Back Home in Ricmond

We made it back safe and sound. Weather was clear all the way except for a short stint in Missouri with rain. Rolling though Denver area every radio station was all about Tim Tebow, go figure.

Our household goods arrive tomorrow. We secured the storage to place them in for the next year today.

I don't plan to post until after Christmas, so we wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

Road Trip Update

Here is a video blog entry for the first day of our road tip.

Round 1 of Training Complete

I completed the last week of pre-deployment training on December 3^rd before returning home on December 5^th. The last week of training was much more fun than the previous 2 weeks. We actually got into basic tactics for MOUT (Military Operations in Urban Terrain, clearing buildings), React to Direct Fire (reacting to ambushes and such), Convoy Operations as well as egressing from a HMMWV (Hummv) rollover or HEAT (HMMWV Egress Assistance Trainer). I had a buddy record this training which we pretty entertaining just click this link to watch it here.
Truth about HMMWVs is that they are no longer allowed off of the FOBs (Forward Operating Bases) because they are so deadly in IED attacks do to the flat bottom design. When hit by an IED they take the full brunt of the explosion and the chances of survival are not good. Over the past several years the military had introduced a series of vehicles called MRAPs or Mine Resistant Ambush Protected. These vehicles are designed to withstand blasts with V shaped hulls to defLect the energy of an IED blast away from the vehicle, ride much higher off the roadway, and are heavily armored. We will get training in these vehicles in January upon our return to Ft. Dix.

Recieving M4 night fire qualificaion instruction.
I am in the foreground.



This is a picture of our night fire with a long exposier.
You can see the tracer rounds in the distance.
One of the guys on the mission is a potographer and
has been taking pictures during the mission.
If you search Task Force Griffon on Facebook you
can see more.

 The past week we also had PMI (Primary Marksmanship Instruction) on area suppression weapons such as the M249 SAW, M240B Machine Gun, MARK 19 Grenade Launcher, and the M2 .50 CAL Machine Gun. We didn’t get to shoot them this time around, but that will come in January. These are loads of fun.

Since then, I have been home for a few days now. Christine and I have been packing like crazy in preparation for the moving trucks arrival on Friday morning. I have seen my chiropractor twice to tune by back up and had a message since getting home as well. We have also had dinner the past two nights with some great friends. It is hard to think that it will be the last time we see everybody for some time. We will be back for visits though upon my return to the states, but we will still miss seeing everyone on a regular basis. We have made some awesome connections here in Washington and we will never forget our time here.

My next post will probably be from the road back to Indiana. It will be an adventure in itself traveling with a dog, cat and a 7 month pregnant wife!

Just the beginning.

 This past week we had a break for Thanksgiving. I spent the day with some old and new freinds that I have made since I've been here. As you can see from the pictures the dining facility had a pretty good spread for lunch. These are your tax payer dollars at work. After lunch we went back to one of the guy's hotel room to watch movies and use the internet. He is here supporting our training, but is not part of the group deploying to Afghanistan.

We have had some down time here and there which does not sit well with some of the guys I hang out with. Rather than spreading the training out over 21 days with large training gaps, we would prefer to go hard for about 14 days, doing physical training during the day and classroom training in the evenings. The heart burn comes from having less time to spend with family prior to the actual deployment. Much of the training we are doing here is very basic and repetative based on what we already know or have recently trained. It is basically a basic training refresher for senior NCOs and officers. Nothing specific to the job we will actually be doing once we land in country which is very frustrating for many.

As I think I have mentioned before, the task force I am on is comprised of individuals from all over the cournty. Because of this, our time here has been getting to know each other even though we will most likely be split up to fill various postions once we reach our posts in Afgahanistan. Stepping back and watching the dynamic of ther past 2 week I now see personalities starting to come out. I myself have finally figured out who I can best relate to and hang out with.  In the team development process (forming, strorming, norming and preforming) we've just barely gotten through the forming phase and are now entering the storming phase. Because we will all go our seperate ways in 6 days, I don't see us going any further. When we retrun in January, we will be divided into two large classes instead of four and shuffled up once again, starting the entire process all over. This is a bit frustrating as we don't really know who to invest in to build relationships right now becuase we don't really know what we will ultimatly be doing and who we will be doing it with.

The rest of the week will be very physically demanding to a point. We will be training on react to direct fire or ambush, which means a lot of running and getting up and down with our equipment using squad tactics. Then it is on to clearing buildings, convoy operations, and the roll over training. The roll over trainer is used to disorient you like and IED would do. Since our vehicles have been up armoured and made more IED resistant, the enemy now attempts to flip the vehicles over with the explosives to cause casulties. We have to learn how to orient our selves, and get out of the vehicle as quickly as possible. All very good training, but basic for the most part as we won't really be doing these actions on a daily basis as part of our overall mission. However this type of training is extremely important for survivability. It needs to be instinctive as there is no time to think in those types of situations.

That is all for now, until next time TTFN!

Here We Go Again

Hello everyone, this is the first installment of my deployment blog. It will take me a while to get back in the groove of writing again, so bare with me. I look forward to seeing your comments, so please post them, even if just to say hello.
Well, it has been just over a week since my last day at work. Christine and I got a lot of packing done before I flew to Fort Dix, NJ to begin my Pre-Deployment training. It really sucked to say good bye even for the short 3 weeks that I will be here, but I will be back before I know it.


Lunch!

I got to Ft. Dix late Tuesday evening and barely slept a wink the first night because of the time zone. We are staying in the barracks in 12 man rooms and the mattresses, as expected, suck. Thankfully the second night I slept like a baby because I was so beat. We have first formation at 0700 after we get dressed and eat breakfast at the dining facility (DFAC). My breakfast usually consists of a smoothy with a lot of really good stuff in it. The DFAC food leaves a lot to be desired and there are no smoothies so I have to improvise. The standard hot breakfast consists of bacon (dripping with grease), hash browns, pancakes, syrup, powdered eggs, or an omelet if you want to wait on it. Since most of you know I like to watch my figure, I have been sticking to oatmeal, a banana, and some energy greens I brought mixed with OJ. I am usually pretty hungry by 0930, but it beats eating the gut busting alternative. For lunch we get a Meal Ready to Eat (MRE). These are not all bad any more and quite tasty actually. In many ways better than the DFAC. Dinner has been spotty as I like to work out about this time, so I usually miss the scheduled hours and grab something on my own dime. Last night I hitched a ride with a buddy that has a car to a sports bar on post. Had a nice grilled chicken cesar salad, had to get some roughage in me.  




Body Armor and Weapon. Wearing
about 25+lbs of equipment here.

  I have almost been here a week now and in that time we have been issued pretty much all of our combat gear to include weapons, body armor, ruck sacks, magazines, cold weather gear, sleeping bag system, etc... You would not believe all the goodies you get. Our tax dollars at work for sure. We will get new uniforms with the brown camo pattern I'm wearing in the picture when I return in January. We have also received a lot of classroom training about specialized equipment we will see or be using in theater, first aide and how to setup our weapons systems.

In the 3 weeks that I am here, we only get one day off from training. That will be Thanksgiving Day, which I plan to visit my buddy on the other side of post. He has a hotel and a rental car as he is here supporting the mission, but not part of it. It is always nice to get out of the barracks. He plans to have a few of us over to watch movies all day. Not much else we can do since most things will be closed. Thankfully Christine will be home with family during this time.

That's about all for now, time to hit the rack (go to bed for all you civilian types). Until next time...