Chris' Updates

That's right, I'm back home now. Last Sunday night was the end of the exercise. 1SG Bernal got a paranoid in the last hour, assuming that the opposing force (OPFOR) would mount a massive assault, so we broke out the MILES AT4 so that we'd be ready to do some real damage! We loaded them and ran them out to the entry control point (ECP), but the MP's there were already packing up for the exercise. What a let down. Over the next two days, we packed up the tents and all of our gear, and loaded them in our CONEX (Container Express, aka. a steel shipping container). On Wednesday, everything was packed and shipped, so there was nothing to do except enjoy ourselves! LTC Carter was able to get control of the rappelling tower, so several of us went and had a blast with that! In addition to the wall that everyone rappels down in Basic, they opened up the open side that simulates a helicopter rope decent! I only went down the wall, but the open side looked like a blast! After that...

Annual training at PacWar has been going well. SPC Dupio and MAJ Friberg have already gone home, so it's just SFC Zimmerman, SGT Lant and myself. About once a night, at 3 or 4 in the morning, Sgt. Z and I hear blank fire and are forced into a defensive posture, but other than that I've been updating work order paperwork, watching movies, and trying to stay warm. Yeah, no kidding, this place gets frickin' cold at night! It's 110°F in the heat of the day, and 45°F at night. And while 45° may not seem that bad, it gets to you after a few hours of sitting around typing. But I have some very exciting news! This morning after shift, Sgt. Z and I were told to be at the morning formation. That was a little strange because we haven't had to attend formation while on night shift. But at the formation, the two of us and several people from our sister unit (the 5025th GSU) were awarded the Army Achievement Medal ! It's a fairly low-ranking award, and most people with some y...

Well, it's been a heck of a time so far here at Operation Pacific Warrior. Last week, I joined up with about half of the company to fly out to California. The NCOs introduced me to the USO for the first time, and the USO in Denver is exceptional! The flight to San Jose was uneventful, and we had a short wait until we caught a bus down to Camp Roberts. In the grand scheme of the exercise, Camp Roberts is "Kuwait," the in-processing station, and Fort Hunter Liggett is "Iraq," the operational area. Camp Roberts itself is not much to look at. Yes, it was a huge training base during WWII, but I'm sure it hasn't been updated since 1945. Half of the camp is in complete shambles, unsafe and unfit for habitation. The other half has plastic siding installed. (Detect any sarcasm?) It's an enormous dust bowl, and miserably hot. I'm thankful we only stayed three days. On Friday the 8th, we bussed back up to Fort Hunter Liggett. Immediately I could see that it...

Well, this weekend turned out to be pretty nice. I got to finish off the last of my individual AT with some good people from the 244th Engineering Battalion in their recruiting mission at the Rocky Mountain Balloon Festival at Chatfield Reservoir. Friday we met at Martinez Reserve Center to pick up our supplies, basically just the shwag and a Humvee. After getting everything arranged, we drove down to the reservoir, set up our area, and set up a plan for the following morning. It was an easy day, but I made up for it Saturday. On Saturday morning I woke up at 4:15 in order to get down to Littleton by 5:15. It was a cold morning, but I didn't think it would stay that way the entire day. We set up our table, and people started showing up. Lots of people. And if there's one thing people like at fairs, its free shwag. We couldn't keep the table stocked! Barely an hour later we had run out of most of our big items, and decided to try and save a little for the next day, so we kep...

One more set of AT orders down today. I spent another three days at Fitzsimons under the direction of SFC Reed, and did a lot more office work. Copying, filing, pulling orders, updating logs, and the like. My computer account finally works, so at least I don't have to ask permission to use the computers anymore. You would think, would you not, that a soldier in the Information Management section might want access to the computers? I did get to post a large chart with some juicy news. It seems that as long-term plans currently stand, my unit is not deploying. In fact, we're not due for any more large transitions until 2011, when it appears our unit will be disbanded. Now, that doesn't mean plans won't change, or that I could be stripped off alone and deployed with a needy unit, like SFC Alessandri was just recently. But it seems to be a good sign. Now that I've finished these days, it's time to prepare for the next three days this weekend. Some sort of recruiting...

Well, the last couple of days has been mostly devoted to making up some of my Annual Training (AT) days. As a reservist, I need 14 days of AT, whether my unit decides to go anywhere or not. This year the 2-week block was cancelled, probably a lucky thing as it would have interfered with school. But now I'm stuck fending for myself, and for almost half I'm just hanging around with our full-time personnel NCO, SFC Reed, and her assistant, SGT Ontiveros. They've been having a hard time finding me busywork, so I've ended up shredding boxes full of papers, inventorying closets of UA supplies, and just generally trying to look busy. I've finally gotten the ball rolling on my comptuer account; for the past year and a half, I've had to have my supervisors log me on to do anything on their computers. On a much more entertaining note, Tuesday night I got about 4 hours sleep due to playing DnD with Mike, his girlfriend, and a few other people I remember from BHS. I joined ...