Bloggin' ain't easy

And it just got more difficult. As some of you already know from speaking over the phone, the internet service here is spotty at best, and terrible the rest of the time. Our BC (Battalion Commander) has informed us all that he will be checking for OPSEC (Operational Security) breaches on our social networking pages and (I'm assuming) blogs. If he finds any, then he confiscates our laptops. I think it's a little silly because the internet is so awful here that we all go to the USO and use their laptops, but the point of the message is, don't post stuff you shouldn't.

That message wasn't clarified, so I'm going to go by what I know, which is:
No troop numbers
No equipment numbers
No dates of movement
No specific mission details

If any of that is wrong, please comment me. Until then, I'm just going to keep going as I go - there are plenty of other military bloggers out there that seem to be able to report on what they're up to (within reason) without risking the guillotine of UCMJ. So wish me luck as I drive on with this project!

We're still in the place that we've been for awhile, and I'm not certain how much longer we'll be here, which is fine with me. We've been conducting training, going to the gym, and acclimating to the weather here, which is warmer than we're used to during the day, and about as cold as we're used to at night. We've had a couple of minor-sandstorms (so say the soldiers who have done this before) but it's definitely eerie seeing the sky turn yellow and great clouds of sand rolling towards the base! Visibility ends up being about 30 to 100 feet (hence the reason these are minor sandstorms!) and the last one lasted about 24 hours, with winds picking up during the night (why does that happen at every dessert we visit?!)

The training has been good, although I messed myself up pretty good today during the MRAP rollover training. We've all gone through it now, and a few people have bumps and bruises and sore necks and shoulders from it - it's much more difficult than the humvee rollover training that we've been through so many times now! The harness is difficult to undo when you're upside down, and even though I was tucking my chin into my chest (just like a PLF, Charlie) I still hit the cieling (floor) of the MRAP funny, as my right arm didn't release from the seat belt harness (because it was stuck on the elbow pad we were told to wear) so my shoulder wrenched back one direction, my neck in the other, and my feet were the only thing to hit the floor the right way. I'm going to give it a day or two on Motrin and Water before I go to the TMC to have it checked out, but my range of motion is pretty bad right now.

I also had a fortunate thing happen today! We ran into some soldiers who had literally just gotten to this base from up North and they stopped Chalker, Kuntze, and myself and said, "Hey troops, you going up North?" We all replied that we were. "Which one of you is junior?" They asked this because we're all Specialists. Kuntze and Chalker pointed at me. "Which one of you is most broke?" As I'm most junior, they again pointed at me, "Here you go troop! It's a $150 voltage adapter, you'll need it up there!" And so I became the proud owner of a 20lb voltage adapter from some nameless sergeant from a unit that is just finishing their deployment. If he ever reads this, I just want to say thank you very much - I don't know how I'm going to store it on the journey North, but I'm very glad to have it!!

That's about all for now, I haven't been taking many pictures as I don't know what we can and can't take pictures of, but I really want one of the Starbucks on base as it looks like it was transplanted from any suburb in the United States and dropped here and then surrounded with Hesco barriers. It's really weird to be able to walk into something like this!

More when I have more!

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