The End of an Era.


Well, not really but as of today, I am now longer on Active Duty. Aside from an eight month hiatus, I have been in the Army for eight years. Today, I am now part of the New York National Guard.

This means I no longer draw a paycheck from Uncle Sam, but I receive a few hundred to play soldier once a month and my Commander-in-Chief is David Patterson. I also must defend NY state from all enemies foreign and domestic.

It's been a long time since I last posted. Almost a year, and frankly no substantial posts since I deployed. Well, I am back in Texas. My journey to Iraq has come and gone. So I shall shake the dust of Texas from my feet and leave all the excess space of spread out central TX for New York City where they know how to design a city.

We have a new President. A bit liberal for my tastes, but I'll give him a chance to prove himself I should be able to shake the cobwebs of this blog now that I have respectable internet, and am free of that horrid Magic Islands Technology, which is a glorified rip off designed to give soldiers crappy bandwidth at premium prices.

Now off to reintegrate into a new unit, so I can head out shortly thereafter.

Baghdad initiation

I am now in Camp Liberty, in Baghdad, Iraq. I repeat...I am in Mesopatamia....both awe-inspiring and a little frightening, but thankfully, I am not in the worst of it.

All is well, but not perfect, as I had my true welcome, when a mortar round went off somewhere in the distance, and I went under the bunker until the all clear was sounded....I guess that means I have been initiated.

Duty calls.

It is funny that my unit assigns me to Staff duty the very day I return from leave, and on a Saturday. It's not a bad assignment, but a little annoying, to say the least.

If you're thinking about joining the Army, think twice about Finance.

Thomas' Adventures in NCO Academy land

Well, the whole thing started one warm early morning on Mar 22. MY sponsor picks me up and I get my M16A2 rifle along with all my stuff ready for Howze Theatre. I am in processed and weighed as well as taped as I was 199 lbs, 15 lbs over the maximum weight for my height. I pass all of that and eventually head off to the Academy itself, where I meet my squad, am assigned a room and get acquainted with everything. The day ends and I am tired form lack of sleep so I get a good 5 and a half hours or so.

Friday is my first day in class, and the room is shared with another squad. I learn about leadership and prepare for my PT test the next day. Nothing significant occurs, beyond I am still very nervous and uncertain about what will come. Saturday is the same except I pass my test, so one hurdle crossed. The rest of the day focuses more and more on leadership and counseling courses, which leads into Sunday and an exam on the subjects. I pass the exam with 97.5%, but am annoyed I missed one question as I had open notes and could search through the documents containing the regulations.

For the next Monday-Thursday, I complete two more steps. I give a class on giving First Aid to a bleeding extremity and/or severed limb, as well as demonstrate a session of physical training. I do well enough on both (95%), along with demonstrating Garrison Leadership, though I did worse on that, receiving only 87%.

The next Friday proved my worst day yet as I had Land navigation, trying to find 4 points with a map and compass, yet the weather was awful and I foudn only one point, plus I got lost. Luckily that was a practice session and I passed the land navigation the next day finding all four points. That was my toughest challenge yet, but it gets tougher for me.

That Sunday until Wednesday morning, we went to the field and did combat infantry tactics. As a Finance soldier and desk jockey, this is not my strong suit. I froze up as team leader during one attack, though i was considerably better at the second chance. I received a 79% for tactical leadership which was quite low, but I passed and that was important.

My total score was 91% for the course, though I did not make the top 20%, but that is fine as I am not that good on PT or tactical stuff. The only thing I had left was the graduation and the seats were packed in, which is bad as I am somewhat claustrophobic and had a mild panic attack, but I made it through and will never have to take that course again. Now, I can be a non-commission Officer in the US Army and maybe I'll get promoted within my remaining year and a half or so, but with Finance I doubt it, but I'd enjoy the extra pay.

Not much of a description, but a brief account of the last two weeks of my life.

I have just graduated from Ft Hood's Warrior Leadership Course. I am glad I completed it, but I NEVER ever want to do that again, and I mean never. I now have training to be an NCO in the US Army, and maybe I'll make Sergeant before I get out, but more on that later. For now, I am off to rest as my sleep has been reduced. More updates later.

Now, most of my readers know about most of the links on my blog roll, as they are bigwigs like Mike Totten, or members of the jblogosphere. However, one of them is an old friend of mine. Laura just finished grad school at NYU, and is ready to review whatever she wants to. She's been on a roll the last week, so I heavily recommend reading her reviews. I should have introduced her a while back, too.

Now, in other news, I am on standby for the Warrior Leadership Course, so if I am quiet until April 5, that means I went. Now, being on standby means that I will go if there are openings, and from what I hear there may be as many as 120 soldiers and only room for 80, so if openings occur, extras may have to argue why they should go. The downside is when I have to get up on Thursday morning, so it sucks to be me on Thursday :)

Needs of the Army.

My plans for Pesach will have to wait until next year, as my unit is sending me to Warrior Leadership School on the 22nd of March until April and I will wind up missing Pesach. I guess that is life and some days you don't get what you want. To put it mildly I am not endeared to my unit. If anything I am not too happy at Ft Hood, or with my job. I also dislike their promotion of camaraderie and other crap. I feel more like a Finance mercenary than some bonded soldier. I do my job, but I don't want to have much to do with my coworkers off duty. I live and work with them, and that's about it.

My Monday misadventures

I guess combining Purim with an M16 range is a good idea. Maybe I decided to imagine the pop up targets as Haman subconsciously, but in any case, I hit 30 out of 40 targets, so I'm doing something right.

Now, the only problem was that we had night fire and there has not been any rain in weeks, so fires are not uncommon, so the first group to fire that night set off a forest fire, which was extinguished later, but the whole exercise was pointless as night fire is not required to qualify and only 16 NCOs had the opportunity to fire.