WTP - Day 2

The only major event for today was a three-hour seminar designed for us to talk about our collective experience during deployment. The session was led by a Navy chaplain. He was a amiable enough guy but one whose deployment assignment was to Kuwait so I felt that he was at a disadvantage talking to us about serving in a combat zone when he had not. He plodded through the PowerPoint slides and encouraged us to talk about our expectations and the reality we actually faced. I smiled and looked at my watch ... three ... two ... one: Initiate bitch session.

A female lieutenant wearing Naval Academy shorts was the first one to mention that the duties she performed in Afghanistan had nothing to do with 1) her Navy specialty and 2) the five months of specialty training she received before going over. This equivalent sentiment was echoed by more than 70% of the group. Yes, we were not technically "re-missioned" (i.e., tasked to do something completely out of our lane) but our collective experience sure pushed the boundaries. About the only persons who actually performed their expertise were Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) guys.

Everyone blamed the unwieldy, faceless Joint Manning Document (JMD) which stipulates which jobs exist, and which services are responsible for filling them, for both Iraq and Afghanistan. The JMD review cycle spans well over a year -- someone mentioned eighteen months -- which is one a half one-year tours for Individual Augmentees. The result? We are placing people in jobs that, in many cases, have been overtaken by events (OBE). All our kvetching echoed the same sentiment: "fix the frakin' JMD." Yeah, I'm sure the Pentagon and Joint Staff will get right on that.

Rather than being cathartic, the session just pissed me off. I thought I was here to decompress? The poor chaplain leading our session wasn't prepared to facilitate this type of discussion. I felt sorry for him but he soldiered on until we finished. I thanked him after it ended nonetheless. After all, he was doing the job he was sent here to do.

Happy Birthday

Happy 233rd birthday to the United States Navy!

The flag shown here is the US Navy's Jack, traditionally flown at the bow of a warship while in port. It's based on a design of flag made popular before the War for Independence. The rattlesnake, found only in the colonies and not England, became a iconic symbol for the burgeoning independence movement.

Shortly after 9/11, the Navy readopted this design as the Navy's Jack to be flown during the War on Terrorism (the previous Navy Jack was a blue flag with fifty stars). Below is a picture of the Jack flying just outside the WTP building.

WTP - Day 1

We awoke early on 12 Oct to catch bus transportation from Gateway to Camp Arifjan, about a two hour’s drive away. We separated our issue-gear from our personal gear, loading the former onto a convoy of four buses and latter onto a cargo truck. The ride was uneventful; I slept for most of it.

We arrived just before lunch and were welcomed by the members of the Navy Warrior Transition Program (WTP). After unloading our gear outside, we walked into a large hangar building to the sound of applause from the WTP staff. We lined up in front of tables with our issue-gear and body armor to turn it all in. While waiting in line, I had to break down my body armor into its individual parts: front, back, and side ceramic impact plates, side carrier pockets, shoulder protection, groin protector, neck protector, etc. I remembered assembling all of this a year ago back at Fort Jackson and how long it took. It was remarkably easy to take apart. The armor had been such a constant part of my life over the past year, lugging and wearing it as I had to, it was a little odd (maybe even disrespectful?) to disassemble it so quickly.

My turn came up and I placed the body armor parts on the table to watch them be checked off and disappear into storage bins. Next, I emptied two sea bags worth of other issue gear and similarly watched it be checked off and placed into bins: chemical suit (still in its bag), gas mask, entrenching tool, two canteens, pistol belt and holster, ruck sack, foul weather jacket, gortex outerwear, etc.

Next, I went over to the opposite side of the hangar to turn in my pistol. I disassembled it, cleaned it, and turned it in along with four magazines. It was inspected and placed in a box.

For the final stage, I took a post deployment health assessment survey on a laptop. Did I have any pressing health concerns? Yeah, how about inhaling a metric ton of dust while I was here?

When finished with all of this, my battle buddy, Paul (a Navy commander who went through Fort Jackson with me last year) and I raced to lunch at the DFAC before it ended at 1330. We talked over lunch and both agreed it felt odd to be free of all that gear.

A few hours later, we returned to the hangar to receive an admin brief. We were greeted by a female Navy captain who heads WTP. She congratulated us on successfully completing our Individual Augmentee assignments. She told us we were now part of an elite minority in the Navy: only 3% of the total Navy (reserve and active components) had performed the job we had. We should be proud.

She also said that over the next two days, we should be selfish. We would need to make time for ourselves because, she reminded us, there would be demands on our time the moment we returned to our families.

After working a year’s worth of 14-16 hour days six and a half days a week, I find it actually challenging to do nothing. Wasn’t there a meeting I had to go to? Some urgent email to answer? Some planning project that wasn’t finished? A brief to prepare?

I guess it really is finished. Maybe I should take a nap?

Dead Guy Quotes

It will be a hard life
One without reward
Without remorse
Without regret

A path will be placed before you
The choice is yours alone
Do what you think
You cannot do

It will be a hard life
But you will find out
Who you are

-- Qui-Gon Jin

Dragon

I thought a lot about whether to post this because it's very private. But what the hell, you've read this far, haven't you?

I missed my family terribly during the last year. I missed Thanksgiving, my son's second birthday, Christmas, my attractive wife's birthday, and our fifth wedding anniversary...the list goes on.

When I missed my son particularly, I watched this video on my iPod in an attempt to cheer me up (originally downloaded from YouTube)



I think it's one of the most creative, thoughtful, and brilliant commercials I've ever seen.

In my own personal journey, the dragons took the form of artillery rockets which were fired at the International Zone with special intensity last spring.

Joaquin, I won't be able to bring you a toy rocket but I'll bring the next best thing: me -- intact.

Truckin'

Sometimes the light's all shining on me

Other times I can barely see

Lately it appears to me

What a long, long strange trip it's been...

Truckin' (The Grateful Dead)
(The cover by Dwight Yoakam is particularly good)

Dust Devil

Day two of decompression at Gateway. I slept through breakfast courtesy of ear plugs and eyeshades. I think I slept for over ten hours. I grabbed coffee and a doughnut at the local Green Beans and the retired to the MWR Tent to watch TV but really play on the laptop. There is a reasonably priced wireless Internet service which I am using to post blog entries and do email on.

As I walked back to the tent, looked up and saw the tallest dust devil I have ever seen. It was easily 200-300 feet tall.