Freeze - (Korea) Day 178

SPC Mick taking a nap on the floor of the conference control room.
He's using a stack of napkins for a pillow...lol

Work call this morning was at 0500. We setup for a small meeting in the top secret conference room. After that we didn't have to do anything except wait, so I headed up to my lair with SPC Mick. SPC Mick fell asleep on the floor, but for some reason I couldn't fall asleep. I stayed up and watched late night talk shows. I'm not sure why they show them in the morning over here, but there they were. I watched The Tonight Show, Late Night with David Letterman as well as some others that I've never heard of. Just as I was about to fall asleep our sergeant called and had us come down stairs to see him.

Our sergeant called us all into his office and told us he would be doing the board prep and such today since he never got around to it yesterday. I went ahead and printed out my 10 SkillPorts for the week to show him and then headed back up stairs to watch the NBA playoffs. My viewing pleasure was interrupted when our supply sergeant came up and had everyone gather in the conference room. She gave us the weekend safety brief and because it's a 4 day weekend we had to talk about the significance of Memorial Day and such. We then had our "Don't Ask…Don't Tell" brief. The basics of it is that we are supposed to treat gay people normal and can get into trouble if we sexually harass them. No big change except now gay people can be open if they choose to and not worry about being kicked out. One interesting fact is that their partners are still treated the same as a straight person's girlfriend or boyfriend. They don't get any extra benefits or anything like a married couple gets.

After our briefing our sergeant bought everyone lunch from the Navy Club which was awesome. We sat and ate lunch and finished watching the game. These playoffs have been a lot of fun to watch I have to say. I then found out that not only does someone have to come in on Monday, but Tuesday as well. The ROKs are having another meeting and don't care that it's an American holiday. So this means I'll be coming in on Tuesday for a while. It just sucks that our officers don't care because it doesn't bother their holiday. Our sergeant said he would make it up to us, but it kind of ruined the plans we all had for this weekend. I'm not holding my breath either about it getting made up either…I've heard that one before.

I then had a little time to work on a SkillPort for a bit before getting called down to the sergeant's office. This is where he gave me my monthly counseling statement and then had us each come in and practice for the board. We had to enter and salute, then follow any directions he gave. It's a stressful situation and when asked to recite the soldier's creed I started, then went totally blank. I don't do well under pressure I guess. I finished it with a little prompting from our KATUSA of all people. I've said it hundreds of times, but I just froze…crazy. I then had to sing the army song which was kind of weird…singing to my sergeant in a tiny office. I hope I didn't hurt any of their ears. After that I was asked questions regarding military justice which we had been studying. I answered all those with no problems thanks to my handy dandy iPhone app that I had been using to study.

I think this was good practice. I'm going to need a lot of it because I totally suck and doing stuff like that in front of people. I was nervous doing it just in front of my own sergeant. I guess we'll be doing more of it which will be good…if we do actually follow through and keep doing it.

We then cleaned up the office and left early (around 1530) which was a nice surprise. I headed to my room and took a nap, I was dead tired from getting up so early. I then ate my dinner and watched a TV show. There was a knock on my door and to my surprise it was PFC Pickle. He was fresh back from his leave. He looked a lot better after his nice little vacation back home. He had a lot of issues to clear up with his wife and I think they made a lot of progress. He seems happy and it looks like things may work out between them. We headed to the food court where he ate dinner and I had ice cream. We then purchased a 6 pack and headed to his room where he showed me a lot of pictures from his trip home, then we watched a movie.

We watched the movie "Taken". I love this movie! A great fast paced action thriller starring Liam Neeson. His daughter gets kidnapped while vacationing in Paris and he uses his former spy skills to kick some ass and rescue her.

I also downloaded an interesting album by Aaron Lewis. I've been a fan of his since I first heard him as the lead singer of Staind. Staind would be considered a hard rock band and they have some pretty heavy songs out. The last album they came out with was quite a bit mellower and this solo EP that I got called "Town Line" takes a total left turn from his normal music. He goes country! It's interesting to hear this former heavy rocker doing country songs. What drove me to get it was a country remake he did of a former song called "Tangled Up In You". It's not a bad album overall.