Pictures!!!

My battle buddies on the plane from Kuwait to Balad.

We were pretty bored in Balad, so Matheny and Santi decided to build a hammock on the bunkers. Here is Santi jumping off one of the bunkers.

It was pretty dirty on top of the bunker. See the dust cloud that came off Santi when she jumped to the ground.

The finished product!

On the bus in Balad

Sunset in Balad

Sandstorms aren’t usually a big wall of sand and wind that attacks you like a hurricane, it’s usually more like dirt fog. These vehicles aren’t the actual HAGAs, but they look exactly the same from the outside.

Me taking care of a patient during a rehearsal

Cleaning out the FLA. Those things get pretty dirty.

The streets get flooded when it rains, and it stays that way for days because there’s nowhere for the water to go.

Muddy boots!

When Valdomar took pictures to show how muddy our boots were, she didn’t get them when they were truely muddy. So I went stomping in the mud so she could get a shot of the full effect. Then we were assigned a task so we couldn’t get a final picture. So here is me stomping in the mud

Arabic Sprite!

An FLA stuck in the mud.

A Stryker pulling an FLA out of the mud.

Halloween!

Snyderman!

MAJ Cheney, the brigade nurse

V, dressed as Superman

Snyderman! Yes, he’s really jumping.

Princess Sosene

I think he’s supposed to be a Mexican pimp??

treating a “patient” in our practice mascal.

MAJ Cheney is getting his drugs ready.

waiting for more “patients.”

This is the back view of my HAGA. I’m probably in there somewhere, getting ready to drive it.

With a real casualty, you’re supposed to cut all their clothes off so that you don’t miss any injuries. These guys decided to really cut his clothes up!

All packaged up, and ready to go!

Informal promotion ceremony for my platoon sergeant. He got his E-7 earlier that morning.

My old roommate Pelke getting her PFC!

Trying to get a decent picture for my mom. I don’t think i really succeeded.

This one makes me look 5 times bigger.

Durham spraying down an FLA. Kindof a lost cause.

Another lost cause. Sweeping water off the roof. Seriously.

We were bored.

Pretty clouds!

Closeup of the pretty clouds.

My platoon sergeant is in charge of enemy weapons. These are some we were working on inventorying. Note the homemade shotgun in the middle!

Durham posing with an RPG.

enemy RPGs.

Durham and Roberts still playing with enemy weapons.

Our group at church last Sunday.

06 Nov 08

Well it’s been a little while since I last posted.  It’s been busy these past few days, and when it hasn’t been busy I’ve been sick.  I’m finally getting over my cold, I just have a really annoying cough now, but even that seems to be clearing up.  We haven’t had anything big happen, just a lot of annoying tasks that had to get done.

Halloween was kindof fun.  Halloween is actually one of my favorite “holidays,” just because I LOVE to dress up.  I was a little disappointed I missed it this year.  A lot of other people at the aid station dressed up, but I didn’t plan well enough in advance to do anything.  Some people just wrapped themselves in guaze, but I decided not to waste medical supplies.  We had a baked potato (she wrapped herself in one of those foil emergency blankets), “Snyderman,” a princess, and the scariest one was a pimp.

That night we had a mascal rehearsal.  I didn’t do anything for most of it.  I was assigned to drive one of the HAGAs.  So for most of it I was just sitting in the drivers seat getting ready to go.  When I actually got to drive it was kindof cool to think if we had to have a convoy they might actually have me drive.  I’m looking forward to switching out shifts and working in the aid station tho.  That’s where all the action happens.

Church on Sunday was fun.  I got to play the keyboard.  Unfortunately it doesnt have a music stand attached to it, and the chapel doesnt have a music stand anywheres.  So I went in Saturday evening to practice and ghetto-rig a music stand.  It worked perfectly.  I put a sign on the keyboard to please not take it down because I need it to play for my service.  Well I came in the next day, and someone had taken it apart.  I didn’t have time to fix it, so someone had to hold my book up for me.  I was sad.  I have to come up with something else now.  Before church we took a group picture, with everybody who was there that day.  I have it posted on facebook.

