The Never Ending Day - (Korea) Day 284

My view from the back of the naval change of command ceremony. Lots of bells
ringing and everyone kept their hats on inside...(that's a little hard to get used to)

So after getting to sleep late last night, I'm woken up at 0430 with more banging on all the doors. WTF? I'm starting to hate living in the barracks. All the soldiers in normal housing don't have to put up with this crap. My roommate got up and asked me if we should go out. Again they never even said anything, just a bunch of banging on the doors, so I didn't budge from my bed…my roommate stayed in as well. I found out later on in the day that the MPs were taking their dogs in rooms and having them sniff for spice (an illegal drug). Of course even though I haven't had much sleep and I decided to stay in bed, I could not get back to sleep before i had to get up at 0600. I just laid there the entire time.

We got an email from our NCOIC yesterday that said our office is now going to do PT with the company every Friday from now on. Today was going to be the first day, but it was already cancelled…lol. Work call for me was 0645 and 0830 for everyone else. The thought process was that I would be physically tired from all the walking around and touring yesterday. Everyone else would go to company PT and then be at work at 0830, but since PT for our office was cancelled they didn't have to do anything until 0830. When I got in I setup for a meeting in our conference room and started flipping slides for it once it started.

I was about half-way through the meeting when CPT Hooah! told me to switch with SPC Mick and had me help him at a navy change of command ceremony. We brought a laptop over and hooked it up to a projector, then I waited…and waited. We sat through the ceremony and then took the laptop and left. I had to fight sleep the entire time. CPT Hooah! was all excited when the ceremony was over, this would be his last function with our office. He was able to switch to our protocol office, I'm not sure he'll like it there any better. I guess it will be interesting to see.

We headed back to the office and Special K and I ate lunch in our conference room. His wife had packed him a pretty big meal to share. This weekend is a 3-day for us and a 4-day for ROK soldiers because of the ROK holiday of Chuseok, which I guess is the equivalent of our Thanksgiving. So this meal was in pre-celebration of this holiday.

After eating I called my wife and then helped out our KATUSA do some sample setups for meetings. He's trying to document everything so he can train his replacement exceptionally well. I then left for a 1500 CQ briefing at the company. For some reason I was the only one that showed up, the sergeant was a little pissed. I got a quick briefing and then took off, he said he was going to contact all the other people's NCOs and see where they all are. Since it's the weekend there should have been 6 total (2 for each day). I went to the PX and bought a couple supplies (5-hour energy drink and hot tamales), then went to my room and took a quick half hour nap.

I started my CQ shift at 1700 and will do it until 0900 tomorrow morning. It really kind of screws up the weekend because I'll be sleeping a lot of the day away tomorrow. Sometimes you see some interesting stuff, but not much going on tonight..only one girl who was obviously heading off to a booty call. She left her room at 0145 to go out. As for me…my night was filled with Breaking Bad, SkillPort, video chatting with my wife and a phone call to my dad. I also watched a great old movie called "They Live" about aliens living among us undetected…that is until you put on a special pair of sunglasses! A great classic!

I hit the wall a little early. At around 0500 it got really tough for me to even think straight. I had to stop even attempting to do SkillPorts and just try to stay awake. I may have started dreaming while I was awake. The last few hours drug on and on until finally my replacement came and I somehow managed to walk to my room and collapse into my bed.

CQ - (Korea) Day 228

My workstation during my brief appointment as cashier at the DFAC.
I was manning the "Main Line" and the touch screen was how I input all the info.

Work call this morning was at 0700. The thing about roommates is that they share the same room with you. My roommate is a pretty cool guy and very nice, he just stays up late every single night. He usually doesn't get up before me, but in today's case he did. I have a fan going and I have my headphones in playing "white noise". I also wear my PT beanie over my head to cover my eyes to keep out the light from his desk lamp. Some nights are better than others, but I would guess I lose a good hour to two of sleep each night because of my roommate. I am looking forward to leaving the barracks life once I leave Korea.

Back to the rest of the day…I arrived at the office and we setup for a meeting down in the secret conference room. It was going to be the first meeting of the new commander and there were some last minute changes of course. We finally got everything setup and fixed a couple of misspelled name blocks. Then as we were getting ready to leave a marine officer came over and said "so…what would it take to get coffee for the head table?" I was thinking to myself, well sir…it would take some advanced warning, unless you want me to pull it out of my ass. Another army officer came over and said "It will only take them going up stairs and getting it". This set off a chain of crazy events. Our office including CPT Hooah!, our NCOIC, our sergeant and all the junior soldiers had to start scrambling getting all the coffee, water crafts and everything that goes with a full setup from our office which is four flights of stairs above this secret conference room. With everyone helping we were able to get it all down there, but it looked like crap when it was all setup and we were doing the setup around the generals who were already sitting at the head table. We were able to finish before the commander ended up coming though, which I was very surprised.

