Prayer & Paintball - (Germany) Day 422

The chaplain starting off the prayer breakfast

This morning I didn't go to PT, instead I headed into my office to get ready for the prayer breakfast. The chaplain and I gathered the paperwork and headed over to the German Cantina on post. There was a side room reserved for us and I setup each of the bulletins in front of each chair, then waited. The chaplain offered to purchase me breakfast, but I had already had some at home…I didn't know exactly how much time I would  have to eat, but I did grab some coffee and orange juice. When the prayer breakfast actually started only 3 people actually showed up, not counting the two chaplains, the singer and myself. I guess I didn't need to have so many bulletins printed off! The event still was nice, the singer played his guitar and sang a few songs. The guest chaplain gave a little speech about personal courage, then our chaplain said a prayer. I used my camera to take a few snapshots during the event for the chaplain, then we packed up and headed out.

I headed home, hung out with my wife for a bit then took her to work. I went back to my office and did the usual administrative type stuff until about 1100. Now it was time for the Adventures with the UMT Paintball event. We had reserved the paintball field for the soldiers to use and play paintball on from noon until 1600. We arrived along with a TMP full of soldiers from Landstuhl. Unfortunately the place said it was too cold to use their compressor to fill the guns, so we had to cancel the event. It was snowing and well below freezing, so I guess it was probably for the best. Our platoon sergeant said everyone could go to Patton gym and play basketball as a consolation. We headed over and I shot around with everyone. It felt awesome to play around again, I was in the groove nailing 3's from all over. Everyone decided to play a game called "bump", which is basically a shooting game. Two people start at the three point line and shoot, the object is to make your shot in before the person in front of you to knock them out of the game. If you miss, you can chase down your ball and still try and get it in before the other person. As soon as you make it, you throw the ball to the next person in line. This process keeps going and going until one person wins. We played a number of games and I was able to win a good majority of them, it was a ton of fun. It really made me miss playing basketball all the time.

I then went back to my office and ended up doing my schoolwork. At about 1600 I heard the HHD company was having their safety brief and then getting released for the day. The chaplain never came in, so I decided to just leave as well. My wife was at work, but still feeling pretty sick and wanted to be picked up…no problem. Not too long after I got home, I started feeling the affects of playing basketball today. I thought just shooting around wouldn't be a big deal, but I was wrong. I guess the "jumping" part of the "jump shot" really got me. My back hurt, my knee was throbbing and my head was killing me. It was one of those times I wish they prescribed me some heavy pain killers. Instead all I could take was some Excedrin, some muscle relaxer, and some scotch. I learned my lesson and I will not being doing anything like that again!

The singer offering up a little entertainment during the prayer breakfast

Smoke Break - (Germany) Day 421

On the way back...is it coincidence that there are dark clouds 

looming on the way back to work?

PT this morning was a little odd. It was combatives, which meant that I just came in my normal uniform, sat in the bleachers and watched. It was scheduled for 2 hours which meant 0630 to 0830 in the morning. The funny part is that the platoon sergeant was sick as a dog and left after we had accountability. The normal combatives instructor (SGT Steroids) was on staff duty, so they had another sergeant teach it. Let's just say that this sergeant is the last person you would expect to teach anyone combatives. They started and after about a half hour everyone stopped and took a smoke break. When they came back in they shot some baskets on the basketball court…I joined in on that venture, something I can do. Then they went back to combatives. Basically all their combatives training was just picking two people to square off and see if they could submit the other within 2 minutes. Once everyone had done it again after the smoke break, we cleaned up and went home. We left earlier than planned, so I was home a little before 0800 and didn't have to be back to work until 1000.