Monday night we had a movie night.  They have an FHE night planned every Monday.  Luckily it’s being held at the aid station in a spare rec room we have, so it will be easy for me to go, even if I am on shift.  I just hope they don’t move it.  We watched The Other Side of Heaven.  It made me want to read the book again.  Our group leader asked me to speak in church on Sunday.  I’m looking forward to it.

Between then and now, not much has happened.  We had a lot of nothing to do during the day.  We had a few evacs.  This morning we were woken up at 0515 for an urgent evac.  A soldier from another battalion was on a convoy and stepped on a pressure plate mine.  That group was hit 3 times, but only the second had injuries.  His leg was pretty messed up, but he will be fine.

Right now we’re getting ready for another mascal rehearsal.  All these rehearsals are mandated by our brigade command.  They apparently don’t have faith in us, so we have to keep practicing and practicing and practicing while they watch over us like Greek gods or something.  This one we know is going to happen tomorrow (Friday), but we don’t know WHEN.  It could be any time between midnight and midnight.

Sis. Stauner, my Relief Society president in Alaska, wrote me an e-mail a few days ago that I have been thinking about lately….  She said our V.T. message explains that we were females before we came to earth.  We are not here to compete with men, or the role they are to perform, but to complement each other.  She said that The question regarding whether the value of a woman depended basically on their role as a wife and money was asked, and I’ve just been thinking about that a lot.  I have been thinking about the difference between me and other sisters, and my role as a woman in the church, especially being here.  I don’t want this to sound bad, but I actually feel like I fit in a lot more here than at home in Relief Society.  I think because there aren’t so many reminders of what I want so badly, but can’t have.  But back to the question about the role of woman… There is no doubt in my mind that this is where I am supposed to be right now.  This is the role my Heavenly Father wants me to fill.  and I challenge anybody to tell me otherwise.  I carry an m4   Ironically for being in a warzone, I have a peace here that I have been looking for, and I know that it is because I am doing what the Lord wants me to do.

29 OCT 2008

Well the big news of the day is that they took that freaky decoration out of the chow hall.  I bet they got too many complaints from it.  It really was disturbing, a monster holding a bloody head by the hair, considering what some of the bad guys over here do to people they capture…..  Now they’re assembling some weird mummy display with snakes and beetles in this big empty area of the DFAC.  Think the movie The Mummy.  And they have finally gotten some pumpkins up too.  I can’t believe it’s almost Halloween.  I’m kinda sad I’m missing it.  It’s one of my famvorite holidays.

So the “seasoned” soldiers like play jokes on n00bs.  A few weeks ago I was conducting some personal research, and listening to some NCOs discuss jokes they have played on new soldiers.  Such as, telling one they had to collect exhaust from a truck with a trash bag to test it.  Or, finding soft spots in the armour of a truck by knocking on it.  I can’t by any means say I know all of them, but I think I collected enough information to know when someone is trying to make me look stupid.  Well today one of my battle buddies tried to take an NCOs combat patch.  This irritated the NCO, so he told my BB to check the FLA for soft spots in the armour, and to circle them with a piece of chalk.  And to circle every other dent or scratch in it, saying that we would take it to maintenance and get all this stuff fixed.  I just happened to walk up, and this NCO said that I could help my battle buddy do this.  He was clueless about it, and I kept telling him we were getting had, but I did it anyways.  Later I was talking to this NCO about it, how I knew it was a trick but I did it anyways, and he said that told him a lot about me.  He didn’t say WHAT it told him, but I’m pretty sure it’s a good thing.

The old unit is pretty much gone.  When they move out they leave a whole bunch of stuff behind that they don’t want to carry back with them, like shelves and drawers and fridges and such.  These things get snatched up pretty quickly.  One of my friends heard about this one tent area that was full of stuff that nobody was taking because it was so far away from everything, so we got an FLA to drive over there and load up with shelves.  Well we drove around for an hour.  And I will say I will not drive with her again if I can help it.  She was driving off the road (not that theres much of a road here), was driving so slow we literally could have walked faster, and got us stuck in the mud.  That was fun.  </sarcasm>  We didn’t even find the place.  So next time we go out, I’m driving.  I did find a fridge in a med supply conex here.  I lugged it all the way to my tent, and now I can’t get it to work.    I wish I knew more about appliances, I really want it to work.  I could have cold water and cherry juice on demand.

