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
