Sand Festival - (Korea) Day 186

The KTX train at Seoul Station...getting ready for some high speed train action.

Work call this morning was at 0630. We setup for a KUB in the secret conference room. When we all finished our KATUSA and SPC Mick headed to the DFAC and I headed to the food court to grab a Starbucks coffee and some biscuits and gravy…hey it's Friday and I'm happy! I went back to the office and ate it in my lair. I was watching a little TV when my sergeant came up and said they needed someone to flip slides for the meeting we setup. Since I was the only one around and I had finished my food I headed down. Instead of flipping slides in the back control room they had me sitting one row behind everyone else. It was a little strange, it felt like I was part of the meeting.

Once the meeting was over we cleaned up and then I headed up to watch the NBA playoffs. What a great game! I don't know what I'm going to do when basketball is finished…there will be nothing on TV here! Our office decided to order Pizza School pizza again and we all ate some pizza and watched a little of the movie "300". After lunch I had to remind our sergeant that he told me I could take off after lunch because I came in on the weekend. He had plans of another board practice and such, but I needed to get ready for my weekend.

I took off and was able to video chat with my wife for a while before packing up my assault pack and heading off to the Dragon Hill Lodge to meet the air force master sergeant in our office. We are heading to Busan for a "sand festival" over the weekend. I'm so looking forward to it. One of the air force master sergeant's friends was there and coming with us. She is the aerobics instructor as well as a University of Phoenix instructor and administrator. I guess I'll call her Ms. Q since I can't think of anything witty at the moment.

We all jumped in a taxi and headed to Seoul Station where we hopped on the KTX train. This is a high speed bullet train that travels from Seoul to Busan at speeds up to 190 miles per hour. I've never ridden anything like this so I was pretty excited. What was interesting is that I never really felt the acceleration and it never felt like we were going very fast until you looked outside.

When we arrived in Busan we took a taxi to our hotel. Once we got in the driver wanted to charge us a flat fee of 40,000 Won (about $40). Ms. Q and the air force master sergeant would have non of it. They told him to use the meter or we're getting out. I guess taxi drivers will try and do this a lot to foreigners to get one over on them. We used the meter and ended up paying about 17,500 Won (about $17.50)!

We arrived at the hotel and checked in. Turns out the room wasn't exactly as they expected. There was a double bed and a single bed. I slept with the air force master sergeant and of course Ms. Q slept in the single....yes, I slept with a man....don’t ask don’t tell....please don’t tell. :) Before bed though we walked around the town, checked out the beach, and even saw a fight between some old drunk Koreans.

Me, our air force master sergeant, and Ms. Q at Seoul Station before taking off on our trip.

Rice patties flying by at 300 kilometers per hour

Leaving Busan Station and on our way to find a taxi.

And finally...a video I took shortly after arriving in Busan. This is what

happens when old Koreans drink too much soju!

Pizza Party - (Korea) Day 163

Special K ordering our 9 pizzas at one of my favorite places in Korea..."Pizza School"

Work call this morning was at 0730. We setup for an early meeting in the top secret conference room and then setup for another meeting in the secret conference room. The morning schedule was a little busy, but there were no meetings planned the rest of the day. We have a PT test planned for tomorrow morning, so I've been drinking water like a camel all day. I've always been told to hydrate well before a PT test, so I"m doing my best to do so. The problem is that when I have to go pee it hits me like a freight train and my bladder feels like a dam that's about to burst. Each trip to the bathroom brings with it great relief, then the cycle starts over again.

Our office decided to buy pizza and have sort of a pizza party lunch with our sister offices. We weren't celebrating anything, I guess it was just for the heck of it. Special K and I headed off to Pizza School which is located about a block away from post. They have a number of pizzas for only 5,000 Won which is a little less than $5, so we bought 9 of them. We then headed to a shoppette on post to get soda. On the way back in Special K realized that he left his ID card in his computer. We had to pull over at the gate and he had to get out and input his social security number into the system. Once that is done, his picture comes up and the guards allow him to enter. We then headed to the office so he could get his ID, then to the shoppette for the soda. By this time the pizzas were done, so we went back and picked them up.

