CWST

I'm down at South Camp again. This time for a whole weekend. I'm going to have 2 whole days to play in the Red Sea at Herb's Beach-- and I'm absolutely ecstatic.

Of course, the official business I'm on is to conduct Combat Water Survival Training (CWST), otherwise known as Splash For Cash. I took it just a step further today, and went ahead and got qualified to teach/observe CWST.

Herb's Beach.

 

I had to swim out to the buoys wearing ACUs and boots and tread water for five minutes, then float on my back for five minutes and then swim back to shore. Then I had to go back out to the buoys again, but I had to drag a person wearing ACUs and boots and a ruck sack with me. It was pretty simple considering something was placed in the ruck sack to make it buoyant. At the buoys, we switched out and I wore the ruck sack and was dragged back to shore. Then we swam out one last time to the buoys, tread water again for 5 minutes, floated on our backs again for 5 minutes and swam back to shore. We did all this without breaks. It was tiring. And it's hard to swim in boots. But now that I am qualified to teach/observe, I never have to wear ACUs or boots in the Red Sea again. When I splash for cash the remaining months I am in the Sinai, I can wear a bathing suit and be barefooted. It's going to be a beautiful thing! Well... maybe not the sight of me in a bathing suit.... but the ease of training will be excellent.

The ACUs available to train in.

 

After we trained this morning, my battle buddy and I decided to stay at Herb's Beach for a few hours and swim around and lay out in the sun. It was absolutely wonderful. I love the beach so much. I had a perfect day bumming around on the beach.

In case you need directions...

 

Living at North Camp is kinda like living in a prison in the middle of the desert... actually that's exactly what it is. So getting to come down to South Camp, which is basically paradise, once a month is a great little mini vacation. Hey, Europeans pay big money to go to the resorts all around South Camp here in the Sinai. You can see the party yachts on the water every night all lit up and bumping music. I'm not used to the Army sending me to a place that is desirable to human beings. So I'll appreciate my monthly vacations to the fullest! 

SSG DeGraf

Yesterday was Tuesday, which means it was Pizza Night in the MFO, which means it was beer night for the Americans. Every Tuesday we are allowed to have 3 beers. It might not sound like much, but we are taking baby steps to being treated like grown adults. If we can handle our beer on Pizza Night, maybe we can handle our beer on OTHER nights!

So I was out enjoying beer last night. We are only allowed to drink between the hours of 1800 and 2100. So after 2100, I didn't have any reason to be at the bar anymore. Time to go home! I walked back to my hooch, and back to wifi Internet. My phone picked up a message from James almost immediately:

 

HOLY SHIT! I am on the by name list of Soldiers being promoted to Staff Sergeant on April 1st!!

I have been stalking the HRC website for years the last week of every month waiting for promotion points to post. This is the one month I wasn't obsessively refreshing the page and it's the one month I actually made points. Beer distracted me!! I couldn't be happier that I found out the good news from my husband, though, since he won't be able to be at the promotion ceremony.

I can't believe I got picked up for Staff Sergeant before attending ALC (Advanced Leaders Course). For Medics, it's SO rare for that to happen. But I'll gladly take it, and on April 1st I'll get promoted to a rank I didn't think I'd see in 2014.

 

 

After I read the text from James, I ran down the hallway of my barracks to tell my battle buddy, Tracy. I gave her a near crazed hug and a few minutes later a whole group of NCOs were at my door hooting and hollering about my promotion.

So by having beer and pizza just before I found out, I suppose I was celebrating without even knowing it.

Cheers to FINALLY being SSG DeGraf! (That sounds so SEXY!)

Force Skills Competition

Over the past 3 days there has been a competition between the contingents called Force Skills Competition. The competition included an obstacle course, 3k run, firing range, and 3 scenario lanes that test your combat skills. I did not compete in this competition, I decided to take a small break from torturing myself. Instead, I was a grader for the Combat Lifesaver (CLS) lane.

 

I was given the opportunity and freedom to reinvent the lane as I saw fit. So I changed the entire grading sheet. In my lane, the teams of 5 had to keep control of a "civilian" mob and treat 2 casualties with life threatening injuries. They also had to send up via radio an incident report and a 9 line medevac.

