Sep 28th Fortune

After coming in from the field today we decided to get Chinese. I had a little reminder of home while I ate my sesame chicken. When Tara and I got engaged, we had that at PF Changs in Kansas City.

Today's fortune is: "You will be showered with good luck."

A Great Weekend

This weekend was fantastic. We were released on Saturday at 16:30 (4:30pm) and were told to report back Sunday by 20:00 (8:00pm). Tara came down and picked me up and we drove about 20 minutes to Manhattan to our hotel room.

We had dinner at Applebee's, tried the Blu Steak which was really good. We saw my roommates there having dinner and talked to them for a bit and then went to the Arcade and blew a few bucks.

After that we headed down to Aggieville, the local bar scene for K-State. We met up with some people from my unit and had a few drinks there.

On Sunday we got up around 11:00am, it was so nice to sleep in! We went to Taco Bell for lunch and just relaxed the rest of the afternoon. We then had dinner at Cracker Barrel.

And that quick it was time to say goodbye, which is always hard. But hopefully a few more weeks of training and then we'll be validated and able to come home for a few days!

Sep 23rd Fortune

Today's fortune cookie was a bit stale, but the sweet and sour chicken was top notch!

The fortune is: "The most we can do is our best!"

Small Pox Update

Today we got our small pox shot checked out. Because you are injected with a live virus, not a dead one like most vaccines, you are more susceptible to infection and illness.

Some of the symptoms I've experienced have been headaches, body aches, and fatigue, and swollen lymph nodes. These are all common symptoms to the shot.

The nurse today said my wound looked 'normal' and better than most. Here's a picture - ewww.


That's on my left shoulder.

Army Pay

My LES (Leave and Earnings Statement), was published today. Every soldier in the Army goes to a website called MyPay to check if they have got paid. It's a pretty nice tool. Here's what my LES has on it:

Basic Pay - $978.90 (Base Salary)
Subsistence Allowance - $133.59 (Allowance for Food, etc)
BAH (Basic Allowance for Housing) - $304.00 (Allowance for Living Expenses), you must have a mortgage or rental agreement to get this.

While in country I still pay taxes, when I'm overseas I won't.

Federal Income Tax - ($103.26)
FICA Tax - ($74.89)
State Income Tax - ($36.30)

Which results in Net Pay of $1,202.04

Weight Update

On 8.04.2005 I reported that I weighed 220 lbs.

Today I weighed myself and am currently at 209 lbs.

Sep 18th Fortune

Got some Chineese food for dinner... Here is today's fortune..

"You will enjoy good health, you will be surrounded by luxury."

(I don't know that I'll see the luxury part in Iraq!)

3 Mile Ruck March

This morning after accountability formation at 8:00am we had a surprise, we were ordered to get our gear for a "Morning Walk", which is a ruck march with about 50lbs of gear. This was our first one, so we only went 3 miles, but that was enough! I'm pretty sore.. Here are some pics from it:

Weapons PT

Today we had a little problem. After some good Army training, during accountability of people and weapons we came up with one short. Not good. By the time this was found out, I (along with others) were at the PX buying stuff. All of a sudden one of our troops came in and said drop everything and get on the bus. We did so and went back to the arms room where the 1SG directed everyone to get their weapon.

After everyone had their weapon we formed up on the PT field. The 1SG was not happy one bit, rightfully so too. He said "People really shoot at you over there", and something along the lines of, Your family is depending on that weapon to keep you safe.

He was right on target with everything he said. Our weapon is the single most important piece of equipment for this deployment. To reinforce this ideal, he PT'd us to death, imagine this, running around 1/2 of football field holding a 8lbs weapon above your head, and when the 1SG says "DOWN!" you get down and knockout pushups, situps, or flutter kicks. We did this for about 45 minutes. After that everyone was very dirty and very stinky.

My personal thought is that the 1SG did the right thing, Were we treated like we were in Basic Training, yes. So what? This deployment is more important than BT and should be taken seriously. If you lost your weapon in BT nothing happens. If you loose it in a combat zone, You die.

Living Conditions @ Ft. Riley

As you can expect, living in Ft. Riley is a little different then being at home. My room here consists of two bunk beds, two large field lockers, four small field lockers, and a desk. The room is about 10 feet by 12 feet, and there are four of us that live in it. It can be quite a challenge to create what little personal space you can have.

Here is the outside of our barracks, looks pretty standard military.

To the left is my field locker, I got one of the big ones because I have a lot of junk! The flag was hung on the door by my roomate and you can see I was working on my computer that is sitting on the desk.

The bottom bunk here is mine, I try to keep my area pretty clean and organized since there isn't a lot of it!

The 'New' DFAC

Our Platoon Sergeant told us that our DFAC was being changed from the 'Devil's Den' which was about a mile walk one way, to a DFAC two blocks away.

Well I ate there today, and I've gotta say its some of the crappiest Army food I've ever ate! It's horrible. I rather eat a MRE. I don't know how we got moved to this one but we got screwed big time on this deal.

For example, the lettuce to make a salad is brown, tomatos are old, they don't serve the four food groups, and not to mention some of the people look and act like they are right out of the local prision.

I'll probably be ordering out a lot...

Small Pox Shot

Today I got my small pox shot, or poke. They basically take a needle, dip it in a live virus and jab you 3 to 15 times in the arm. Lucky me I only had to get 3. Since its a live virus, its important that you don't touch it and you must keep it covered for a week. Here's a picture...

Writing a Last Letter

Today was a pretty sad day for me. Aside from attending boring briefings all day long, I had to write my last letters for in the event I get killed during this adventure.

It's hard to put into writing how much your family means to you. How can you recap 25 years of life to your parents and brother, and seven years of a loving relationship with your future wife? It's tough. It really makes you think about your life and how you've lived it. You think of life and daily activities in a whole new perspective.

About the DFAC

I've been meaning for a couple weeks to write about the Dining Facility (DFAC) here. It's called "Devils Den", I think I figured out why its called that, because the food is so bad it tastes like its came from hell.

Typical morning chow starts about 6:45 after PT. I usually get one of those little boxes of cereal, a hard egg, bacon, and a glass of chocolate milk. Breakfast is about the most decent meal of the day. The first time I had chow they made omelets that were really good, but haven't seen them since.

For lunch if we are out in the field training, we'll eat MRE's (Meal Ready to Eat) which will either make you constipated or the opposite. I usually just eat the gum and fruit out of them. Here's what they look like...

Then for dinner we eat back in the DFAC, usually they have some variance of a dried up chicken dish. I usually go through the 'fast lane' and get a soy burger and fries. The usually have some good watered down kool-aide mixed up.

Now, I'm sure you are feeling really bad that I have to eat this crap. But let me tell you, there are good Army DFAC's out there, this is just not one of them! I've heard the ones in Iraq are top notch and I would expect nothing less for the men and women over there. I also happen to make my way over to the on-post Burger King or Anthony's Pizza! There is also an excellent Chinese delivery! (I usually get Sesame Chicken which reminds me of a special someone)

It's going around...

Sorry to everyone who reads this faithfully, I've been sick with a sore throat and cold all week pretty much and haven't had much time to get on the puter. It's going around the entire barracks and with hundreds of people it can be hard to shake.

We also have a Sergeant Major that I think is going to look into a possible mold problem in our barracks. I've already heard soldiers complaining about it and the barracks next door are being cleared because of a mold problem. I'll post some pictures of 'suspected' mold sites later, just in case it becomes a bigger problem down the road.