Sad Times

Well, I haven't updated in a while. I haven't really had anything to write about lately. I've decided that I'm going to deploy with my Soldiers, and hang around in the Army for at least another 2 years at this point. After 19, what's another 2. Right?

I also decided to write because about 3 weeks ago, my father had a stroke. It was in a very bad area of the brain, right on the brain stem. (Which is the area of the brain that EVERYTHING goes through. Nerves and blood vessels, all of the important stuff.) It looked like he was going to be ok. The first 2 days after it happened, he was lucid and talking to everyone, but by the time I got there, he was in a coma. He stayed like that for 10 days and came out of it, but he wasn't really there. After he came out, they did another CT Scan, and it showed more areas becoming damaged from the original stroke, which was still bleeding, but at a lesser rate.

The doctors told me and my brother that the chances of Dad being able to ever have anything more than a life confined to a bed and having to be cared for ever again were so small that he couldn't calculate the odds. (Something my Dad would never want.) As well as, everyday, there was more damage to different areas. So my brother, and myself, decided that the best thing for him would be hospice care. (That's where they make a terminal patient comfortable until they pass.) The hospital moved him from the ICU to the regular hospital. Then they moved him to a long term care facility on Tuesday, 28 August. And within 2 hours of him getting there, he finally gave into the stroke and passed.

Now, me and my brother are getting his services arrainged. And it is so confusing. You know, its never somehing I have thought about. After all, my Dad has always been there, and he always would be. Right? We're trying to get Military Honors for him, but we have to find something showing that he served, which we can't. I just don't know. All of his friends know that he did and are trying to help. We're planning to have the services on Wednesday. I just hope we do right by him.

I'll talk to ya'll later.

You Tear Me Down!

Well, it's been an interesting two weeks. We did tearown, and build-up, practice. Something that I am used to occuring in less than two days, total. With this unit, it took almost two, full weeks. To me, that is entirely unacceptable. I'm used to much faster times. But, then again, not everyone is up to Nightstalker standards. The entire process was bullshit, from the get go. I'm told the day before, at around 1800 actually, that I am to teach teardown and build up procedures for CH-47 for aircraft movement. First of all, if you want me to teach something, don't you think you should give me a little bit more of a head's up before expecting me to teach it? (They said it had been on the training schedules for the past two weeks. Hey! Dumb ass! I've been in JRTC for the past three, at least.) I started out, Monday morning, with around 25 people, including three people from shops. (This is way too many people.) I ask who has done an aircraft teardown before. Guess how many I had? Two, two that have done this in the last five years! OMFG! I literally have to teach everything! And most of these people are Privates to boot!

Not only are all of the people inexperianced, but the unit doesn't have the equipment to properly execute the mission. So, I had to improvise some things. (At least I know I'm good at that!) We didn't have any Aft Pylon Templates, Hydraulic cross-over lines, "Scotty-Blocks" or proper transmission stands. This is a complete and total nightmare. Anyways, it takes three days to get the aircraft to transport status. Three days!!!! Well, considering that noone but myself has done this before recently, and noone, or anything, got hurt, or damaged, in the process, while it did drive me crazy, is considered a success. Oh, also, during this process, I lost all of my back shops support and about half of my Chinook mechanics, to other things going on, and them not returning when that task was over.

Next was the aircraft loadout by C-5. I thought that I would finally have a chance to teach these guys right. But, no! The Air Force crew was more interested in getting back to the hotel and getting some beers, than proper load out procedures. We wait 4 1/2 hours for the Blackhawks to do their training, and then the crew only wants to bring our aircraft in just enough to throw some chains on it. And then down load it. We don't even load the pylon. What a F***ing waste! But, something funny happened on the way back.

We were crossing the active, about half way across, the tug, (towing the aircraft) runs out of gas. So we have to hook up the aircraft (Formerly towed by the tug) to one of the other vehicles while I hook up the tug and the aicraft's pylon to the my SCAMP (wheeled 7.5 ton capacity crane). We made quite a site when we pulled up to the hanger.

Well, this was all on a Friday, and build-up was scheduled to begin on Monday. I tried to enjoy my weekend, but it didn't work too well. Everyone decided to call me during the weekend. And all for miscelaneous (SP?) bullshit. Nothing that couldn't have waited until Monday. (Yea, the joys of being a section sergeant.) Anyway, on Monday, we start out strong, hanging the Pylon and forward transmission. All we have left is the aft transmission and blades. OMFG! Guess what? Those take another 4 days. 4 DAYS! For some extremely stupid, and simple, crap. But then again, these are not Nightstalker material. (At least not the majority of them. Some on the other hand....)

