No PT (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 130

Walked by this at the hospital on base...I've seen a lot of vending machines
in my time (I've even owned a few), but I've never seen a flower vending
machine. Insert $20 and get flowers for your sick loved ones at the hospital...lol

No PT this morning...this is starting to sound like a re-occurring theme now. I had all good intentions to do all the pt this week after missing so much last week. Turns out that we have a lot of stuff to try and take care of before we leave here and I’d rather try and get them done early before school so I don’t miss any. We are also required to have a battle buddy at all times, so when one person has an appointment two people have to go. 

This morning I went with PFC Metal to the hospital so he could get his ears checked. I also tried to get my glasses ordered at the same time, but that didn’t work out. Turns out they only accept walk-ins for glasses on Mondays and Wednesdays @ 13:00 now. So this means I’ll be missing some school. After we finished up, we went to the Starbucks that is located near the exit and then called a taxi. The hospital is actually quite a ways from the school house and although it is walkable, we wanted to make it to class on time. We arrived while there was still the formation in front and had the cab driver drop us off on the side of the school house. I think he wanted to pull right up in front of the formation and let us out...that would not have turned out very well. 

In class today we did another practice exercise that took the entire day. We use the Cisco Packet Tracer program to setup a semi-complex network. 

I’m still feeling a bit sick, so I took some more TheraFlu. That stuff has been working awesome, but I think there is only enough left for a morning dose. I’ll have to see what they have at the shopette tomorrow.

M3! (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 126

I had no pt this morning...I had to get my POR form signed from the dental clinic with the young Hawaiian. We ate breakfast at the Charlie DFAC and then hung out in front of the dental office until it opened up. They signed mine right away, but it took a while for the young Hawaiian to get his taken care of. He actually had to schedule another dental appointment and if he is cleared after that, then they will sign it. We are not allowed to leave AIT until we are cleared with medical and dental.

We start M3 today. M3 is our last class here at AIT. We made it to class about an hour late, but it was all review so far. Actually the whole M3 class is a culmination of all the classes we have taken here so far. I think it mainly deals with CCNA (Cisco & networking).

After school today we did our normal dinner at the RFAC and then hang out at the library until the formation arrives at RBK. When we arrived we found out that we had to wait outside our rooms because Sergeant Kent was here telling everyone what was wrong with their rooms. (He inspected them today instead of tomorrow for some reason)

He was upstairs when we arrived and we sat with everyone else outside our room. We waited...and waited....and waited. This is one of the things that really piss me off. We have so little personal time already and when we have to spend most of it just sitting outside our room it really sucks! We ended up waiting a little over 2 hours outside our rooms. Finally he got to our room and let us know what we had wrong (everyone had at least one thing wrong of course). My bed was not tight enough. He had the student leadership following him through all the rooms and went over the inspections with them present. I think this was actually more for them than it was for us. After all the rooms were finished Sergeant Kent took all the leadership into the day room and chewed them out for at least a half hour. You see the leadership just changed over to all new guys because all the old ones just graduated. So Sergeant Kent had to break them all in....at our expense.

I had the first hall guard shift of the night with a guy in the room next door. The first hall guard shift is actually the best of all of them. You start at 9:30 PM and it lasts an hour, so it doesn’t interrupt your sleep and the duty is just cleaning the laundry room which isn’t too hard. 

Overheard Quote:  "CNN is like the McDonalds of news...I keep coming back to it, but it's not good for me" (a private behind me in the dental clinic where CNN is playing in the waiting room)

Test Day (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 50

My roommate and a couple of his buddies playing XBox. They break
out the XBox a few times a week and play.

PT this morning was circuit training. We split into groups and did a certain exercise for a set period of time and then switched to the next station and so on. This was perfect because I felt like crap still and this type of training allows for a person to sham if they want. (shamming is a word used a lot here for someone who gets out of doing stuff or does the absolute minimum as possible to get by). I am not a shammer, but during PT this morning, I shammed as much as possible. I need to recover.

The test for our CCNA2 class was similar in structure to our CCNA1 test. There is a hands-on portion and a written portion. The hands-on portion took place first. It used Cisco's Packet Tracer to setup routers with a specific routing protocol. We had to tweak them a bit and when we were finished we had to leave it up on our screen and leave the room to the student break area. So we pretty much hung out in the student break area until we were dismissed for lunch.

When we got back from lunch we did the written portion of the test. We also found out how we did on our hands-on portion. I initially scored an 85%, but the teacher gave everyone 5 points because of an error in packet tracer. So I ended up with a 90%. Not horrible, but I expected a 100% so I was a little disappointed. I feel I was docked points for some questionable grading, but it's not that big of a deal. The written portion is straight from Cisco's website and it is all multiple choice, so there is no question weather you have the right or wrong answer. Also once you submit it you see your score immediately. I scored a 91.2%, this gives me a total of 90.6% for the class. Not too bad. Back to the student break area to wait…and wait.