I then had to pull more secretary duty for my NCOIC making a lot of calls to see if people were going to come to another meeting. I really dislike doing that. As I was heading down to bring an updated list to my NCOIC, CPT Hooah! sees me and tells me to follow him because we may have to call "stand by" for a meeting. I ended up sitting with him near the secret conference room for about a half hour doing nothing except trying not to fall asleep.

I finally headed to lunch and video chatted with my wife for a bit before heading back to the office. I was able to finish one SkillPort before being handed another call list that I had to do. I know I would never want to be a telemarketer. I had to leave at 1500 and head to our company headquarters for a CQ brief. I have CQ tonight starting at 1630 until 0900 tomorrow morning. After the brief, I headed to the shoppette to pick up some supplies for my shift (drinks, beef jerky, etc). I then went back to my room for a small rest before heading to the DFAC. Something new they have added to our shift is being the cashier in the DFAC for dinner. Very strange, they would have just random people come in and do this every single day. A worker trained me on the system for about 5 minutes and then turned me loose. Not too hard, just enter in what service they are and have them enter their social security number. Only a few folks actually paid money. I then actually ate at the DFAC once the shift was over and they locked the doors. The food was much better than my previous experience at the old DFAC. It was also nice doing something other than just sitting at a desk staring at a wall for CQ.

CQ consists of mostly sitting at a small desk staring at a wall. I had to take inventory of everything in the day rooms for our barracks to make sure nothing is missing. We are also supposed to do a "security check" once an hour, which is basically doing a walk around and through the barracks to make sure all is well. I had my laptop at the desk, so I was able to watch a number of TV shows, do some SkillPorts, watch "Sniper: Reloaded" which is the 4th movie in the "Sniper" series. It wasn't too bad, of course I wasn't expecting much. I also listened to a number of podcast episodes that some old co-workers make “Tales From The SpacePod”. They are pretty funny, it's good to hear voices of friends that I haven't heard in a long time.

It's a long shift and goes until 0900 on Saturday. I ended up not drinking any coffee or Mountain Dew because I thought I would make it just fine, but at some point around 0600 I dozed off for a bit. At one point I was watching CSI, then the next thing I know my screen saver was on and the show was over. That little nap gave me what I needed to last the rest of the morning, I was able to video chat with my wife a few times throughout the night and I was even able to talk to my branch manager about my next assignment. Because of the time difference there is never a really good time to call, and every other time I've tried all I get is a busy signal or no answer. Since I had all night during my CQ shift, I thought this would be a great time to try. Surprisingly the guy was very nice and gave me my next assignment. He said he would be putting through a waiver, but that it should all show up on my ASK (Assignment Satisfaction Key) on the AKO website sometime next week. I'm not going to mention it to many people until I actually see it under my assignments on the web. I know things can change and I don't want to get too excited yet. I'm not even going to mention it on here yet….

Weekend Wrap-Up (4-Day) - (Korea) Days 66-69

Some of the Houston Texans Cheerleaders for the Super Bowl show

Friday: Friday is a holiday (Lunar New Year) for everyone except those of us unlucky enough to have to work during it. I pulled CQ shift and had to get up, shower, shave, and be in full ACU uniform for my 0900 shift. CQ (Charge of Quarters) duty isn't too hard though so I can't complain too much. The only raw deal is that anyone who does it during the weekday gets the next day off for recovery, I get nothing except the loss of a holiday. My shift is actually in my barracks which is nice (it's either in my barracks or the barracks across the street). I can quickly slip into my room to grab a snack or to relieve myself if needed. I also have my laptop and my roommate's mobile hot spot, so I have internet as well. I sit here at a little desk next to the vending machines in the hall and answer the phone if it rings, which it rang once when I first started (staff duty calling to check and make sure I was on shift). I also walk around the building once an hour to make sure it's not on fire or anything. While doing this I also check the fire exit door on the outside to make sure it's are secure (some folks like to go out it and not shut it behind them).

The shift consisted of a lot of sitting, watching TV shows, checking Facebook, email and watching the movie Punisher: War Zone. I was able to borrow this from the previous guy on CQ duty. It was pretty good, your typical guy flick with lots of fighting, guns, and blood. I had seen the first one a while ago and didn't even know there was a number 2 out. It has the same theme as the first one, the punisher is still out killing bad guys and blowing them up.

A photo of the hallway in our barracks and where we do CQ,
I spent most of my 24 hours at this little desk

A photo of the desk in our barracks where we do CQ,
this is where I spent most of my 24 hours at.

