Corpse Pile

Over the past few weeks an interesting insect phenomenon has been going on in my barracks room. A pile of bug corpses begins to build up along the edge of my wall locker along the floor. During the weekend I sweep them up, and through out the week the pile grows large again.

 

I had two theories. First was that there is so much insecticide in my room, that all these bugs were being poisoned and desperately crawled to their final resting place (under my wall locker) to be reunited with their kin bugs. Like a cemetery of sorts.

 

Seriously, I considered this first theory.

 

My second theory was that there was a huge bug eating spider under the wall locker that was slaying bugs for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Then throwing their corpses into a pile on the floor.

 

I got a flashlight and looked under the wall locker this afternoon, and the second theory was proved to be fact.

 

 

 

Maybe this photo has been photoshopped a little to get my point across. The iPhone doesn't take the most quality photos.

So don't judge me based on the cobwebs-- I promise I don't live like a filthy animal. Apparently this spider has been redecorating a bit... and added a dozen or so egg sacs full of its bug slaying spawn.

 

The bug hater in me wants to wipe out this spider and its disgusting egg sacs and be done with it. But the SUPER bug hater in me likes it that I have a bug that's killing other bugs by the dozen. So I'm torn. Do I let the spider stay or die? I haven't made any rash decisions just yet.

More Appreciation

Today I was presented with a Certificate of Appreciation by the Force Chief of Operations, COL Njos. He's like the main logistics S-3 guy for the entire MFO. He's kind of a big deal around here. And he took time out, along with MAJ Nobrega (a Canadian Force Training Team officer who've I've worked with quite a few times) to recognize me and thank me for all the medical training I've done while I've been in the Sinai.

 

 

Just so you don't have to zoom in on the picture, I'll copy all the wonderful things that were said about me here:

 

"Throughout her deployment with the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in Sinai, Egypt, Sergeant Jacqueline DeGraf has played a superb roll in the provision of medical training at various levels of the Force. Her input regarding medical considerations for Force training, Operational Readiness Checks, Exercises or Competitions was invaluable for the development of viable and timely training scenarios. Her instructional skill was consistently complemented by her calm approach, respectful demeanor and noteworthy professionalism. Her motivation and attentiveness in this regard were evident in her total commitment to key Force training activities and the results of her efforts can be seen in the dramatic increase of medical skills across the MFO. Sergeant DeGraf's professionalism and performance was of the highest order and in the best traditions of the United States Army and the Multinational Force and Observers."

 

Boom. That citation made me sound like a rockstar!

 

They may have demoted me on paper to Sergeant, but I'll take it! That Certificate of Appreciation made me feel really good today. I needed a pick me up

The Middle East Is Nuts

So in case you never turn the news on, I'm here to tell you that some shit has been going on very near to where I am stationed. North Camp is approximately 10 miles from Rafah, which is the most southern city in the Gaza Strip-- which is currently lobbing an insane amount of rockets into Israel. Isreal isn't taking this shit lying down, and it bombing the shit out of the Gaza Strip.

 

Shit.

Being so close, I get to hear it all like fireworks or... thunder. The bombing is constant. It was actually put quite perfectly by one of the guys I work with... this is the Israli dubstep remix to the everyday Egyptian fighting.

Now, I don't have a lot of political input on the situation. Mostly because the Middle East is always at war with everyone. It gets a bit confusing who hates who and why. All I do know, is that this isn't a very big surprise.

So how is this personally affecting my life at the MFO? Well, it's not really changing much. Just our mail has been stopped since it comes in through Tel Aviv and the boarders are currently closed between Egypt and Israel. So that sucks. Also, we can't ground medevac anyone to Isreal now... since those boarders are closed. We need to just keep our fingers crossed we don't have any reason to medevac and that the skies stay clear.

This morning I was walking to work and I could hear all kinds of explosions and gunfire in the distance. I didn't know if I was hearing the Isreal-Gaza Strip conflict or the Egyptian Army-Bedouin-Terrorist conflict. It's really anyone's guess. To me, it seems, the Egyptians are always fighting eachother. But once Isreal upped the ante and starting dropping literal bombs from the air, they just couldn't stand being one-upped.

"Oh I hear explosions," says anyone in Egypt who usually fights, "We must fire our tanks and small arms at one another to prove we are just as cool!"

 

I don't know what's more disturbing to me as a military service member: the fact that all this bombing and gunfire is going on and I'm not allowed to fight back as per the MFO peace treaty or the fact that all this bombing and gunfire is going on and I don't have a weapon with me at all times to fight back just in case!

These are just my thoughts on the situation. They're probably not important thoughts.