Turns out a quarter of the class failed. Wow! Those people who failed will have to go in tomorrow at 6AM and do a retake of one or both tests depending on their scores. They will also have to go to study hall tonight to review and prepare more for the test tomorrow. Those of us who passed do not have to go to study hall…in fact I will not have study hall for a month and a half now!

We marched back to RBK this evening just as rain drops started to fall here and there. Right as we got inside our rooms the rain just started pouring down. Thunder was so loud I could feel it. We made it just in time. It's so nice getting back to the barracks and having time to unwind. I can get used to this!

Dealing With The Sickness (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 49

Woke up feeling pretty sick this morning. Great…it's a run day too. The funny thing about being sick here is that if you want to go to the doctor because you are sick then you have to fill out a form the night before. Do most people know they are going to be sick the next day? It really doesn't matter in my case because it's the day before our final test in CCNA2, so I can't really miss it. So...back to reality, PT today sucked. We ran and ran until the sergeant could find some hills for us to run. Not only did I have to run, I had to run hills. Maybe the run will sweat out the sickness. By the end of our run I ended up out of breath, snot trying to run out of my nose constantly, and I was hacking and coughing non stop. 

I felt like crap the rest of the day, suffering from your basic common cold symptoms such as a runny nose, a cough, and a sore throat. I took all my drugs that I purchased yesterday, constantly sucking on cough drops throughout the day. This sucks! A cold in the middle of summer.

We finished the last portion of our CCNA2 material and then started to prepare for the final test tomorrow. I feel like we ran out of time with this class. Our teacher was great, but the last two chapters felt really rushed through. I hope that doesn't affect my grade too much.

Normally I would post our syllabus up online, but we didn't actually get one for this class. So I'll summarize it up for all of you. CCNA2 class dealt primarily with routing protocols such as RIPv1, RIPv2, EIGRP, & OSPF. We went over each of them and how to configure them on the routers. 

After class we headed to mail call formation at the company. After mail call the sergeants said they spent a lot of time reviewing the security cameras and they were a little disappointed. The sergeant then paused and stated "How do I put this….there is a lot of grab ass going on". She said guys should not be running around half naked and slapping each other's ass…etc. I say these are young guys who need to unwind and it's their personal time, let them relax and have a little fun.

A Normal Day (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 48

PFC Metal on the left and me on the right. This is during our
"nap time" after we get off the bus and before class.

PT was cut short this morning because of threat of lightning. We were about two thirds of the way done and then we had to go inside. This was pretty cool because it gave us so much more time to get ready this morning. We had plenty of time to get showered, dressed, do our morning cleaning duties and eat. It's nice to take your time eating breakfast, I even had a cup of coffee.

Let me tell you what a normal day is like here at AIT right now…

4:30 AM: I wake up using my iPhone as my alarm clock. This is about 15 minutes before everyone else. It gives me time to get up and shave before the bathrooms get clogged up with people. I then leisurely get ready for PT. 

5:00 AM: I head to formation.

5:15 AM: The sergeants take roll call and we head over to the PT field

5:30 AM: We start PT

6:30 AM: We finish PT and we have two choices, make our way to the barracks for "personal hygiene" (a.k.a. shower) or we go eat. We do both it's just a preference of what you want to do first. The RFAC dining facility is only a minute walk from our barracks.

7:30 AM: I get in school formation

7:35 AM: We board the buses that take us to Dixon Hall for classes. The ride is only 5 minutes and we have "nap time" while we wait for the other companies to march in from the barracks.

8:10 AM(ish): We form up and go to our classroom

8:30 AM: We start class with one 15 minute break before lunch

11:30 AM: We head out for lunch formation and eat lunch

12:45 PM: We head back to class as a formation

1:00 PM: We start class and have two breaks before we break for the day

4:40 PM: We clean up our area of operation (the classroom) and leave class for dinner formation…then eat dinner

5:45 PM: We head back to our classroom mandatory study in a formation

6:00 PM: We do our mandatory study hall

7:40 PM: We head out to formation and march back to our company area

8:00 PM: Mail call formation at the company. This can be short or very long depending on how much the sergeants want to talk. After this we head back to RBK in battle buddy teams (no formation)

8:45 PM: (This time may vary) I am back in the barracks and I take another shower from being sweaty in this hot humid weather. I check my email and Facebook notifications. I video chat with my wife.

9:30 PM: Lights out. I go to sleep...and then it all starts over again.

This schedule keeps me very busy and makes the days go by fast. Unfortunately it has kept me from being able to update my website daily. I make notes and then get it all up to date by the weekend. There are always little variances thrown in here and there, like today before we left study hall, the command sergeant major stopped by and reminded us to do stuff for ourselves on our personal time…relax have fun, recharge. Too bad we don't get too much during the week.

I am also coming down with something. I stopped by the PX this afternoon and bought DayQuill, Vitamin C drops, and cough drops. Grrrrrrrrr….I don't want to be sick!

