Total Recall - (Germany) Day 329

This morning for PT we had to form up at the Campbell Barracks gym. There were a few people having a PT test, everyone else worked out at the gym. The Campbell gym is much bigger than the PHV gym with lots of free weights and a basketball court as well. The only bummer about forming up at Campbell Barracks is the extra time it takes away from my morning. The drive is about 15 minutes away and it always seems we stay later when we are at Campbell. Unlike everyone else, I have less time to get ready because I take my wife to work. I did have a good strength workout though with the weight machines, then quickly headed home where I rushed to get ready for the day, which is going to be a long one.

My wife actually dropped me off at work this morning because I have staff duty tonight, this will allow her to have the car for the day. Since I was dropped off early, I just hung out in the food court and played with my iPhone until 0900 when our work call starts. In the office our limited computers were of course taken, so I just headed over to the maintenance side and read a copy of the Army Times that was laying around. Out of the blue came one of the stupidest things I've ever witnessed. Out platoon sergeant said that there is a mandatory recall. Everyone in our platoon had to come to the office. This wasn't a big deal for me, I was already there. The problem is that we had SGT Mex in a required ACAP class. This is a class that helps with the transition from the military to the civilian life. If he misses one, he has to reschedule it. He was forced to leave the class and come back to the office. Not only this, but there were people that had the day off and also one person who worked the night before and was sleeping. I would have been so pissed if I were one of them, in fact I was pissed for them! When everyone finally arrived we expected to hear some crazy news about a terrorist plot in Heidelberg, or perhaps a murder, or even a massively uncontrolled overflowing toilet. Instead…we were all told to head over to S-1 and show them our dog tags and ID card. WTF??? This place is freaking retarded. We all headed over, showed our items and initialed a piece of paper. What a bunch of crap. At least by this time it was lunch time...I headed to the food court with my sack lunch, where I ate and played games on my iPhone for the duration.

In the office there is still a lot of crap getting cleaned up and thrown away. The shredder seems to have been going non stop, furniture is being moved, and crap just keeps piling up. I volunteered to go with some others on a run to the dump. I knew we weren't doing anything in the office, and doing something is better than nothing. We loaded a TMP with all the crap and headed to the PHV recycling center and dumped it all out. It passed the time, but not enough because we made it back to the office at about 1445. I was able to get on a computer for a bit and check my email, then surf the web and read all about today's world, local, and my hometown news.

Everyone left about 1600, but I had to stay and wait for staff duty to start…so it was on to peopleofwalmart.com for some laughs and entertainment to pass the time until then. My boss and I have staff duty and headed over to the S-1 office where our staff duty takes place. I sat down at my desk and chatted with my boss until about 1900 when I left for my dinner break. An hour and a half later I came back and my boss took off for his break. While sitting here listening to music and surfing the web I noticed the IMO was still here. There was a VTC going on with a bunch of the brass and he had to stay here until it was finished. The guy has been here an entire day and had to stay until 2130 when they finally came out, and he has to come back at the normal time tomorrow. I wish we would have known, he could have gone home at the normal time of 1700 and I could have called him or something when the meeting ended. The army talks a big talk about caring for the soldier and the family of the soldier, but when it comes to action it's just not there. This is just one little instance where we see that the upper brass doesn't give a crap about the lower enlisted. Stuff like this goes on all the time.

The night was spent chatting with my boss and SGT Steroids who is still on extra duty. I'm not sure if you can really call it extra duty though. Even though he's been given a number of tasks to do, he just sits around and chats all night with me and my boss. It's funny that because I'm a bit older, I'm included in a lot of conversations with NCOs that they would normally not talk about with lower enlisted. There were a lot of interesting conversations had this evening. After SGT Steroids left for the evening at midnight, my boss and I watched a movie together…"The Campaign". This was a pretty funny show with Will Ferrell & Zach Galifianakis, we were both laughing pretty hard.

More of the Same - (Germany) Day 328

The morning fog was pretty thick on the drive into work

This morning for PT I'm not even sure what the normal folks did, probably some sort of cardio out in the cold. I headed into the warm gym and did my cardio on the stationary bike while listening to my iPod.

Work this morning was tough to get started. On a normal day, I end up arriving around 20 minutes early to work because I have to drop my wife off at her job. I usually put my seat back and listen to music, and perhaps take a nap. This morning was no exception, I fell promptly asleep. Getting up after that quick nap was tough, I wasn't quite fully awake and with my head in a fog I made my way into the office. I sat at a computer, drank my coffee and after checking email I started doing my schoolwork. I'm taking a class on business management and it's currently talking about the different cultures in organizations. As I'm reading about a lot of the negative cultures, I'm relating them all to my experience in the army. I'm really going to try and find a positive place to work when I do get out. I don't care too much about the money, I just want to be happy and enjoy my job. I want to work for a place that cares about their employees, a place with a positive atmosphere. Maybe I'm dreaming, but I'm really going to put in a lot of effort pursuing this effort. I just really hate feeling miserable every day when I think about my job and the army. I actually don't even care if I stay in the I.T. field when I get out…that is if I'm still sane by the time I get out.

