So I felt like I was def. required to update my blog tonight with everything going on. I have decided to return to Auburn in the spring. It was a very quick decision over the last like.. 2 days or so. I feel that I do not stand even a decent chance of getting accepted to Texas A&M, even though I am interested in the school, due to just not enough hours for a strong transfer application. Transfer applications are due in March so I could still try to go next fall but I don't see how I could. I will be giving up some of my plans that I had for the next 6 months by returning to Auburn, but I am just ready to settle down. Hopefully I can come home during the summer and get some hours at the Lakeshore Foundation at that time. The biggest thing I am giving up is just time off. I am not allowed to say when I will be home but I will be missing some school unless things change. I am emailing my college and advisor to let them know that in advance but I am willing to fall behind a little bit instead of missing an entire semester. Hopefully things will work out and I won't miss much. As Mom and Dad know, because I have already started annoying them, my online searches now revolve around my new truck and some kind of housing for the spring. Kristi may have a roommate subleasing her room which would make me and Kristi roomies again! That would be convenient, if that doesn't happen then I will just get creative and come up with something. As for my truck, I found one in Atlanta that I really like and Carrie and Dad are both going to help me check that out. Hopefully things are falling in to place. Trying not to get too far ahead of myself because things can always change, especially when it comes to the Army and timing. They could decide tomorrow to send our replacements to Afghanistan and leave us here longer. There is just no way to know until I actually get back to the states and have my release from active duty in my hand. Just wanted to give a quick update for anyone seeing stuff on facebook or such and not knowing what was going on. Love you all

Thanksgiving

I am a bit late with the Thanksgiving post. Sorry! We had a brief the other day and our 1SG showed us this quote an just thought I'd share with the group. This was written by a soldier in 2005 I think..
As America wakes up this morning they will turn on the TV to see why we are fighting in these wars. Today is supposed to be a special day for our country, to celebrate why we are thankful and to gather family. For guys like myself, I will break bread with the men that I serve with here. We’ll play it off and pretend that we don’t care but deep down inside we all do. We all know what it’s like to be home and be with out families. That is not the case this year.
I am here now and I am thankful for being able to serve our great nation. The ability to serve is something that I wish all American’s could experience. What are you thankful for this year?
Although I am half a world away from my loved ones I have not forgotten what home means to me. Between the hustle and bustle of normal life I can see where people can forget what they are thankful for.
So when you break bread this afternoon, say your grace and appreciate the opportunity to be there with your family and loved ones. Don’t allow the bullshit that others are trying to do to spoil your day. Turn the news off and know that those who serve will take care of this mess.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Just thought it was kinda cool. My Thanksgiving was definitely one I will always remember. They went all out with the meals, I think they included anything they had ever heard Americans like. Let's just say if I told you what all they served you would think I am not actually in Iraq ha. It made me remember that not everybody deployed right now was in a position to have the kind of meal we had, or even to get the day off. I am sure most people in Afghanistan had a very different experience than we did here. So I am thankful to be where I am.
I was also thankful that we are experiencing these holidays at the end of the deployment. I can honestly call many of the people here family now. I cannot imagine how difficult the holidays would be at say the first month or two of a deployment. Things sure have changed here during the last couple of months. We have started realizing that our time together is coming to an end and most of us are not even from the same state. It will be difficult to see each other once this deployment ends. I have enjoyed the extra time we have spent hanging out recently, whether at the softball field or in front of the Xbox, ha.
After lunch we went and played some Xbox of course. What would you rather do on Thanksgiving than play Halo? We followed that up with another big dinner (same food from lunch ha), and then just hung out outside the rooms all night. Turned on some music, had a bunch of near-beer, and just hung out.
This may have been the most random Thanksgiving ever, but will def. be one I don't forget. It will also always be a memory for the Thanksgivings to come to remind me to appreciate the family time I get when I can get it. I missed being with the family, but I know this will come to an end soon. It is funny to think about because we are nearing the end of deployment and they are starting to talk to us about going home. I feel like I never thought these days would come. The whole deployment process I worried about what it would be like to get here. Talking about what to look forward to on the way home is just crazy. I hope everyone has a great day and that y'all can pull Auburn through today. I know we will have a large group of family at the game so I am looking to you to get the win. Do not fear though, I bought chips and dip, and some mountain dew and we will have our own Iron Bowl party here in Iraq. I love you all!

Sooo I am really hyper and decided I should update my blog. My roomies think I am hyper because I was eating M&Ms. My theory is that it is because I was able to talk to Mom and Dad both for like 20 minutes... And I could actually hear them! Ya'll don't even understand how nice good sound quality is until you lose it! I have also decided what I am getting everyone for Christmas which is fun. Even though it is a way off, and my Christmas is even farther off than that (sorry guys, not getting presents from me until I am home to give them!). But it is nice to know Christmas is right around the corner because it means going home is right around the corner! Wooh wooh.
We have a really light work week next week which is exciting as well. Even though it means the week will go by slower. We will get Thanksgiving off, Friday is maintenance day but we took our truck today so we won't really do anything that day, and Saturday is another off day! It's almost like a real weekend! Sounds like loootttsss of Halo 3 on the Xbox for us. (I'm actually getting pretty good, I can beat some of the guys and they do noootttt like losing to a chick on video games ha). It's cool though because all the xboxes here are connected so we end up playing teams with like 12-15 players total. Lots of army/ air force rivalry there ha.
Softball may be wrapping up soon. We have 3 more regular season games. We have to win 2 of the 3 to make it to the playoffs. Our star player hurt his back yesterday so he will be playing hurt tonight. Should make the game interesting.
Have I mentioned how super proud of my family I am recently? It's fun watching everyone grow up. You got the adults, like Carrie working off in the real world, doing some really cool things with her kids. Ashlyn is right behind her with her awesome internship at Southern Living (some very nice blogs that I have gotten to read). Kristi with Miss Auburn and starting to look at the real world now as a big bad junior. Kristen repping the Kappa Delts with lots of good times in college to come! (just do me a favor Kristen, don't be a 20 year old freshman like me ha.) I'm sad that I won't be around during Christmas to hear what everyone has been up to recently, I am sure there is a lot more cool stuff going on that I just don't know of. Thomas doing well with his tennis, wish I could have seen him play while I was on leave but I was very glad I got tosee him for a bit before the match! And of course Wesley with all of his big ideas about army men. I am just really proud of everyone and glad to be a part of this family!
Today is a good day. The weather here has finally decided to become fall (we're only a couple of months behind). Tonight at my softball game I will be wearing sweat pants and underarmor... I guess Hell has frozen over, atleast Iraq! Highs around the 70s with lows in the 50s. The days feel amazing though, just stinks when they start at 0600. You feel pretty dumb wearing a jacket in Iraq ha.
I love you all and hope everyone's day is as good as mine has been!

this picture ^^^ is horrible. But oh well, kinda shows you whats up.

I have been wanting to make thispost for a while ( I actually just typed the stupid thing but it got deleted halfway through so now I am stuck redoing it!). On Thursday, while we were on mission, Craig through a water bottle at my truck and i almost caught it... with my nose. He was up above me so I could not see it until it landed. It wasn't too major, I ended with a busted nose and a couple of black eyes. He def. did not do it on purpose, and he felt really bad so I didn't want to get him in trouble (We had a couple of important people with us on mission that day). It will be awsome today though because our new Brigade is coming to talk with us and I will get to explain to a couple of Colonels why I have 2 black eyes ( I of course volunteered to miss the meeting so it would not come up, that got shut down really quickly).

Another exciting mission today, I got an IP thrown in jail. He was I guess, in a normalwork evironment it would be considered sexual harrassment. It wasn't anything major but I told my NCOs and they went to talk to the station commander. They consider it a major offense so he will be in jail for a couple of days, docked pay, and transferred to another station. They made like a formal apology to me and everything, including telling me I had the right to press charges with them and take him to Iraqi court. I just said they knew better what the punishment should be under their laws and that I trusted them to handle it. It was kinda crazy.