Saturday: The CQ shift finished at 0900, well a little after 0900 since my replacement was a little late. By that point I couldn't see straight. I just turned everything over to him and went straight to my room to pass out. I stuck in my ear plugs and pulled my beanie over my eyes, then fell asleep. I slept until 1700 which kind of sucked because most of my Saturday was gone. I got up and took a nice long hot shower. It was so hot in fact that when I came out the steam set off my smoke alarm. I had to rip off my towel and wave it back and forth to get it to turn off. I'm just glad I was in the room by myself…here I am naked waving a towel back and forth. It seems that every 4 day weekend when the Koreans leave post, our barracks lose all heat. We can turn it on, but only cold air blows out. (the reason I was taking a hot shower…just trying to raise my body temperature a bit)

After that I took off to the food court to get some dinner and download some shows. Until I see where I am on my bandwidth limit, I don't want to do that in my room anymore. The young hawaiian called and asked if I wanted to go to the gym and I said sure, sounds fun. I met up with him and we played a little one on one (the old man beat him every time). We then lifted some weights. I just followed him and did everything he did. I got a great workout and then went back to my room to watch some shows.

Sunday: Slept in and woke up with pain in my left shoulder. I think I over did it a bit with the weights. At the time it seemed fine, but now I can't even lift my left arm up without pain shooting through my shoulder. Oh it hurts…it hurts. I tried calling the young hawaiian, but there was no answer. I gave up after a while and just video chatted with my wife for a bit before heading over to a guy's barracks that I met in Korean Drivers Ed. They have a nice day room with an awesome 60" Sharp Aquios TV. The nice thing about having AFN is that all the pay per view fights on the UFC are free! We watched UFC 126 which had an amazing knock out in the main event. I know where I'll be from now on for these events.

We had planned on going up to Seoul Tower in the afternoon, but it was foggy and PV2 Pickle said he was totally broke. I guess we'll try again another day. I finally heard back from the young hawaiian, he went out last night and didn't return until 0830 this morning with his KATUSA roommate. The bars and clubs never close here, so I guess it's easy to do. I'm just a little too old for that…well a lot too old for that. Which reminds me of the guy in my Korean drivers ed class. He is married too and here without his wife. He asked why they just cant send unmarried soldiers here. "It's like a paradise for unmarried soldiers. The bars never close and there are hot chicks everywhere". That is probably exactly why they don't want all unmarried soldiers over here…lol

Monday: (Superbowl Holiday) Yes it's true, we get the day off for the Superbowl here in Korea. Since we are a day ahead it actually falls on a Monday. I woke up at 0540 and headed to The Main Post Club for their Superbowl party. They had free breakfast where I filled my plate as full as possible. I'm used to only having a pop-tart or oatmeal, so this was a treat. They had a small band consisting of soldiers as our pre-show entertainment. After that we watched the game on a big projection screen. There were a number of Houston Texans cheerleaders wandering around and signing little posters they gave out. There were also door prizes that were given out at half time. The guy sitting right next to me won a 46" flat screen TV…so close, but I didn't win anything. I did have fun though, never thought I would have to get up so early to watch the Superbowl! They had the bar open and plenty of people were already drinking by 0730…way too early for me!

After the game I went back to my room and took a nap. I then video chatted with my wife and did some school work. This class is almost over, it can't end soon enough!! The rest of the night consisted of more TV Shows and just relaxing. Back to the grind tomorrow.

Overheard Quote: "You may hear growling and hissing" (The CQ guard before me was briefing me on the nights activities and apparently there are some cats on base that like to mate behind the barracks)

A+ Last Day (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 20

Today was another typical day at AIT. PT, breakfast, class, lunch, class, and then dinner. I had a CQ shift at 18:00 - 20:00 which turned out to be a great shift. I sat by the front doors and watched them. There are usually two girls and two guys on a given CQ shift I guess. The girls sat at the desk where they answer the phone. Me and another guy sat at the doors and watched them. We are supposed to check IDs if we don’t recognize the person and also check any contraband. There was the normal formation at 16:00 that I didn’t have to go to, then for whatever reason they had another at 19:00 which I didn’t have to go to. I was able to sit in the air conditioning while everyone else stood for a half hour for each formation in the hot sun. I also heard almost every single soldier that came in and out of the doors exclaim how much they hate this place.

Our night sergeant is very lazy. He has now started taking night attendance by making everyone line up with their ID card at 21:00. Not a huge deal, but it actually takes a long time to complete and eats up into my personal time, time I use to video chat with my wife and kids. So it’s just another one of those things that piss me off here.

