EFMB Is Over... For Me

In an effort to keep my blog professional and upbeat, my only remarks on this subject are: I failed EFMB again.

Thank you.

The Written Exam

I took the written exam for EFMB today.

I passed!!

Holy Jesus, hallelujah. Only about 30% of the candidates passed. And only 12 in my platoon. They'll have another chance to take it if they make it all the way to the road march-- which is the final event. Lucky me, I don't have to worry about that!

This test had some out of control questions. The subjects were field sanitation, detainee operations, warrior skills and 68W sustainment. 60 questions and you can only miss 15 to pass. Somehow I passed even after having to make some crazy educated guesses. I don't know what my actual score was. It is simply a "go" or "no go" event.

I got a "go"! Day 1 down-- only 3 lanes, day and night land navigation and the 20k left ahead of me. Wish me luck!

"It's In My Tick Wounds!"

Yesterday we had our last practice rounds of land navigation before the EFMB test week begins. Between our iterations, the only place we could take shelter from the scorching sun was in the wood line. The wood line is also where the ticks dwell in mass.

It was a lose-lose situation. You either dehydrated instantaneously in the sun or you battled ticks in the woods. And really, at times, I didn't know which was the better deal. Ticks assaulted me from all sides. I couldn't even relax because I had to be on constant guard.

I must have pulled 20 ticks off of my body and killed at least 20 more that I saw advancing on me in the mulch. I have bites all over my body. I'm itchy and even more paranoid than before. I put on bug spray in a futile attempt to protect myself but all I really did was get bug spray in the tick wounds on my neck-- which burned like Hell!

I got back to the billets and this was taped on the wall:

Yeah right, I'd have to send off a baby food sized jar full of these little assholes to Environmental Health if I followed those suggestions.

Fort Campbell is the home of the Air Assault and, apparently, the Tick Assault.

EFMB (Also Known As Free Lyme Disease)

It is currently the end of day 4 of EFMB train up. EFMB is the expert field medical badge. It's a very tedious training event designed for army medical personnel that results in being rewarded a little badge that looks like this:

That may not seem impressive, but that little piece of shiny for my uniform means a lot to me and other Army medical peeps.

This is round 2 for me at EFMB. I attended one at Fort Lewis in 2009 and made it through all the lanes without a hitch and then went ahead and failed the last task: the 20k foot march. Time allotted is 3 hours or less and I finished 6 freaking minutes too late. But I'm not bitter or anything...

Anyhow, I'm out here again trying for this badge at good old Fort Campbell. It's been hot, muggy, humid and stormy-- everything you could ask for in a Kentucky Spring. Another lovely thing about Fort Campbell this time of year is the massive population of ticks living in the woods.

I am also living in the woods.

In the past 4 days I have plucked 25 ticks off my body... that is a conservative guess. Some of these nasty little vectors are so small they make gnats look big. Others are big with flailing little red arms and white dots on their gross little bodies. I find them on my clothes, in my clothes, on my body and attached to my body. I've found so many I feel phantom ticks crawling on me constantly. I see them tactically moving through the grass waiting to hop on board and feast on my blood. I'm tick paranoid and it's all down hill from here seeing as I have 10 more days before EFMB commences.

So WHEN (please Jesus let me get the badge this time so I never have to do this crap again) I earn the EFMB, I think a free dose of Lyme Disease is going to accompany it .

After all, who doesn't like free stuff!?!? Thanks Army!!

SGT(P) DeGraf

Today was my Staff Sergeant promotion board.

Today was a terrible day. And today was a great day. The whole part where I was at the board was stressful and made me feel like a worthless idiot. The whole rest of the day after the board was great-- because the board was over. Forever. I'll never have to sit before a panel of 5 First Sergeants and 1 Command Sergeant Major and have them scrutinize and judge me based on every syllable that comes out of my mouth, every move my body makes, and every stitch of my uniform ever again.

Thank you, Jesus. Now I can finally breathe for a second!

The only way my (P) promotable status can be taken away from me now, is if I screw up and somehow end up in trouble with the Army. Never ever have I been more inclined to do the right thing so I'll never have to go to the board again.