Softball has won our last 2 games so it looks like we're on a roll now. I am still workin on making the adjustment to a slowpitch swing, not working all that well for me!ha havea good day

I need to apologize for not doing a better job of keeping in touch with home since I have been back. Days are flying by right now. It has been great. We have 2 slowpitch softball teams playing in a league right now. So basically every night is either practice, one of my games, or the other team has a game. We are def. spending most nights out at the field. It has been a lot of fun, last night the other team played. We took a grill and some nearbeer (nonalcoholic beer) and tailgated for their game haha. So that is where I normally am during the hours that I would be able to call yall. That plus the fact that I have been having problems with my computer and headsets has made communication not easy. I will try and do better, I am going to buy a new headset today and hopefully that will fix the problem.
We are also running 4 missions a week. We are nearing the end of R&R for the whole company, there are probably only 4 or 5 more people in our platoon who are either currently gone or are leaving in the next week or two. That makes our "down day", which is really squad support, pretty much useless. The point of squad support is to help fill in for people who are on leave, right now there are only 2 people to fill in for. So it is easier to send us out on more missions. That also makes the days go faster, even if it more tiring haha.
I am no longer sick, thank goodness. I am also getting back to getting normal sleep. Last night I slept really well, I had to make myself get out of bed this morning ( and by morning I mean like.... 11) so I didn't sleep all day and keep myself from getting any sleep tonight. It is sad how much I look forward to sleep these days. I found a book series that I am really enjoying. I got it from another guy in the company who is passing me the books as he finishes them. I'm on book 5 (plus a prequel) of 11. That is not helping me sleep either ha. I may have a bit of trouble putting it down. He is on book 6 though so I may have to wait a bit to get the next one from him.
It is really starting to feel like we're almost done here. They have started taking some of our equipment and are talking about us sending gear back and stuff. Kinda crazy, but if things continue moving as quickly as they have for the 2 weeks I have been back, we will be out of here in no time.
I thought I was enrolled in some online classes starting yesterday, but some stupid things got in the way. I am pretty frustrated, especially since I now have the textbooks for the classes that I am not a part of. That's pretty much whats going on in my life these days, I will try and do better with the phone. I love yall!

Kuwait

I'm "stuck" in kuwait for the next couple days it seems. I use "stuck" because I am living here with the only obligation of meeting at 1000 to see if I leave that day. Which means lots of movies and sleep. Not too bad, I will miss our offday in Bucca now so when I get there we will be going full speed. I will probably get to miss one more mission too though so I am not complaining. I guess this makes me a horrible person/ teammate but ya know.. I am getting paid the same and although that bed isn't the most comfy I am not complaining about being here! I don't have my normal internet though so you prob won't hear from me until I get to Iraq. Love you
Katie

oh atlanta...

So I am sitting in ATL airport now. Thinking about the last 2 weeks. I had a lot of fun, it was better than expected. Thanks to all the family who was able to make it to Uncle Rush and Aunt Shan's house. That was a great night and I really appreciated getting to see everyone. It's funny, when I got home I felt awkward in civilian clothes, now I feel weird being back in my uniform. I am absolutely dreeeaaaaddding this flight back. Hopefully the weather will be better than on the way here and the trips will be the shorter side of the estimated travel time. I prepared this time though, I am wearing my glasses instead of contacts so sleeping will be easier and comfier! I also picked up the new Vince Flynn book so that should be nice.
I know everyone is looking for info.... I really enjoyed Texas A&M. The campus is crazy, 5200 sq ft, 49,000 students. That's more than double Auburn's enrollment. I think I could get lost on campus even as a senior. It is a pretty campus, although the architecture is pretty lame. A lot of the buildings are very out of date.
I liked what I saw of the Corps. Saturday we got up early to make sure we beat traffic and got a good parking spot... Well... that was the biggest difference between Auburn and A&M. There was like zero tailgating unless you were right around the stadium. Granted, we parked pretty far away from the stadium. Walking through the campus was almost creepy because it was so still for the most part. Once we got to the Quad (Corps residence area) it was a very different story. The entire Corps was outside in different levels of formations. The upper classmen were walking around basically quizzing the freshman and making a show for all the parents and alum around. That is until I saw D Co (the veterans company I want to join). They were just hanging out. Seems that they don't really buy into the Sophomore, Junior power trip the way the rest of the companies do. Which is understandable, they consider each other much more as equals than everyone else since everyone is a Vet. I liked the attitude they had from what I was able to see. I had tried to meet up with the company commander but I accidently gave him my old phone number so I never got in touch with him.
School wise A&M seems great. The majority of their students graduate in 4 years, which even impressed Kristi ( which was extremely hard to do. I believe by the end of the trip A&M had 5 points while Auburn had 1,000,000. She was not able to define those points but apparently they were all there!). I found out to get accepted my best chance would be to apply as a psychology major (and join the rest of the Megahee clan) and then later try to transfer to kinesiology. The academic requirements for the college of liberal arts are a little easier than for the college of health and education. But, worst case scenerio I could graduate with a BS in psych and just make sure I took the PT school pre-requirements and still get in. PT school just looks at the sciences that you need, they don't have a specific degree you have to have. So that's the route I'm going to go. I am trying to get in a good bit more school before I have to apply (by Mar 15). I enrolled in 6 hours starting on the 26th, and then will try and get another 6 in Dec or Jan.
Can't decide what I will miss the most about the states.. here are some though
sunkist.. duh
hamburgers that did not get shipped as a frozen patty
gym shorts
trees
bushes
grass.. anything green essentially
driving a car
my cell phone
saying no ha
family time, obviously
showers without flipflops
I guess those are some of the major ones, there will be more that I will remember during the next week I am sure!
Should be out of Iraq in less than 90 days... (today is 7 months since I left New Jersey fyi). Can't wait to see everyone again soon!

Soo since Carrie updated, I figured I needed to as well. I LEAVE HERE IN ONE WEEK!! It's crazy. The first time I was suposed to leave, I made it to 11 days on my countdown before it got changed. Obviously I was excited one it became less than 2 weeks and was really enjoying planning everything out. Well when it became 35 days I was just a bit depressed haha. I told Mom I didn't want to do anything with the planning anymore because it was just a bummer. I can't believe how fast those 35 days (well, 28) have gone. I really feel like this last month has flown by. And maybe it was a good thing to have my leave delayed. That next week after it got changed was really rough obviously but now I look back and see that almost a whole month has gone by since then. Since our countdown for this deployment revolves around months, one month is a big deal. The day I should get home will be 6 months since we've been in Iraq, the 13th was 6 months since we arrived in Kuwait. That's crazy. I seriously remember talking to somebody the first month we were here. He said he had been here for 4 months and I was soo jealous. I knew once we got to 4 months we would be close to the halfway point. Now I can't even remember when I realized we had passed the halfway point. If I had left on the 1st I would be coming back this week instead of leaving. While obviously part of me will always regret giving up Mom and Carrie's birthdays, I am glad that this week I am looking forward to leaving instead of preparing to come back. Now when I come back it will be less than 3 months left in country!! Wooh Wooh!
Moving past that super long paragraph.. haha I am very proud of our Auburn Tigers. They seem to be looking good, hopefully this WV game will solidify us as a good team and move us into the top 25. For all concerned, my Texas A&M Aggies are doing well also! They had a bye last week but did very well in their opener. Can't wait to see them play although I am a bit depressed that I do not know the next time I will get to watch Auburn play on the Plains.
I will be in Montgomery the first weekend of October, I believe its like the 5th? Regrettably, I will be a short trip but I will be there Saturday morning and for lunch with Deedah before I head back to Birmingham. I obviously do not know all of the plans, for more information please see my Mother, but anyone who is in the area and has a chance I would love to see everyone I can. If you have other commitments or plans I will not be depressed, I understand I am only there for a short time but I would love to see anyone who is available!
Well, I just bought a footlocker to start packing some of my stuff and sending it home ( we try and have everything packed when we go on leave just in case something changes and we have to move. If you have moved as many times as us you get really gunshy and don't want to leave your roommates to pack everything for you!). One week and counting. Love you all

So. Today is the day I should have been headed home. Obviously as everyone knows, I am not. As Nell said in her email to me, it is in fact bittersweet. Obviously I am very much looking forward to getting home. I miss all of you more than you know. I am also very ready to leave Iraq for atleast a little while. It is hard to spend everyday with the same people for 9 months and not end up wanting to strangle atleast a couple of them (sorry Mom will be mad at me for saying that ha). But, as many of you have guessed, when they asked for a volunteer, all I could think about was if I was in his situation. Coming home and not having Mom or Dad be there would just not be the same. If I wouldn't want to be in that situation then I should help him out. I do feel that in a lot of ways God will repay kindness with kindness (not that that was my motivation in anyway) but hopefully He'll help me out sometime later.
Well, I don't remember if I have made any updates about the promotion thing and I am too lazy to go back and read to check. If I repeat myself I apologize. When I completed my packet I needed the admin NCO to check it before it could be turned in. Well he didn't put forth the effort I needed and I missed the September board. I finished making the corrections last week and gave it back to my platoon sergeant to try and turn in again. The packet needs the signature of my team leader, the admin NCO, the Commander, and the First Sergeant. Well... I almost got all of those approvals. The First Sergeant doesn't believe in allowing packets to be submitted to the board if they need Time in Service and Time in Grade waived. I need both waived. Therefore, he will not allow my packet to be submitted. I need 3 more months Time in Grade before that doesn't need a waiver. Which means I can not submit my packet until the December board even though I have the points.
Obviously a little frustrating. But as Mom pointed out first and then my Chain of Command also said; it is better that time is the reason I cannot get promoted than if it was because they didn't believe in me. My Platoon Sergeant told me yesterday that he believes I should be an NCO and that I would be a good one, and I know my Squad believes in me because of the leadership positions they have put me in. I, along with two other Specialists now, am spending time being in charge of some of the leadership aspects of the missions. From being in charge at the trucks, or being in charge of the guard towers, to helping out giving the briefs before the mission. I would rather have their respect and confidence than stripes on my chest, I just wish I could have both!
Been a long start to a long week. I have missions everyday this week and then will be working on our offday Saturday. Small consolation, they are giving us Monday off for labor day. I guess I will try and catch up on sleep then!
My best friend will be back from leave around Sunday or Monday so that should help me out to have him to talk to again. I also want to apologize to everyone for all the emails my Mom sent out the other day! Haha, Guess I shouldn't have forwarded her the article.
I apologize for the length and if this post seems depressed. I am alright, missing home but I will def. be good soon enough. I will make sure that my next post is super happy, it is just easier to post the not so fun information once instead of telling everyone over the phone multiple times. Hope everyone is doing really well. Get prepared to cheer Auburn to some victories for me this year. I have waaaayyyy to many Tusca-losers around here that will be all over me if we lose too many games, haha. I love everyone and still look forward to seeing yall soon.