27 OCT 08

The sun finally came out today!!  Yippee!!   There’s still mud and water everywhere.  There’s not plants to soak up the rain, so it just sits on the ground for a week.  And its supposed to rain again on Wednesday or Thursday, so the puddles and mud will never disappear.

Yesterday we had drivers training on the HAGAs.  Heavy Armoured Ground Ambulance.  I LOVE working in the back of these things, but actually driving them is a bit intimidating.  They are VERY top heavy, so they are easy to roll over.  There’s not much visibility from the front, it’s really mostly blind spots.  But we drove them around post yesterday, at about 12 mph, so now I am officially licensed to drive one.  I think it’s funny that I drove a HAGA before a humvee or an FLA.

Church was yesterday too.  That’s the hilight of the week for me.  I’m still the only girl, besides the battle buddy that I bring.  I was set apart to play the piano.  We have a very small selection of hymns, the booklets they give us only have 60.    Well the good news for me is that my sergeants seem like they will be really good about letting me get to church.  One of them said that she doesn’t want anybody getting in the way of her religion, so she’s not going to get in the way of mine.  Yippee! 

Halloween is coming up.  I would have forgotten about it, but they have decorated the DFAC.  It’s a little disturbing.  They didn’t put up pumpkins and black cats and witches and ghosts and normal Halloween things, they put up freaky paintings.  There’s one that is HUGE, in the middle of the DFAC, that is particularly disturbing.  It has this big monster thing that’s painted black, and it’s holding a bloody knife and a decapitated head by the hair, with blood dripping.  I’ll try to get a picture of it.

25 OCT 08

Another week, another blog.  I try to write a little when I can, but most days I come back so tired.  We have a lot of hard work to do out here.

Right now a normal day we get up a 4:55.  At 5:00 we have to show our weapons to our squad leaders, and our squad leaders report to ther supervisors, who make a report to  another NCO who reports to the battalion people and so forth and so on.  They have to get 100% weapons accountability first thing every morning.  Its a little aggrivating, because even if we don’t have to get up early, we still have to get up for this thing.  We can go to bed afterwards, but it’s still aggrivating.  So then, my shift goes to PT at 5:45.  So far PT has been good, we just go to the gym together but we are allowed to do our own thing.  We work out for 45 minutes, then have until 7:45 to shower and eat and be back at work.  We do PT Mon thru Fri, unless it’s a REALLY late night and our shift leader doesn’t feel like getting up that early.

First thing we do is PMCS our vehicles, and do commo checks.  PMCS means Preventive Maintenance Checks and Services.  We check the fluids, lights, make sure things are working right.  It gets annoying because we don’t have to drive them often, so they don’t really change from day to day.  Anything that is wrong we find out in other ways.  Commo is fun, I like playing with the radios.  After we do all the checks we fix stuff.  The old unit is leaving a lot of their evac stuff in a mess.  The HAGAs are in good shape, but the FLAs are all jacked up.  The FLAs are ugly little ambulances that don’t go outside the wire.  In other words, they stay on the FOB.  We use them to transport a patient from the aid station to the LZ (landing zone) for a medevac (a blackhawk comes and picks them up), or if we have to go pick someone up.  The only time we’ve had to pick someone up was when the detention center said a detainee was having a heart attack.  We went and picked him up, and the docs said he was faking, so we took him back.  It’s also not uncommon to send someone out on a medevac.  Our little aid station isn’t equiped for much more than stabilizing a patient to send to another, better hospital.  But moving on… We have to spend a LOT of time fixing the FLAs.  Taking them to and from maintenance, going through all the equipment and supplies on them and restocking.  There are a lot of old and bad supplies on them.  It’s aggrivating, like the old unit doesn’t care about them.  We usually get released somewhere between 5:30 and 6:30.  That’s when we have time to eat, shower, do laundry, go to the PX, relax, or do whatever else we need to do.  There’s usually not enough time or energy to get everything done.