Haircuts R Me (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 46

My new "no maintenance" haircut

Had a normal 5 minute formation this morning then I hit the books again. Morning weekend breakfast was the usual…Pop Tarts out of my locker. Lunch was a new one, me and the hawaiians hit up a chinese restaurant on the way to the PX called "Me Me & Bo Bo's". I experienced Chinese donuts for the first time…pretty tasty.

Looking at the date today and I realized it's August already. Time seems to be moving much faster here at AIT than it did in Basic. One more month and I will get to see my wife again when she comes to visit on Labor Day, I really can't wait. That is by far the toughest thing about basic and AIT…not being able to see my friends and family, especially my wife and kids. I get to video chat with them, which I'm thankful for, but it's still not the same as seeing them in person. I can't wait until AIT is over and I can see them all once again. According to my calculations it should be sometime in November, but you never know what may come up and change things.

Sunday is the day of recall formation, this is the formation where the sergeant walks through the ranks with his clip board and checks off each soldier individually. He checks to make sure we have a good hair cut, clean shaven, have our dog tags, our military ID, our proper uniform, and a full camel bak. So I went to the barber shop at the PX to get my hair cut since it was getting close to being questionable. I was going to have PFC Metal cut it with his clippers, but he is out with his wife all weekend.

When I got back I went to the bathroom which every Sunday gets converted into a guys office. There is a guy in RBK who sets up shop in the bathroom. He gives hair cuts for $8 a pop to anyone who wants one. You step into his "office" and he'll give you a very professional military cut complete with complimentary Mexican music…and the occasional smell of someone doing the other type of business in there. Word is that this guy used to work at a barber shop before joining the army. I bet he makes more with his steady flow of clients each Sunday than he does working all week in the army…lol.

Formation was unusually fast this evening which was a nice surprise. We were only there for about 15 minutes and that may be a new record. I was talking to the old hawaiian before formation and I guess he walked into the bathroom at Charlie only to see a guy in front of the mirror shaving his pubic hairs. Not something you really want to walk in on! Now it's back to the room where I will finish up my homework to the sounds of one guy playing the guitar and two others playing XBox games.

Then I may read my new book for a bit "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell". I was reading it earlier today and couldn't stop laughing. This guy is hilarious! I would suggest reading it if you are a guy and if you have a raunchy sense of humor. It’s basically the true story of a guy’s life who seems to have a drinking problem...and he is a player. He has a bunch of interesting and funny stories to tell in the book.

Overheard Quote: “There are no high kicks in formation” (The PG in front of our formation. The formations at Charlie can get a little out of control sometimes, one of the other reasons I like RBK so much. The guys at RBK seem to have a little more military bearing)

Laundry Day (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 45

The morning formation was a bit longer than usual. I guess the Lt. Colonel and the Command Sergeant Major are coming to visit at some point today, so the sergeant said we had to make sure everything was cleaned well. Each squad in our formation took on a part of the building to clean. It didn't take too long because everything is pretty much maintained as we go.

It's Saturday…laundry day. I did my laundry which by this time of the week I have a full laundry bag and I take up two machines. It's so nice to be able to do laundry whenever I want. I take this time to also do my homework. Our teacher keeps us pretty busy with stuff to do.

Walked over to the Charlie DFAC with the young hawaiian and we found out that there were no mass phase backs like last weekend. That is good news. There were a number of nervous people in Charlie yesterday.

After lunch I was able to video chat with my wife and kids. That is always nice, but I sure wish we had faster internet here. It would make the whole experience a little better. The internet here is only decent on the best of days and slower than dial-up on the worst of days.

PFC Metal and his wife invited me to go off base with them for dinner. We ate at PF Changs (an awesome Chinese restaurant). It is nice to get off base and really nice to eat some good food. Don't get me wrong…I actually like the DFAC food here. The food is not bad for cafeteria food, but when you go out to a real restaurant and eat, there is a huge difference in quality. It was freakin' awesome.

We were entertained on the drive back to the base with a thunder and lightning storm. It seemed like the Georgia sky had strobe lights on…pretty crazy!

Finally Friday (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 44

A photo of PVT Celtic's tattoo. He now permanently has a

"party in his pants". The other day he was in the bathroom while

looking at himself in the mirror he said "I don't think I should have

gotten this tattoo". LOL!

Today was another squirt gun day, both PFC Metal and I brought our guns and randomly shot people from both sides. It was pretty funny. Class today was tough, the room was hot and everyone including me was having a hard time staying awake. Finally the teacher made everyone stand up. She'll do this from time to time, sometimes she'll ask random questions about our subject matter and if a standing person gets it right they get to sit down.

We had our usual Friday safety briefing after school. Sergeant Cujo started off stating that if we see him outside of the base on his off hours that we should not even look at him. Don't smile, do an about face and walk the other way. This guy is so into himself, like I would want to speak with him unless I have to. I guess his wife doesn't like privates or something and he gets chewed out if they approach him when she is around. Heard the normal items and then the sergeants were calling off some names to give them some weekend passes and they were not there. That set off a whole series of speeches about important it is not to miss formations. We all then had to sign on a paper for accountability, so the people that weren't there are going to get into some type of trouble. 

