Ah the First Amendment....

Where does one begin when it has been so long since the last entry, and so much has happened?  There have been so many reasons - so many excuses - to keep from writing more on this blog.  The largest reason - at least up until a couple of weeks ago was the lack of a computer.

I suppose I'll begin there, it's as good a place to start this tale as any other.

One evening after another hard day of work, shortly before light's out (for many of us at that time light's out was around midnight) a group of us were told that we would be returning to our home COB to undergo a recertification as Combat Lifesavers the following morning.  For those of you unfamiliar with Combat Lifesavers, they come in a roll like normal lifesavers, but you can't buy them in a vending machine.  They're flavored to taste like grime, dirt, and blood.  Really.

Can't put one past you all, can I?  Combat Lifesavers - or CLS - are soldiers who have undergone training to act as on the ground medic support.  Generally there are a few CLS per squad, at least one per fire team, and they get the added bonus of carrying more gear.  Picture a bag that can be worn as a satchel, a fanny pack, or attached to your IOTV or IBA that is loaded with lifesaving goodies like chest-needle decompression kits, combat gauze, Israeli bandages, hyflin chest seals, NPAs (nasopharangeal airways), atropine (wooo!), band aids, EMT shears, etc.  If you're really interested to see what goes into one you can look (or buy) your own at North-American Rescue.  NAR is one of the finest producers of combat casualty care prodcuts in the world, and before the Army decided to get all high-speed and issue us the good stuff I spent a small fortune buying all of my own from them.

Those of us going hurriedly packed up what gear we felt we'd need.  Simple stuff really - one assault pack full of toiletry items, a book, pogie-bait.  One IOTV with all the essentials - combat load of ammunition (hooray for being an Automatic Rifleman!) combat gloves, ear-pro and eye-pro, balaclava, ranger rag, or kuffiyah depending on preference, ACH, and the every popular ACS (Army Combat Shirt.)  From then it was an early morning trip to the PAX (personnel) terminal to see if we could get Space A transit to where we were going.  For those of you unfamiliar with Space A it is a genius program if you have a lot of time on your hands.  Space A is a program that the military has anywhere that the military is.  Essentially if you want to go somewhere you ask when the next flight out to that location is, and if they are fully loaded or not.  If this answer is "Yes, we have a bird or a duckaduck going to that place, and no, it isn't fully loaded" your name gets added to a list.  Come the time of the flight if it still isn't fully loaded, they let you hop on, cram yourself in between equipment, and go where you need to.  Back home this service costs between $10-$100 depending on where in the world you want to go.  A flight to Europe for $100?  Brilliant!  But what if the flight is fully loaded?  Then you wait.  I'm stamping my foot against the floor right now - this informaion is important - you will see it again!

At the PAX terminal we were lucky enough to get a flight within 8 hours, hopped on a bus that took us to the landing pad, and then began to stand around idly, baking on the tarmac and thinking, "Gosh, when those guys at the PAX terminal said "bring water with you" they weren't joking."  Eventually we saw the helicopters come flying in, fast and low, before landing.  It was at this point in time that a slew of Nissan trucks arrived carrying with them Captains, Majors, and light Colonels all too happy to bump people waiting all day off of their flights.  Rank hath it's privileges.  We very nearly got bumped off too, but luckily our Chief was with us, and the 100 miles a month he likes to run in the desert heat has turned him from a scary man when we first met him into a downright terrifying persona when someone he outranks says that he might not get what he wants.  We kept our spots on the flight.  For me it was my first time on a military helicopter - a CH-47 Chinook.  I was very excited!  I was also dripping with sweat and just wanted to get the flight over with.  I was lucky enough to get a seat right near the ramp beneath the rear rotor and was pleasantly surprised at how much room I seemed to have.  After all, the bird was fully booked - no elbow room but I could stretch my legs.
At this point int he story I realized another benefit to having an 'O' before the number of your pay grade.  You can pretty much bring what you want with you places, or have other people bring things for you.  A group of soldiers drove a truck up to the back of the Chinook and began to struggle beneath the weight of a large number of very heavy boxes - all maked USPS ATTN to a certain LT that wasn't even on the flight.  It was his mail.  Apparently he likes to lift weights, and had a professional gym boxed and shipped to him.  The entire gym.  Walls and everything.  There may have been a swimming pool in one of these boxes.  My elbow room disappeared before this, but now my leg room decided to go the way of the dodo as well.  Ah...you see that there?  That's the Suck.  Embrace it.  Love it. It loves you.

The flight crew did their thing as the rotors began to wind.  People are always writing that the rotors 'wind' up, but really the sound is more of a high pitched howl - like a Banshee announcing that it's time for another pair of smiling Irish eyes to shut eternally.  At this point I was aurally reminded that I'm Irish.  Rats.  So the rotors began to wail (much better adjective!) and the coptor began to do it's side job as filling checker for the Army Dentists.  Lucky for me I have no cavities, as there would have been nerves-a-dangling in my mouth had I!  As the copter lifts off the crew does it's best to scare you by shining lights into all of the little dark corners that grease and oil go into and disconcertingly drip out of while in flight.  One would shine a light - another would look at where the light was shining - both would shrug as if to say "Oh, well", and then move on to the next dark spot.  Once we were already well on our way in the air and they'd decided that the machine was in fact safe to fly one of the crew members inched his way to the very edge of the ramp, set up a seat on the ramp deck, and buckled in behind a machine gun for the trip.