Staff Sergeant DeGraf will sound really good once I make points. Let the mad dash to earn more points begin! 

Sweet Outfits, Ladies

Friday was Warrior Leader's Course graduation, and you know what that means! It means the wives were out. In the finest attire for a 10am ceremony on post. Check out some of the hotties I saw:

Stiletto heels, skin tight pants and your belly showing. Nice.

Truly, animal print pants outta control.

What ever possesses these women to dress so inappropriately completely blows my mind. But I'm not complaining-- their cluelessness makes going to these boring WLC graduations worth it.

Worst Jobs of 2012

Well that sounds just about right.

Eagle Rifle Marksmanship

2 weeks ago I went through a course called Eagle Rifle Marksmanship. The course clearly had to have the word 'eagle' in the title because, let's face it, this is 101st land and everything has to do with those screaming eagles in one way or another.

Anyhow, this was a marksmanship course designed to help you coach a shooter to shoot better. I am already a pretty awesome shooter. Duh. But I'm always going to have Soldiers who suck at shooting and, as an NCO, I'm always going to have to be on the range with these folks until they qualify. So learning tricks to get the shooter to shoot better was great.

Along the way, I got to put a whole lot of bullets down range. I had a ton of fun. I got to shoot at metal targets for the first time-- the tink tink tink noise it makes is super cool. I learned how to shoot with my non-dominant eye. Turns out I'm good as lefty too. I learned how to lay on my side and shoot and how to brace myself against walls and windows for more effective shooting.

I even brought back a battle scar.

I was lifting myself up off the ground and pushed a hot spent brass casing into my wrist. It's been a while since I had a brass burn. Better on the wrist than on the neck like usual!

I'm looking forward to the next 86th CSH range so I can teach my Soldiers what I learned and hopefully I'll be able to coach of few of the into shooting expert-- like me. :)    

Things You Do In The Army...

Clearly, it takes a different kind of person to be in the Army. Generally speaking 12 mile road marches, running 4 miles, waking up at 4:30am, working 12 hours daily, land navigation in pitch darkness and wearing long sleeves and pants all year doesn't appeal to the masses. It takes a special, maybe a short bus kind of special, person to do this and love it.

Here are a few things Army folks do that most people wouldn't-- either due to class, standards or morals.

1. Nap in your car. Every Army person is guilty of this. I get to work 30 minutes early just to park in the lot and sleep in my car. I use my PT cap as a pillow.

2. Sleep on the floor. Sometimes this is the only option. When something is the only option, you do it. Once you're used to doing it, you do it frequently and easily.

3. Eat meals in your car. It doesn't matter if you're driving or sitting stationary in your car, at some point during the day, you will eat in it. You will even keep fast food napkins stashed in your car. Also, you will learn to sleep in military vehicles, regardless if they are on or off.

4. Talk about poop. You will talk about poop with your co-workers. This kind of natural conversation will sabotage any kind of civilian job you ever plan to have, so you'd better just stay in the Army and keep talking about poop.

5. Wear white calf socks with shorts. It's part of the Army PT uniform. As a civilian, this is a social and fashion no-no. In the Army, everyone looks like an old man at the beach, so you just roll with it.

6. Hear explosions and ignore them. Not many other jobs prepare you for this acquired skill. Things blow up on post-- get over it.

7. Go alone into the woods at night. We do this stuff called land navigation. And it requires you to do a day and night iteration. Alone. In the woods. Alone. With unidentified animals. Alone.

This is just a short list. But hear me now, we're different from the average bear. We may not know when or where it happens, but somehow we do these things civilians just won't do in good conscious. And we end up loving it... or ETSing....

Happy Easter with Skittles

Well, it's Easter. And if you don't have children or you're not religious, it's just another Sunday. It's just another Sunday for me, James and Picasso. Except, Picasso had a special visitor.

Skittles showed up while I was doing dishes. All I heard was Picasso whining and barking and carrying on like he'd lost his mind. I yelled at him a few times to shut the heck up without success. So I walked around to the door and saw Skittles, patiently staring back at Picasso, unhearing and unafraid.

Easter candy showed up in an unusual form this year.