Today it rained.  What happens when it rains in the desert?  That fine dirt turns into mud glue.  It sticks to EVERYTHING, especially boots and uniforms.  The uniform I wore today is COVERED in mud.  We spent all day organzing med supplies that are kept outside in case of a mascal (mass casualty).  We were outside all day.  We had a thunderstorm with lots of loud, close lightning and lots of rain.  If there’s dust in the air here when it starts raining it will rain mud.  It’s fun to play around in it, but then if you’re all muddy they won’t let you into the DFAC.  They actually have sanitation standards here, unlike in training.  They have handwashing stations where you HAVE to wash your hands before you go in.  It’s nice, I get to wash my hands at least 3 times a day! lol

Alaska, APO, and deployed — updated

This post was made on September 24, but it was misplaced somehow.  So here it is where you can find it, even though it is out of order now.

So, I started this blog when I went to basic training. I wrote letters to Ben, and he posted them here. It was really helpful for me, because everybody who wanted to hear how I was doing could just read the blog instead of me having to write a million detailed letters. You don’t have THAT much time at BCT!

So then I graduated BCT, and went to Texas for AIT and I neglected my blog. Suffice it to say, AIT was NOT fun. I was VERY relieved when Ben arrived in the beginning of June, and even more relieved when I graduated in the end of July.

Now I am in Fairbanks, AK. For one more day. I ship out tomorrow, 25 Sept 2008, for Kuwait. We will spend about 2 weeks there, then go on to Iraq. I plan on keeping up with my blog while I’m there. Hopefully I can make at least a short entry every day.

I SHOULD be available via e-mail (sarahtyhurst@gmail.com) and even video chat on AIM (sdtyhurst), but if I’m not, you can send letters or packages to

PFC Tyhurst, Sarah

BSMC, 25 BSB

1/25 SBCT

APO AE 09336

If you are one of my internet friends or someone I haven’t talked to in a long time, PLEASE make sure I know who you are if you are sending me a care package! It might be a good idea to send a letter along with it. Just to be safe

Remember, you can just read my blog and hear all about me, so do the same for me and send me a letter! An e-mail, a quick note, even just a little comment on my blog.

Thanks so much for all the support and prayers you give me. I’m so proud to be able to do this, to make a difference and be a part of something so much bigger than myself.

I look forward to hearing from you!

<3 Sarah

17 Oct 08

Friday, 17 Oct 08

Well here I am in Iraq.  I won’t bore anybody with travel plans or anything like that.  We are finally at our home for the next year. I think we got here Monday night/Tuesday morning, but I’m not sure.  The only reason I know todays date is because I have it on my watch.

Our DFAC here is pretty cool.  I think I like it the best so far because there aren’t really any lines.  They have 2 large dining areas and 2 small rooms with TVs and stuff… a “jazz lounge” and a “sports bar.”  They’re just decorated that way, nothing really fancy about them except they are SLIGHTLY more private.  It’s fun to just have something different.  Each of the big dining areas has a lot of different lines you can go through.  There’s several short order lines, several main lines, sandwich lines, wrap lines, hot sandwich lines, ice cream bar, dessert bar, bread bar, potato bar, salad bar.  And probably more that I’m leaving out.  So you don’t get totally bored with what you’re eating.  My favorite part about it is that it’s just across the street from my tent.  So easy.

For the most part we’ve been pretty bored.  The old unit here is training us and getting ready to go, so we’ve got twice as many people here as usual.  Until they leave I have an 8 hour evac shift.  If there’s patients that have to be moved anywhere, I help move them.  The first few days it was pretty slow.

Until yesterday.