They had planned on doing the same classes for sergeant's time training, so I just headed into my office. I had to prepare for our events tomorrow, check my email, and make sure the TMP was gassed and ready to go for today. After that I headed to Subway and picked up a sandwich. I ate it, then headed to a mandatory lunch with the brigade CSM (Command Sergeant Major). He was down to visit Heidelberg and instead of having a mandatory meeting, he decides to force everyone to take their lunch break and spend it with him. Lunch is not provided, we have to bring our own. To me that just seems like a guy with an ego trip. He talked about "go army" stuff, the coming budget crisis and how it will affect everyone. It was hard to hear everything because the noise in that room echoes a lot and the CSM kept walking around sometimes talking with his back to people. I sat through it patiently, then when it was over I split. I had to be at the TMP at 1300 to take the chaplain to Landstuhl. On my way out a first sergeant told me to stop and help put away all the chairs. At first I didn't realize he was talking to me and I just kept going. He sent someone running after me to stop me and have me come back. I let them know I'm currently "on a mission for the chaplain"… in retrospect I should have said "I"m on a mission for God"…that would have been funny. They guy turned around and went back and I kept going. Something about that whole event just pissed me off. It's not like I was trying to get out of putting a couple chairs away, I needed to get a move on.

I had the TMP ready to go when the chaplain came out and we headed off to Landstuhl. When we arrived, he went in and did his thing with the soldiers and I delivered some boxes I brought up for the supply sergeant. I then sat in the van and did my schoolwork. I must have been tired because at one point I fell asleep reading my textbook, but I was able to finish my chapter before the chaplain came out at 1600. We headed back to our office and I readied some paperwork for the Prayer Breakfast tomorrow morning. I headed home about 1730 to take care of my still sick wife.

Valentines Day - (Korea) Day 76

A photo in our office of SPC Roy getting his birthday ice cream
while holding his birthday candle...a tradition instead of cake in our office

Work call this morning was at 0830 which was nice. It's nice to be back on a normal schedule. The general is back in Washington DC this week, so the meetings are going to be less and everything will be a bit mellower. With that said, not a lot went on today. Me and SPC Roy worked on a number of SkillPorts together. We setup for the one scheduled meeting today and left for lunch. Lunch consisted of SPC Roy taking me with him to get a haircut. We swung by Burger King and picked up lunch to go. We then went to his special barber shop which had two cute girls working there. Now I know why he always comes to this out of the way shop. He also brought them lunch as well. I sat down and ate mine while watching some college basketball on TV. After what seemed like an absurd amount of time SPC Roy was finished. He said if that major didn’t come in, it would’ve been longer. They not only cut his hair, they trimmed his nails and gave him a massage. He says he’s been coming here ever since he’s been here, they have him hooked...lol

After lunch we cleaned up the office and I updated the event schedule. It looks like the meetings at Tango will be pretty basic as well. I received an email (I guess since I'm on the IMO list now) stating that there will be a week long training session for CISSP (Certified Information System Security Professional). I hadn't heard of this certification before, but I'd like to check it out. Getting another certification will only help my career both in the army and in the civilian world. I checked with my sergeant and he looked at the dates and said I could go to it. I sent off the paperwork, so we'll see how it goes. Knowing the army I'll get it sent back and find that I have to fill out the form differently or something stupid…we'll see.

Near the end of the day we celebrated SPC Roy's birthday. As always in our office they get a little candle to blow out and some ice cream to eat. He also got a few cards and some sort of Korean alcoholic drink from the ROK army. After that me and the air force master sergeant left work and purchased tickets to see The Eagles in concert. They are coming to Seoul of all places, and there will be a free bus ride to the stadium. That will be a lot of fun.

The night consisted of me video chatting with my wife and then finishing the last day of schoolwork for my current class "Fundamentals of Programming". I'm so glad this class is over. I don't even care what grade I got as long as I passed. I've been in the I.T. field for years, but programming is something I've never been able to do. I understand the concepts, I just can't actually do it. Tomorrow I'll start the new class… "Business Systems". We'll see how that goes, it has to be better than programming.