PFC Metal's wife came to visit and I hitched a ride back to RBK with them in a nice air conditioned car instead of marching back with the RBK formation. When we got back we waited for the formation to arrive and then enter the barracks. Once they arrived there was a lot of talking by the sergeant before he dismissed them. I was a little worried not being there hoping that he was not going to call my name out or anything. Once they finally entered we went to our room and checked with our roommates to see what went on. I guess there were a few people who didn't have their room squared away, including PVT Celtic. PVT Celtic didn't lock his locker, so the sergeant took everything out including some bottles he used to spit in while using dip. The sergeant poured out the gross spit all over. Yuck. He had to clean it all up and he now has a locker inspection tomorrow at 11:00. The SOP here at RBK is a lot stricter than Charlie, so you really want to keep your stuff in order. You really don't want any extra attention brought on yourself.

Later on in the night PFC Metal and his wife invited me to go bowling with them at Gordon Lanes. We had a pretty good time, but the line for the beer was extremely long so we only ended up getting one pitcher to drink for the whole night. It's always nice to get away from the barracks in civilian clothes for a while. I managed to bowl a 191 with a house ball which I thought was pretty good. You end up seeing a lot of people at the bowling alley and the attached restaurant because it's the only place on post that phase V & V+ are allowed to drink. So it is kind of the hang out spot on the weekends.

the wife

Um, yeah... big mistake with the tattoo. LOL - it's worse then I'd imagine.

Saturday, July 31, 2010 - 12:39 PM

Fire Guard (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 42

An "action shot" of me doing fire guard. I was actually studying for CCNA2. 

At least we have some comfy chairs to sit it

This morning at 1:30 AM PFC Metal and I had our first hall guard shift at RBK. What a night and day difference between hall guard shifts at Charlie and RBK. At Charlie the shifts last 2 hours vs 1 hour here. At Charlie there are no electronics at all allowed during your shift, here we can use anything we want once we finish our duties. At Charlie there is no sitting (even on the floor) during your shift, here we have two nice comfy chairs with a little night stand between them for the hall guard shift to use. At Charlie they have to wear the full ACU uniform no matter when the shift is, here we can wear our PT uniform (shorts and shirt…what we have to sleep in, so we roll out of bed and we're ready to go). An hour really goes by quick. Our duties were to clean up the laundry room which was no problem and only took about 15 minutes. I played around on my iPhone the rest of the time and PFC Metal played his new Starcraft game until we woke up the next shift.

We were allowed for some reason to sleep in an hour later which kind of made up for the fire guard duty that we had to do. It would have been nice to sleep through the entire night and get the extra hour, but I'm not complaining. Charlie company didn't do PT and slept in as well, but this was all planned so they could do extra barracks maintenance in the morning. Since we are technically still part of Charlie company just living at RBK we woke up late and didn't have to do PT either. We just straightened up our room and had quite a bit more time to get ready in the morning which was a nice change. When I had breakfast I poured myself some coffee and had a plate full of food as well as a bowl of Cocoa Puffs. I was looking forward to having a little bit of chocolate in the morning. I decided to grab one of the little pints of milk instead of using the big dispenser to save a trip. When I poured the milk into my bowl it came out in chunks! Gross!! I guess I will not be having Cocoa Puffs this morning.

I mentioned about our new civilian teacher earlier. She is also down to business. She doesn't take any crap and even made a girl cry in class today. She told her to stop talking and to stand outside the door of the classroom with her notepad and take notes from there. The girl was in shock and just sat there and started to cry. 

After class and study hall we had another long and pointless formation at Charlie before we could leave and head back to RBK. OMG I'm so glad to be living over there (I think I've said that a lot already). After the formation all the people living at Charlie had to do more barracks maintenance the rest of the night instead of having personal time. Instead of having to do any of that I was able to head back to RBK and call my family (my sister just had a baby today…woohoo!)

Sauna (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 41

School has kept me pretty busy. We still go the same number of hours as before, but we have a new instructor for this CCNA 2 class. The instructor is a civilian and there is a huge difference between her and the sergeant we had for the last two classes. The sergeant actually knew his stuff and he was a pretty cool guy, but he just didn't teach very well. I knew he was trying, but there is a huge difference between a teacher and just a sergeant who has no instructional training. The civilian teacher tries to involve everyone in the subject and keeps us busy almost the entire time. We are busy during school times and we are kept busy with a lot of homework to do during study hall. 

We did homework and the Cisco assessments before, but this teacher goes over each of the questions the next day with the entire class. She will actually call people up who missed certain questions on the Cisco assessments and try and make sure they know why they missed the question. Before we did a lot of homework, but it was never checked and we didn't even know if the answers we did were correct or not. So the new class may be a bit tougher, but I think everyone will get a lot more out of it. 

It rained after classes today and let me tell you that after it rains in Georgia in the summer, it feels like a sauna. It was so hot and muggy while we stood in formation. I've never experienced anything like that before.

 
FS SPC Keith Miller

I can empathize with you. I have grown up in Florida. I will be dealing with that about the same time next year for 25S.