And during this whole process, I kept losing people to other tasks. As I said, I started out with over 20 people. But, I ended up with only five. Five people! If they were NIghtstalkers, no problem. But these Big Army guys, are completly untrained, and have no idea what to do. I literally, had to be everywhere at once. And, being only human, failed each and every time.

Oh, did I mention that we just started using the computerized aircraft logbook system? Again, something that I'm the only one who knows about. JUST SHOOT ME, PLEASE!

Well, that just about covers the lst two weeks. Now for what might happen in the future, among other things. It seems that the Army has gone to 15 month deployments in Iraq, and Afghanistan. Which, if I'm reading the tea leaves correctly, will push our deployment back by three months! This is a good thing, it means that I could submit my retirement paperwork before the unit comes under the Stop Loss program. Which, in turn, means that I might not have to deploy again! Great news, right? Maybe.

Can I really send my Soldiers into harm's way without me? Can I deprive the unit of all of my experience? At this time, I've come up with a comprimise. I will submit my retirement paperwork only if the following condidtion is met. We are due for a new Platoon Sergeant in the near future. If this person demonstrates (to my satisfaction) that he/she know their job, and takes care of the soldiers. Then, I will (most likely. Yeah, I know, a cop out.) submit for retirement. If we don't get a new SFC, I need to stick around and help SSG V run the platoon. I WILL NOT LEAVE MY GUYS DEFENSLESS! (I hate to say this, and yes it's probably just an excuse, but, at this time it looks like I deploy again.)

On a happier note, I have a couple of pics to put up. First is a pic of the new F model Chinooks. (Yes, I know I said I would post a lot earlier. So sue me! :})

And the next one is of my dog, Nikki. She's half Beagle and half English Setter. (Twice as tall as a Beagle, but as friendly as a Setter.) She's a great dog.

And one more, a pic that my oldest took of me drinking some Meh Kong and Dr. Pepper while writing this entry.

I'll see ya'll later.

JRTC and a Suprise (4th Attempt)

That's right, this is my 4th attempt to post this single little blog, and its taken about 4 hours to get to this point. As a result of me getting pissed off at my browser. And the entire time I was having problems, it was becase the rendering engine was set for Firefox, instead of IE. So basically because I am pissed off, all that you're going to get is a bunch of pics with some captions and a few explinations.

First up is a D Company (Forward LOL) group photo on an ATC tower near our clamshell hanger. (I'm second from the top of the stairs.)

This is the clamshell hanger with both ends open. The only reason I took this pic is because of the OC's OH-58 hovering on the other side. I think that they look like fishing lures.

I see you!
An AH-64 Apache doing a flyby. Yep, there was some Cav guys (and girls) there too. Their little OH-58D Warriors were soooo cute. The pilots started to dislike me (even the one that used to work for me when he was a SPC), I think it had something to do with me constantly asking where the rubberbands went, and how long the batteries lasted in the RC unit.

Another -58. Ain't it cute.

The next few are of the convoy training we (I) had to conduct. At the last minute I was told to put together some convoy training. Of course I said, "Yes First Sergeant." And went to work. Now, mind you, the last time I was in a convoy was in Desert Sheild/Desert Storm (Shut up Biz. Not a word.) and convoys have canged a lot since then. So, I just basically made it up as I went along. Everyone seemed impressed at how well it went and effective it was. (Including myself.)

