Happy Easter

Happy Easter everybody!  I found my Easter Basket!!  Thank you Aunt Carol for thinking of me on this wonderful Easter holiday!  This holiday reminds me of the time I ate my entire Easter basket in one day and woke up around two in the morning puking chocolate into my hair and onto the hallway floor.  It stank so bad that Dad had to cut a square out of the carpet where I had vomited.  That patch of carpet is still missing serving as a constant reminder of what too much chocolate can do to a person.  For Lent, I gave up snacking.  Not only did I lose eight pounds and realize just how much I snacked, but I think I also picked up a healthy habit.  This morning as I sit here, allowed to snack once again, I find that I have no urge to snack.  I’ll give it a week and let you know how long it lasted.

This Easter season has successfully shown me what a bad Catholic I have been all my life.  I have learned that Jesus was captured during the feast of Passover, tried over night, and crucified the next day.  I originally thought all this happened over the course of a week at least and had no idea multiple religious remembrances were occurring.  How were my eyes so closed?  I have been a Catholic my entire life and yet, here I am in Afghanistan feeling like I have been clueless, like a light bulb suddenly turned on in my dusty attic of a brain.  What were they teaching us all those years in religion classes? 

I am also learning to put away my anger with people.  Instead of becoming angry and confrontational, I pray for them.  I pray that their ignorant eyes are opened.  I pray that whatever made them the way they are today can be forgiven in their hearts and allow them to live a fuller life full of peace, trust, and acceptance.  I pray for the strength to swallow my anger and turn the other cheek, the patience to accept them for who they are, and the wisdom to pray for exactly what they require to heal their souls. 

Facebook Funnies

It is my belief that people are naturally jokers.  People who are too serious simply have yet to find their funny niche.  When there is a prank to be pulled, there is no doubt that it will be executed, especially around here.  I was talking with the computer techs today when they informed me of a prank they pulled on a co-worker that had me laughing to the point of tears.

This co-worker is known for hacking other people’s FaceBook pages, often times leaving messages on their wall detailing something they would consider embarrassing and is never true.  We will name this person J.  J left his computer logged in with his FaceBook page up while he left to take care of business.  His co-workers took advantage of his absence and immediately attacked his FaceBook page.  They left posts on his wall to the effect of, “Why is it ok for people to like children, but it’s not ok to say you like 12 year old boys?”  Like I said, embarrassing false statements.  To top it off, they switched his page to Russian.  When he returned, he had no idea what his FaceBook page said, but to further frustrate him, he didn’t know what button to push to “Delete” the post, “Like” the post, or “Share” the post.  No one in the office was willing to help him figure out how to switch it back to English.  Luckily, FaceBook has a cool option to translate posts into English, so he soon found out what was posted by looking it up on someone else’s page, but was still unable to figure out how to delete the post.

No worries, he figured out how to switch it back to English around seven o’clock that night.

Women's History Month

I arrived at work yesterday to find a bag of trash in the middle of the female’s bathroom floor.  It was neatly bundled with a sign lying on top of it stating, “This is what happens when you don’t clean on your day.”  I shook my head.  Someone took the time to bundle up the trash quite nicely, search for a piece of paper, a sharpie, to write a nice little note, all in the time it could have taken to simply take it out.  Instead of taking out the cute little bundle, I instead added to the note stating, “And obviously this sign took care of the issue…One Team!”  I know this didn’t solve the issue either, but hopefully it gave someone a chuckle.

We celebrated Women’s History month yesterday.  The 1^st Sergeant lined all the ladies up in the hallway, thanked us for our service and for being female, and handed us a framed picture of Afghanistan with photos of all the females in our unit surrounding the country.  It was a sweet gesture.  When we were asked for a speech, I took the opportunity to thank my mother, father, and God for making me a female.  I think this is the first and only time I will ever speak those words, LOL! 

 

Breakfast this morning was peanut butter French toast.  A delicious combination I originally discovered in college while sitting with the football players.  I went for a good run yesterday, outdoors and not on a treadmill, (2.3 miles in 20 mins), so my muscles were screaming for some type of protein.  Peanut butter it was!  Pay no attention to the donuts on my plate, they are just there for decoration…until you aren’t looking and then they will mysteriously disappear.