soooo lemme start this off by saying that i love all of you and i am sorry... I am no longer coming home on the 1st. my new date to leave bucca is the 26th. one of the guys in my platoon needed to go home earlier. his son is currently in baghdad and goes home on leave in early september. if he left on the 26th he would not get to see him while he was home. they asked us today if anyone would volunteer to switch with him and i thought it was the right thing to do. im a bit depressed obviously, my countdown changed from 11 days to 35 ha. and i am sorry to the family, i know everyone was expecting me soon and had already made plans but things change ya know? ill be giving an explanation to mom and the girls later so anyone with questions can ask me here or ask one of them. love you all
katie

I leave camp Bucca on September 1st for leave! ha, that is all!

Hey Family! Sorry it has been a while, I have actually been pretty busy/stressed here recently. Last Friday I took a pt test. Lemme tell you, running 2 miles in Iraq is not fun, especially in August. We started the test at 0430 so it would be as cool as possible but it was still prob around 100 degrees. I passed, just barely though ha. I needed the pt test so that I could put together my promotion packet. I am hoping to get promoted to SGT here soon. Here is how that process works. To get promoted to SGT or above you have to put in a packet. In the packet is like, everything about you in the military, a pt test, weapons qualification, any schools you have been to, military or civilian, what awards you have, letters of recommendation, everything. Once you complete that packet you take it to your commander. He has up to 150 points that he can give you based on if he believes you should be promoted or not. If he approves of you and you have enough points (for SGT it is 350) you then send your packet to a promotion board. The board collects all the submissions and evaluates them. They also award points based on how well the packet is put together, general appearance, and those kinds of things. They tally up all the points. Each board is told how many people can be promoted that month. So if it is 15 they take the top 15 scores and those 15 are eligible for promotion. If you are not in the top 15 then you try and get more points and try again.
I put my packet together but due to the fact our platoon is separated from our company it is making the process more difficult. There are some documents that a admin specialist has to generate. Our admin specialist is currently in Basra. So it has been a bit stressful trying to figure out exactly how to get him all of my paperwork and get the stuff from him that I need to sign when we are so far apart. The Commander came to Bucca yesterday and took my packet back to Basra with him. Word on the street (someone who happened to be in the office and overheard ha) is that I did get an approval from him. As stated above, if I got the approval then I am on the final step, actually sending it to the board and trying to get approved.
Some people say it is really easy to get promoted while you are deployed, that if you have the points you will pretty much get promoted. I guess maybe that is true because I believe that everyone we have submitted for promotion has actually been promoted, but I don't know how much truth there is to that. I also just heard a rumor that the board has been pushed back. It was suposed to be Sept 6-7, now I don't know what the deal is. It might be a good thing for it to be delayed to make sure I can for sure get all the paperwork in on time, but I also don't like the idea of it being pushed back too much. A couple of other people from our platoon have now decided to try and get their packets in by this board. so we will see how the time affects things.
I had kinda hoped it would be the 6-7 so maybe I could find out before leave. oh well, things will happen in their own time. I have completed everything that I can, now its just the fun of waiting to try and find out what will happen.
That was long and probably boring for most of you but it has def. taken up like my whole last week trying to get it complete and turned in on time. I hope everyone is doing well. There is a lot to look forward to for me these days, football season is right around the corner, September is almost here!! ( I still don't know when I will be home. Our 1SG will be down here on Monday and hopefully he will let us know then), and of course getting even closer to the actual day of coming home.
Congratulations to Kristen for pledging KD! I haven't gotten to talk to Kristi yet but I know she is super happy to get to share that with you.
I love yall!

So why is it that the one day that I try to be responsible and finally update my blog the internet wants to be bad? Oh well I will type it all out and then hopefully be able to post shortly. I am super sorry it has taken me so long to write something. I wish I even had a good excuse. It’s kinda nice though because you can look through the dates on the blog and see that when I was making the most posts was when I was extremely bored. Atleast I’m not bored anymore! Here’s what is going on.
We are staying busy but we also have a good amount of downtime. I go on missions between 4 and 5 times a week. Saturday is a guaranteed off day for everyone, Friday is maintenance day to work on our trucks (it is the holy day here so we leave them alone). Other than those two days any day can be a mission. Each squad has 3 or 4 missions a week. But on the days your squad does not have a mission you are still working somehow. People have to work in the TOC (headquarters basically, I don’t really know what it stands for?) and people have to help fill in other squads. I am very happy that we get leave, I can’t wait to go home on mine and see all of you wonderful people, but I can’t wait until leave is over. Filling in with other squads really isn’t that much fun. It’s nice to see new areas and see different things ( I got to see a herd of camels today when I went out with 3rd squad. They were the first camels I had seen since we left Kuwait back in March), but we all prefer to go with our own squads. The other part that makes it difficult is having people fill in for my squad. Right now we have 5 people on leave out of 12. We have 1 guy who can’t go out on mission because he cut his hand and had to get stitches. So every day that we go on mission only half of the people are actually from our squad. The other half are fill-ins. And they do a good job, not complaining about that but it will be easier to do the mission once we get back to the routine of knowing who is where and who is responsible for what and all that kind of stuff.
Our missions normally last around half a day depending on when we start it. So we do have a couple of hours of downtime in the afternoon before we all get busy again. This is normally movie or naptime.. ok its normally nap time ha. We have a meeting at 1700, after that its normally chow followed by the gym. They have a nice MWR here so we spend some nights in there watching movies or playing video games.
I really can’t complain much about time. The rest of our company is still not doing anything. Our Battalion Commander actually sent our Commander an email telling him that we are doing a great job as the only platoon in the entire Task Force conducting ptt. That’s pretty big, the Task Force has probably 6 or 7 ( that’s completely a guess, could be more) companies, each company has 3 platoons, and we are the only ones still working with the Iraqi Police.
I miss everyone back home a lot. I’m happy to be here because time is moving by much faster. We have been at Bucca for almost 3 weeks now and it has been a lot better than the time we spent at Basrah. It is almost August which means almost a month until September. That’s really exciting, I should be home in less than a month and a half (hopefully I got early September. I should know a date in about 2 weeks). I love you all lots

Hey guys, sorry I haven't been around for a bit. I'm having computer troubles, gotta get a new charger and I'm too lazy to go do it right now. I'm using a computer in a lab right now. just makes it a lil more difficult to get in touch with everyone. were staying very busy right now, working 6 days a week. Just wanted to give a quick update, dont have too much time. i love you all, i will be able to get my computer fixed and such by friday or sat so should be able to get in contact with more of you then. love you
katie

Hey family! The main point of this post is to inform you of the mail situation here. We are going to continue to get mail at the last address I gave in Camp Basra (mom has this). Once a week someone from our company will bring mail down to us and once a week someone from here will go to Camp Basra to pick up the mail. Obviously expect delays due to this process but it will make it to me eventually!
We're pretty much setup and ready to go here. We got our trucks worked on some more today, tomorrow will be an off day which is pretty exciting and then we will start missions again after that. I plan to head over to the Education Center tomorrow to see what kind of resources I have down here for college classes. I finished the two I started in May. I had to do a lot of the work early because of how much we were moved around but it is 6 more hours! I am now almost a sophomore. Ha... to think I should be a junior and I don't even have the credit to be a sophomore. Oh well, the way to make God laugh is to tell him our plans right?
Ha, I think some good will come from this deployment. It isn't quite what I was looking for when I found out I was coming. I had planned on being able to adamantly say the Iraqi's need our help and it's a good thing we 're here. While I believe that once was the case I don't think it still is. However the recent increase in violence in the cities may be a sign they still need our help and just don't want to admit it. I guess only time will tell. Either way, this is the place God wanted me at this time, right? I just have to learn what I need to learn from being here and come back home soon. Hope everything is well back home, much love.
Katie