Another Day is Over - (Korea) Day 44

A great example of how I put my 25B technical skills to use these days...
A perfect setup of coffee and water for an upcoming meeting in our conference room

Work call this morning…0630. Ugghh! There was a meeting at 0730 that we had to prepare for. Once that meeting was all setup, Special K ran the slide show and I hung out in the office and checked my email and such. I tried to run Rosetta Stone via SkillPort, but it wouldn't start up. I'm not sure if there was a windows update put out that is now interfering with it now or what, but it pretends to start and nothing happens. A bummer too because I could have gotten a lot done on it today.

After the meeting we cleaned up and I headed down to have our master sergeant train me on updating what we call the command events calendar. It's basically a spreadsheet that is full of all the upcoming meetings that we have to take care of. It's compiled by us going through each of the general's calendar and adding, changing, and deleting from it. Because so many meetings change we have to make a new list daily, and it's a very manual process. Since I'm just starting it, it takes me a while to go through each event on each of the general's calendars…day by day.

We took a long lunch since we came in early. I had the chance to video chat with my mom, nieces and my wife which was nice. That doesn't seem to happen too often. After I got back to work I had some questions for the sergeant about the list of open positions that he gave me. I picked a few and asked him what I do next. He said I have to go to the army signal HR website and contact them to let them know. Not exactly what I was hoping was going to happen. I was hoping that I could get this all taken care of here with people I can see. When there is an issue or something is not getting done it's a lot easier to take care of it when you can look someone in the eyes. I'm hoping the person I contacted will take care of me and not just blow me off. I have no idea what kind of or if they have any sort of customer service at all. I guess I'll wait and see.

Didn't do much the rest of the day at work. Some real 25B folks came in from battalion or brigade…I'm not sure, but they hooked up a VOIP phone in the conference room for a call that will be taking place tomorrow in a meeting. It's funny to think that there are actually 25Bs doing their job here. The only technical things I do is SkillPorts and turn equipment on when there is a meeting in our conference room. I thought I would try and be a little proactive and try and fix a technical problem we are having in our conference room. Our UPS (battery backup) is being overloaded and emitting a high pitched beep all the time. It's very annoying and can easily be fixed by replacing it with one that can handle the load. I looked up the owners manual for our model and copied the information as to why it is emitting the high pitched squeal. I then looked up the model that we need to purchase in order to replace it and fix the problem. I sent an email explaining all of this in detail to the specialist that is basically in charge of us all - SPC Roy (didn't want to overstep any boundaries). My guess is that I doubt anything will happen to resolve this issue, I have no idea how purchasing works in our office. I believe we will have to continue to listen to the stupid annoying squeal and maybe one day it will just die. Perhaps then we can replace it with something a little better.

We left at about 1515 for the day and headed to the gym for PT. I got a good workout playing some basketball (3 on 3 with my sergeant and SPC Roy). Now it's time for a little school.

Guten Tag - (Korea) Day 21

A sign that cracked me up when I first saw it on post. 

Coming from AIT where we constantly called cadence this is a big change.

Last night I watched a cheesy movie "Vampires Suck". If you're a fan or have ever seen the Twilight series, it's parody of that along with a few True Blood and Vampire Diaries jokes thrown in. It's super cheesy and corny, but it did make me laugh a few times. Not a movie I would keep in my collection, but something I had been wanting to see for a while.

Today I woke up at 6:45 to give myself time to get ready and use my new little 4-cup coffee maker I purchased at the PX. I was able to brew a tiny pot of "Seattle's Best" coffee and have a cup before work at 8:00 AM! The only thing missing is sugar…and also a desk lamp. My roommate is working the later shift of the half days, so he sleeps in. I'm always running into things and dropping things because I can't see much of anything in the morning. I turn on my laptop screen, but it only does so much.