I headed to lunch in my car as usual, but was not able to do any reading…my iPad wasn't charged…D'oh! I also surprisingly didn't take a nap either, I just listened to music and played Plants vs Zombies on my iPhone. 

Back in the office we did a lot of cleanup in preparation for the upcoming closure. This has been an ongoing process with a lot of paper shredding and many trips to the dumpsters. It's amazing how much crap that just keeps appearing. I did a little actual ComSec work as well checking each of my accounts to see if there is any SAVs (Sight Assisted Visits) due. These are basically checks that our NCOs do at our customer's sites to make sure they are following all the ComSec rules and regulations.

I had a survey emailed to me from the big army. They are surveying 25Bs trying to get a feel for what real life is like for a 25B, so they can adjust their training in the schoolhouse appropriately. Each of the questions had me rate from never all the way to often multiple times a day with several options in-between. The questions would ask how often I did various 25B tasks (such as troubleshoot software, hardware, install software, administer active directory, and many many more such things. I had to answer every single question with "never". It's really a joke that I joined as a 25B (Information Technology Specialist) and haven't done my job at all. I came in very skilled too! …a really bad joke. 

I had to inventory a safe and then do our normal end of day cleanup...we were released at 1700.

Weekend Wrap-Up - (Germany) Day 326 & 327

Our Christmas tree...my wife got into the Christmas spirit a little early this year

Saturday: This morning I woke up too early with a raging headache, so much for the shots in the back of my head stopping all headaches from happening. I think it was mostly due to dehydration from yesterday. I made that trip for Operation Solemn Promise and didn't drink much of anything. I didn't want to have to go to the bathroom on the bus ride there or during the event, then of course we had the bus ride home. I think all I drank all day was a little coffee. It really messed me up all day today, I'm just glad I didn't have to work…I just laid around all day trying everything I could think of to get rid of the pain and also trying to hydrate myself again.

I was feeling well enough by the evening to go check out the new James Bond movie "Skyfall" with my wife, SGT Mex and our CAM. It was an action packed movie and fun to watch, everyone had a good time. The nice thing about seeing a movie here on post is that we can just walk to it, it's always nice to just take it easy and walk around with my wife.

Sunday: We didn't actually do a whole lot today. My wife got in the Christmas spirit a little early and decided to put up our tree and some other decorations around the house. I try not to do anything Christmas related until Thanksgiving has come and gone, but my wife doesn't usually really ever get in the Christmas spirit, so who am I to stop her?

We headed downtown for lunch and got a bratwurst and pommes (fries). That is something I'm really going to miss about being in Germany when I finally have to leave. There is something about their bratwurst with mustard and their fries with mayonnaise. The mayo they use isn't quite like the mayo in the states. In fact I don't use mayo on anything in the states, but here it's very common to put it on their fries. I tried it and haven't looked back…it's good stuff!

Back at the house we hung out and watched TV shows. I was able to spend some time this weekend doing schoolwork as well. I had thought about visiting some nearby town that we haven't seen yet, but with my headache that was out of the question. We just chilled for the most part all weekend. Next weekend we'll be heading to England for Thanksgiving, our big trip for this month…I'm looking forward to it, since we haven't been able to play tourist for a while. Next week is a short week, hopefully there won't be too much BS to put up with…then we'll be outta here!

Operation Solemn Promise - (Germany) Day 325

This morning's PT was in the gym, we were cut loose by squad to do "squad PT". This just meant that each squad leader was in charge of doing their own workouts for the squad. Our squad leader, my boss, just had everyone head to the gym…business as usual for me. I wasn't feeling too motivated this morning though, just a mediocre ride on the stationary bike to get some cardio in.

This morning at work, I didn't do a whole lot. I had enough time to check my email and read the top stories in the news. Oh and don't forget the required weekend checklist documenting our plans for the weekend. Luckily I have mine saved and just change the date each weekend stating that I'll be "spending time with my lovely wife within a 150 mile radius of the Heidelberg area". By the time I finished that we all had to head out and board a bus that was taking us all to Wiesbaden…home of the 5th Signal Command. Today they are having a special event there called "Operation Solemn Promise". We've been hearing about this event for a couple weeks now, and today is the day. This is a time when the command at 5th signal like to boost their egos and force everyone from all across Europe to attend. I'm not joking, not only did we load up a bus full of people for the hour drive, there were units from Grafenwoehr, Italy, and even Belgium.