Saturday, January 1, 2011 - 08:44 AM

RBK Photos (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 40

A photo of one of the day rooms in RBK. A number of people hook

their laptops up to the flat screen and play movies

This morning we did running and it kicked my butt. After our normal warm up we jogged as a company for a while and then we arrived at a hill. We ran up and down a couple of times which was killer, and then jogged back. I was drenched in sweat and my legs felt like rubber for the rest of the day. A good workout!

The rest of the day was pretty normal so except for a funny incident in class. We had a guy actually fall asleep and hit his head on the desk. Everyone next to him couldn’t  stop laughing, it was pretty funny. 

For now I’ll post some of the pictures I got this last weekend of RBK that I haven’t posted yet:

Overheard Quote: “We are professionals. We are not Burger King, you can’t have it your way!” (A sergeant talking to people coming late into formation)

Our hallway used by Charlie Company

Our nice individual showers

Our cafeteria (the RFAC) all clean and with the flat screens on the wall...only if I had time
to sit back, enjoy a cup of coffee and watch the news.

Ahhh...Saturday (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 38

A photo of Barton Field from the RBK side. We cross this field heading

to Charlie company or the DFAC. The field is huge! There is a dirt running

track around it that is 3.2 miles long.

Today started off great. I must say that I like staying at RBK. Our morning formation only took a few minutes and our duties were to do a quick police call around the outside of the barracks which took a whole 5 to 10 minutes, then the rest of the day was ours. I did a little homework and then went shopping for some supplies. Another nice thing about RBK is that we are much closer to the main PX, commissary, the clothing store, and the bowling alley. I was able to get all my laundry done and put away after shopping.

I walked to the Charlie Company DFAC for dinner (our RFAC is closed on the weekends unfortunately) with the young Hawaiian (a young private from Hawaii) and as we were eating, we talked to some of the people still back at the Charlie barracks. They said all the ones that were phased back have been doing duties all day long with a formation about every 2 hours. I’m so glad I’m outta there! They all have to be in ACUs too when doing duty. What a bummer for them.

Night time came and I went and had a couple of beers with PFC Metal and his wife who was down visiting. As phase V and being of drinking age, we are allowed to drink at only one place on base which happens to be the bar in the bowling alley. The bowling alley is conveniently located right across the street from the RBK barracks.

All in all a very laid back and relaxing Saturday. A much needed change of pace after being busy all week long.

Phase Back Friday (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 37

This morning as promised, I had my EOC PT test. I woke up at 3:30 to shave and get ready for our special formation at 4:00 where the duty van picked us up and drove us to Charlie Company. We then formed up with the rest of Charlie who had to take the test. We marched over to the testing field and after stretching and getting the same set of instructions we get for every PT test we started. I did 57 push-ups, 47 sit-ups, & ran the 2-mile in 16:17. This gave me a total score of: 221. The 2-mile seemed so much harder than usual. I am really starting to think it may have to do with all the crappy food I’m eating here. In basic we were not allowed to eat anything except the healthy DFAC food. Here at AIT we have Krispy Kreme donuts every morning and my weakness...a soft serve ice cream machine that I abuse on a daily basis at lunch and dinner. I also found a new treat that it can be used for, I grab a cake and then put ice cream all over it. I think I’m going to stop the donuts all together and cut back on my ice cream intake. 

Our first day of CCNA2 started today. The first day didn’t start off too well. We went into our room and waited for our instructor. We ended up waiting for about two hours before they gave us a substitute. I guess our new instructor was already teaching a class and we would get her next week. So our substitute took over and we started our new class. The room was warm and everyone was having trouble staying awake. I stood myself up twice because I was close to falling asleep.

I heard that a number of Charlie Company people are getting phased back to IV today because their barracks were dirty and who knows what else. What a bummer for them. Others think it’s because they need more phase IV people to do the duties this weekend. Either way I’m glad I’m over at RBK now. Not only for this but because during our weekend safety briefing (don’t get in trouble or be stupid) they said everyone on the third floor of Charlie has to move down to the second floor for a couple of weeks. Bravo company is going to move into the third floor while their barracks are getting remodeled. Then they will move back into their barracks and Charlie will move into Bravo barracks while Charlie gets remodeled. The whole time I’ll be staying put in RBK! What a mess, the place will be crowded and half the stuff doesn’t work.

I decided to use Runkeeper on my iPhone to see how long the march is from Charlie company to RBK and it’s .93 miles. Not too bad to stay away from all the drama. (Check out the image below)

A view of the walk (via RunKeeper) that we have to take from the RBK barracks to Charlie Company

It’s Friday now and everyone’s been released. There will be a lot of drinking going on and a lot of “hotel parties” for all these young bucks. I think I’ll stay in and watch a movie on the laptop tonight since PFC Metal’s wife is in town he’s going to be MIA all weekend.

