James Is Home

James has been home from Afghanistan for a week now (insert happy dance). We both don't get to take leave until July to celebrate his homecoming, but hey, as long as I'm not going to eat in restaurants alone anymore, I'm a happy camper!

 

His plane landing at Campbell Air Field.

After the plane landed, we were given the opportunity to see the Soldiers deplane individually. Being a previously deployed Soldier myself, I know you can't really identify people out of the crowd, so I went back inside the hanger and got the best seat in the house to watch the Rakkasans march into the hanger.
 

Rakkasans enter the hanger.

My "best seat in the house" proved to be futile because I didn't see James in the formation, and he didn't see me on this sidelines waiting for him. :(

Reunited. Not the best pic, but it's what we have. :)

 

 I can't explain what it feels like to see your Soldier across the hanger, before he sees you. All I can say is, I man handled some bitches roughly to get out of my way. I may have elbowed, and I may have pushed, but I definitely didn't  say, "Excuse me." I wouldn't have meant it if I had said it anyway. No matter how polite I usually am!



Sadie

This reminds me of my mom and dad's black lab:

48 Months

 

The Army Times is in no way the official word... but it's coming. 48 months at a duty station will become the standard. It's cheaper for the Army to not pay to move people around as often as they have been. My reenlistment window opens in October. Let's hope whatever place James and I choose to go to next will land us in a good unit, because we are going to be there a loooong while.

 

In other news, I am being moved around within my current unit this Tuesday. No longer will I be with the Area Support Medical Company. I will be handed off to Bravo Company in the main Combat Support Hospital. The job will be very different from what I have been doing the last 2 years. Let's keep our fingers crossed I enjoy it... or at least learn a lot.  

King's Bounty

People always say women are shop-a-holics. I admit, I do like to do my fair share of shopping. But you know who really has a sick obsession with shopping? Deployed Soldiers. Look at this King's Bounty that awaits James' arrival home from Afghanistan:

That picture only depicts the surface packages. There are many many packages stacked there to make that mountain of Internet purchased treasures. I actually apologized to the mailman the other day. He's dragged more than a few heavy tough boxes and duffle bags to the front door (not pictured, those live in the garage right now).

 

I guess it's only fair all this awaits James. He's missed every holiday that could possibly produce a gift over the past year. He's coming home to his birthday and Christmas in one gift explosion in the spare room. Even though everything in there was purchased by himself with his own money, do you think he can honestly remember what each of those boxes and bags holds? There will be surprise after surprise-- waves of shopping gratification!!

 

He's going to be happy sitting amongst his belongings and ripped apart packaging... in less than a week!! (Insert happy grin here.)

Beautiful Jewelry

Shocking revelation: I am not a girl who wears jewelry. I mean, of course, I wear my engagement ring. But beyond that, I wear nothing on my hands, wrists, neck or earlobes.

 

There are three reasons behind this:

 

1) I can't wear jewelry in uniform. I am allowed 2 rings only (wedding set counts as 1), and a religious medallion around my neck as long as it's tucked into my tan tee. However, I am not religious so that is not something I worry about. Jewelry isn't something I think about 5 days a week, so I don't think about it on the weekend either.

 

2) I am covered in tattoos. I have a full chest piece and I think wearing a necklace takes away from the tattoo. I have a full sleeve and I think wearing bracelets takes away from the tattoo. I also think dressing up the tattoo is tacky. So I will never wear another necklace again if at all possible, and bracelets are open to interpretation. It has to be a really rad bracelet and not on my sleeved arm.

 

3) I'm just not a girly girl. Also, a shocking revelation. I'd rather not clean the dirt out of my jewelry, because I simply refuse to stay out of the dirt!

 

However, my Grandma was lovely enough to give me this ring:

 

 

It meant so much to me that she gave it to me, but it is NOT my style. Not even in the slightest. Just the fact that it is jewelry makes it not my style! The stones are opals, which is my birth stone. I wanted the ring because it came from her and the opals are beautiful. But I had to do something about that setting:

 

 

I simplified it. And I have been wearing the ring daily. I catch myself admiring it frequently through out the day. I love what I did with this jewelry. I want to wear the earrings and ring at my wedding this summer. I think it will be beautiful.

 

But there is a catch, if you know my Grandma, you can't tell her I changed her ring... I don't want to hurt her feelings. So, this is a public Internet secret that must be kept.

Oh, Randy!

I was in charge of all the manikins and moulage for the field problem this past week. Medics use dummies that we call Rescue Randy as training aids. This is not an official name in any capacity, however, all Medics will refer to this training dummy by this name. It's something we all just do.

 

Meet Randy.
He had an accident egressing out of the FLA...

Randy is extremely heavy. He weighs upwards of 200lbs naked. He's dense and doesn't move naturally like a human body. So moving him around by yourself, or just with one other person can be a little difficult.



Just carrying around some legs...
Are my eyes even open?

My moulage partner and I were practically peeing our pants laughing so hard moving these dummies around. It probably would have been less funny to us had we not been awake 24 hours dragging these dudes around. Laughing is the only way to get through sleep deprivation.

