April 22

Not a lot to update today. More Army/Navy communication buffoonery but then, why change now. Flight out of the country is on Saturday so I'm just finishing up a few last minute loose ends. I've managed to cram all my crap into 4 sea bags which is amazing. Like, do I really need all that stuff? The old-fashioned frame backpack cracks me up the most. It's not even the desert cammie pattern. It's like something out of the cold war era. Back in the 80's this would have been considered "high tech". Now it will live the next year of it's life tucked away in a bag not to see the light of day for another 370 days. No worries, however. It won't be lonely as it will be accompanied by my mosquito netting (times two), gear mosquito treatment (times two), canteens and canteen holders (times two), bed roll, and sleeping bag. Rumor has it I'll use the sleeping bag once. For grins, maybe I'll pull it out sometime in December and pretend to go camping. I can light a chunk of C4 in my hooch (it burns nicely without exploding I hear from some snake-eaters), warm up a cup of hot chocolate in my old fashioned aluminum canteen holder/cup and stretch out on my old fashioned sleeping bad just like I was at SERE school again. Ah, the good old days. When the blogs get boring, I'll post some stories about SERE school. That's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape - POW camp. Good times. Spring time. Maine. 5 feet of snow. Rain. Getting bitch slapped by a 6 foot/250# man. So the gear is safely tucked away and tomorrow is light. We get liberty from tomorrow afternoon until Friday @ 2300. That gives me from tomorrow night until Friday night to 1) work off the hangover and 2) get the stench of booze off my clothes. Just kidding, I wouldn't do that; we're not allowed to drink and I don't break rules. I can't yet post where the flight will take us due to OPSEC (Operational Security) but suffice to say, it should be interesting if we get to stretch our legs at one of the stops. If the military has its way, we'll move from the cramped airplane to a stuffy room in some podunk terminal with no chairs, a single one-holer for each gender (190 people total so do the math...) and no food. Speaking of food because that constitues about 75% of my waking thoughts, I had chinese at some fast food joint last week and it was tragic. It was outdone, however, by this evening's tragic chinese meal at another place that looked far more promising yet failed to produce. Gone are the days of eating at real Korean and Chinese places where the pork still has the snout attached and there's duck on the menu. Gone are the awesome spring rolls with peanut sauce from the Down to Earth Market. Alas, I've been ruined. I've gone from not eating asian food at all to being a complete and utter snob about the choices. The good side of this evening's meal was 1) it was off base and 2) the spring rolls were pretty good. Of course if you deep fry anything, it tastes fantastic. To top is all off, I'm already hungry again. Seriously. In any case, one of my experience should really know better than to order ANYTHING but ribs, pork rinds or hamburgers in the south. Duh. Yesterday was a bonus though. Taco Bell with an espresso shooter from Seattle's Best. Not the kind of thing you really want to do right before bed but hey, let's live dangerously shall we? It's a good thing we are all in separate bedrooms here. Dinner was the bean burrito with a side of beans. So we leave wonderful Ft. Jackson soon but not soon enough. The funny thing is we'll probably all be begging for some familiar place soon as we launch into the twighlight zone that is the Middle East. Hopefully I'll be able to post some pictures. There are lots of camels out on the Udari range (where the next phase of training takes place) but if luck holds, I won't be subjected to that phase of pain. Just FYI because it is Navy tradition to "count the days", as per my orders, the official count for RTB to US soil is 367 days or "366 and a woo". See ya on the other side of the ocean. P.S. For those that are wondering, Joe is doing well. He officially took over as XO of VFA-143, the Pukin' Dogs on April 19th and I have only recieved about two emails since. He's busy flying some very long missions (about 6-7 hours each) and spends the rest of his time doing paperwork and generally being part of the problem as they say. He has a nice single room on the carrier which is reserved for the CDRs and above. This means you're only sharing your toilet and shower with one other person. High falutin' livin'. He's been to Bahrain on a port call but I don't know where he will be next. I'll keep you all posted.