Coming Home

Well, the time has finally come to start leaving this country. In the next few days we will be leaving COS Hammer for good! The trip home will still take some time as we will have to catch multiple flights along the way, but at least it's the beginning of the end. I really can say that I won't miss this place one bit. It's hard to believe sometimes that I spent nearly the last year of my life in this area.
The past few weeks have actually been very very slow. I basically shut down clinic operations about 3 weeks ago. We officially signed everything over to the small company replacing us over a week ago. So for the past two weeks my schedule has been pretty boring. My daily schedule has gone something like this: Wake up around 0730, look at the clock then go back to sleep for another hour. Upon getting out of bed I usually spend another 1/2 hour getting moving. Then I head to the gym for my morning lift. Following that there is about an hour before lunch which is filled with some internet surfing. Then lunch, always exciting. It's getting difficult finding something that is appetizing anymore. Following lunch it's off to play Ping Pong for an hour or so. I'm actually getting pretty good. I'm sure it's a talent that will come in handy in the future! After that I usually spend about 3 hours in my room either watching movies or doing more web surfing. Around 1600 I head to the gym for my afternoon cardio workout. I've been trying to get my running back in shape and start preparing for a triathlon. Of course I can't swim here but I ride the bike then run. After a good workout it's off to dinner to try again to find something appetizing. Then maybe pick up some laundry and head to my room for another few hours of movies and web surfing until bed time. And then start the whole thing again the next day! I have to say I've read more news in the past 3 weeks then possibly in my whole life previously. Gives me a lot of time to do on line shopping and research a whole host of other things. The latest thing I've been researching has been a MBA. I don't know exactly what jolted me into this thought, but I've been thinking about doing a distance learning MBA basically preparing for possible private practice in the future. You'd be amazed how easy it is to get accepted to some of these programs. The program I am really interested in doesn't even require me to take the GRE again or the GMAT. I can apply for a waiver due to my other degree. I guess a big part of looking into this has to do with the fact that my ideas about my future career have changed a little in the past week or so. Before I was really planning on continuing in the Army trying to do the PhD program. That still is probably my number 1 option at this time, but circumstances have made me see that I should probably start looking at some alternatives in the event that I decide to get out. The Army has been pretty good to me so far, but I have been on the short end of the stick on many occassions as well. There are some serious organizational issues that have just recently begun to bother me. Oh well, we'll see how it goes. None the less I think it is important to open some other doors as well. Plus, you know me, I get bored pretty quickly and find I need to go back to school every few years. Well on my way to becoming the perpetual student.
So hopefully inside 2 weeks I should be back state side. This deployment has definately made me more grateful for the simple things in the U.S. like green grass and trees. Cars, central air, mild climates, high speed internet, pretty much everything. Looking forward to the "heat waves" on the east coast (I think in the upper 80's and low 90's in Watertown) compared to the average 120-130 that it is every day here!
Well, the next time I post I'll probably be back home.

Slowing Down

Well, it's really starting to slow down as we start to draw the unit down. I went from a record high, 60+ patients in one week to about 30 patients this week. Next week looks to be even slower as we get rid of the "problem child" battalion. Due to the slow down I took the day off today to go to Liberty to get my airborne physical finished. Looks like my eyes are still good. Hearing is still relatively good, but it continues to slowly decline from exam to exam. Kind of sad. Oh well, maybe I'll get some disability for it. So today ended up being a pretty chill day. Left in the late morning so I was still able to get a good workout in. Then took an hour Blackhawk flight to Liberty. As far as flights here go, it was relatively scenic as we passed over the Crossed Sabers (arch of victory), the Soccer Stadium, the Martyr's Monument and the Tigris. Flying with the doors open also helped make it a more enjoyable trip. The flight back wasn't so fun. We flew in Chinooks which are not super comfortable, and when we were standing in back waiting to load, the exhaust from the engines felt like it was buring the skin off my face. Overall, not a bad way to spend a day, and that's one more day down. On a bright note, we should be coming home toward the end of July, so the light at the end of the tunnel is beginning to brighten.
The day to day routine is starting to get a little old. I've even noticed that I've beginning to lose enthusiasm with going to the gym. I guess it's a little hard to keep up the energy to hit the gym hard for 8+ months straight. One thing that has been occupying my time a little is my new hobby of stock market investing. I found that my secondary savings account was only earning 1% interest, so in essence losing 2% a year due to inflation. So I figured I couldn't do much worse on my own by investing. I opened a brokerage account with USAA and have been doing some minor trading. I haven't done too bad so far. I started with some blue chip companies, mostly ones that issue a quarterly dividend. My plan is after laying a good base I'm going to start getting a little riskier with some other things and try some day trading. I get 100 free trades over the next 90 days, so I figure there really isn't much to lose. Anyway, it's something to do and maybe I can even hasten my retirement!
Well, that's about all the excitement for now.

