missed, they have a place to check. It's all very standardized and is basically a bunch of copying and pasting in Word.

I went to lunch with Special K and SPC Roy right off post at a Vietnamese/Thai place. It was pretty good! I love going out with these guys because they are both of Korean decent. They speak the language and have authentic Korean wives that they live with off post. I always get a good taste of something different when I go out with them.

I thought I may get access to the network today since the admin sergeant who was out on emergency leave finally returned. She turned in all my stuff, but found out I needed yet another certificate of training. After showing me what I needed I had to log in using SPC Roy's access card and then I was able to find that I had already done the training back in AIT and just needed to print off the certificate. Maybe I'll be able to get on the system tomorrow. Besides that I didn't do much today at work, I read the newspaper. Once I get the computer access I'll be able to do a lot more.

PT today was after work around 3:30 and was actually pretty intense. SPC Roy was leading it and since he failed his last PT test he wants to do everything in his power to make sure he passes the next one. We did all kinds of push-ups and sit-ups until my abs were on fire.

I then video chatted with my wife again for a bit. It's tough with the time difference. When I called her at 5:30 my time, it's actually 12:30 at night her time. The half days the last couple of weeks were great because I was able to actually call her at a decent hour. I then watched American Pie - Book of Love. Of course it wasn't as good as the original, but I wasn't expecting it to be. It followed the same old story of the rest of the American Pie movies…teenage boys trying to lose their virginity. It was full of some gross and funny scenes. Like I said earlier…definitely not as good or even close to the original, but still a decent funny flick.

FS SPC Miller

Hello I have been reading your blog for about a week now. I am scheduled to ship to Ft. Benning 26 APR with an MOS of 25S. I was reading tonight about your friend, Older Hawaiian< at AIT didn't get his security clearance because of something on his credit. Did he say what it was more specifically? The reason I ask is because shortly after I enlisted, I checked my credit report. To my surprise, there was minor hospital bill that was meant for my Dad, we have the same name, that went to collections. It was taken care quickly and was from about 4 years ago. I told the recruiters about this, and they didn't seem to think it would be a big deal. They told me that that hospitals screw up all the time and that they would understand when they would interview me. I am hoping I can get my clearance before I ship so I don't have that same crap happen to me. My AIT is 26 weeks long.

Sorry for this being so long, and seeing that your someone that has been through this crap already, your like a wealth of knowledge for me. Thank you again for this blog.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011 - 11:47 AM

PFC McGuire

You'll have to get your credit in order to get a "secret" security clearance. I would suggest for anyone trying to get any type of security clearance to get a credit report. Check your credit report and if you have any bad marks on it, get them taken care of. Even if you are behind on payments, if you can show that you have been making payments on time for the last 3 months you should be fine. We had a few people in AIT that had to show that they had been making payments on bad debt.

The old hawaiian was a different story, he had cosigned on a debt and there was no way he was able to make the payments on it.

Sunday, January 9, 2011 - 10:44 AM