Luckily I'm used to the way this unit operates and I brought my lunch on the bus. I ate it during the hour long drive to Wiesbaden. When we arrived we were told we would have an hour to get something to eat at the DFAC, the food court, or just pick something up at the shoppette. Since I…and a few others ate on the bus we headed to the shoppette for some coffee. About 15 minutes later we hear that we all need to form up and head into the gym. I was a little pissed because I only had a drink or two of my coffee, but not as pissed as I would have been if I were like some of the guys who just sat down to eat. 

The gym was full of soldiers and some civilians. We sat down and waited for about an hour and a half. I guess we didn't need to drop everything and rush after all <sarcasm>. Anyways the event was like many other army ceremonies, except this one had quite a bit more army propaganda. We were force fed all the reasons we serve and what a great army we are part of. We then listened to speech after speech stating the same things. I swear the higher rank one gets, the more they can talk…and talk they did.

We then had to all stand up and do a mass enlistment oath. I've done it once, I don't need to do it again thank you. We then heard some NCOs sing some songs, it felt a little like an audition for "The Army's Got Talent".

When the ceremony was finally over, we had to assemble as a battalion up on the "zumba" room. Here we heard our own CSM give us some more long winded talks. This served as our weekend safety brief. I'm so not a fan of these, especially when they go on and on. I think if a person is going to do something bad, a little pep talk the Friday before the weekend is not going to stop them. Maybe it's because I'm a grown freakin' man and I don't go out and do stupid stuff, but I really hate the safety briefs.

We were finally released and we headed back to the bus for the hour long drive back. We arrived back at Campbell Barracks at 1715, where I promptly exited the bus and headed straight to my car…and left.

Instructor Me - (Germany) Day 324

Our platoon working on modern army combatives moves for PT this

morning while I watched and took some pictures...LOL

This morning's PT was combatives. Those of us on profile were required to go and watch instead of heading to the gym and getting an actual workout. So we arrived at the racquetball court in Campbell Barracks and proceeded to watch everyone roll around with each other. The army combative training (called Modern Army Combatives) tries to incorporate a little of MMA style fighting into our training. I don't have anything against this, in fact I'm a huge fan of MMA. I don't know how much good it does anyone though when we only train for about an hour a month or so. I think for it to be really useful, we would need to do it on a daily, or at least weekly basis to get any good at it. Unfortunately I can't do much of anything except watch…if only I was younger and not broken.

At work this morning I was told that I was giving our sergeant's time training for this Thursday. The training…giving everyone a hand receipt holder's brief. This is the same brief I gave my customers yesterday. No problem, I brought up the PowerPoint slides and just went around the room having people read each slide. I would pause here and there giving some of my own commentary, my boss would have me pause as well while he gave some extra commentary. It was painless and pretty easy. 

When we finished I had a little time to do a bit of schoolwork before lunch. I had lunch in my car as usual…eat, read, listen to music, nap. Back in the office I had to do some required online training that everyone has to finish before the Thanksgiving break. I had the training on, but with all the noise I could barely tell what was going on with the training. No big deal though, SPC JayZ was there with me when I took the test and he had just finished passing it…so he gave me some tips to help me pass as well.

I then had to inventory a safe that was opened, but during the process I came across a number of discrepancies from the previous inventory. We had to go through and fix everything that was done before…let's just say SGT Steroids is not very good with the details. It's all fixed now though.

I also had to speak with another special agent in the afternoon. This special agent was questioning me about SPC JayZ about his clearance. So I had to let him know what I know about SPC JayZ, which isn't actually too much because we really don't hang out a lot. After that it was about time to clean up and head out.

Special Agent - (Germany) Day 323

Taken on my trip back from the hospital yesterday. You will see several

windmills dotting the German countryside. Between these and all the

solar panels everywhere it shows that Germany has invested

quite a bit in renewable energy.

This morning's PT had to use of resistance bands for the normal folks, I'm not sure exactly what they did as I headed over to the gym to do my own workout. I used the weight machines and completed my normal strength workout, which I was glad to do in the gym because it was pretty cold outside.

At work this morning I actually did some ComSec work. I had two of my customers come in to receive their "Hand Receipt Holder's Brief". This is a yearly requirement for every person that will be handling ComSec at each of our accounts. I had two that were overdue and had them come in this morning so I could give them their brief. This is actually only the second time I've given the brief. The brief is basically a PowerPoint presentation that I read each of the slides. Once I'm done (we schedule an hour for the process), I have them sign some paperwork and they are good to go for another year. I then update our records with the paperwork and file them away.

By the time I was finished I checked my email and surfed the web for a bit before leaving for lunch. I headed over to the food court and had Subway while reading my book. I had to make sure I was back a little early because I had a "Special Agent" coming in to do my background investigation interview at 1300. She came right on time and we used our platoon sergeant's office for the interview. The entire process for my portion took about an hour. She basically just went over everything I had submitted back in June. Asking me all the questions about my past work, school, and where I've lived. It was all pretty straight forward and wasn't actually quite what I expected. I expected the "human lie detector" with drilling questions while I'm being stared at, but it was basically just a conversation back and forth. 