We had lunch in our conference room with the lights dimmed and season 1 of "The Unit" playing on the big screen. We had most of our office, our admin office, and a KATUSA from our supply office there to join us. I ate a lot, I can't resist the spicy chicken pizza. I ate so much that I don't think I'll be eating dinner.

After lunch I worked on some SkillPorts for a bit, then our sergeant said once we cleaned the conference room and the office we could leave. When we were on our way out the door he said tomorrow's PT test was cancelled. All I could think was crap…all that water I drank and all the hurried trips to the bathroom were for nothing. Also I can't turn in my leave requests until I pass the PT test, so I would rather do it sooner than later.

I got to my room a little after 1500 and actually had a chance to video chat with my wife for a while which was nice because I didn't get a chance in the morning. I then rested for a bit on the verge of taking a nap, when my phone rang. It was my sergeant telling me the PT test is back on for tomorrow. Holy cow…make up your mind. I better start drinking some more water…

I did my schoolwork and then watched a new mini-series that I borrowed from my sergeant. It's called "Spartacus: Gods of the Arena". I guess it's a prequel to "Spartacus: Blood and Sand". So far it's pretty darn good. Similar to the mini-series "Rome" it is a mixture of "The Gladiator", The History Channel, and soft porn all rolled into one. Lots of nudity and blood and guts…what more could a guy ask for. There is only 6 episodes and I watched 2 tonight. I can't wait to see them all.

Special K demonstrating a choke on a ROK soldier from our sister office

Arrival of the Augments - (Korea) Day 84

A new word...Autorized!

Work call this morning was at 0730. We had to setup for a meeting and then start dealing with all the "augmentees" that were due to arrive. With the training exercise coming up next week our office has been assigned around 20 soldiers from around Korea. They come here and live in a "tent city" in Yongsan for the entire exercise. There are a ton of them that come and do all kinds of things for the exercise, the ones that come and help us are drivers.

The first thing we had to do was pick up all the vans from the TMP. We drove over there (me, our sergeant, SPC Roy, & Special K). We were given 9 vans which each of us had to PCMS, which is basically checking the vehicle out to make sure it's working correctly. After we finished a van full of augmentees arrived to help drive them back to our office. We then had to take the augmentees over to S2 in order to get their security badges. Speaking of S2, I was wondering why the different offices on post and any army installation are called S1 etc. Wikipedia has a great description of all the staff system we use and can be found here. (I've added this in my misc notes for general knowledge as well)

Back to the rest of the day....There was a lot of confusion all day about where all the new soldiers were and getting them everything they needed which was the briefing, their security cards, cell phones, their quarters, and some other miscellaneous stuff. The first group arrived like I stated earlier with a group of 9. The rest seemed to trickle in, which made getting them everything done pretty difficult. We even drove down to tent city at one point asking soldiers who were standing around if they were supposed to be with our office. We ended up picking up two that way. I guess the in-processing down in tent city was really unorganized and a slow painful process for all these new soldiers here for the exercise. SPC Roy and I ended up taking them back and forth to everywhere they needed to go while Special K and our KATUSA held down the fort.

The augmentees ranged from a PV2 to some sergeants. I may have even seen a staff sergeant arrive late. They are basically going to be in charge of the vans we have. Which means they will also have to keep them clean. Each van has a bucket and all the cleaning supplies needed to keep it clean. While dropping a female sergeant off all she kept saying was that she's not going to be washing any cars, she doesn't want other soldiers driving her either because she doesn't trust them (as SPC Roy is driving her around). I feel sorry for the sucker who gets stuck with her because she'll use her rank to make them do all the dirty work while she probably sits around and does her nails. Speaking of sergeants, I have to remember to keep my military bearing when I'm around others that I don't work with. As we were waiting outside for everyone to get done in S2 there was one sergeant that was taking a look at the "superman" phone booth. As he was walking in I said "just don't come out in spandex sergeant". That made him stop and then try and give me a stare down. I blew him off, but it did remind me that I need to remember who I can joke around with and who I shouldn't.