 

 

In other news, my mom sent me these rad sunglasses in the mail (which will probably be the last care package I will receive for a while). Can the Middle East just calm down a second so a girl can get some freaking mail!?

Muse - Madness

I've been listening to Muse a lot lately. I might owe royalties.

The War On Bugs Continues

It was a long night for me. Yesterday I was having some issues with big ants on my bed. I didn't see this as a sign that my life was about to be ruined. Why didn't I see the sign? 

The ants did not let up through out the night. I think they actually lead a tactical assault on me. It seemed too organized to be an accident.

 

 

I killed approximately 10 rather large ants last night in my bed. I woke up to them walking on my skin. No one likes to be woken up to being crawled on.

 

I drew the line when I killed one against my face. I felt its disgusting little hands touch my lips and I instinctually swatted at it, thus killing it against my face. MY FACE. I had to get up and go outside at 0300 to walk off that horror. 

I saw no ants once the sun came up. Then I was able to rest easy. Also, the double dose of melatonin helped. Explaining this ordeal to one of my medics today, it was brought up that ants are probably nocturnal. Or vampires. 

I assume I will have another long night battling ants ahead of me. I'm ready to go back to North Camp where my ant issues are literally much smaller, and stay on the floor. 

Things I Saw At The Beach

I'm down at South Camp for a 6 day training event with the Force Training Team (the New Zealanders). My job is to moulage and assess the medical proficiency of the American medics that work at the USBATT remote sites. I am here for 6 days and I have a grand total of about 2 days of work to do. I kicked off this event by flying down to South Camp and immediately going to the beach. 

While I was at the beach (for 5 hours-- I'm very sunburned) I saw some interesting stuff. 

I saw this little crab guy. He's dead, of course. Just a husk left behind. I picked it up and one of his legs fell off. He was cool-- with or without all his legs.

I saw a muddy sandy snowman. I suppose he's not a snowman at all if he's not made of snow. But you do the best you can with the materials that are provided, I suppose.

I saw the Italian Navy do some training. We were all called out of the water to get out of their way. They rolled up in a big boat, dropped a little boat into the water and drove it up to the beach. A bunch of Canadians exited the boat; a bunch of Italians entered the boat. Then they drove back to the big boat. It was lame training, but I bet they say the same thing about the training we do.

I mean, look at the training event I'm at right now-- catching a tan on the Red Sea... wait, maybe this isn't lame. This is pretty awesome. Why can't all training events start like this?? 

Fun Color Run

North Camp had a 4th of July Color Run this morning. This was my first Color Run. I see they've grown in popularity over the past year or so. I always look at the pictures and I think to myself, "That looks so fun." But then I never do one; that must mean I don't like fun.

 

I decided to give fun a shot this morning.

 

My assumption that it was going to be fun was a little skewed. I seemed to forget the part that there was still running involved in a Color Run. I focused on all the colorful pictures of people smiling at the end. And blocked out the running. 

 

The route was 5k and there were 4 points where colored powder was thrown. Maybe if we had more color to throw or less distance to run, the event would have been better. It was really humid this morning, which made the running significantly less fun- not that I ever find running to be fun.

 

 

 

 

But once the running was over, and we all got to see how messy and colorful we were, things started to look up for the Color Run. Now I was the smiling face at the end of the race, like in all those pictures. I suddenly felt like I had fun. Right now I feel like if you asked me if I would do another Color Run, I would tell you I would, because I'm still on the high of not running anymore.

 

I had fun this morning. I gave fun a shot, and I was successful.

 

Now, hopefully all this dye will wash out of my hair. I've washed it twice, and I still have blue streaks.

Appreciation

I finished a 2 day CLS class with the Civilian Observer Unit today. Almost everyone who is a part of the COU is either a retired COL or CSM. I thought they were going to be a tough crowd. But they were an awesome class. They asked a lot of good questions, and were very engaged. One guy (who is from Iowa) even volunteered to let me put an NPA in his nose. I can hardly get Soldiers to volunteer to do it (luckily I can just force them to do it). So he was an impressive trooper.

 

 

At the end of the class, they presented me and my assistant junior Medic Certificates of Appreciation. I thought that was really cool that they would take the time out to do that. No one has done this for me before, and I am a CLS teaching machine! Even though this particular type of certificate does not generate any promotion points for my Medic, it's still very encouraging to be recognized like that. And the coin we were both given glows in the dark-- how rad is that?

 

 

I also was recognized by the FOC (Force Operation Center) for making valid medical points a few days ago during the camp wide AAR (after action review) regarding the MASCAL exercise. My Commander was emailed about my professionalism and my dedication to getting these civilians trained up so quickly after the exercise. Unbeknownst to them, this class had been scheduled a month earlier... but whatever. It made me seem pretty high speed.