 

A total of 13 teams were tested on my lane. The Hungarians did the best, hands down! They scored 118 out of a possible 120 points. A few of my Medics had trained them up the week before Force Skills, and I was so proud of my Medics for doing such an outstanding job teaching.

 

A Canadian Soldier applying a pressure dressing.

Uruguayan Soldiers running with their casualty on a litter made from their fatigue tops.

Italian Soldier reading from the casualty's ID tags.

Hungarian Soldier dresses a head wound.

 

Over all, New Zealand won the Force Skills Competition for 2014. But there were several American teams who placed in the other categories, such as highest score at the shooting range.

 

This was such a fun event to be a part of. Working with all the different Armies is such a unique experience. I can tell you first hand, the Australians swear like Sailors and the Fijians are the most respectful people you'd ever meet in your life! The cultural differences I am getting to experience are priceless.

Draw Me

I overheard, "Draw me like one of your French girls," coming from the clinic's waiting room. I wondered if I really wanted to know what was going on. I work with some strange individuals. My curiosity got the best of me. I walked in on this:
 

 

Sometimes it's better to not be a witness to everything that happens in my clinic. 

Gephart is quite the artist though. He captured Rockwell's arrogance quite accurately.

I love my Soldiers. They're so much fun.

Pretty Flowers

Egypt is the desert. Clearly. The past few days its done quite a lot of raining-- which, for some reason, surprised me. In my mind, there was to be little to no rain fall while I was here. I should have been tipped off by all of the alive plant life here that I was incorrect.

 

One strange thing about the rain here is that it doesn't absorb quickly into the sand. I figured the sand would be thirsty for water to keep said plant life alive. But not so much. Instead huge pools of water form everywhere. I feel like I've been mislead about how a desert actually works.

 

I guess the flowers don't need much water to stay alive. They sure are pretty though.

 

 

 

 

Norwegian Foot March

Me & Tracy before we began.

This morning I woke up at 0300 to draw my weapon and have my ruck sack weighed for the Norwegian Foot March. This is an 18.6 mile foot march with a 25lb pack. Now, I know what you're thinking... "You are a huge failure when it comes to road marching, why on Earth would you want to put yourself through this?" Well, although this is a true statement, I wanted to push myself to prove I can win.

 

And I won today.

 

I completed the 18.6 miles in 4 hours and 25 minutes. This time is within the parameters set for males in my age group. All my hard work, sacrifice, and long road marches on the weekends to prepare has paid off.

 

I'm very proud of myself. And of my battle buddy, Tracy. She put in a lot of hard work and hours with me.

 

We're going so fast we're blurry!

Trekking along...

The MEDCO crew who went out for the badge.

Although I don't ever want to do 18.6 miles ever again, I am going to continue to improve my 12 mile time. All I have to say is, EFMB you better watch your back when I get home. I'm going to pass that foot march next!

 

Sausage fingers.

The foot march took its toll on my body. As does every road march. My fingers were swollen sausages by the end. I got a blister on the side of my right big toe and my hips were screaming. But I wasn't nearly as crippled as I have been in the past.

 

When I crossed the finish line, everyone was standing on the sidelines cheering. It felt amazing. I've never experienced that before... usually I collapse just before the finish line and fail. Not this time.

 

The Norwegian Foot March Badge I can wear on my ASUs now.

I earned the bronze badge. If I do the Norwegian a total of 4 times, I'd qualify for the silver badge. And a total of 6 times for the gold badge. But I'm cool with the bronze.

Dust

You know when you step outside and you immediately need to check your phone to see what the weather is like, even though you are clearly standing in the weather? Yep. Well, I did that today because it was very hazy. Hazy with dust. I had to make sure my iPhone could tell me that.

 

We had a sand storm of sorts today. It didn't blow. Tamest storm ever... dust just hung in the air all day.

 

 

Two different weather apps told me so. I couldn't just believe the iPhone app that the current weather condition was "dust". No, hours later I had to confirm with weatherchannel.com that the condition was indeed "sand".

 

 

Are either of those valid weather conditions anyway? I could understand "dusty" or "sandy". When it's cloudy out, the weather condition isn't described as "cloud". Whatever, maybe iPhone was just confused because it knows it shouldn't be in any part of the world where dust and sand just hang in the air.