It was a long day and I didn't get back to my room until a little after 19:00. SPC Roy drove right out the gates to pick up some pizza from Pizza School. I was telling him about the pizza I had there last night with the young hawaiian. He picked me up one too and then dropped me off at my barracks. Their pizza is pretty good and it ranges from $5 - $10 a pizza. I shared a bit with my roommate and then did some schoolwork. I hate when I get home so late, I can't video chat with my wife and it just feels like my whole night is shot. I think I have another long day ahead tomorrow, things will be a little crazy until this exercise is over.

the wife

Autorized! That sign means it! LOL

Wednesday, February 23, 2011 - 08:52 AM

Pizza Party!! - (Korea) Day 45

The very cool PCS gift SPC Short received at the pizza party

Work call this morning was 0830. We had a meeting to setup for at 0930, after that the day was clear as far as meetings go. During the meeting I was in the control room making sure nothing went wrong. The microphones we have out on the tables are little omnidirectional ones. They work and pick up all the people around them, but they sit on top of the table which is glass and a lot of times there is feedback. I have to listen and slowly turn down the microphones if it starts getting bad as was the case during this meeting.

I had the TV on as well in the control room watching some college basketball. It's funny how every commercial they show here is either for something on post, or a public service announcement…don't steal from the PX, be aware of spies when off post, don't drink and be stupid, sexual assault is bad…etc. The commercials are low budget and very cheesy. They throw in little news bits now and then just to mix it up a bit I guess.

After the meeting I had to do some more mandatory training with the rest of the office. Similar to the human trafficking training we did the other day, there were slides and we all took turns reading the content. The training was on spies and how we have to be very careful about what we post online and who and what we say when talking to people. I paid close attention to this since I actually do blog online, of course I don't put any sensitive information in my journal…but I still have to think twice when posting anything. We then did training on drugs and specifically Oxycontin. I guess there has been a problem lately with people abusing this drug. It is being randomly checked for in the urinalysis tests. The last training was on underage drinking and binge drinking. Don't do it was the basic message. Don't drink if you're underage and don't supply alcohol to minors, you can get into big trouble for it.

For lunch we had a pizza party in the protocol office. There is a sergeant who is retiring and of course SPC Short is leaving Korea. There were some speeches made and some pretty cool awards given out. The funny thing is that SPC Short got a very nice gift from everyone in the unit, the sergeant who has been in for 20 years and is retiring got a very small one. I guess he isn't well liked.

After the pizza party I turned in two certificates of completion for some SkillPorts to my sergeant. He said we were going to get a negative counseling statement if we didn't do at least two SkillPorts each week. That is some good encouragement to get them done I guess, and it's only benefiting us in the future.

After work I hung out in the barracks for a bit and ate dinner. SPC Short gave me a call and said he took his PT test again after work and finally passed! This was great news because he is leaving next Wednesday. He has an award waiting for him as well that he would only get if he passed his test. I went over and hung out with him for a bit and congratulated him. He is very excited to finally go home and spend time with his family.

Later on in the night the young hawaiian called and asked if I wanted to head out to Itaewon. I said sure and called PV2 Pickle to see if he wanted to join us. We all ended up leaving a little after 2200. It was very cold…so cold our faces started to go numb. I think this will end up being a lot more fun in the warmer months of the year. We still had fun even though we wound up getting totally lost venturing off the main road and going up and down a few alleys. We had to use the young hawaiian's GPS to find our way back. We ended up going to a bar called "Rock and Roll Bar". I thought it was very cool. It was an intimate bar with a pool table at the end. The music they played was great (lots of 80s to present rock). The music was also not too loud, it was nice to be able to talk to the people next to you without yelling. And perhaps best of all…the pool table was free to play. We drank and played pool until we realized that it was already after 0200. There is no last call in Itaewon. We finished our beers and headed out. The guys were hungry so we stopped at a street vendor and picked up some sort of meat on a stick…not sure exactly what it was, but it was good. We also ended up going in the McDonalds on the way back. I didn't get anything…I couldn't find their 1000 Won menu. PV2 got a special Big Mac that had bacon on it…how cool is that?

We made our way back to the barracks and after finding out that 2 of the gates were closed we finally found a way in. It was a long cold walk, but we all had a good time. I think it was almost 0400 before I got in bed. I think we'll have to start a little earlier next time for sure!