 

T.G.I.Fridays

The flight nurse is proving to be a fantastic addition to our room.  I left work yesterday unknowingly returning to the room in time to bid the flight nurse a good workout as she left for the gym.  I was excited because this meant the room would be quiet for a while and I could nap.  My plans were to enjoy a run after work, but I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity of having a nap in a quiet room.  It was a fantastic nap and it lasted two dreamy hours ending when the flight nurse returned from her workout.  It was time for mine.  I left for a run, swallowing my dislike of people watching me, my disgust for breathing dust, and my distain for running.  I actually had a really good run.  I ran into a couple of Air Force guys who were also running and amused myself by out running them.  I could tell they took a hit to their egos just by the way they were acting on their run.  They would pass me, keep steady for a while, then stop to take a sip of water or catch their breath.  I was keeping pace with them when they were in front of me, but I think they became tired of me passing them because at one point they crossed the street to hide from the embarrassment of being passed by a girl.  My amusement ended when I decided I had arrived at my turn around point and they decided to continue down the road.

When I returned to the room, the flight nurse immediately asks if I want to go to dinner.  I look down at my sweaty, stinky self, chuckle and say, “I kinda need a shower first.”  She started talking to me about her workout, the book she was reading, and how she doesn’t think she is going to make it out tonight.  My roommate returns and asks if I was going to T.G.I.Fridays with them.  “Oh, you aren’t going to a dining facility tonight?  Let me hurry up and shower then.  Do ya’ll mind waiting?”  I asked.  I was suddenly motivated to shower, change, and go to dinner with them.  I will do anything to break away from the monotony these days. 

As I was showering, I was hit with a sudden urge to sing so I began to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from the movie “The Wizard of Oz” as I lathered up.  The bathroom suddenly became awkward as I realized I was singing a duet with an unknown female that obviously knew the words better than I.  I quickly squashed my urge to sing and focused on the task at hand, preparing for T.G.I.Fridays.

As we sat down in the restaurant, all eyes were on us.  Imagine four females walking into a restaurant giggling, smiling, and happy to be alive in a combat zone.  We were definitely the group that was not like the others.  We were seated in a booth and the flight nurse immediately started talking about appetizers, burgers, and her healthy eating habits.  We ordered the fajita chicken nachos to share as an appetizer and I fearlessly tore into some jalapeños.  I have always been too scared to eat jalapeños because I have never enjoyed extra spicy food, but last night I took a bite out of fear and it was good!  Being the females we are, we all had salads for our main meal.  Mine was a chicken Caesar that tasted ok.  My roommate decided to order a brownie sundae for dessert to share amongst the four of us.  Upon the arrival of dessert, the flight nurse quickly shouted out that it was missing the caramel sauce.  When the waiter returned with additional spoons as requested, the flight nurse asked him about the caramel sauce, to which he replied they were out of caramel sauce, but would she like something else in its place? 

“Like what,” asked the flight nurse. 
“Extra ice cream? What do you want” was the waiters reply. 
“Whatever looks good back there.”
“I will make you a small sundae.”

When the waiter left, we all began laughing hysterically.  The flight nurse just received a free sundae because my roommate’s sundae didn’t have caramel sauce on it.  The ironic thing was that the flight nurse was just explaining to us about how good she had become at bargaining with the local shop vendors. 

The waiter returned with a small sundae for the flight nurse.  It had two cherries on it and he made the ice cream with the chocolate syrup look like a face.  We took pictures of the ice cream face which will soon be posted on FaceBook, I am sure.  As we were finishing, the waiter again returned.  The flight nurse thanked him profusely for the sundae and he was impressed she finished it.  The flight nurse explained to him that she was a good eater.  The waiter pointed to my roommate and said, “She looks like she is the good eater.”  We were in shock, but we understood there were cultural differences at work here.  We started laughing hysterically and somehow the waiter turned the conversation to say that my roommate had a good digestive system.  When he left, the flight nurse turned to my roommate and asked her what just happened because she was lost in that conversation.  We were laughing so hard we were crying as we recreated the conversation. 

We discovered the waiter is from Nepal, India.  In his culture, large women are beautiful and their size depicts wealth.  In American society, thin is in.  The whole time he thought he was giving her compliments while we thought he was calling her fat.  At least we all had a good laugh about it and no one was truly offended. 

The flight nurse had given up hope of finding a flight out of here to the point where she started planning our next going away dinner.  Sadly, our flight nurse boarded a flight last night and left us for her final destination.  She definitely added some spice to our life here and she will be missed.

Flight Nurse

There is excitement in my room that has lasted the last three days.  As my room is used as a transient room of sorts, I have all kinds of interesting visitors stay for a few days before moving on to their final destination.  This week, I had the pleasure of sharing my room with a rather friendly Flight Nurse.  Her job over here is to fly on Medical Evacuation (MEDEVAC) fights and provide in flight care along with the Flight Medics and Flight EMTs.  The Flight Nurse position was recently created due to a need identified by MEDEVAC crews here in Afghanistan.  Since this position is new, the big Army is still trying to create the Standard Operating Procedures and protocols for this role. 