The next part had four different co-workers of mine go in for about 10 minutes each, so she could get a better all around view of me. I think it all went well, so we'll see how long it takes now before I get notified if I received the clearance or not.

Some other items of note. We were informed that the higher ups have been working hard and want to make sure everyone knows where they are heading once our post closes as soon as possible. They are going to have a number of meetings going over each person and what slots they need to fill around Europe. We may hear something as soon as the 14th of December…a month from now. 

My boss had to get a copy of my temporary profile and take it to S-3. I guess they had me signed up to head to WLC, which just blows my mind. I really think they would ask me if I want to go and not just sign me up to go. Luckily you cannot go while on a temporary profile, so they took me off the list. In my head I just think we have more important stuff we can be doing with the base closing and we are already losing people that will not be replaced. We still have to cover all the same extra duties which seem to come up as well as staff duty. So sending me to WLC for a month makes no sense, especially if I have no desire to go. Not to mention I'm currently taking a college class that the army is paying for. Everyone here pushes and pushes for people to attend college, but sometimes I think it's just lip service. They wouldn't think twice about having me drop the class and force me to go to WLC. I'm just glad I'm still on temporary profile…in fact I think I need to schedule another appointment pretty soon to have it extended.

The shots in the back of my head seem to have kept me from getting a full blown headache. It's kind of hard to describe what I'm feeling now and how I've felt all day. Although I don't have an actual headache for once, I have felt like I'm on the verge of a headache. I've felt pressure in my head and I've also had a sore neck and shoulders. I'm hoping this will go away with some time maybe, but I guess I'll have to wait and see. It sure beats having a full blown extremely painful headache though!

The end of the day consisted of a little surfing the web and just chatting with the folks in the office. After cleaning up, we were released at 1630.

The Neurologist - (Germany) Day 322

Driving on the autobahn towards the Landstuhl hospital...a wildlife crossing

This morning's PT had those of us on profile head straight to the gym after formation as usual, then unlike most days, 2nd platoon fell out and all headed to the gym as well. Usually the company all does the same thing, but I guess 2nd platoon wasn't feeling it today. I'm not even sure what 1st platoon did today, as for me I did cardio on the elliptical machine. Unfortunately all the stationary bikes were taken, but the elliptical machine is also a good cardio machine…I just don't care for it as much, it just doesn't feel natural. The important thing is that it is also a no impact machine, so no extra pain for my knee and neck.

Instead of heading to work I headed straight to the Landstuhl hospital again this morning. I had an 1100 appointment. I needed to arrive early (as usual) and the trip takes a little over an hour. So just in case there was traffic I left right after I dropped my wife off for work at 0830. This did give me a small window to take a nap once I did arrive at the hospital, which was perfect because I was about to fall asleep on the drive there.

I headed into the neurology clinic and after filling out some paperwork and only waiting a few minutes, I was called back. The doctor had me take off my jacket and shoes, then asked me a bunch of questions. She then inspected me all over, making sure I had good communication from my brain to all my extremities. She pulled up the MRI and showed me the results. It looks like I have some degenerative disks that are stressing my nerves and causing my headaches. It was easy to see in some of the photos how a couple of my vertebrae did not have much space surrounding them as the others. She then suggested that I get a shot in the back of my head to numb the nerves up there. It's a little scary when people start talking about sticking needles in your head. She had a concoction of 3 different ingredients, I honestly can't remember them though. She then drew them each into a large syringe with a needle that made my eyes bug out of my head. She saw my reaction and told me not to worry, she was just using that to draw out the medicine. She then replaced the very large needle with a much smaller one…the one that she stuck in the back of my head…twice! One injection on each side near where my spine connects to my head. It was a little discomforting, but not to bad. The effects should last a month, so I'm trying to be very cautiously optimistic. I can't imagine not having constant headaches every day now, if this can fix them…I'm going to be a very happy dude!

I made an appointment with her in 4 weeks to go over everything and proceed with another shot if needed. I'm also going to make a headache log each night and not take any over the counter meds. I'm really crossing my fingers and hoping we may be on to a solution at least to fix the symptoms of my issues. 

I ate lunch in my car at the hospital before leaving and ended up getting back to the office at 1400. I did a little bit of work trying to contact my customers and getting some dates on when and where they will go when the Heidelberg post closes. We need to start the process of transferring their accounts to the various other ComSec accounts that they will be moving to. That will be a process, so we're trying to be a little proactive.

I spent the rest of the day as usual…surfing the internet and then cleaning up when it was time to leave. We were released at 1630.