Saying Good-Bye is Never Easy (Korea) Day 0

Today started off like every other day for the past couple of weeks…sleeping in with my wife by my side. The only thing different was that I knew this would be the last time for a while that this would happen. I had a nice breakfast made for me by my beautiful wife, then I just kind of hung out for a while taking it easy. For lunch I had an awesome pizza from Papa Murphy's called the "bacon bacon bacon" pizza. With that kind of name you cannot go wrong! We did all my laundry and then started getting everything out of my bags so I could re-pack it. I laid it all out and then had to carefully pack everything I could into my duffle bag, my luggage bag and my laptop bag. After a couple of times pulling things out and re-arranging I was able to get about 95% of everything I wanted in them. I made sure I had my orders and all my paperwork that I needed in my carry on bag (the laptop bag). After some tearful goodbyes to my wife's family I headed over to visit my mom and sister before we headed to the airport. My mom and sister gave me some comfort candy to take with me on the plane :) (they know me too well). We left there about 7:30 to make sure I had plenty of time to get to the airport which is about an hour away. Even though the flight out is at 3:00 AM, I had to arrive and check in six hours in advance. I'm sure there is a reason for this, but it just seems like some more "hurry up and wait" that seems to be the army's motto. At the very end of the check-in terminals is where everyone for the chartered military flight was checking in. For the most part it was very similar to any other check-in only I needed to show my orders and they had to check me off a list. They took my bags and weighed them, then we were off to the gate. My wife was able to get a pass to the gate, then came and hung out with me for about three hours. That was a great surprise. I wasn't sure how far they would let her go because of security and such. Saying good-bye was tough. I hate that so much. It kills me to see my wife cry and there is nothing I can do to fix it. It's times like these when I wonder again "Why did I join the army?". Right now I'm still in the terminal at 1:27AM with a guy who is also a 25B heading to Korea. I went to basic with him (a terminator) and he also of course went to AIT with me at Fort Gordon. Nice to see a familiar face. There are people laying about the terminal trying to catch a little sleep before the flight. There are mostly military personnel, but there are also dependents flying as well. The flight is going to be long, hopefully I can get quite a bit of sleep while on the plane.

Hungry Howies (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 53

This morning I had hall guard duty with PFC Metal. The weekend hall guard duty here at RBK is actually 6 hours long! Ours started at 6:30AM, which seemed a bit early after staying out late last night. Add to that a lot of beer and the hot wings and you could say I wasn’t feeling a 100%. I can’t complain too much about the weekend shift because it doesn’t come up too often and we get to sit in the comfy chairs and use electronics. So most of the shift I was on my laptop, iPhone, or reading my book. 

I watched a movie... the third in the Twilight Saga “Eclipse”. Which the sergeant saw and commented on how good the quality was. You see there are terabytes and terabytes of movies that soldiers have on their computers here. Some are purchased legally, some are backed up copies of their legal DVDs, but I would venture to say that most are illegal downloads of the movies. In fact I watched one that a soldier let me use and it was actually a recording made from a person in a theatre. The quality was watchable, but you could actually hear the audience laugh during funny parts. Anyways the sergeant wanted to know where we got it from because he wanted to go there and download movies too. I told him I got it from a buddy. This started quite a long conversation with the sergeant (Sgt. Cujo by the way). We all talked about kids, news, movies, computers and regular army life. This was a little strange, maybe it’s a drill sergeant thing where these guys can just change their personality like a light switch. He was actually normal and laughing with us, treating us like normal people. I kept wondering if he was on drugs, or maybe since he was at the end of a 24 hour shift his mind was not working normally. I’m not complaining, I was happy to chat with him and it passed the time.

Our roommates were on the schedule to relieve us, but only one showed up. He said the other guy is running late and asked if one of us could cover for him until he arrives. He also said he would pay us for it. I didn’t have anything planned and since PFC Metal’s wife was still in town I offered to stick around. I ended up doing hall guard from 6:30 until 14:30. Surprisingly the time flew by and my roommate finally came to relieve me. I promptly went to my room and took a nap.