I wanted to let everyone know we made it to Camp Bucca safely. We are very excited to be here, living conditions are better than they were at Basra. We are still in tents but they are insulated and huge. We start working tomorrow which is exciting, we have all been very tired of being bored. Should start going on missions soon hopefully. I'll update more as things change. The most exciting part of being here..... I have wireless internet again wooh wooh!

sooo for my sisters and parents i hope everyone remembers where we were this time one year ago. the glorious ft. leonard wood. its funny how much things can change in just one year. last year i woke up all bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to graduate and get on back home. today july 3rd marks the 6 month mark from the day i left home. i woke up nooottt so bright eyed and bushy tailed for another day in this lovely place.
i went back to the gym tonight for the first night in a while. its always funny to me, if i haven't been going to the gym then i dread going but once i go im dying to keep going. i have a lot of work to do between preparing for a pt test and trying to lose some weight so i def. need to keep up going. it just seems so much easier to eat better and be healthier when im working out too. good ole endorphines ha
i love everyone, have a very happy 4th. enjoy some ribs for me

Hey guys, been busy, which has been kinda nice. But also really hot. We've been doing a lot of work on our trucks. Worked on a Humvee for a couple of days only for them to change my truck to a caiman so now we had to start all over again. i guess it's good, caimans are safer and have much better air conditioning. I would rather drive a humvee because they are smaller and easier to move around. Since we will be in a new place I have no clue what to expect from the roads which is not much fun. Some roads can make a caiman very difficult to maneuver! Umm things are changing around here and Ill let yall know more as I do. Sorry I don't have too much info. Love you all

Happy Daddy's Day everyone!!! Hope all the Dads have a good one. We packed up the connex today with our extra stuff. Should be moving sometime soon. Looking forward to the move. We're just biding time here, played volleyball last night for about 2 and a half hours, lots of fun. thats our entertainment around here, that and the gym. Um nothing really exciting going on, wish I could give ya'll more excitement but I just don't have any. Love everyonnneeee lots and lots

Hey guys, so we're doing absolutely nothing these days. Our leadership finally decided to start giving us busy work classes to fill the day. Still not much going on. Had a dream last night about r & r. It's sad how when you're this bored all you can think about is home. We need something to go on just to keep us focused on being here and to let the time go by faster. It's no fun sitting around all day watching everyone else's life keep going through facebook or myspace. Doesn't everybody realize their life is suposed to be on hold until I get back? gahhhh... ummmm Carrie you need to update your blog so I can hear about your first lesson. That or email me or something. Guys feel free to send me emails, even if it is something that doesn't seem all that important it's nice to hear from home. I love ya'll
Katie
(email katie73421@yahoo.com just in case anyone doesn't have it)

hey.. so Id like to say we are staying busy but we're really not. Each day some people go on detail and do some work but the majority of us are just bored. I hang out in the MWR a lot because it is air conditioned well unlike my tent. Ive already read a book and a half in the last 2 days and watched about 4 movies. Yesterday it was fairly cool, may have actually been under 100 degrees but I don't know if it was THAT cool, so I was able to get some sleep in the tent during the day. I'm going to buy a fan today so hopefully tomorrow I can sleep past 7 or 8 (by that time it is too hot in the tent and you wake up sweating). We're in limbo, just doing a bunch of inventorying our new gear so we can start doing stuff sometime soon. Probably wont be running any missions this week though, maybe next week. Not too much exciting stuff to update, just wanted to show that I am going to update more just don't have anything worth saying!
Carrie, hope you have an amazing lesson today.
Love yall lots.

Basra

We made it to Basra. It is southern Iraq, close to the Kuwaiti border. It is a lot more like a desert than Baghdad so it is hotter. Were being told to expect about 10 degrees hotter here than in Baghdad. Were living in tents, 5 big tents running parallel with a hallway running between them connecting them all. That is where the females live. Each half of a tent is an 8 man room with bunk beds and wall lockers.Def. not as nice as Camp Liberty but is also not as bad as we expected. The female latrine is part of that group of tents. The males live about 50- 100 feet away in the same type of structure which kinda stinks. It will make it a lot harder to get in touch with each other when something comes up. The chow hall is like 15-20 minutes away, not sure about the PX yet, headed over there shortly. We have an inbrief this afternoon from the Command Sergeant Major to learn more about all the rules here and such. There is no internet inside the tents, there is a tent fairly close by with 20 computers that we can use though. We don't even know where the trucks will be or where the command will be when we start running missions yet.
The thing about it is.... I'm not actually going to be living here. Found out last night when we got off the bus that 3rd platoon is going to be moving out to a smaller site inside the city. We don't know too much right now but we will moving sometime soon. I'm excited, we might actually have more luxuries at that place since it will be smaller and a more central location. The CO also said we will be living in buildings again instead of these tents so I think we're getting the best end of the deal.
Be prepared for me to start using this as my major means of communication. Until we move it will be easier for me to just come update this in the mornings instead of when it's super busy when yall are all awake.
On the flight over here the crew let some of us go sit in the cockpit while they were flying. It was pretty cool watching them and seeing all the different controls and sensors and such they have in there. Got some pictures but since I'm not on my computer it will be a bit before you see them.
I'm off, let you know more as I know more but I am safe, hot but safe. Love you all

MOVING

soooo sometime soon I will no longer be calling Baghdad home. our company is moving. I don't really know any details, just that there is a lot going on trying to get everything packed up and inventoried again. the main point of this post, if you are planning on sending me anything anytime soon, please hold it until I can get you a new address. anything already on its way will either reach us before we leave or be forwarded to our address at some point. thanks, Ill let you know more as I know more. Love you all
Katie

soo quick update. we were suposed to be doing fiji this week butttttt it got cancelled. theres a big issue right now with the US feeding local nationals. as we get closer to turning over control to the iraqis, the military is wanting them to take over more of their own work. including feeding the nationals. since we cant feed them anymore, nobody at fiji knows how they can feed the iraqi police; therefore, fiji has been shut down until they figure out the food deal. so instead weve been running missions all week. since im still on profile, i cant run the missions. soooo im laying around doing nothing all week. kinda nice because its relaxing but its also boring. and i feel bad that my squad is out when im not. just a couple more days though and ill be back. it was good timing because ive been able to watch some of the softball world series at night and then sleep during the day.
my team leader and squad leader are both going on leave here in the next week. im glad they get to go home but it is going to be interesting to see how the squad is run without them. were going through some changes with our mission, going to be adding some night missions and some crazy stuff here soon. it will be weird to make those changes especially without my team leader or squad leader.
carries moving on. kinda sad. im proud of you for being an adult and all that junk... but im not ok with knowing how different things will be when i come home and youre not there anymore.
love yall lots hope all is well.

sooooooooooo. im trying to do a better job of keeping up with this thing for a bit. we finished our mission segment, we started our 2 weeks of camp Fiji today. a good thing, no combat missions for the next 2 weeks wooh wooh. My back has been bothering me for the last week so I finally went to see a dr. today. My squad leader did not want me to have to work for other squads while we are doing camp fiji. i got a 2 week profile that says i cant run any combat missions (basically no wearing my gear), no pt for my back, and any other pt is at my own discretion. he gave me some heat pads and some naprocen for 2 weeks. im hoping it just got kinda irritated the other day when i did squats and that the rest will take it back to its normal annoyingness (im making up words now).
with everything that is going on with my back i am glad i didnt get moved to brigade. it stinks to say because at the time i really wanted to go but i know things would have been worse if i had. i miss lee a lot but its probably better for her to be there than for me. it stinks realizing every once in a while, what i want may not be the best thing for me. im trying to remember that and hold on to it through everything here.
were coming up on 2 months since weve been in country. seems like weve been here forever though. glad to say we still havent had any kind of incident in the company. i found out i will get my 2 weeks leave in september which im excited about. i wont know when in september until the middle of august but atleast its close to carrie and moms birthdays. and its my favorite time of the year at home... and of course... auburn has a home game every weekend in september ( not that this had anything to do with my decision but i was very excited when i saw that yesterday!!).
my classes are keeping me pretty busy, next week is the halfway point so i have midterm papers due in both classes. ill be glad to get these out of the way, its a lot of work but so far it has been manageable. i will have to decide afterwards if i can take more or not, depending on the classes and how much our schedule changes here soon.
im gonna lay down, i love you all!