Work today was pretty boring, you can tell the holidays are upon us. As long as North Korea does not attack or do anything stupid I think the next couple of weeks will be very slow and boring at work. Today I cleaned the office refrigerator and microwave. After that our sergeant showed everyone Skillport, a way to earn promotion points by doing classes online. Most items in Skillport give you 1 promotion point for every 5 hours of course that you take. Each course shows how many “hours” it’s worth - depending on how well you know the subject you can finish them faster than the time stated. I was already very familiar with it because we had to use it and complete some I.T. courses while in AIT. Our sergeant wants everyone to be doing either online school or Skillport when we have downtime in order to better ourselves and advance our careers in the army. The only problem is that I still cannot get on the system here with my CAC card, I'm not setup yet. The lady that usually does it has been on emergency leave. I did turn all my paperwork for it today though because we found out there is another sergeant who can get me in the system. We'll see how long it takes, it will be nice to be able to get something done while at the office. Today all I did (besides the cleaning) was play a lot of solitaire and Plants vs Zombies on my iPhone.

We then had PT again after our half day at work. We went to the gym and played basketball. I was still pretty sore from yesterday, but we ended up playing a lot of half court games because we only had 8 people. We did play a few full court games when a few extra people showed up. It was a good workout, but not too much. I also wore my "tan tighties" which prevented yesterday's injuries. I impressed some of the guys from my office with my shot and also dunking a couple of times between games. I didn't know I had it in me still!

I got a call from University of Phoenix after work as well, I'll have another call with them in a couple of days. After that I think I'll start classes again on January 11th. I can't wait to get started again so I can finally get my degree! I decided to do a little Skillport as well while at home. I'm going to try and do an hour or so each night just so I can start racking up some hours. Our sergeant wants to see some progress. We can do pretty much anything, so I'm starting out with something I've wanted to brush up on for a while. I did the first lesson of Rosetta Stone: German. The army offers this language learning application free to all it's soldiers and it counts as promotion points as well. Our two Korean specialists were doing the Korean version while in the office…easy points since they know the language already....easy points for me too since I’ve taken quite a bit of German back in the day.

Sgt. Cujo (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 23

PFC Metal showing off his bottom drawer. He had everything tight and actually
taped to the bottom of the drawer so it would stay perfect for inspection.

I’ve heard from a lot of people who have been here a while, that there was a time with Charlie company when it wasn’t too bad. That all changed when Sgt. Cujo came into the picture. He started at Charlie about the same time as I did...lucky me. Sgt. Cujo used to be a drill sergeant and he still has the drill sergeant mentality of doing things. So we seem to have Sgt Cujo who likes to make everyone’s lives hell and the rest of the sergeants who just don’t seem to give a damn about anything.

This morning we woke up and again were told to wear ACUs, no PT this morning. After formation we were told to do a little picking up trash around the company area and then head to the DFAC for breakfast when it opened in about 20 minutes.

After breakfast everyone headed upstairs. Most people rested and some studied. Sgt. Cujo did not like this one bit, he had everyone get out of the barracks and stand in formation for 30 minutes just so we wouldn’t be inside the barracks. Then he let us go in the day room only, but we only had about 10 minutes until the school formation where we got to stand around again. Sgt. Cujo ended up marching with us over to school for the first time and when we got there he yelled at Delta company for using a bad word in a cadence when they were marching over. Someone may get offended. (The cadences here generally suck compared to basic because of this)

It just seems like he is always doing something to make the lives of everyone in Charlie company as miserable as possible.

Normal day after that for a while, school, lunch, school, then dinner. We had our normal Friday safety briefing (don’t beat your wife or your dog, don’t do drugs, don’t drink and drive). We then found out at our nightly formation that all Phase IV soldiers would be given a chance to phase up. It would be Sgt Cujo doing it tonight at 20:00. My excitement was dampened a bit, but I figured it’s worth a try no matter what. I turned in my policy letters that I had copied. A number of us arrived in the day room at 20:00 only to wait...and wait...and wait. We waited for about 2 hours until Sgt. Cujo decided to bless us with his presence. He then did locker inspections, but said they had to be up to standard and proceeded to hand us the new standards. So everyone ran up and had about 15 minutes to try and rearrange their lockers to the new standard. I did as best I could, my locker wasn’t too bad, so I was able to get it done. Sgt. Cujo then came through and did all the inspections. All the lockers in our room passed, but he did tell everyone he wants them to make them a little better and in a week or two he’s going to inspect them again.

