Pre-Deployment Fun in the Sun

If war is hell, pre-deployment is a decent stand in for purgatory! Our days consist mostly of waiting in line to get to the next processing station. When we are not waiting in line we are sitting in another briefing. No lie, we have heard 23 separate briefings. These have ranged from Cultural Awareness -don't shake with the left hand or show the soles of your feet, through the Chaplain –it's normal to be scared, your family misses you don't shut them out, to Finance –here's what you're going to get paid. That's not to say that there are not literally hundreds of people working to make the process of getting to the Area of Operations (A.O.R.) as efficient and painless as possible. The process is just an inherently difficult and time-consuming process. Did I mention it is over a 100 here before 1100 a.m.?

Consider what has to happen in the case of the average Reservist (a soldier who normally has a civilian job and has been mobilized in support of the current operation). This Soldier has to go from civilian to a full time, fully trained, processed and equipped Soldier operating in a foreign country where people are trying to kill him/her in a matter of a few weeks. In the case of the group I am with, about two weeks. These Soldiers have all the technical training they need such as driving trucks, managing logistics, flying aircraft; whatever their "job" is in the Army. Most have some of the tactical training such as reacting to an ambush, calling in a MEDEVAC, occupying a check point; typically what people think "war" is. However, they are not part of the active duty force. They have not had the benefit of Army medical and dental care and may not have been able to afford that same quality of care on their own. In those cases they may need some work. Reserve soldiers are not in the pay system to receive all the entitlements active duty soldiers do and they may not be aware of them. The Reservists family starts receiving medical care and other benefits once their Soldier comes on active duty, that is another system altogether. This and a myriad of other systems, process, training, information and most of all, paperwork must get done, and done right.

Now, imagine me coming along. Though in the Reserve's I am on active duty and have been for 12 years. I have deployed several times, once to Kuwait, which is where I am going to now. I am in the pay system. I have had all the training. My forms are filled out, and in the system. You get the point. It's frustrating, but it is necessary and I understand that. So that is basically what we have just completed. We should almost all be on "the same sheet of music" administratively by the end of today. The fun stuff starts tomorrow. I didn't do much blogging for a few reasons:

· Internet access is very limited and lots of other Soldiers needed the computers to do training or deal with issues so they could get out of here.

· It was boring the hell out of me and I didn't think it would make interesting reading

· It was boring the hell out of me and I didn't want to relive it by remembering it and writing it down.

· It was boring the hell out of me and the last thing I wanted to do was sit down and write.

· Did I mention I was bored. Oh yeah, fairly frustrated too.

I should give a big "Shout Out" to all those of you that pay your taxes. You can not believe the stuff they give you when you go to war! When I was a Private here at Ft Benning, one of my Drill Sergeant's was telling us all about going to war. He had been in the Gulf War and was relating the "war stories". I remember somebody talking about the equipment we were training with and how worn it was. Our Drill Sergeant just responded "…don't worry about that shit. You go to war and BAM new shit starts droppin out of the sky. BAM, brand new M-16. Still in the plastic. Poof! New uniforms. Don't worry Private. You go to war, you'll get all the shit you need." He was right. I have three duffle bags full of mostly brand new stuff. Uniforms, body armor, Gerber multi-tool, Chemical protective masks, boots, literally everything except underwear and 90% of it was in plastic, just like my Drill Sergeant said it would be.

So, tomorrow the fun starts and Thursday we get to go to the range and fire our weapons. We will do some training that will enable us to handle most situations we can expect in Theatre (Doctrinal term for the area of the war fight). The Army is continuously updating this training. As the enemy develops new Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (T.T.P's) we develop countermeasures. This is a radical change to how the Army has historically done training. Technology surely has enabled us to get better and clearer information from theatre, and we can get it almost real time. More importantly Army leaders have realized the dynamic nature of our enemy and have put processes in place to deal with it. In this area we are truly doing what we do best as soldiers –adapt and overcome.