soo carrie got mad at me for not posting anything recently... try and sum up a couple of weeks worth here. ummm been pretty busy the last week, lots of work time. the other day we were out for 15 hours because we had to escort a couple of guys from battalion to another camp and then do our mission and then go back pick them up and bring them back home. yesterday they had a company wide fun day where we all went over to the gym and they had a bunch of games goin on, basketball, softball, football, soccer, just different things to have some fun. i didnt feel good so i didnt play anything but most people had a good time.
Were finally settling into a set schedule, we will be going out about 3 times a week with 1 or 2 off days a week. other days will be filled with stupid, i mean.. important.. training. wasting our times teaching us stuff we already know just so if something goes wrong they can cover their own butts and blame it on us. never will we be out in sector and have something happen and be like "oh yeah, i remember this from that class, i will def. respond in this way." its just dumb, but whatever!
the shooting last week was weird. on our way to the gym for the games yesterday we walked over by combat stress, where the shootings occurred. everything is all roped off like a normal crime scene. just hit home a bit because it is really not fair for anyone to be told thats how their soldier got killed. especially the dr.s who worked there, how many psychiatrists do you see volunteering to come over to iraq to help soldiers in their transition? then the ones who do get shot and killed. crazy stuff
things in my squad havent been too bad recently. my team leader was on the list of approved promotions today so he will soon be pinned with his sergeant wooh wooh! very proud of him, he deserves it. he is also going up for the NCO of the quarter for battalion later this month. hes a very good guy and def. deserves it. im going to to try and prepare to put my packet in in july to try and get my sergeant. i have to take a pt test and knock out a bunch more correspondence courses before that though.
Ive been spending a lot of my downtime working on my classwork. weird to say that. so far i think im doing fairly well in my classes though. 2 weeks down, 6 more to go and ill be that much closer to finally being a sophomore haha.
so my best friend got moved to work for brigade. she doesnt live here anymore and she thought it was only going to be for a month but theyve changed it now. shell be there until brigade leaves in october and then she will be back with us until we leave in january. kinda depressing, shes one of the few people i talk to but now shes another person i have to talk to on skype just like everyone else. people are starting to go on leave, also kinda weird. weve been here for 6 weeks now. it all is so routine i seriously catch myself realizing this is iraq. sometimes you kinda forget, i mean there are so many worries and thoughts about coming over here during training. now that im here though like all of that is gone. yeah there is still a fear when we roll out on missions but it is so different now. looking forward to being home sometime soon though.
today is the last day in the 90s for atleast 10 more days. so were starting to get into the heat. obviously in july and august and those months we will be talking about 120 and 130 but its already pretty dang hot. i think i will stop eating meals during those months just so i dont have to go to the chow hall!
umm thats my short summary of life in iraq, thanks for reading. love yall!

hey guys.. so nothing too exciting going on here. had today off which was really exciting. i finally got the drivers training i was waiting for so im ready to get my truck back. i still wont be able to drive my own truck for a bit because i have to drive the rear truck for a couple more days. hopefully sometime soon ill be back with my team. we go to fiji at the end of this week for either a week or 2 weeks? someone said 2 but i dont really know. it should give us some time off.
times moving pretty quick, feel very settled in already and weve only been here for 3 weeks. weve been doing a lot of cooking out around the grills, a whole lot of fun to just hang out sitting around the grill. weve already gotten to know each other really well just from that. i really wish i had more to say but all these days kinda run together an nothing too exciting has happened this past week. missing auburn, and of course missing home. i enrolled in a couple of online college classes, trying to knock out about 6 hours in the next 2 months. the classes are only 8 weeks.

easter sunday

sooo it was really good to see so many people today. im sorry the connection was bad but i did get to see yall! wish i could have been there to celebrate easter with everyone. today was a good day, we got to sleep in because we had the day off. i went with a couple of my buddies to church this morning, it was the gospel service. a little different than what i am used to but it was good. it was nice to have the chance to go. im not sure when my next chance will be, they gave us today off for Easter but i expect to work most sundays. i was suposed to go to class to get licensed on a different truck today so i can rejoin my team buuuttttt i got hung out to dry. so i have another week in a different truck with a different team. they are good guys, i dont have a problem working with them but i am ready to get back to my team.
were starting to settle into a routine here, this past week we had a bunch of downtime because of our work over at the Iraqi Police (IP) academy. they only need 6 of us each day and its 5 days. gives us some time off and some time not in full combat gear which is always a major plus. we spent the last 2 days on the road (even though one of them was a complete waste because we got a disabled truck and couldnt go to the station).
I hope everyone had a great easter!

sooo im really sorry for not having written more. we have been soooo busy. like, they told us we would have a bunch of long days, especially until the company were replacing leaves. i had no clue how true it was though. the last 4 days have been atleast 12 hours long. and that doesnt count waiting around afterwards to find out whats going on the next day. like last night i went to bed at 10 and got woken up 3 times during the night. to tell me when to be awake in the morning and to try and figure out some of the logistics of stuff going on around here. its 1045 right now and i dont know what time im suposed to be awake. so its def. long days here. it will get much better once the other company leaves and we settle in.
weve rolled on missions for the last 4 days. theyare kinda boring. my squad is assigned 3 ip stations so we have gone to them a couple times. weve also checked out the closest coalition support (other fobs.. we generally check those out around chow time and the dfac os where we do most of our recon) to our stations. basically trying to get familiar with the area while the 340th is still with us.
the missions have been boring actually , which i know everyone is excited about. were very much like police over here, we just kidna drive around and check things out. we could get hit but were much more likely to not get hit than we are to get hit in our area. the area we work in is very westernized. i told mom it kinda surprised me, most of the people walk around in jeans or those soccer kinda sweat suits. there are hotels and b6 or 7 story buildings. like it could pass for a city in the states in places. other squads are in worse areas but were not in a bad spot at all.
theres more to tell obviously but im going to try and crash, hopefully ill have a better chance to update later. im sorry. and im sorry for everyone i havent been able to talk to much, time is crazy over here and normally when i have any kinda quiet time its while youre asleep or im trying to get to sleep as soon as possible. i love you all though and it will get better soon.

iraq

welcome to camp liberty, iraq. we left our tents about 2 am and arrived in iraq around 8. spent the morning getting keys issued for our rooms, trying to move in, explore around our area, and had an inbrief to tell us some of the rules here. our rooms are great, almost everything is super convenient. we live on a t intersection, across the street in one direction is the PX, and local bazaar, and across the other street is the dining facility. within a qtr of a mile we also have the laundry facility and a chapel. we are only far away from the gym and the MWR (which has computers, phones, pool ta ble, pingpong, and some of those kinda morale things.) the only thing that stinks is that my room is kinda far from most of my friends and the bathroom. it really is crazy how nice everything here is. in my room i have 1 roommate and we each have a bed, bedside table, and locker (not like an alluminum one, its wooden and actually looks kinda decent). the bathrooms here have like 8 showers and 5 stalls all in one building (much better than the portapotties were used to. it stinks to get ready for a shower then realize you need to go to the latrine and have to get dressed again to go outside!) and its only about a minute or 2 from our room.
i paid to get wireless in my room.. it really stinks because it is 65 dollars a month. weve heard the connection is really bad but i havent had any trouble with it at all. i think it may have to do with where my room is though. we live in blocks and my room is on the first row. im thinking maybe im close to the tower since im the closest to the road. i dont know, im just hoping it wasnt a fluke and that my computer will be that fast all the time.
its weird being here.like kuwait was sooo barren, it was just sand and here there are trees everywhere ,cannals with weeds growing from them. when we were waiting for our keys we were sittting in a pavilion type thing and with all the trees arund and the landscaping it really seemed more like a resort. my perceptions will change in a couple of days after we run our first missions and actually see the real baghdad but so far its way different than i expected.
we met the 340th mp yesterday ( the guys were replacing). some of them were coming in from a mission and saw us walking. the gunner jumped up in his turret and asked if we were the 81oth. when we said yeah, every one of their trucks started honking at us and all the gunners and guys outside of the truck started screaming that they loved us. it was really cool to see how excited they were, theyve been here since july and really just got to fob liberty in feb. from july until feb they lived basically out in the middle of baghdad with none of the luxuries here. im glad we get to send them home, they def. deserve it. it also makes me look forward to when we can have that reaction. just gotta get through 8 or 9 months first!
rumor on the street is htat my squad did get the PSD mission( driving around important people from our battalion and being their personal security). im praying we did because it would be a great mission. i head today though that it might have changed and im a little nervous.
were doing more driving training today so we can go ahead and get licensed on the mrap and be able to drive on missions. hopefully when i get back there will be more information on psd.
lee loaned me a book the other day, i think its called a table in the presence by lt. cash. he was a marine chaplain on the surge into baghdad. it ws a really good read and has made me very thoughtful. next on my list is Psalm 91 (it was packed in a bag I sent ahead to Iraq). I am really looking forward to reading it, a couple of my friends and i have been talking about different Psalms that mean things to us so I def. want to read this. the chapel here had copies to so lee got a copy also. im hoping we will have the oppertunity to go to chapel services here, all depends on how our schedule is.
one of the things mentioned in a table in the presence is the story of the amalekites form exodus. i need to look into that story but there was a particular part that caught my eye. chapter 17 verse 12: When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. 13 So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.
it just made me think of yall, i dont know what youre going through back on that end but i know it isnt easy, probably harder than being here. just know that i appreciate the sacrifices you are making also, youre in my thoughts, and your prayers do help. i love you all

For Katie!!