The country is surprisingly serene from above, the rivers are bright blue bands curving across the desert plains, and the sand itself moves in shimmering waves, rising and falling with the wind like a parody of the tides.  Herds of camels move below, and bedouins standing like silent sentinels don't even look up, so used to the helicopters they've become.  The heat is incredible, and the furnace like blasts of air that enter through the open ramp actually help cool us down.  As my initial excitement dwindles, and the uncomfortability of the flight settles in, I do what I do when I realize that I have little or no bearing on the outcome of a journey, and that the more I think about my tingling limbs cut off from blood from the armor and the gym set resting on my legs the less comfortable I will be; I sleep.  I woke up as we touched down, but this was no gentle kiss.  The suspension on these things must be incredible!  We hauled balls off the chopper and then proceeded to hump the mile or so back to our CHUs.

It was good to be 'home.' I hadn't seen any of my creature comforts (TV, refridgerator, DVD collection) in a really long time.  The room was full of sand, a testament to the sand storms that periodically roll through, and I spent my first bit of free time taking the carpets outside and shaking them, then sweeping the floor and putting more water in the fridge.  Our class wouldn't be for a couple of days yet.

It was at this point that I realized a very sad thing.  My CHU there has a dedicated ethernet cable which provides somewhat high speed internet (128kb/s for $90 a month) and I was ecstatic that I'd have good internet to finally be able to see my girlfriend and family on skype.  Ah dreams, so easily made, and so easily shattered.  My laptop did not, alas, survive the helicopter trip.  With great haste I grabbed my Eagle Cash Card (the new military way of paying for anything and everything), my SAW, a high visibility PT belt, and some eye-pro to protect against the rising sand storm - then I went to the PX to buy a new laptop.
The PX at that particular COB is pretty vast, it has a section for books, for cards, for bedding, for geardo stuff, electronics, movies, music, groceries - you can even by a bicycle!  I went into the electronics section, found an AAFES employee and proud as the peacock on my arm I declared, "I am here to buy a new laptop, today.  Right now."  His eyes lit up and he proceeded to explain to me that they had netbooks in stock, but actual laptops - real computers - could only be special ordered and would take three weeks to a month to arrive.  Dejected, and more than a little angry, I went back to the CHU, a stuffed crust pepperoni lovers pizza and a Code Red Mountain Dew my consolation purchase.

The class date arrived soon after, and though there was a lot of confusion about where it was, and where we were supposed to have met for it, we made it!  Our instructor was, and I'm sure still is, a riot.  He'd been awake for nearly a day and a half recertifying soldiers in CLS, and his lack of sleep and slaphappy attitude combined with his uncompromised knowledge of the subject made the class entertaining and informative.  Not to toot my own horn, but my CLS knowledge remains par-excellence as always. Call me recertified and I'd tell you that you're right, but I still prefer you use my name.

Torpor is not a word that I often get a chance to use, but it perfectly describes our life after the class for about a week.  We showed up at the PAX terminal to arrange for a flight out of there after the class, and the following morning - bright and VERY early, we were there.  We waited.  We waited some more.  We waited a little longer.  Then we were told to come back that night and try again.  That night, we were told to come back the next morning and try again.  The next morning, we were told to come back that night and try again.  Do you see the pattern here?

One day we very nearly did catch a flight out of there!  It was glorious!  Remember earlier when I was stamping my foot against the floor? I hope you were paying attention! The copter had landed, we were all standing there on the tarmac sweating profusely (we were all bringing back LOADS more gear than we arrived with - mostly extra clothing but I was also hauling my DVD library with me.)  Then the copter was grounded for weather.  We decided to wait it out and about 12 hours later it looked like we would indeed be leaving!

And we would have, too, if it weren't for the Colonel.  I'm not sure who he was to this day, other than to say he made a lot more money than I do, but he apparently wanted to get food from a DFAC on a different base.  As he's a Colonel he has the power to just take a flight, and politely tell everyone else that was supposed to be on it to bugger off.  A few days later we were finally able to arrange trans via an Air Force C-130.  It was a VERY quick flight, and it felt excellent to be back at our home away from home away from home.

Since then we've been busy - some soldiers have gone on leave, of which I am very envious.  We hear from them every few days, and it sounds good to be in CONUS.  The rest of us, well, we exist.  There's the normal joking around, and sometime seriousness.  There's the good (the PX has laptops!)and the bad (the internet is terrible).  Mail still arrives here about twice a month, the food here is good, most everyone is knocking their PT tests out of the park.  We're actually pretty happy most of the time.  The negatives mostly consist of censorship.  It's something that every soldier since the creation of a postal service and written language has had to deal with, but we're strongly encouraged not to do what soldiers do through any medium of communication.  Spill state secrets?  No.  Divulge classified information?  No. Gripe? Yes.  When I write that we're not being strongly encouraged to do things, and then say that State secrets and classified information aren't on the list - I don't mean to imply that they arne't on a list of things we can't do - they're at the top of the list of things not to do, and every soldier knows that, and doesn't put the lives of their comrades-in-arms in danger by doing so.  We're just being closely monitored to keep the griping to a minumum. Or Else.

That in itself is not a gripe on my part, for those in my chain reading this.  As you've probably noticed if you've been reading this blog over the last...three years is it? I generally take a very humorous approach to things in the Army.  There is laughter and enjoyment to be found everywhere!  Nor do I point out what went wrong and why (often) or offer my suggestions for improvement on the internet.  As I recently discovered, even when I offer my suggestions for improvement in what I thought were private onversations with authority figures in the unit, I can and will still be thrown under the bus.  So I'm done with that, too.  Now, going forward, I will follow THE LAW of the the Armed Forces:

Thou Shalt Be At The Right Place; At The Right Time; In the Right Uniform.

Do that, and pretty much the military can't touch you.  And if they do try to touch you - especiall in that stranger danger kind of way (BOHICA) there is always your EO, AG, or I can put you in touch with a Lieutenant with another company who has access to an entire gym, with swimming pool, so you can work out and get like Chuck Norris.  And no one messes with Chuck Norris.