Enough about all the negative stuff.....today was the last day of my A+ class. We take our final test tomorrow and then start CCNA 1. For anyone who is interested in what our A+ class consisted of here is what we went over:

•    Understanding A+ Standards

•    Introducing Hardware

•    Form Factors and Power Supplies

•    Identifying Motherboards

•    Upgrading Memory

•    Maintaining Hard Drives

•    Supporting I/O Devices

•    Understanding Multimedia Devices & Mass Storage

•    Introducing Operating Systems

•    Introducing PC Repair Fundamentals

•    Maintaining Notebooks, Tablet PCs and PDAs

•    Supporting Printers & Scanners

•    Maintaining PCs On a Network

•    Securing Your PC and LAN

•    Identifying The Professional PC Technician

•    Maintaining The Windows 2000/XP

For the most part this class was entirely review, so I decided not to study for the test since I didn’t have much free time anyway tonight. Hopefully the test will go OK tomorrow.

Overheard Quote: “Hey is it ‘Man Love Thursday’ tomorrow?” (called out by a guy in formation. I didn’t ask and I don’t want to know about that)

Sleep Deprivation (Basic Training) Day 30

These entries are from the letters that Brandon has mailed to me. His writing at times can be a bit difficult to determine his words... bare with me, I do my best, especially with army terms.

Last night really sucked for a lot of people. Since my battle buddy went AWOL during his laundry guard shift. We now have to staff it with two people instead of one. Last night we had to staff fire guard, CQ desk and laundry guard. So every hour 6 people had to get up. I had to do two shifts, which really sucked.  Fire guard shift at 22:00 (10pm) with PVT Cock and CQ desk at 3:00am with PFC Metal. So not a whole lot of sleep last night. To make matters worse we still have to be in full uniform with helmet and body armor. What a pain in the ass! 

There was a bit of good news though! After I sealed my last journal entry about 22:30 our lone cool DS came up with mail. He thought nobody would mind getting out of bed for that. It was awesome because I got five letters from my wife, kids & grandma. 

This morning PT was actually stepped up a bit. Until now it has been a complete joke, but today we did quite a few more sit-ups, pull-ups & push-ups. That with an individual smoking I received shortly after PT. You see the first person to see a DS come into our bay has to sound off. Depending on the circumstances it’s different. If there are no DSs already in the bay or their office, we have to say “At Ease”. If there are already one or more we say “Drill Sergeant on the floor”. Anytime either is said everyone has to go to parade rest position. Most of the time we have a DS in the office, so it’s usually Drill Sergeant on the floor. I screwed up when they came walking in and started to say “Drill Sergeant …” then corrected myself and said “At Ease”. They told me to get down and push. Then they weren’t happy that I wasn’t sounding off. Then I wasn’t sounding off loud enough. I had DS A-Hole telling me louder…louder…louder etc. Finally, they let me up to finish getting ready.

We headed out to the big sand pit and worked on buddy movement again. “Cover me while I move…got you covered…moving” then we would tactfully move to the next cover while the buddy would lay out suppressive fire (he would do this by saying “bang” every few seconds...lol). This would repeat as we bunny hop down the course.  

When we got back from that we had lunch and then some outside classes. (First aid and other miscellaneous items) We then were released to take showers. At least today we got hot showers and we didn’t have a DS timing us. Yesterday the senior DS said we had to take a heat dump. (not the thing that happens after you eat  spicy food) It was basically a very cold shower that he made us stay in for 2 minutes. When I first stepped in it took my breath away. 

It seems that since we have 35 guys all on the schedule (waking up, working out, eating) that everyone has to take a dump at  the same time, problem is there are only 6 toilets. So when it’s time to go there is mad rush to the latrine. 

Today has been tough.…real tough…only because of the lack of sleep last night has made it very hard not to nod off in the classrooms. I almost fell asleep standing up today! Also my battle buddy is not allowed to have his rifle again… so guess what? I get to carry the damn thing around all day long, for who knows how long. They should just turn it in already. 

PVT Brown Noser saw that we were going to the sand pit for the buddy movement earlier and promptly volunteered to stay with my battle buddy all day. I heard they just hung out and somehow got some skittles (forbidden) and ate them. He is always getting out of stuff.

Funny how small privileges prove to be so huge now. Our company was allowed to purchase Gatorade tonight, as long as they drank it all before coming back to the bay. There was a mad rush, I think 90% of our platoon left. I volunteered to stay and be weapons guard. If it was candy, then maybe. LOL.

Overheard Quote: “I’ve been in here 20 minutes. They just keep dropping, I don’t have to do anything!” (A private in the stall next to me…interesting bathroom conversations.)