I was about an hour into my shift when we heard “bang bang bang!” So we threw on our body armour real fast.  We thought we were mortared.  Turns out later it was rockets, not mortars.  The mortar came today, but it was a dud so nobody got hurt.  Anyways, moving on.  We had a few casualties come, and 3 of them were urgent.  It was confusing at first because with all the people here there were too many people giving orders, but after a few minutes we got an idea of who really knew what they were doing and everything worked out.  We needed to send 5 patients to Balad.  There was a lot of dirt in the air so visibility was really low, so nobody wanted to fly a bird in.  I ended up in the HAGA (medical MRAP which is SWEET) bagging one of the casualties.  We were going to go to Balad, but they told us on the way there that a bird was going to land at a COP that was on the way, so we were only driving about 30 minutes.  It was really awkward in the back because we were cramped already, and then we were wearing all our body armour.  I was bagging the guy on top, and I ended up sitting on litter handle for the guy on the bottom because there was nowhere else for me to sit.  We were driving pretty fast, and every bump and turn I went flying.  THere was lots of adrenaline, and it was exciting.  We got there, put the patients on the bird, and drove back.

For a lot of us, it was our first experience with real trauma.  We did have one fatality.  Some of the n00bs have had a hard time dealing with it.  All through training I wondered how I would feel and react to a situation like this, and I’m fine.  I didn’t interact with the patient that much, and by the time I saw him he was all bandaged up.  Overall it was a small incident, and I’m sure I’ll see much worse.  But I am optimistic about my ability to handle things in the future.  It was just draining.  I slept very well last night, and 5:00 came too soon.

Today we started the day by retrieving some dental and xray equipment from a conex.  We had to load these big heavy boxes into a truck whose bed I couldn’t look into without standing on my tip toes or jumping.  While lifting a particularly heavy box with several other people my squad leader told me to hold the front of the box, and while I was doing that the other lifters squished my head between the box and the truck.  My head is fine, but even 12 hours later my ear is red and swollen and tender.  After being attacked like we were yesterday, our guys like to send some deterents out…. They fire these big cannons (I don’t know what they’re called) at like 10 minute intervals.  They’re pretty loud when you’re on the other side of the FOB from them, but the yard with the conexes was right next to these big guns.  We could see the flash from the guns before we actually heard the bang and felt the shock wave.  It was pretty cool, but really loud.

Today we got hit with the dud mortar.  I was getting ready to go to my shift when someone went through the tent saying that we had to get 100% accountability.  We sat in our little building while the EOD guys detonated it.  Not to freak anybody out, but this is probably not going to be uncommon for the next few weeks.  They worst times for these things are at the beginning and end of a deployment, because they know we’re moving, and they know it’s more chaotic for us, so they try to take advantage of that.  I know I will be safe, even if the conditions here are not.  I know that this is where I am supposed to be.  I am just concerned with doing my job to the best of my ability and taking care of my battle buddies.  So nobody get an ulcer over worrying about me.  Just keep in touch

Speaking of keeping in touch, I got mail today!!  It was SOOOOOO exciting because I wasn’t expecting it.  So thank you Kim, Katherine, and Sis. Bobo!!  It’s great to get mail (whether snail mail or email) from people I’m close to, and expecially to hear from people I haven’t heard from in a while.  I have this blog where anybody can come and annonymously read about my life, and it’s really nice to hear from people who are keeping tabs on me.  Even just a comment on here lets me know you’re thinking about me, and it just makes my day.  I like to hear about all the mundane stuff too, because it reminds me that SOMEDAY I will get to have a normal life again!  So thanks everybody

Kuwait

30 SEPT 08

Tuesday

The trip here sucked, that’s all I’ll say about that.

But now we’re here, and it’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Besides, you know, being in the middle of the desert, it’s not bad. ALL the buildings are air conditioned quite nicely, and there’s bottled water EVERYWHERE. The first thing they told us when we got here was that it’s been “relatively” cool here the past few days. As in, it only gets up to 110 instead of 120. Haha! But it’s a dry heat, which makes it MUCH more bearable than being in South Carolina in the hot season! It also gets pretty cool at night. I would estimate about 70. I get a little chilly sometimes being out at night in my PTs. But I get cold so easily that’s really not saying much. What makes it seem hotter though is how bright the sun is. There is never anything obstructing it’s view of us, no clouds or anything. And there’s so much shiny sand around. You almost HAVE to wear sunglasses, kind of like sand blindness instead of snow blindness! In fact, some units require their soldiers to wear eye pro outside. It would be sort of beautiful if it weren’t so hot. Speaking of sand, that’s all there is here. There is absolutely NO vegetation. Zero. It’s all sand, as far as the eye can see. It gives new meaning to the name of the color “desert sand.” My shoes are always full of it after walking to and from chow.

