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!
Sunday, July 26, 2009
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
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
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
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
katie
Friday, July 10, 2009
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
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
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
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!
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