Overheard Quote: “Remember no means no and yes means wear a condom” (Our lead sergeant giving out advice during the safety briefing today)

Test Day (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 36

This morning our RBK PT sergeant decided to do some “old school” PT with us. There were a lot of push-ups and sit-ups involved. We had a sergeant in front of us and one behind us. The one in front would have us do a number of push-ups, then we would go back to the position of attention and do an about face so the other sergeant could tag team and have us do a number of sit-ups. This continued for a while...I can tell you that my arms felt like jello the rest of the day. A good workout indeed!

Today we had a two part final test for our CCNA class. The first part was a practical exam. We had to configure a router and a couple end devices.  We were given a network address and had to subnet it out in order to configure all the devices. The second part of the exam was the normal written exam given by Cisco. They word the questions extremely difficult so you have to take your time reading the question just to figure out what they are trying to ask.

I scored 100% on the practical exam and I missed one on the written exam to give me 98% on it for a total of 99% for the class, which was the best in the class! Woohoo! There are normally a number of people who fail each time and our class was no exception. We had 6 people fail and they were given a chance to retake the test tomorrow early in the morning.

I found out by chance while waiting for the RBK formation back to the barracks that I have to do my EOC tomorrow. This is the “End Of Cycle” PT test! I wouldn’t have even known if I didn’t decide to wait in the day room of our company where I passed by the white board and saw it. Crap...my arms are freakin’ jello and I have to do my EOC tomorrow...I’m not too happy about that.

Suicide Prevention (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 35

This morning everyone in my class and others including MOS-Ts who started around the same time as me all had to attend a special suicide prevention class instead of PT. It turned out to be a little talking from the chaplain, then a “choose your own adventure” movie. We would watch a part of a movie where a soldier had some bad things happen to him (fiance’ left him for his best friend and took all is money, friend died in action and more). During the course of the movie it would stop and there would be a number of choices on the screen that we were supposed to choose depending on the situation. The chaplain chose all of them and we just watched as the soldier decided not to kill himself and get help instead. I think in that situation I wouldn’t worry about killing myself...that guy would have to worry about the time I get back to the states!

We then went to class and took a pre-test which I did fairly well on, so I’m not too worried about tomorrow’s final exam. The final exam is actually the entire grade for the course.

PFC Metal also gave me a cheap little squirt gun that he bought at the store last weekend. It has turned out to be a lot of fun. We’ll be walking around and I’ll shoot someone in the face. It’s quite a shock for them and I get a good laugh out of it LOL. What we do for fun around here :)

During mail formation after study hall Sergeant Cujo called about 15 names with mine and PFC Metal’s included in that list. We all had to meet in the day room after formation. Crap! Just what I wanted...waste more time at the company instead of heading over to RBK. So we all went in there only to hear Sergeant Cujo start talking about integrity and being a good soldier. I was wondering what the heck was going on when all of a sudden he said we’re all getting negative counseling statements for missing formations. What the Sam Hell??? I didn’t know what he was talking about. When he finally gave me the the statement it said that I missed all the formations for the last weekend. I raised my hand and said “um sergeant, PFC Metal and I both moved into RBK on Friday”. He told us we could go. What I don’t understand is why it wasn’t in their computer already and why nobody said anything when they called our names during formation. For being the center of the signal corps in the army, their communication is horrible here.

So we headed off to RBK and got back for another late night with almost no personal time....grrrr.

CCNA (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 34

Today was another pretty normal day until our dinner formation. During this formation Sergeant Cujo asked who had study hall and everyone except one person did. He told that one person to round up some more people by the end of dinner and they were going to play dodge ball with the sergeants. I wish I could have played. I would have loved to nail Sergeant Cujo in the head...maybe a couple of the other time wasters too. Oh well.

Since the CCNA class is about to end I’ll post our syllabus for anyone who is interested in what was covered during this class:

Day 1

N+ Overview with TCP/IP and Basic Router Commands

Day 2

Addressing the Network – IPv4

Day 3

Communicating Over the Network

Day 4

Application Layer Functionality and Protocol

Day 5

OSI Transport Layer

Day 6

OSI Network Layer

Data Link Layer 

Day 7

OSI Physical Layer

Ethernet

Day 8

Planning and Cabling Networks

Day 9

Configuring and Testing Your Network

Day 10

Review

Written Test/ Practical Exam Test

1st Weekday @ RBK (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 33

Today was my first weekday at RBK. I’ve heard all kinds of stories about what it will be like living here during the week and most of them were all about how little time we will have.

I woke up at 4:30 AM to shave and brush my teeth and we had PT formation at 5:15. RBK used to march over and do their PT with Charlie company, but starting this week we will be doing our own PT. This is a good thing because it will save a lot of time. We did PT across the street in a baseball field, pretty much the normal PT sessions we’ve been doing at Charlie. I’ve heard that when we have Sergeant Clark do our PT sessions they will be altered a bit and will be more intense.

We had breakfast at the RBK DFAC a.k.a RFAC. This place is so much nicer than the Charlie DFAC...it’s incredible. There are also always open seats. The food is good. One of my favorites is the yogurt parfait and the pancake sandwiches. There are LCD TVs on the walls and even flowers on the table...even though they are fake it’s still a nice touch...LOL.