We then took a written test on general knowledge including our policy letters, the chain of command, The Signal Song, The Soldier’s Creed, and the general orders. We had to score at least a 70% on it and I think I did, but I’ll have to wait and see. The whole process took 3 1/2 hours so it was pushing midnight before I had a chance to go to bed. At least I get to sleep in tomorrow.

Overheard Quote: “You always go into battle with a helmet right? Make sure to do the same if you’re having sex this weekend” (A captain giving us all advice during the safety briefing)

The Dark Side (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 7

These entries have been sent via email from Brandon. (Yay!)

Today we had class again. I think the daily schedule will be the same now that I'm in school. We will wake up at 4:00 AM for morning PT, then formation for school is at 7:45AM. School is from about 8:30 to 4:30 with a break for lunch. We then clean up the classroom and the hallways before formation to march back for dinner. After dinner we are free until 21:30 which is lights out. There is also a study hall that we can go to from 18:00 to 20:00. It's not mandatory for the A+ class, but it is for the next two classes.

At the beginning of class PVT Metal gave me some "candy". I popped it in mouth and was in for a surprise...it wasn't candy at all, it was a caffeine pill. It also didn't taste too hot. I quickly grabbed my water and swallowed it all down. I didn't have any problems falling asleep in class today unlike another guy in our class who fell asleep. Not only did he fall asleep, he did it with the hose to his camelbak in his mouth. The teacher stopped the class looked at the guy and said "really!" The guy had to stand up for the rest of class. The classes are long and they go at a fast pace, so you really have to pay attention. There is a lot of homework and quizzes as well that you can do on your own time in the barracks, so it pays to have a laptop (which I decided to purchase while I'm here).

Not much else happened until the evening. PVT Metal was taking a shower which is down the hall and someone stole his towel while he was in the shower. As he was running down the hall naked, a sergeant appeared and yelled at him asking him where his towel was. PVT Metal said it was stolen, but the sergeant didn't care, he just told him he better go back and find one. So PVT Metal had to run back down to the showers and have someone come to our room to get him another towel. LOL pretty funny!

Overheard Quote "Touche my good man" (Our instructor after he explained that the main difference between Windows Vista and Windows 7 was that Windows 7 was made more stable and easier for the end user to operate. To that I said "Yeah....I heard they tried to make it more Mac-like)

Officer or Enlisted??? (Pre-Basic Training) 112 Days until Basic

After going to MEPS and talking with the recruiter on the long drive back I found out that it is possible for me to join as an officer. Previously I thought I was too old, but evidently since I have an associate’s degree I can join as an officer, I just have to get my bachelor’s degree before I become an O3. This brought up another dilemma. I did as much research as I could and found that if you go in as an officer, you do not get to choose the field that you will end up in. There is a dream sheet that you can choose 10 of your top fields. This seems a little silly because there are only 18 fields to choose from. I also found out that it is all based on how you do in the Officer Candidate School (OCS). From what I can tell, all the available jobs are posted and whomever does best in OCS gets to choose first and then the rest of the jobs get chosen down the line. I know joining as an officer has many benefits, but I didn’t want to end up doing something I have no interest in. The whole reason I decided to join was to get more experience working in the Information Technology field.

After much discussion with my wife, I ended up deciding to join as an enlisted soldier. Of course my wife was pushing towards being an officer, but I just kept having visions of me being an officer in charge of a bunch of cooks...not really what I have in mind for my time in the army! So we finally both agreed on going the enlisted route. Since I have an associate’s degree I will join as an E3. I still plan on getting my bachelor’s degree (one of the other reasons I am joining) and I will have my job guaranteed.

I have to say that if you are married, be sure to communicate effectively with your spouse. The decision to join the military doesn't affect just you, it is going to change everything in your life and family. You really have to be on the same page when joining or else your life is going to be filled with a lot of unneeded drama later on.