We dumped the Randys on the side of the road for our Medics to go out and find in their FLAs. Literally, these guys were dumped. My partner and I quickly learned that dumping bodies is something that should be left to the mob. We are bad at it.

While painting and applying wounds to the Randys, we were so tempted to paint their faces like Kiss. Given more time, we probably would have. Though, explaining a scenario that Kiss was walking around naked in the back woods of Fort Campbell and got blown up would have been difficult to sell.

Oh, Randy, you're so fun.   

Area Beautification

My Company went to the field over the last 4 days to practice hospital and medical chemical operations. During the first day, Evac peeled off while Treatment set up the hospital tents to take care of our own business. True, Evac doesn't have nearly as much to set up, but we still have things to do... like set up the camo nets, and cut the grass down beneath them...

Weed eating in the field. OMG.

 

Who does area beautification in the back 40 of Fort Campbell?? Medical assets, that's who!!

 

And, in perfect Evac fashion, the Soldier weed eating is the only Mexican Soldier in the platoon. He volunteered, I swear. Haha. I love this platoon!

NCO of the Quarter

And the results are in...! The winner of the Battalion NCO of the Year competition is.... NOT ME!

 

But it's not all bad news. I took second place. I only lost by 9 points. We were told the race was incredibly close, and that was the truth! So, since I took second place, I was awarded the title NCO of the Quarter and an AAM (Army Achievement Medal).

 

Say whaaaaaat?? My unit gave an impact award!? That's right they did!

 



NCO of the Year Competition

Somehow, I was roped into competing in the Battalion NCO of the Year Competition. I say somehow, but I know exactly how I got involved; my Command Sergeant Major volunteered me. Yes, I was voluntold.

This competition took place over 2 days. My competitors included 3 male NCOs and 2 female NCOs.

Yesterday, Day 1, we were given a written exam. It consisted of 70 questions. Not multiple choice: (which is the usual Army way) it was Q & A. The test included pretty obscure Army questions. I honestly left a lot of blanks blank.
 

Then we were taken to an urban land navigation course. We were to find 8 points and do a graded task at each point. I ended up walking approximately 15 miles between tasks. It took me 6 and a half hours. Yesterday was 82 degrees. I wanted to kill myself.
 

This is me wanting to die on Day 1.

Day 2 began this morning with a Combatives Tournament. I loathe combatives. Especially when you roll in poison ivy. I had 3 bouts, and managed to win 1. Immediately following combatives, we rucked up and did a 4.5 mile road march. We were warned we would cross a creek along the way. However, when I found the creek, it was actually a river due to all the rain we've gotten in the past week. Once I waded through the river, I set myself up to have wet socks and boots the rest of the day.

Hallelujah, the road march ended and I was able to sit. While sitting I was given a map and 8 more grid coordinates. The most awesome part about this was there were only 5 tasks... but you'd have to walk to all 8 points to ensure it was a point with a task, or just a dummy point that wasted your time. Really, this was not fun. Once again, 82 degrees.

My most hated part of Day 2, was when I stumbled upon my 2nd point. The task at my 2nd point was a PT test. After all the walking and rucking, the last thing in the world I wanted to do was run 2 miles. It took me 20 freaking minutes to run 2 miles! I scored a measly 212 points on the PT test! Immediately following the PT test, I was ushered to the oral board. Sweaty, out of breath and exhausted, somehow I scraped my way through oral board.

I finished the land navigation and tasks the second fastest out of the NCOs. It still took me 4 hours.
 

The winner of the competition will not be announced until Friday. That is two days away! I am not counting on winning, but I'm also not counting winning completely out. The Sergeant First Class who was running this event said all of our scores were very close, and this could really be any one's win.
 

So let's keep our fingers crossed I did well. I could really use a win (or even a second place), after all the losses I have endured at the EFMB.

Beautiful Day

Usually when I go out onto the deck, Picasso sits at the back door and worries about me. I'd like to think that his worries were eased when I got the new back door installed a few months ago. The window in the new back door is waist high, not shin high, so Picasso can no longer see outside. This did nothing to ease his concern-- in fact, I think it may have increased his concern over my whereabouts.

 

"Where did she go?"

 

"What is she doing?"

 

"Is she safe?"

 

I attempted to show him what I was doing on the back deck-- which was sitting there doing nothing but studying Army board topics. Of course, he is untrustable to be left to his own devises, so I had to put him on a lead. He cared very little about anything that was going on beyond me.

 

For a while, he just stood there.

 

Then I gave him a rawhide, and he had something
to do.

I threw a rawhide chewey out into the grass. He retrieved it, and chewed on in on the deck next to my feet. Apparently being outside means nothing to this dog unless I am his constant companion.

 

Although I, sometimes, inhumanely keep him indoors up to 12 hours a day due to my Army schedule, he seems very adjusted to the indoors. I truely believe this dog prefers the couch and only views the outdoors as a place to go potty.