Still Here

Well, it's nearly June and we're still not sure when we're going home. Oh well, I guess I should have expected that, it is the Army after all. I'm not overly concerned with it. I really don't enjoy being here, but at least I'm getting to put more money into my savings. It is however getting very warm. It's regularly in the 110+ temperatures. I think the hottest it's gotten so far is about 120. Honestly though, I'm kind of getting used to it. Walking around in ACUs is not all that fun, but when I'm walking around in my PT (fitness) uniform, it's not really all that bad. But apparently it's still supposed to get 10-20 degrees hotter. With the heat, the constant dust and smoke and the miles and miles of dirt, I have trouble understanding how anyone can live in this country and how at one point in time this was the "cradle of life".

The day to day routine is about the same. My mission schedule off the FOB has slowed down and unless we stay a lot longer I'm probably done traveling. It's kind of nice to be able to stay in a routine, however, it does make the time go by slower. I've been getting my 2-a-day workouts in. It's definately nice to have so much time to workout. I'm already kind of dreading going back and not having all this time to workout. I probably won't be too sad though to trade a workout here or there for a day on the golf course. My clinic schedule continues to increase. My clinic space is small so my technician and I can't work at the same time. He sees patients in the morning and I see them in the afternoon. With that kind of schedule we're actually at capacity for what the clinic can handle. The work isn't too bad. I'd say about 40-50% of my patient load are the normal soft soldiers with chronic issues. But there have also been a lot of interesting orthopedic cases. Just had a guy the other day who tore his achilles, one that dislocated his shoulder and a girl that blew out her ACL. I've also had a rash of Brachial plexopathies, which I didn't really see a lot of in garrison. Piriformis syndrome tends to be popping up lately as well. So it's not really a bad work situation. My average day goes like this:

0630-0800 Weight lifting

0800-0900 Show and chill

0900-1130 Kind of work on administrative stuff but also just kind of bum around the office

1130-1300 Lunch

1300-1700 See patients

1700-1830 Evening workout, usually cardio

1830-1930 Dinner

1930-2200 Chill

Not bad. It's amazing how much more time you have in a day when you don't have to drive to work or go grocery shopping.

Well, that's about it for now. Oh, I included a photo of the dust storm the other day.

Hot!

It's really starting to warm up now. The other day the high got up to 115 degrees! Fortunately right now it's kind of a dryer heat, unlike Kuwait. However, once it gets above 110, it really doesn't matter all that much. Someone said the other day that it felt like someone was pointing a full body blow dryer at you. I agree with that sentiment. The evenings haven't been so bad. It probably gets into the low 90s at night. I had a flight the other day which wasn't so bad. We flew doors open, but it was still pretty warm. I can't imagine going out on patrol in a full kit in these temperatures.
Anyway, I'm on the road again. This is probably going to be my last trip to Polar Bear country! Of course that's what I thought the last trip down here. But that's pretty typical Army, the only constant being change. I'll be glad to be done with these guys, their command is absolutely crazy and the whole culture down here is one of complaining and yelling. It's really amazing to see the difference between units with good and bad command climates.
So I've been kind of getting into the Dry Needling techniques. It's pretty interesting stuff and so far seems to yield pretty good results. I think I'm going to try to go to some courses to get certified in the technique when I get back. It also helps that the course I want to go to is in Denver. I love continuing education! What a great excuse for traveling on the Army's dime to great places and to see friends.
Well, still no new news about out redeployment schedule. I'm not too worried about it. At least if we make it to August that's another month of tax free and combat pay.

Doors Open Over Baghdad

I don't know if I've mentioned it, but we just got a new CAB (combat aviation brigade) here. The old one just went home, and we got some new guys. So far I haven't been too impressed with the. Normally, I'm not a real big fan of pilots and crew chiefs in the first place. Nearly all that I have met to date have an over inflated sense of self worth. So this new unit just Ripped in and they are even more arrogant than the baseline fliers, plus they keep doing stupid things like, not posting manifests on time, trying to land on motorpools instead of the HLZ, and dusting camps knocking over tents. However, one thing they do that has been kind of nice is they fly with the doors open. The first time I flew with them with doors open was quite enjoyable. I was looking out the doors with the counter measure flares fired off and I could actually feel the heat from them on my face. Additionally, it's a very surreal feeling when you're flying low over neighborhoods. It almost makes you feel like you're a part of their lives. So for the most part, flying doors open is the way to go, especially since it is warming up and the birds only have 2/60 AC. However, there is one drawback to this experience. There are 2 seats that you absolutely do not want. They are in the back row by either door. When you sit in this seat, you get the full force of the windblast as it comes through the doors and gets trapped, like a eddie current. Imagine if you will sticking your head out the car window at 120-150 miles per hour and doing this for about 45 minutes. Not the most pleasant experience. I didn't have my goggles and a lot of air gets in through the sides of my balistic eyewear, so my eyes went dry almost immediately. I had to hold a hand infront of my face the entire flight to block the wind, otherwise my cheeks would flap, kind of like you see when people are sky diving. Needless to say, I will be doing everything I can in the future to avoid sitting in that seat!
As far as everything else goes, it's business as usually. The pace of my missions is slowing down now that we're closing bases. I think I may only have 1 or 2 more trips. This is both good and bad. Bad because the time goes by really slow when I'm just sitting around on Hammer. Good because I've been able to get into a good workout routine doing 2 a days, so I'm finally getting back into good shape. I'm finding this is proving more and more work the older I get! Oh well, I guess that's the price of the "wisdom" that comes with age.