Hurried up and finished breakfast, then took a quick shower and cleaned our room. The rooms have to be spotless before we leave. Had to be out in formation for the 7:30 bus ride to Dixon Hall for classes. We arrive before everyone else so we get to sit down and take a quick 15 minute nap before the rest of the companies start arriving.

After lunch Sergeant Cujo found a couple of people with cell phones and took them away. He also spoke to everyone in formation and made some threats about taking more away if he found them and doing a shakedown right then and there. He pretty much left it at that and warned people about bringing phones to classes.

We then had class, a break for dinner, then study hall. After study hall we went to formation and marched to our company area. Had to wait there through mail call and some announcements. RBK people were then released to walk back in buddy teams to RBK. When we arrived we found out we had another formation. Holy cow...I’m hot and sweaty and just want to get in and take a shower. We had some more announcements and I heard this is somewhat unusual from others. I guess they usually don’t have nightly formations at RBK (good).

Finally got back to the room at 21:00, time enough to take a shower and make a quick call to my wife before lights out at 21:30. A busy day indeed. Not much personal time and always on the go doing something. The time crunch is better in the morning I hear, but with the study hall at night we sure don’t get much time at all.

Phase Up (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 30

Today we have a half day of school. I guess every first Friday of the month we have a half day of school and the other half is used for company training. I can only imagine what that will consist of…perhaps the best way to clean a toilet, or how to pick up trash in half the time, perhaps even how to landscape the perfect yard. We'll see….

School was short and I ended up skipping lunch with two other guys who took the test with me last night. We all headed over to the company area to ask if our tests have been graded yet. We found the sergeant and he said we had to wait until after training. Grrrr…I don't like waiting. So I headed over to the little PX to pick up something to eat for lunch real quick before training.

The company training consisted of breaking us all up into four groups and doing land navigation. One group would go over how to read a map, the next would go over the terrain features on a map, the next watched a power point presentation, and the last group did pace counts. I'm not sure about the others, but everyone from Ft. Benning went through pretty much all of this before. It was pretty boring to be honest. We actually did a lot more in basic training, we went over map reading and actually did land-nav through the woods.

After we did three of the stations, they called it quits and had mail call. I got the package I've been waiting for…my iPhone! Finally. I should be able to get up some more pics now. There is a lot of stuff I've been wanting to put up, but just never had the means. Now there is no excuses. We also had a safety briefing because it's Friday once again. The lead sergeant went through the normal stuff, then said he was leaving and turning over his responsibilities to another one of the sergeants. Everyone was a little surprised because the head sergeant is well liked. We then heard more safety briefing from the soon-to-be head sergeant. He got pretty emotional because he said one of his good buddies from high school just died in the war effort. You could tell the emotions he was showing was pretty raw, it choked me up a bit. His message was basically look out for your friends and battle buddies all the time and remember that no matter what, it could always be worse. The commander came up and gave her speech as well, then another platoon sergeant came up and asked for 25 volunteers to go to a briefing tonight and tomorrow…something to do with high speed soldiers and special ops, nothing that really interested me (at least now…I'm too old for that stuff, many years ago perhaps I would have checked it out). By this time I think we had been in formation for almost two hours. Holy Cow!! I want to find out if I passed my test and if I'll be getting phased up.

Finally they released us, myself and the other guys who took the test last night stood in line to talk with our platoon sergeant. After about 30 minutes of waiting we finally were called back and found out that we all passed. Woohoo. He said he didn't have our badges ready, but he would have them ready in an hour or two. He also gave us the talk about going off base and getting in trouble, but then asked how old I was and said he's not too worried about me…LOL

We went to dinner and then came back to check on our badges. When we were called back into the sergeants office again he said here are your badges, oh and by the way you're all moving to RBK…no ifs ands or buts. I was in a little shock as I stood there for a moment letting it all sink in. The three of us standing there along with a number of others had to move to the RBK housing tonight. Unfortunately PFC Metal was not on the list. We have heard good things about RBK, but it is a ways away and we've never actually seen it. PFC Metal then went down and asked if he could go to RBK as well (there was a lot of people that didn't want to go and he asked if he could switch with one of them). The sergeant said yes and PFC Metal actually went to the highest bidder and made some money off the deal. We then packed up all our crap and grabbed one of our bags and headed to the taxi stand before anyone else from Charlie company headed over to RBK. We arrived and we were able to get a room together. We then walked back (about a 15 minute walk) and waited for the duty van to arrive to take the rest of our stuff there with everyone else.

We arrived again and unloaded everything in our room. The place is very nice and new. The rooms are 4 person rooms in about the size of our old room that held up to 12…and there are no top bunks.

I'll have to give more details later, I'm going to bed now…it's been a long day.

Bad Hygiene (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 29

This morning was a little odd. During the middle of our PT session on the pull-up bars the "I Hate You All" Sergeant ended up smoking us. He kept telling everyone to be quite, but nobody shut up. So instead of taking turns doing the pull-ups everyone had to get down and do push-ups, v-ups and some flutter kicks. Pretty crazy, I've never heard of getting smoked during PT before. 