"Its ok. Its just a camera. You can point the machine gun somewhere else." A previous picture flash had caught the trail vehicle gunner's attention.Our Platoon Sergeant conducting the After Action Review (AAR) after we did the convoy training.A sand table, that was our Platoon Leader's (LT A.) brainchild, of our "area". His brainchild, but he enlisted a couple of our privates to help him with it. Once they got ahold of it, they ran with it. It came out pretty damn good, especially for a bunch of aviation guys.Same thing, different view.This is a close up of our protest to some of 10th Mountain's stupidity. (I think that this one deserves some explanation.) As you can see, our model, we'll just call him "Bob" to protect his true identity from reprisals, is wearing his issue Sand/Wind/Dust Goggles, as well as a sporty reflective belt worn diagnally from right to left over the top of his Infantry Body Armor w/ceramic plates. But in all seriousness, the 10th had some serious stupidity going on. At all times you had to wear a reflective belt, goggles and camel back. If you were in a vehicle you had to have the above plus a kevlar helmet (The helmet is standard for the Army in tactical vehicles.) and a pair of nomex flight gloves. All military vehicles had to have a ground guide (A person walking in front of the vehicle.) At first, it was only at certain locations and for short distances, but it evolved to inlude the entire field site. (It was over 2 miles from the entry point to our hanger.) And any time a vehicle moved. Also, you couldn't run when ground guiding, even if you didn't exceed the 5 MPH speed limit. We had a PFC get yelled at by a 10th MTN officer that he couldn't run. So the PFC stopped running and started skipping. It was priceless, and the officer was speechless. (Iwish I had thought of it.)Believe it or not, it fricking snowed in Louisiana, in April! And the day before it hit 80.These are two of the officers in the unit. The one on the left is LT A. On the right is his partner in crime, CPT O, doing his version of "Blue Steel". Obviously, this was during hell freezing over.Here we have the CO showing us what he thought of the designated field uniform. MILES gear (Kind of like a laser tag set for the Army.) draped over ACUs, or in this case, flight suit and gortex, and the head sensor portion (aka halo) attatched to the patrol cap. Now the rules for this part were a little vague, so the CO got a little creative.Ah, what a beautiful site!I think I can. I think I can.Maintenance useing some down time to play frisbee in the clamshell.Mothra Attacks!!!!!!A couple days before we left there was a huge fire down wind from us. We were told it was a "Controled Burn", but it sure didn't look like there was too much control going on.The next several shots are of the aircraft as they flew away. Every flight of aircraft was followed by a Chinook as a "just in case." And they say that we don't need Chinooks anymore. Dumbasses.

The one that almost got away.Don't leave me!

Here we all are waiting for the busses to show up. Each of the buildings to the right hold 170 people. Not very comfortable, but much, much better than a GP Medium Tent. This is where we stayed during gameplay.

While we were waiting for the busses, an ice cream truck showed up. I didn't think too much about it, until I walked behind the truk an saw the signs on the back. When I saw the signs, there was a crowd of soldiers waiting for ice cream. Buy the time I had gotten my camera and back into position, the crowd dwindled to one. (Man, that ice cream lady was quick.) But, you get the point. (OK for some reason, you can't click to get a bigger view, but the redish blurs on the back of the truck say "Caution Children." I thought it was funny.)

We stopped at this rest stop somewhere in the middle of Mississippi and I had these two signs pointed out to me. The one on the left says "Dog Trail" with an arrow pointing to the right. The right side says, "No Pets Allowed." I just thought that it was typical of the South. But, if you look closely at the right hand sign, in smaller letters on the bottom, it says "In This Area." So, I guess it means right here in the front.

And finally the Bizkit hooked me up again. When I got back home at 4 AM this morning, I had a package from him. He sent me a travel mug I had left at his apartment in Daegu at one time or another. And there was also a little gift. Something that completely made my day. After all of the shit I put up with from the Mighty Midget in Charge of E Company, this was a taste of sweet revenge. Even though I had no idea about it, nor how it was aquired. Biz told me that it ended up on his desk one morning just before he left. No explination or any way to thank the unknown individual. But, if you happen to run across my little piece of cyberspace, you have my heartfelt gratitude. This lovely piece of history now resides on the case to my laptop to accompany me for the rest of my life. (It will never be permenantly attached.)

I'll see ya'll later.

Chickens

There’s not a whole lot going on at this point. Just a lot of rushing around like the proverbial chickens looking for all kinds of equipment for a deployment that’s still quite a bit of time away. I think I have finally figured out what the difference between “The Big Green” and My last unit really is. These guys panic at the drop of a hat. “We’re going to deploy in two years from now. Oh my God! We better start getting ready now.” Its completely unbelievable. Sometimes I just have to sit back and watch them pull out their hair. (Of course, some are already bald.)

If they could just sit back a minute, calm down, and do a little bit of backwards planning, everything will work out. Not magically, of course, it takes a little bit of work. But it doesn’t seem like they can bring all of their manpower to bear on a task. As an example, I’m running a phase on a Chinook right now. (A major maintenance cycle performed every so many flight hours.) I have more than enough troops to get the job done, but, true to Army form, they steal time from me. Ranges, duty, classes and numerous other things all worked to take around 39 days of work from me, out of a total of around 170, for the entire team. (I get one day per soldier, per 10 hour day. So, for a 14 man team, I get 14 days of work per day.) That’s a big chunk. I can understand the ranges, you have to stay qualified on weapons, but couldn’t my phase guys wait until the range that’s going on after the phase. (There is one.) Or, what about a safety stand down day? Everyone gets to go to safety classes, and then gets the afternoon off. Except for the phase team, we go back to work. So, we only get half a day then, don’t start any major projects. My favorite is the Brigade run that we just had to be a part of. Give me a break, like the Brigade Commander is going to notice that my team isn’t there, and is getting one of his aircraft back in the air for him. Jack-asses!