I woke up from my nap and shaved to get ready for the recall formation that was coming up in a couple hours. We went to recall formation which took quite a while, instead of lining up by platoon we did one mass formation and it took forever for everyone to get in alphabetical order and get checked off. There are a number of new people as well. I remember those first few days I was here, they sucked because of the lack of communication. I feel for those guys!

When we got back to the barracks our roommate ordered us all pizza from “Hungry Howies” and we got the cajon crust style pizza. This turned out to be the absolute highlight of my day (besides chatting with my family of course) The pizza was awesome...so awesome in fact that I suggest anyone who likes pizza and lives in the Augusta area to give it a try. Check ‘em out online here: http://www.hungryhowies.com

Nick's mom

Good Morning
Just wanted to Thank you for sharing your experiences.  My son just arrived at Ft. Benning on Aug. 3,  he is going DR tomorrow.  I found your journals while searching for any info on Ft. Benning basic training.  I am completely Army ignorant and have appreciated your mature insight.  I would like to Thank you and your Wife for your service and wish you and your family  Godspeed.

PS:  We are Mac fans also!

Monday, August 9, 2010 - 07:19 AM

Pizza! Pizza! Pizza! (Basic Training) Day 61

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 as I was getting ready to wake up the next shift I noticed a guy trying to walk around the bay in his sleeping bag. I’ve heard about this particular guy doing weird stuff in the middle of the night.  He was actually sleep walking in his sleeping bag! LOL. I asked him what the heck he was doing and he said, “I can’t find my bed”. He finally laid down and I told him he has 10 minutes to get ready. 8 minutes later I checked on him again to make sure he was up… he wasn’t.  When I woke him up he didn’t remember anything that had just happened. 

We slept in until 7:00am, which was nice. Today is basically a recovery and cleaning day. I need the recovery. My legs from top to bottom are sore. Every step I take is awkward and painful. My feet are a mess. I wish I could just lay around all day. I weighed myself this morning and I weighed 180.4! Wow!! I wasn’t too surprised; you should’ve seen the sweat pouring off of me. Pretty crazy! 

Today we started cleaning our equipment, so we can turn it all back in. I hear they do a pretty thorough inspection when we turn it in. We have about a week to get everything clean. This has caused a bit of controversy. There are a number in the platoon that only wanted to rest; the PG wants to get everything done now. So there is a lot complaining and bitching by the guys and some yelling by the PG. I’ve just been cleaning my stuff slowly. 

The rest of the day consisted of cleaning our stuff and really not much else. At about 18:00 we were able to use our phones. Awesome!!! After our phone calls we were able to have pizza. We pre-ordered it a couple of days ago. It was awesome too. The quality was much better than last time and it was even warm. It was also quite a big bigger. I couldn’t let any go to waste so I had to eat the entire thing…so good. I’m stuffed now though. Time to rest up and start a new week.

Random DS Quote: “Martha Stewart or Peggy Bundy?” (During our ruck march two DSs played this game the entire way… one would name two chicks and the other would say which one the would “do”. Martha Stewart was chosen in this example.)

A note from the wife: Thursday, June 10th was when I received this last entry. We’re one week behind with journal entries due to the snail mail pace. I’ve gotten two phone calls from him this past week he’s counting down and looking forward to next week. Family day & Graduation. I should have the all the remaining letters (from June 7–12) by the time I return from Georgia. Brandon’s looking forward to reading the comments and adding a personal entry while I’m there. This has been one long BCT and I can’t wait to see him!

allen
 

Hello,

I'm heading to Ft. Benning for BCT on 20100823, just over two months from now.  Your blog has been very insightful.  Congratulations on your graduation and good luck at AIT.  I can't wait to embrace the suck!
 

Friday, June 18, 2010 - 08:41 PM
 

Brandon
 

Thanks..I just made some updates while I have my laptop and my wife should be catching up with everything in between shortly. I read a number of people's journals before leaving which helped me out. One thing I couldn't find was many journals of people in AIT, so that is my next step.
 

Saturday, June 19, 2010 - 01:17 PM
 

Pvt. Cock
 

Day 4 in AIT...IT SUCKS! i miss BCT :(
 

Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - 08:19 AM