And aaaaaahhhhh, Chow!!! As DFACs go, it’s not bad. It’s better than others in minor ways. The pancakes and French toast are fresh, and even the WAFFLES are fresh!! But then, most of the milk and all of the eggs are powdered. I haven’t seen anything that lives up to all the hype. There’s actually two DFACs here. One of them is in a big trailer type building. The other is a more permanent structure, not much to look at on the outside, but has stone tile flooring and even a fancy fountain in the middle of the dining area. I don’t care about all that, but the cool thing is it actually has real flushing toilets!! That itself makes it worth the 15 minute trek from our tent. (The other option is port-a-johns that don’t get emptied near enough.) The nice DFAC has a dessert bar and even a guy serving baskin robbins ice cream. The smaller one has freezers with ice cream bars and things like that. Most of the pre-packaged food has Arabic writing on it and has a Dubai address as the headquarters. They are only open at certain times, like 0530 to 0800 or something like that for breakfast, 1130 to 1400 for lunch, and 1730 to 2000 for dinner. One of them is open at midnight for “midnight chow.” So, that’s the DFACs, but that’s not the only place to eat. If you want to pay for food, you can eat better than you can on Ft. Wainwright or even Ft. Sam and Ft. Jackson. They have a subway, taco bell, Panda Oriental, Great Steak and Potato company, Baskin Robbins (big surprise there!!), Burger King (another big surprise), another Taco Bell. And that’s just the ones I’ve seen. I think there’s more I haven’t walked past yet. And it’s all cheaper here than it is in Alaska. More of a regular price.

Our sleeping arrangements are not the greatest right now, but they could be worse. We have a giant tent that fits 70 people, and we have 70 people sleeping in it. It’s not a tent like you would normally think of, it’s a halfway permanent structure. It has real doors and AC, and wooden floors. It’s just got a soft shell. The worst part about it is having to live out of our bags. We can’t really unpack. I’m looking forward to getting to Iraq where we will have 2-man rooms and some form of privacy. Oh, another bad part of it…. Any time someones alarm goes off during the night/morning, I wake up, even if the person whose alarm it is doesn’t. Some people just sleep right through their alarms, letting them go off for 5 minutes, and I don’t know why they even bother. And there is this great invention that goes along great with computers. It’s called headphones. Wow, I knew there was a reason why people didn’t walk around with boom boxes on their shoulders any more. But apparently some people here haven’t figured it out.

So far I’ve been pretty bored. Saturday and Sunday I didn’t have to do anything at all (after the initial settling in at 3am Saturday morning after traveling for 20 hours) and Monday and today I just had short classes in the morning. They started at 8 and were done well before 11. So I spend a little bit of time walking around camp with a battle buddy, usually doing whatever it is she wants to do, and then come back here and chill out until chow, and then formation at 1930. It takes SOOOOO much energy just walking around, with the hot and everything being so far apart, that I am totally wiped by the 2000 and go straight to bed. But then I usually wake up early too, which is nice. We have PT at 0500 or 0530. The first 2 days it was lame, first it was a 20 minute run to adjust to the heat even though it was still below 80 by the time the run was OVER (I didn’t even run, I have a profile so I walked), and the second day we went to the gym (it’s a 24 hour gym BTW) for 15 minutes. WOW, a whole 15 minute workout! Lol. Today we went to the gym for 40 minutes and I feel like I didn’t totally waste my time! J I’ve been really selfish the past few days, and lazy, and have been neglecting things that I should be doing, like writing more letters and writing this blog, and talking to my family…. It’s been a hard adjustment being here and having to have a battle buddy ALL THE TIME again…. *sigh* I needed a few days to get myself in sorts. So now I’m ready to chat J I look forward to hearing from everybody!!

New Address for AIT

Sorry this didn’t get out sooner.  This is Sarah’s new address you can reach her with:

PFC Tyhurst, Sarah
D-Co., 232nd Med. Bn.
Class 08-08, 7th Platoon
2050 Koehler Rd, STE 1350
Ft. Sam Houston, TX 78234

I know she’ll love to hear from you.