When we arrived at school and were standing in formation waiting to go in, we all saw two sergeants in the distance in each others faces. I thought a fight was going to break out. We couldn't hear what it was about, but it took the Master Sergeant to run over there and separate them. 

During class Sergeant Cujo made a surprise visit. He came in and wanted to talk about hygiene. I guess there have been complaints about the smell of everyone. In fact he said it smells like "hot foot and ass". He said because it has been so hot and because of the air conditioning in the building not working that well, people have started to smell a bit. He asked everyone to make sure they are washing their clothes, taking showers and even suggested purchasing a little Febreez and spraying yourself down when returning to class. I was thinking to myself, maybe we should start wearing summer PTs to class instead of these hot ass ACUs everyday. I would even settle for a modified ACU with just the t-shirt underneath and not the top part of the ACU. It seems like those things just trap the heat. Sergeant Cujo also said we would be able to take the phase-up test tonight. I'm super excited about that. I want to phase up as soon as possible.

When we finished dinner, we were hanging around waiting for formation to head back to study hall when we heard a person say they were doing the phase-up tests right now. Crap! PFC Metal and I headed over to the company area to find a number of people in the middle of taking the test…unfortunately there were a few people waiting in line for others to finish, so they could take the test. I was getting pissed, because when Sergeant Cujo was in the classroom he made it sound like we could take it later in the night after our study hall, but he decided he didn't want to stay up that late. As we were in line he also said that study hall was a priority and phasing up was a privilege, so all of us in line had to take off to study hall. PFC Metal actually was able to grab a test and started taking it, but I was one of the unlucky ones who had to head back. So the whole time at study hall I was just pissed off. There were a few people who came late to study hall and started bragging about how they passed the test and phased up. They were even issued their new badges. All that did was piss me off more. I couldn't even study.

After study hall, me and a few others who were unable to take the test checked in with the sergeant on duty to see if we could take it. She let us all take the test on the floor, I didn't care where I took it as long as I could take it. I have been studying all the material, so it only took me 5 or so minutes to finish. I knew I passed, but the sergeant didn't want to grade them…she said the morning sergeant would do it. Grrrr what a pain.

Now let's talk about the Charlie company barracks for a bit. I was just thinking today how old this place is and how run down it is. Since I arrived, there has been three stalls closed waiting for maintenance in the closest bathroom to my room (I'm sure there are similar issues with all the other bathrooms). The laundry room on our floor has one washer that makes everything smell like piss when you use it and the other three are broken. It seems there must be no money in the budget for repairs. I am planning on going to the laundry mat this weekend just to wash my clothes, we do have some washers on the main floor but they are always busy and I've heard too many stories of people's stuff getting stolen from down there.

Bad Singers (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 28

This morning we had formation at 4:45, but we had to be in ACUs and have our IDs with us. We were not told why, but there was no PT. We then got in alphabetical order and marched to a building about 50 meters away. When we got there we filed in and went to a table where we verified our name and social security number on a sheet of paper, then initialed it. When we were done we went back to our barracks. Not sure what it was for or anything...and of course we were not told.

We were in the room for about 15 minutes and then everyone was called out to yet another formation. I guess the sergeants didn't like us doing nothing in our rooms. So instead we stood in formation for a half hour until we were finally released for breakfast. Sergeant Cujo had to give some threats and crap about us marching and sounding off. (yesterday he didn't like the way we were sounding off, so he said we were not allowed to sound off at all yesterday….oh darn)

Since mandatory study hall started, our personal time has been cut very short. With the other duties and cleaning that we have to do, we hardly have any time left in the day. I spend a lot less time chatting with my wife and kids. I also have no time for homework, so I have to make sure to get it all completed during the study hall. I have to admit though that going to the study hall sure helps with all the interruptions and duties that we end up doing while in barracks. It does what it is meant to do and gives us time to get our homework done.

There has been a lot of new restrictions placed and enforced. Almost daily we'll here of new things that we have to do, or of some policies that were not enforced before that will be enforced now. It seems like there is so many things to remember. Last night PFC Metal went down to get his laundry downstairs (because all of the washers on our floor are broken) after 2100 and a sergeant saw him and made him clean the laundry room because he was downstairs after 2100. We've never heard of such a thing, but they mentioned it today as an existing policy that is now being enforced. The other new one mentioned today is that we also have to make sure to turn in weekend pass requests a week early. I guess people have been turning them in a day before and such.

Class was interesting today, we were singing the Signal Corps March again and sounding horrible as usual. A sergeant was walking by and came in pissed off because we sounded so bad. He made everyone get down in the "front leaning rest" (the push-up position) and start doing push-ups. This included the MOS-T sergeants that are in our class. Needless to say we have had to practice a number of times throughout the day. LOL

Overheard Quote: "Someone has colon cancer!" (a random sergeant after coming out of the bathroom at school complaining about how bad it smelled in there)