 

It was a good day for stroking my ego. Sometimes you need a day like today to remind you why you work so hard 14 hours a day. People appreciate that shit.

MASCAL Exercise

It is the weekend. I spent the majority of my day off at work observing medical skills. Not much of a day off, considering I woke up at 0400 to do this.

But what was this really disrupting? What kind of personal life do I really have? I probably would have just sun bathed and watched Ancient Aliens all day....

So, the work I did was an MFO wide training event. It tested the reaction times and protocols of a lot of different contingents and agencies at North Camp and the surrounding remote sites. I convoyed to the remote site where the event took place. The event was a VBIED and a secondary IED blast. One of my Medics and I moulaged all the casualties and observed the medical skills of the Civilian Observer Unit and the Fijians.

As always, I saw some really crazy medical care. But not from the Fijians. I've taught enough classes to them over the past few months for them to basically be first responder rockstars. The civilians were a bit scarier today. Like, asking for permission to put a tourniquet on someone to stop their massive hemorrhage before helping them. What? Luckily, I conveniently have a CLS class scheduled for them this upcoming week.

 

Scary pressure dressings over non-splinted compound fractures.

 

This training event was high speed enough to involve the Aviation Company so we had real air MEDEVAC to request. We also used ground MEDEVAC. Some of my Medics drove an ambulance out to the remote site in a convoy to evacuate some casualties back to the dispensary for the rest of the clinic to receive. It was cool to get everyone involved.

 

MEDEVAC bird kicking up all kinds of sand.

 

The public affairs guys went out to the remote site with us to document the training exercise in film and photos. They interviewed me about the importance of good medical training, realistic looking moulage and my job as the senior CLS trainer. It was pretty cool. Maybe I'll be famous on a crappy AFN commercial someday. Haha.

 

I've been a CLS training fool since I arrived at the MFO, and my schedule for July absolutely does not let up. I'm in high demand and my Medics are in high demand; that's a great thing. Even if it reinforces my entire lack of a personal life.

Bye-Bye Pretty Lady

The Army changed the policy on tattoos back in March. I haven't said much about it because I didn't know how it was going to personally affect me. I am heavily tattooed, so I knew the time would eventually come when it would. The time is now.

 

The new rules are more strict. All our tattoos from the elbow down, knee down and neck up had to be officially documented and sent up to our Official Military Personnel File at HRC. Luckily, I was grandfathered in... for the most part. This is the part of the regulation that has a problem with me:

 

b. The following types of tattoos or brands are prejudicial to good order and discipline and are, therefore, prohibited anywhere on a Soldier’s body:

(1) Extremist. Extremist tattoos or brands are those affiliated with, depicting, or symbolizing extremist philosophies, organizations, or activities. Extremist philosophies, organizations, and activities are those which advocate racial, gender, or ethnic hatred or intolerance; advocate, create, or engage in illegal discrimination based on race, color, gender, ethnicity, religion, or national origin; or advocate violence or other unlawful means of depriving individual rights under the U.S. Constitution, and Federal or State law (see AR 600–20).

(2) Indecent. Indecent tattoos or brands are those that are grossly offensive to modesty, decency, propriety, or professionalism.

(3) Sexist. Sexist tattoos or brands are those that advocate a philosophy that degrades or demeans a person based on gender.

(4) Racist. Racist tattoos or brands are those that advocate a philosophy that degrades or demeans a person based on race, ethnicity, or national origin.

 

My 1SG told me yesterday that after our tattoo documentation memos were sent back to Battalion at Fort Campbell, my CSM was worried about the tattoo on my left calf. He suspects it is considered a sexist tattoo.

 

 

My 1SG told me to get into the regulation and make myself smart about my situation. Really, it's one opinion VS another. Even if I convince the 86th CSH this tattoo is not sexist, every time I PCS and the tattoo gets reviewed by another command, I will have to fight again to prove its not a sexist tattoo and I had no intention of it being a sexist tattoo. This is an Americana tattoo, a reproduction of a famous Sailor Jerry tattoo.

 

My 1SG also told me a Drill Sergeant Candidate was just released from school because of pin-up style tattoos he had on his legs for the same reason: sexism. My biggest Army dream is to be a Drill Sergeant. I absolutely won't let a tattoo keep me from this dream.

 

I'll be removing this tattoo upon my return to the States. Does it suck, yes. Especially since this isn't even my worst tattoo!! I'd rather remove one that wasn't done well or that I don't like anymore. But these are the cards the Army just decided to deal me.

 

So much for saving money while I'm deployed. My savings account just turned into a tattoo removal fund.