Hey Bug!

I just wanted to send this to you to show you that we are thinking of you --



Love you!!!

super loooonnnggg

So I apologize for not getting more details out yet. Internet time is limited here. Im going to try and type up a whole bunch of info on word and then next time I go to the internet café just copy and paste and get out some info.
First of all, thank you all for the birthday presents and wishes. I know this is not as good as an actual thank you note, and my mom will be really mad at me for being lazy and not finding some Iraqi stationary and writing a real one. But who am I kidding, we all know Im really bad at that anyway…. Sorry. Please know that all monetary gifts went to the great fund of purchasing my semi-american food to remind me of home haha. When it comes to luxuries Kuwait does have a few. We have 3 nice gyms, 2 dining facilities, a couple of fast food joints ( Burger king, subway, kfc, some pizza joint and then a couple of other random ones), multiple internet cafes, some that are free and some that aren’t, phone centers, a couple of shoppettes (kinda like gas stations), and then some different entertainment centers. MWR (morale, welfare, and recreation) has a place with pool and ping pong, the USO has free phones and computers and you can go in and watch movies, or play video games, or just hang out in the air conditioning. MWR and USO combine to set up different kinds of events, last week there was some kinda American idol competition, then there are guitar hero competitions, and different things.
Ive gotten a pretty good workout just trying to get around this place. Its fairly large and my tent, no lie, is the farthest possible tent. We are the last set of tents in the whole complex before the motor pool.
The first couple of days we didn’t really do anything. We did 3 days of training on the MRAP. That truck is a beast, 53,000 pounds. I feel like im going to have problems adjusting to normal vehicles when I get home, haha just ask carrie. I forgot the mustang wasn’t 8.5 ft wide. Today we did training on patrols and clearing rooms. Tomorrow there is medical training and then something I have no clue what is?
The sergeant major of the 91st task force came to talk to us yesterday. He brought 2 guys from the unit we are replacing and the task force chaplain. We got a classified brief on some of what to expect over in Baghdad which was nice to hear. Its always nice to get details. We were able to learn some about the places we will be working. The sergeant major also talked to a couple of us today as we walked to chow about the fact my platoon will be satelited out to work with the 91st. 2 of our squads will be doing psd (private security detail for important people) and then one will be working with a higher level of the Iraqi Police. Still don’t know as many of the details about that as I would like but it was nice to get some info from him. Our squad is hoping to get psd.
Had a couple of small problems with some people over the last few days. Being the only female in the squad leaves me kinda set up for failure. I got in trouble for not spending enough time with my squad (because I was sick for the first 3 days here), but whatever. One of these days ill make it to the mwr to play ping pong with them. I mainly just hang out in our tent unless im going to use the phone/computer. We have adopted squad level pt which stinks because it is set around our squad leaders schedule which is just weird. We have to go work out together for atleast an hour with atleast 30 minutes of that being strength training every other day. Apparently our LT likes it so much that it is going to be more often than every other day and sgt lambert is going to make a workout schedule for us. Kinda stinks to not be trusted enough to work out on our own but whatever. So if I come back looking like a man its because of all the strength training and lack of cardio.
Our company got the new bullet proof vests issued to us the other day. They are awesome, much more comfortable than the current ibas. They close around the waist which allows the weight to sit on your hips instead of all on your shoulders. The only problem…… I wear an extra small…. Which they are currently out of? We are having to order extra smalls for almost every female in the company because they don’t have enough here or at camp liberty. No idea when we will get them so we are stuck with the old vests until then. I would be ok with the small but it is too long so when I set down it kinda chokes me. Ive got great luck.
Today was the first semi-hot day weve had. It probably wasn’t even that hot, 80 or so? But it was our first day moving around in all of our gear and we were outside running around from 0700 to 1400. Gonna take some getting used to. Im very glad we got here in march because it does give us a chance to get acclimated a bit.
Ok sorry I know this is scatterbrained and really long but I know I haven’t given out many details about what were doing. This is probably way more than anyone wants to know but oh well! We will be in the field?? (isn’t Kuwait considered the field???) for a couple of days so I wont have much access to the computers soon. I cant give out the dates we head to liberty for security reasons but once we get there I will try and post as soon as possible to let everyone know. The other unit has already moved into tents so we can move into our rooms when we get there which will be really nice. I found out my rooming situation, it will be me and guerrero which is pretty good. We got along well at fort dix and its nice to just have a 2 man room.

So I wasn’t able to post this like 4 days ago when I typed it. Now I have been to the field and am back. The field wasn’t toooooo bad, it was very sandy and dirty. We spent 3 days out there just hanging out a bit. The first day we got to do some shooting, close quarters marksmanship. It was good, it kinda stunk to do it with the SAW but it was still pretty fun. It was working on shooting when youre close to the target and have to draw quickly and switch from safe to shoot and then drop your weapon back down and into safe. It was good stuff, we had a former infantry special forces guy teaching us.
The 2nd day we had a couple of classes, practiced some stuff for our mission on the 3rd day and then got to drive around in the sand which was a lot of fun. I will try and upload some videos from it because it was pretty sweet. The 3rd day we ran a mission. It was a lot like everything weve done in the states but a much larger range. Actually had vehicles out there, 400 people role playing, and a whole lot of other stuff. It was good stuff.
Were kinda on the downturn here now, will be leaving here sometime soon (obviously cant post when). Im pretty wiped out so I am gonna crash. Sorry I haven’t posted in so long, I know yall have probably given up on checking it but its not for lack of effort! Ive had some technical difficulties, should get much better when I get to Iraq. Love you all

btw its really hard to post on here now, the stupid screen is written in arabic and it makes it very difficult to find the correct button!!! ive been trying for like 10 minutes... grrrr

kuwait

so were in kuwait now. really exciting... haha. its not too bad here. its not super hot yet which makes it a lot less miserable than it could be. the only major problem is that my tent is like a mile from everything else ( that really isnt an exagerration, its really that far). it makes it very hard to motivate myself to do anything or go anywhere. i did however find out about a shuttle after walking about 5 miles the first day. this place is pretty built up, got fast food joints like burger king, subway, taco bell, and some different things. There was a Camp Beuring american idol last night. So there are people around and a lot of different things going on.
We started doing some more training today. Driving around MRAPs (more up-armored vehicles). well do some training here and get some more gear issued before we head to iraq. Cant really say when we leave but once we get there ill be able to let you know.
its crazy being here, the first day when we walked outside the sun def blinded me. you can see forever out here. i mean, you would expect it but it is still weird. i feel like im still in the states at just another training site, dont really feel like im in another country, continent and all that good stuff.
sorry its not too informative, just a quick update. love you all

Katie's status

I received a call from Katie tonight. At 7:00 pm here its 3:00 am where she is. She is there safe and sound and when I wished her a Happy Birthday she told me that was yesterday. She hopes to add info to the blog and make phone calls Saturday, but asked that I let everyone know she had arrived safely. Thanks for visiting her blog, and thanks for the friendships and prayers.

Katie's Mom

leaving

Hey guys... so I had a great time on pass. it was awesome to be home i loved seeing everyone that I got to see (and sorry for those I missed). Next time I will get a lot more time to make rounds. looks like we should make it home in december which would be awesome.
were gettin ready to head out of here... got a bunch of cleaning and final touches to do. From here on out Operational Security (OPSEC) becomes a factor in everything I say. I won't be able to give out dates of anything in advance or any details of what's going on until it has already happened. So I will try to say what I can without saying anything that could compromise our mission.
Looking forward to a pretty long flight to celebrate my birthday though, cant wait for that! its kinda crazy being so close to leaving. I feel like I was more nervous at home when I went to Ft. Mccoy than I am about actually going to Iraq. I think a lot of that comes with the confidence that I have in my team and squad and everyone else I am going with. I believe we are prepared. We will have a little more training in Kuwait before we move on to Iraq though. Of course, we could always be better but a lot of our learning will come once we actually get our mission. we will get about 2 weeks of training with the company we are replacing before they head home.then its all about us and what we have learned along the way.
Its 1200 at night and im about to lay back and enjoy a movie. figure if i am desperate for sleep I will sleep better on the plane. Hope everyone is well and I will try to post as soon as I get to Kuwait and let you know I made it safely.

the field...

