Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Long week of stupidity...

Week or a few days...whatever...it's been long.

Our Battalion...yes...battalion...was put on lock down this week for a few days due to one company (I'll somewhat protect the innocent I guess and not name it...) losing 16 shotguns. Yup, 16. Apparently didn't make it to the country. We searched every conex at camp buerhing then went down to the port here in Kuwait and searched every one of the conexes there. I can't begin to tell you the excitement that was felt by all.

What other stupidity? Well, the term "light infantry" continues to take on more and more laughable characteristics. We added side armor plates to our vest this week. That's 8 more pounds. Eight more pounds isn't much you say? Let's see if we can break this down...

Vest with plates: 26lbs
Side plates: 8lbs
Ammo: 18lbs (I like my bullets...)
Helmet: 2lbs
Night vision: 2lbs
Radio: 5lbs
Water: 7lbs (guesstimate...that might be light...but close to a gallon of the wet stuff)
Pistol: 3lbs
Grenades: 4lbs
Smoke Grenades: 4lbs
Miscellaneous items: 2lbs

So that's just over 80lbs of "stuff". Throw in the weapon with sights, mag loaded, etc and you're looking at another 9lbs.

And we're supposed to be able to run and around in 130 degree heat for extended periods of time while actively engaging targets with that. Nice, huh? So...thanks Congress for giving us that extra 8lbs...we definitely needed it. Nevermind the fact they asked and infantry guys told em to get bent and they still passed the bill to buy the crap.

Outside of those two things...let's see what else has been going on. Someone way up decided my guys needed to be on "fireguard" in our tent to make sure it didn't burn down. Cause that's a legitimate threat here apparently. I figure if you're in the tent and it catches fire you have about 30 seconds before all the plastic melts around you and you're pretty much toast anyway. Why does someone need to be awake to wake everyone up for that? At least if you're asleep it won't hurt as long or at all...

Otherwise, we did a range to zero weapons. I got a new scope...an ACOG (4x scope). Pretty happy about that.

Not sure what else to add right now. We're on the downslide before we head north to the wonderful city of Baghdad. I'll try to add a couple pictures of this place when I can, but we're not allowed to take any of the actual camp...so they'll be kinda sparse.

Till later I suppose.

Friday, October 20, 2006

Kuwait it is...for now.

So we got to Kuwait. Had a little lay over in Germany for about an hour and a half and then made it in on what I think was the 15th of October. Most of the trip became a blur of sleep, wake up and be fed some sort of meal, begin watching movie, sleep, wake up to another meal...

Can I just say that jet lag sucks? Cause wow. Me, my platoon...we sleep. Lots. I'm blaming it on the jet lag. It could be the incredible heat. I'm not sure. But I like to think we can handle the heat and it's just still the jet lag.

So far for us, though, we've been doing a bit of training and generally trying to bide our time well before we make our push north into Baghdad. I can't really give that time line for obvious reasons, but it'll be soon enough and hopefully not too soon.

We're acclimating well to our new Company as we were sliced into Delta (I was in Alpha) as the Battalion did a bit of rearranging. Our CO and 1SG are pretty good guys and seem to be decent to work for. If nothing else, the CO tries to give us as much information as we can possible handle.

I know this is a bit discombulated. Sorry about that. Tired on this end after a bit of a late night and around 2hrs of sleep. Sensitive items conex showed up and we had to unload and distribute that stuff.

I'll keep posted on anything else...but as is we just have some more training ranges coming up, nothing too exciting.

Till then...

Thursday, October 12, 2006

New pics posted

I posted a few pictures of the new hat I had to get because I'm attached to a Calvary unit while I'm in Iraq. Little cowboy look going on.

We leave out on Fri 13th. Ominous? We're hoping it's a lucky day.

I'll check back in when I get to Kuwait.