FEPP

So I really don't have any idea what the actual full term is for this Acronymn. It is found on a sticker about 6 inches by 8 inches with yellow and black diagonal stripes (like the caution tape). The essence of the acronymn is that it designates equipment that we will be leaving for the Iraqis when we turn over bases. I just got to one of the medium size FOBs and when I got here there were stickers on everything. I do mean everything too. Cheap plastic tables, fire extinguishers, broken down refrigerators, buildings, porta-johns...everything. The comparison that comes to mind is that of a wedding registry. It's like the Iraqis were given a scanning gun (in this case a stack of stickers) and told to go put them on everything they wanted. Obviously that's not exactly how it was done, but that's what I imagine. Anyway, I guess the whole point is that number one it's a sign that we're actually getting ready to had over these bases and pull up stakes. It also kind of demonstrates how ill-equiped the local Federal Police and Iraqi Army are. I'm not sure what they are going to do without us when we leave with all of our logistical support. I honestly have very little confidence in their ability to provide security to this country, especially in a non-corupt manner. Oh well, I guess there will be some growing pains!

The Flying Ninjas

Since coming here to hammer, myself and a few other people play volleyball on a pretty regular basis. When there are enough of us around we usually try to get out at least twice a week. Now I believe I've shared my feelings about volleyball as a competitive sport before. The readers digest version is that I think it's one of those sports where a simple increase in effort does not make up for a lack of talent. Additionally, it's one of those sports where people think they can just disregard the rules. It's like playing basketball, just because someone isn't good doesn't mean we let them travel; and soccer, we don't let people use their hands because they aren't coordinated with their feet. Yet, in volleyball people don't think the rules matter, like: touching the net, carrying the ball, double hits, etc. Anyway, the group we usually play with is pretty good as far as basic skills and knowledge of the game go. So in the past few tournaments we've gotten to the championship game only to face a team of foreigners that works for AAFES. I'm not exactly sure where they are from, but if I had to guess it would be somewhere in southeast Asia. We lovingly refer to these guys as the flying ninjas! They can all jump crazy high and play pretty well too. They're a team of a few good setters and a bunch of hitters. It seems like they're flying around the court the whole time, thus the nick name. So far we have not been able to beat them in tournament play because our team ends up turning into a "rec league" team. One of those where everyone that comes out gets to play. I swear though, before we leave here we'll put together a team that can beat them. I think we have the players to beat them, we just need to work on our line up and rotation to better match up.
Anyway, the past few times we've gone out to play just for fun, a lof of the Ninjas end up stopping by for the pick up games. Lately it's been a lot of fun playing with them because they actually can play so the games are competitive. Anyway, those are the flying ninjas!
So I'm currently stuck at Hammer due to weather cancellations on my flight. It seems like fate doesn't want me to go to this one FOB because 3 of the last 4 missions there, my flight has been delayed or cancelled due to weather. However, there is a silver lining. At the DFAC, my favorite specialty bar is Taco Bar. On all 3 of those occasions the day I was delayed they had taco bar. So if my flights had been on time, I would have missed out! Oh the humanity!
Yesterday was Organization day. What organization day is for anyone that doesn't know is it's a mandatory fun day. It usually consists of a BBQ of some type and sporting event competitions between the different companies in the battalion. Unfortunately this is again one of those rec league things where it's supposed to be just for fun, but many people take it very seriously. So you have teams that are stacked and really good, and others, such as our own, which have a lot of non-athletic type individuals. Our softball and football teams were of the latter version. I personally do not mind losing, however, I hate loooking bad and being embarrased. Needless to say we did not do so well and I ended up being very frustrated! I love the Army and it's mandatory fun days!
With all of the sporting events that have been happening lately, I've learned something about my body. It just doesn't seem to be able to respond quite as quickly to the demands I place on it, nor does it recover as quickly afterward. It reminds me of the line from Top Gun where the commander is lecturing Maverick and says "son, your ego is writing checks that your body can't cash"! So far I'm really not enjoying this whole getting old thing!