so we just sspent the last couple of days out in the field. it was actually really good. we ran a bunch of missions that were related to what we will be doing in iraq. we had to go into villages and use interpreters to speak to the chief of police, teach classes to the iraqi police, run joint missions with te iraqis, escort VIPs, and securing routes. a whole bunch of different things but it was really good because doing so many different things really instilled confidence in each other. it is very similiar to softball, the more reps you get the better you are. getting to do so many things really made me feel a lot more confident in my teak and squad. through the last week we proved 2nd squad is the best squad in the platoon, even our platoon leader thought so.

on our last day we had to do a huge mission with the whole company and out of our platoon one ssquad was an assualt element, one squad was security for the assault, and one squad was basically on stanby in case something went wrong. our platoon leader chose our squad to do the assault and we did really well. it was nice to be in that kind of situation becuase even though its not real there is still a bunch of pressure and it shows you how you will react under the pressure. all the training we have done made me very confident in what we were doing and it was second nature to do everything we needed to do.

cant wait to come home in a couple of days!!! its snowing a whole bunch here, we are doing a couple more classes, mainly just make up stuff and issuing our final gear. we are getting our night vision goggles and a couple of other very expensive pieces of equipment tonight ( the nvgs are almost $5,000 by themselves..). then just packing up, cleaning up and getting prepared for the pass and to actually leave here.

sorry this post is extremely random and very unorganized, ive had to leave it to go do things a couple of times and didnt want to take the time to go back, read it, and fix it. i love you all though!

so more changes woohh... were now going back to iraq.the army is kinda enjoying yanking our chain around so the new details.. were going back to our original mission in iraq. be leavin for kuwait in a couple of weeks. the 4 day pass thatwas originally mar 15 is now mar 5. so yea, wasted some money trying to change that flight bbbbutttttt i get to see carrie now! yay im excited. we spent a couple of days out at the field last week running convoy ops. we were suposed to be there for 9 days but after 4 our new orders for afghanistan came in so they sent us home. we were suposed to come back and do 28 more days of training and then go back to the field to get validated (basically for them to decide that we are prepared to depoy by us running ops for 4 days based on our mission). so we came back to the barracks for days and then our training would start again. well yesterday they called us in for a meeting and told us that were going back to iraq so we leave for the field tomorrow for 4 more days. were going to go ahead and get validated now, a couple of days of make up training for people who missed stuff. then we come home for our pass, do a couple more days of makeup training and then get ready to go ahead and go. i will get to spend my birthday in kuwait wooh wooh. happy 20th!
ill spend some time after this field trip trying to go into detail about the training and everything. its been really good and the field is pretty sweet. its set up jsut like a fob in iraq or afghanistan would be, it has a gym, and a dining facility, an internet cafe, and like 20 showers.. its good stuff
my platoon sergeant was really nice yesterday, gave me some compliments and was asking about how long until i was available for promotion (around august I can put in my packet to get segeant if I get enough points). He was asking how many points I had and said hes going to try and help me get some more by then if i just keep working hard and doing what Im doing. Thats always nice to hear, especially from him since he is farly high in my chain of command. one of the other officers (the executive officer) walked up to me the other day and said "why is it that every time I hear your name its a good thing? thats a good thing keep it up" so i guess Im doing alright here so far! sorry had to brag a bit, its always nice to get some recognition.
hope everything is well back at home.. ill be there in a week and a half wooh wooh.

heres kostera my battle buddy/ possible team leader/ possible gunner. all depends on what they decide about our squad leader drama. our squad leader is going home for a med. injury so we are trying to move up our alpha team leader as our squad leader, move kostera to a team leader position, and then our team pick up another gunner. we may be getting a new squad leader though, still no idea.

this is during our covoy ops. we took a casualty and had to MEDEVAC (evacuation) them using an old helicopter staged on the range. they already had the cas on the bird and were pullin security but i still though it was a cool picture.

3rd platoon 2nd squad... in order of face from left to right.. me, castellion, sgt perez, crowe, kostera, lewis, mack, sgt lambert, garris, craig, gonzalez, sgt rogan, lashley. notice the weapon im holding is bigger than all the other ones you see! grrrr

we go out to the field on the 17th for 9 days of living at a fob but i will still have my phone and all. well just be doing a lotmore training.

Today was a very short day which is really exciting because the last couple have been very long. ft. dix and 1st Army Division (the people in charge of our training) are very strict about doing our training in a crawl, walk, run process. So a couple of days ago we were doing driver/gunner training. the first day we loaded crew served weapons (the really big ones that weight 80 lbs plus) onto the hmmwvs and drove up to a point, stopped the vehicle, and then the gunners shot at targets. On the 2nd day we actually drove around a circle thing and there were 4 different points for the gunners to shoot from. so we would stop at a point, they'd shoot and then I'd back up and drive to the next point and do it all over again. that night we also did it as night fire so id turn on the lights, drive to the point, and then turn the lights off and let the gunners shoot at illuminated targets. It was actually a pretty cool day of training, first time the gunners got to shoot from the turret with real targets and ammo. It was a very long day though, we were at the range from 0700 to 12 that night. and of course the next day still started at 0600.
the big problem with this place is that we are not allowed to have our weapons in our barracks. because of this we have to wake up and starting at 0430 and every 30 minutes after that a platoon goes to the arms room to pick up weapons. when the training is done we have to go back and turn them in again. it is very not convenient. its also annoying, the reason they do it is because apparently a command sergeant major (the highest enlisted rank in the army.. like a general) got shot. well... i understand there will always be those people but the rest of us are training for war and over there our weapon will ALWAYS be with us... you cant walk to the latrine or shower without a weapon and atleast 15 rounds and thats on a big FOB. so its obnoxious and contributes greatly to our lack of sleep around here.
sorry, off my soap box. the next block of training was PTT, for those of yall following along closely, that is our mission. i know youre about to ask what exactly ptt stands for,... ummm..... really good question. police...training.. tactics? or techniques? heck i dont know.. what it means though is US Army soldiers training Iraqi (or now Afghani) Police. so the last couple of days were actually really good days and very very important for our current mission. we got to learn how to use an interpretor (sp?), and speak to an afghani chief of police, and actually train the police using the terp, how to recruit for the police, and then we had to secure the police station while our squad leader went into the building to talk to the chief. it was a really good mission because they had COBs (civilians on the battlefield) walking around coming up to the trucks and talking to us and stuff. Makes you realize how much will actually be going on because you have to pay attention to everything, people walking around, people in buildings, windows, doors, all sorts of different things. and the COBs would walk up and start asking for food or water and then just start up a conversation with us. were trying to be diplomatic and talk to them because we want them to like and trust us but we also had to stay focused on our security. it was cool, but this was jsut the walk phase and we didnt have anyone try and atack us, later in our training we will do the run phase where there will be a lot more going on. looking forward to that. we just got told theres a formation in a couple of minutes but that is most of whats been going on. pretty good couple of days which helps make the days go by faster. this place stinks but i guess its better than afghanistan!

sooo welcome to the army process! we are now deploying to afghanistan instead of iraq. our new president has decided to start a surge into afghanistan of about 30,000 troops that were originally headed for iraq. we are the first mp company who will be part of that surge. should be doing about the same type of mission as we were originally scheduled to. we dont know where in afghanistan we will be, it hasnt been decided because we are the first company. we will not be replacing another company, we will be branching out and starting something new. spearheading this surge. there is very little info about what will be different and such so far. we will be in new jersey for about an extra month more than originally and we will get a pass in march to comehome. so i should make it home before we leave, should b e pretty close to my birthday too wooh wooh.

the asv.. pretty awesome vehicle. look at how small those windows are, the whole back of the truck is the engine so it makes it huge. 20 x 8.5 x8.5. it is a bad mamajama. i wish i could show you the inside but all that is Classified or needs some kinda clearance that none of you have! .. sorry! haha

