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.