I’m trying to help out where I can. Trying to get the personnel trained up for the actual movement part. After all, I’m the only person in the company that’s done what needs to be done to move a Chinook more recently than five years ago. And one of three in the entire Battalion, and one of those is a First Sergeant. I have my work cut out for me. Just don’t have much support, and that is the worst part. But, I’ll continue plugging away at it.

I’ve finally seen a brand new CH-47F. (Southern accent here)
They shore do look pretty. But it’s a shame that the other Chinook unit on post is getting them first. We were supposed to, but because Boeing couldn’t get us enough aircraft in time for the next deployment, we got the other unit’s Delta models. (A little background here.) The other BN constantly bragged about how fast they were able to do phase maintenance, at around one week. Where my unit was taking about three. Well, apparently, they weren’t really doing anything. The airplane I got is a piece of crap. It looks like they went exactly by the book, and did not look at anything else. Sorry, but I refuse to do that. And to top it off, their maintenance practices leave a lot to be desired. I am suppressed that they had any aircraft that were able to fly. I know that until we have had a chance to conduct a phase on each and every one of the birds, I won’t fly on them unless I’m ordered too. Anyway, the reason I started this paragraph, I’ve seen the new F model. And even got a pic, but I haven't put it in my computer yet, I'll post it next time.




See ya’ll later.

PT, PT

I’m back for one of my (infrequent) updates. This past week has been kind of unusual for me.

Monday, I and one of my soldiers were tasked to provide funeral honors for a Viet Nam Vet who had recently passed. This had to be one of the most difficult things I have ever done since joining. Trying to keep a professional, military bearing while presenting the flag to someone that is in the grips of grief, is not something to take lightly. For one, the family is expecting nothing less than that, as it is a source of comfort. Second, you are there to provide honors to this veteran, and don’t want to screw it up by breaking down, which to me would be a big no-no. Luckily for us, there were several vets from the local VFW to help us out. They provided a rifle detail and bugle player, for Taps. There was one upbeat moment during the whole ordeal though. This little kid, I’d say he was around 7, came up to both of us, shook our hands and saluted. Of course we saluted back. (Well, I did. The guy with me was unsure what to do.) The reliance of kids amazes me sometimes. And after the service, we needed our spirits lifted a little. While we were there to comfort the family, this little guy comforted us. The VFW guys also said that we did a very good job. Which felt good, after all, you don’t want to screw up something like this; it’s a lasting impression of the military for the family.

Friday, we were supposed to do a 6-mile road march. But, thank God, it snowed, so the road march was canceled. (I took some pics just before I left for work. And, true to the Ft. Campbell area, most of the snow was gone by lunch time. Oh well.)


We went in for a Safety Class and were then released. Very nice day, if I do say so myself. Well, not everyone was released. We had to have a launch crew, so I, and 2 other NCOs, released our Joes and went to the hanger.


In the Army, if you get overweight (according to Army standards), or fail an Army Physical Fitness Test, you have to do extra training. This training is called Special Populations Physical Training (Spec Pops). These guys had to go in and do this PT on Friday, as well. So, I got to watch a little. One of the instructors had gone through 160th’s selection program, known as Green Platoon. (Let me tell you, it’s not a fun time. It’s not as bad as SF, or Ranger, training, but it is up there.) And he brings that type of intensity to Spec Pops. But, the program is working, for the people that actually put forth the effort to improve themselves. (You can’t help those that don’t want to improve themselves, for whatever reason.) And I still had my camera from when I took pics of the snow.



Also found out that the unit will be getting deployed again. No big surprise, right? When I get to where I am going, I’ll begin regularly updating this thing again. I plan on using it as a kind of diary while I’m there so that my friends can know what’s going on. (And yes, I do know where I’m going to be, and it is common knowledge out in the big, wide world. But, old Night Stalker habits are hard to kill. You’ll find out when I get there.)

Until next time, I’ll see ya’ll later.