Sooo I haven’t written much because there isn’t much going on. We are kinda spread out all over the place right now.. a bunch of different classes and some of us are here and others there and just kinda crazy. I went and told my plt sgt that I wanted to be volunteered for any and every class we can get. Well I had really good timing because I got into the cooles class the very next day and there are only 6 of us in the whole thing. Its on the ASV (armored security vehicle) picture enclosed… it is 20 x 8.5 x 8.5 for 3 people. The gunners turret is completely enclosed which is awesome. The gunner can stay inside the vehicle and still be able to shoot without being exposed at all. Its also 30,000 lbs so that’s a lot of armor and protection! Its kinda hard to get in and out of, very similar to a tank on wheels with how cramped it is inside. We also learned all about the headset microphones we will get, makes you feel really cool to have all those play toys. One of those vehicles costs $780,000. The class is 5 days but we are getting credit for a 70 hr course, that’s a lot of credit for a course which will help with promotions and stuff down the road. The coolest part is still that there are only 6 of us in the class and one of the guys may not get credit for it anyway because his wife went into labor so he might be heading home before the class is over. Tomorrow we get to drive it, little nervous because it is so big but im super psyched that I will get to drive and become licensed on this thing. Tuesday is our last day of the class and we have to be able to get all the weapons set up and loaded and we actually get to go out to a range and shoot the weapons, it has a m2 .50 cal and a mk19 ( a 50 shoots a round that is as big around as your thumb but longer than your longest finger. The mk19 shoots a grenade). With the optical on the weapon we can shoot them both accurately 1800 meters so it’s a pretty sweet truck. We should have a couple of them once we actually get to Iraq so im hoping I get to drive one over there.
Wed we get new uniforms, 4 sets of fire retardant uniforms which is exciting because from what I hear they are actually a lot more comfortable than the ACUs. Guess ill have to let you know later once I get to wear them! We got issued our new bullet proof vests (called an OTV or IBA). It was actually exciting too because this one is sized correctly for me unlike every other one ive ever worn so it is more comfortable. The weight actually sits where it is supposed to so hopefully that will help take some stress off my shoulders and back, I wont really know until we actually spend some time out at the ranges or in the field moving around in all the gear. At some point while we are here we will spend a good bit of time out on a FOB (forward operating base) basically staying out in the field ( im not sure if we will be in tents or just like wooden buildings) and spending a lot of it running missions and actually getting prepared for what we will be doing in Iraq. Someone said we will be out there for like 4 days this coming week but if we get uniforms issued wed then the earliest we could get there would be wed night? I don’t know.. information isn’t really being passed down very well right now, if we know whats going on 2 days before its like super crazy. The past 2 nights we haven’t gotten our brief for the next day until 12 or 1230 at night. Been some late nights sitting around waiting for information which has gotten really old really quickly. We have had a couple of issues with my platoon, were kinda the redheaded stepchild of the platoon, always get stuck with worse rules than everyone else. If we are sitting around the barracks during the day 3rd platoon will be on lockdown while everyone else can go to the gym or the px or something. Hopefully it will get better soon though..
Um sorry this is really long just kinda catching up on some of the new stuff going on, im sure im missing a lot but oh well!

ft. dix

So we finally made it to Ft. Dix. the even more exciting part of that is that our deployment has officially started. 397 days to go! haha yea, things are a good bit different here. Were still trying to figure out exactly how things will be but now that were on active duty things are a lot more strict. hopefully it wont get too bad but I guess Ill find out soon enough.
were in 4 man rooms here, which may be better than the open room from Ft. Mccoy (at Mccoy we had 2 20 man rooms, 1 downstairs and then i was upstairs). its very dorm like, since there are less females we are in 4man rooms but the guys are in 12 man rooms by squad. so everyone in my squad sleeps in the same room but me.. stinks to be a girl sometimes! but our entire company is on one floor plus some from another company.. this floor probably holds 200 of us? something like that. the only problem is that there are 2 female bathrooms, they each have 2 stalls and one shower head so were gonna have to get good at sharing. these girls who want to take 30 or 45 minute showers are going to get a wake up call. actually thy kind of have because the water will only stay warm for like 5 minutes.
the last night in ft. mccoy we got to go to Mccoys, the only bar on post. it was a lot of fun just getting to hang out, we were still in uniform but a lot of people ignored that. the bar had pool tables and a built in bowling alley plus the bar and dance floor, so there was lot for us to do, even those of us not drinking. it was funny watching everyone get out on the dance floor and do the cha cha slide and superman and all those other dumb choreographed dances. good times, its nice getting to make fun memories with these people too, not just training memories.
So i am now officially a probie. im on probation status with the SRT (special response team). its the military's version of SWAT. Ill go through a couple of months of "on the job training" with a good bit of pt and hazing thrown in for good mix. Im excited though because i want to be with the people who care and enjoy this stuff. that and i feel like all the training will give me and everyone around me a better chance of making it through all of this safely! im about to go grab dinner. hope all is well

by the way i apologize for not capitalizeing things and using proper grammar and stuff hope yall will be ok with that!

so yesterday we qualified with machine guns for those of us assigned to a machine gun. As a driver, I am assigned the 249 saw ( i think ive mentioned this before but if not see the dictionary). to qualify on the saw we had to zero the weapon (making sure the sights are actually alligned with the barrel and with your eye), qualify on a paper target, and then qualify with popup targets. To move off the paper target you had to hit the targets 35 times with 52 rounds. since its a machine gun you were expected to hit each target 3 times so a lot of the shooting had to do with trigger control and getting off a 3 round burst instead of 2 or 4. you could only score 3 points per target no matter how many rounds you had in it so it was important. i shot a 37 which was actually the highest score out of our 16 people firing line ( kinda not impressive as a whole). out of the 16 only 4 of us actually qualified on the paper target. Once you qualified on the paper yuo went over to the field fire with popup targets. you had 66 rounds for 11 targets. i got sharpshooter, theres marksman, sharpshoote, and then expert. most people couldnt qual first time go and a couple still couldnt qual at all but its all good.

combatives!!! so today we did combatives for 5 hours. Combatives in the army is basically mixed martial arts (MMA, like UFC). Its ground grappeling and choke holds and that kind of stuff. We train on the dominant positions, learn a couple choke holds, and a couple arm bars. At the end of the training we actually competed against each other for 30 sec matches and rotated. I went against 2 of the girls and one of the guy sergeants. I got choked out in the first one and then was choking the other one when the fight got stopped and in the last one we jsut kinda went back and forth and nobody really had an advantage. It was good because they stress combatives isn't about winning, its about maintaining long enough for yuor buddy to get there.

After the combatives we did scenerios. 2 good guys had headgear on and a bad guy had punching gloves. The bad guy would be noncompliant somehow, sometimes it was obvious he was noncompliant and sometimes he snuck up on you. Here is a video of my fight, im in the red, craig is in the black and mack is the bad guy. he pops me once but as soon as he did i had the choke hold on him and craig had his arms. it was fun i actually enjoyed it and a bunch of the people in charge were really cool and gave me props for taking a hit without letting it phase me. My platoon sergeant told me if anyone ever fell out on his team he would gladly pick me up. the platoon leader was also pretty cool.

Tomorrow we are doing driving training and i think that's about all of it. too cold to do much else, i guess friday we will go back to the range, hopefully not since it will still be in the negatives im pretty sure. now im hearing we may go to the 9 mm range tomorrow... def praying we dont.

by the way, for anyone who is interested I got a link for the weather here so you can get a good laugh at my expense. http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/USWI0688.html
check the wind chills for the next couple of days... -35 sounds pretty chilly to me but i guess ill find out soon....

hey guys, not too much going on right now. we were suposed to go out to the range today and qualify ( i will be shooting the 249 SAW, Ill post a picture once it's issued to me dont worry. the stupid thing is a beast, 18 pounds plus 7 pounds of ammo atleast). We couldn't go shoot though because with wind chill the low today is -25 or -30 or something like that. So our 3 days at the range were pushed back until fri sat and sun and we moved classroom instruction up for the next 3 days. ( we had a couple people get frostbite out at the m16 range the other day so were being more careful now.. super cold metal weapons against your face and skin is just not a good idea in that kind of cold.)
When we left the classroom I had a sunkist with that last little bit that you cant really drink still in the bottle. On the 2 minute walk to my barracks it froze inside the bottle. It's kinda mierably cold right now. Last night we got probably 4-5 inches of snow, a lot of which was early in the night. Me, guerera, and gray went outside and played in it for like 30 minutes, we had a lot of fun. we tried to make a snowman but it was too powdery so we will have to try again in a couple of days when there is some moisture to it. We did make snow angels and just have a fight with the powder though. good times. should have taken some pictures but dont worry, when we make the snowman i will def. take a picture of it.
There has been a little bit of dumb girl drama already, people pairing up and excluding others but hopefully it will work itself out soon enough.
Hope all is well at home

Instructions for Blogging!

Alright family (and friends) I've had a few people talk about not knowing how to post or comment or whatever. So here is a lesson on blogging for all the adults (and Kristi)!!

Anyone on the internet can "Comment" on a post. So if Katie writes a whole post and you just want to say thank you and love you, or whatever, then you go to the bottom of the post and click the link that says "0 Comments" or whatever. So if you write a post, you can go back and check and see if anyone ever commented on it.

To do your own post, you have to have an id. Right now, only Mom, Dad, and us three can do this. I did this so that we could also post to update Katie on what we are doing. BUT! If any one in the family would like to be able to post, thats really easy just let me know and I'll send you the link (megahcj@auburn.edu)

So, the basic idea is this. If you are replying to something that someone posted, you "COMMENT" on their post. If you want to write about something new, than you "POST." Like I said, as of now ANYONE can comment on a post, but only the five of us can make a new post. But let me know and I can change it very easily!

I hope that helps everyone out!! I love everyone and I'm glad we have this new way of keeping in touch!