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
Friday, August 21, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
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!
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!
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