Ben Tyhurst

March 29, 2008

Oh here is another interesting thing that happened on Tuesday.  We marched 4 miles to the range.  It was at night so we got to fire some tracer rounds. They catch fire so they light up and you can see where they go.  Well we started a few fires on the range with them and they got too big so they had to call in a fire truck, and the last platoon didn’t get to go.  Then by the time we left it was almost midnight and we rod back on the back of trucks that are officially only supposed to hold 16 people, but we fit 34 people on, including rucksacks.  I was in the middle sitting on a 1-inch bar that was the top of my ruck, then on the first bump it was gone.  We were packed so tight that I didn’t fall.  I ended up on someone’s knees.  It was like a roller coaster because the DS was going SOOOOOOO fast.  It was a lot of fun for a bunch of us, but some people didn’t appreciate it.

Thursday was kind of slow.  We had a mission at 1200, we went out and cleared a city, the same one I played opfor at.  Then we didn’t have anything until 2300.  We got to sleep a lot though.  That is the nice thing about being in the field.  Normally we are not allowed to sleep during the day, but at VF they said if we get a chance to sleep we need to do it.  So we had to get up again at 2300 for our Rite of Passage ceremony.  The whole Battalion was there, the CSM and Commander made speeches about being soldiers.  We watched some “inspirational” slide shows set to Toby Keith songs, and drank “grog.”  They dump a bunch of stuff into a pot that’s supposed to represent different things, and then you have to drink it.  Like they put a bottle of Louisiana hot sauce n to represent a battle there, Missippi river Water, sand from Iraq and Afghanistan, German Beer (non-alcoholic for BCT), Victory Punch (it’s like Gaterade.)  And they said it had deisel fuel in it too.  I don’t know, you can’t believe everything they tell you here.  I was already feeling sick before this ceremony, then I took a swig of the stuff and almost threw up.  I was doubled over gaggin and a DS near me was like “That’s the way to do it!”  LOL  It was a fun time, and they said we graduated from Civilian to Soldier.  What was even better was that we packed up and left at 0700 the next morning.    And got a HOT shower when we got back.  Now it is Saturday and we have spent the past 2 days cleaning our gear to turn it in.  We finished most of it today, so we get a pizza party tomorrow.  Yay.  I just want Thursday to come.  You know what else is cool about tomorrow, it is pancake day!  Pancake day is good.  Because the waffles are totally gross and the french toast is half gross.  But the pancakes are made there, so they are yummy.

There’s 2 girls in the bay right now fighting over bananas.  something about being allergic to them.  It’s probably the stupidest argument I’ve ever heard.  “you are not allergic to bananas!  I saw you eat a banana!”  “I am too allergic to bananas!  I have an epi pen!”  At the top of their lungs. Very funny stuff.  Sometimes I like to just sit and watch everybody.  It’s like a reality TV show. LOL

Our DS came in for head count and said “don’t do anything stupid.”  One guy made him mad, so he gave him Staff Duty from 1-3 and fire guard from 3-5 with lights out at 9, he gets the minimum 4 hours of sleep they are required to give us.  Speaking of no sleep, once again I am on fire guard, and I am tired and bored.  “sigh”  Some DSs make us  wear full ACU’s for fireguard so we have to get up, go to the latrine and change clothes , put socks and boots on.  Some DSs let us wear the PTs we sleep in so all we have to do is put on our running shoes.  No such luck tonight.  Full ACUs.

Everybody is so ready to be out of here.  I have spent the last month planning in my head what we would to on Thursday and Friday and now  have to do it all over again since we get that extra overnight pass.

Editor’s note:  15 minutes before soldiers did their ceremony and met with the families, they found out that there was not an extra overnight pass after all–very disappointing.  Oh well, welcome to the military.

This will probably be the last time I write.  Nothing interesting is going to happen the next few days.  I’m just ready to leave.

I did find out what unit I will be in at AIT.  It’s not for sure until I get there, but my orders said

A Co, 232 Medical Battalion

San Antonio, TX 78234                           (I think that’s the zip.)