She was only supposed to stay for approximately 12 hours.  She arrived with five large duffle bags, a large ruck sack, and a carry on.  Her luggage quickly overflowed the small space allotted in our room and I found myself tripping over her stuff every time I walked in and out of the room.  Her personality made up for her vast amount of baggage as she was very friendly, happy, and appreciative.  She was a wealth of knowledge and was eager to share it with us.  Her experiences as a nurse were entertaining as she regaled us with stories from her previous deployments, emergency room experience, and her specialty the Intensive Care Unit.  My only grievance was that she didn’t stop talking.  She talked so much that the first day she was with us I went to the gym three times in seven hours to get some alone/quiet time. 

Her initial flight was cancelled, so she was with us for an additional day.  I returned from work extremely tired and found her preparing to go to the Boardwalk to grab some food after her workout.  She told me about how she killed the gym and that she was jealous of our NATO gym because it was so nice.  When she left, I fell asleep and did not give the appearance of waking up when she returned.  I was too sore from the previous day to continue my mad workouts.  When my roommate returned from work, I “woke-up” and decided to head to a dining facility.  They wanted to join me, which was fine; I probably needed to socialize a bit.  My roommate and I took her to dinner at the Asian dining facility.  While there we ran into some of our co-workers, a radiologist and a psychiatrist, and decided to eat with them so they could talk to her for a bit and give our ears a break.  
An hour later, my phone starts buzzing informing me that I have a text message.  I open my phone to see my roommate, who is seated next to me, has sent me a message that simply stated, “Let’s go!!!”  Our guest was in the middle of a story about a man that reported to the emergency room stating he had a bug in his ear.  She told us she pulled a large cockroach out of his ear and I took this opportunity to stand up, say, “That’s it, we are done here,” and start to walk out with my tray.  In true societal fashion, the rest of the table followed my lead.  As we pulled away from the never ending gab, the radiologist takes the opportunity to thank me for ending the gab.  If two of five people did not want to be there, then why did it take me to pull the plug on the social gathering? 

We received word that she was going to be picked up around 1120pm.  Knowing there would be no sleep between dinner and her departure, I decided to check out the PX and head to the gym.  I returned to the room in time to assist moving her out.  As I grabbed a duffle bag, she looks at me and says, “Oh no, that’s the heavy one!”  It was already on my back and I was not having issues with it, so I looked at her and said, “It’s fine, give me another one,” to which she responded, “But, you’re so small!”  I have a love/hate relationship with people who underestimate me.  On one hand it is insulting, but on the other hand I like seeing the surprise on their faces as I lift things twice my weight with ease. 

We all exchanged hugs as she departed.  My roommate and I executed a sigh of relief as we entered the room free of all her stuff and finally free of her chatter.  We both immediately went to bed and knocked out.  At 330am we awoke to a knock on the door.  Her flight was cancelled.  We both arose to carry all seven of her bags back into the room.  My alarm went off at 430am as usual and I did not want to move I was so tired.  The next available flight is tonight…fingers crossed that I will no longer trip over her stuff at 430 in the morning!

Star Irony

I know it has been a while since last I blogged.  I apologize for leaving you all without entertainment for so long, but I lost focus for a bit with all the drama going on in my office.  Morale here is slowly improving in the absence of my boss who will be out for the next three weeks or so.  The new CPT is settling into his role of being in charge quite well and has adjusted the schedule to allow the shift workers to work shorter hours.  With my new found free time, I have found the Post Office to actually be open and was able to mail off a few packages.  We are about 87 days away from being unemployed over here, so I am conducting retrograde operations in my room.  I also made it to the USO to fall asleep in a recliner while watching a movie in their modified theater.  I have also been knocking out my redeployment training so I have more time to spend with friends and family immediately upon our return.  It is mostly online death by power point, so it really isn’t all that bad. 

Our priest returned from his two weeks of leave this week.  He was in very good spirits and told us he missed us.  He was regaling us with stories of home.  He mentioned that he came across some office drama while he was home and told them that if they had time to complain, gossip, and cause drama, they were not working enough and needed more to do.  I think that is what is wrong with my office.  We have entirely too many people “working” in this office and the boss hoards work for himself, leaving the rest of us bored and with lots of time to cause drama.

Another irony of church last night was that I had plans to meet friends on the boardwalk for coffee and people watching afterwards.  Part of the homily was a challenge not to judge people for seven days.  That is the whole point of people watching!  It’s like he knew!  With that guidance, we changed our plans and went over to the USO to fall asleep in recliners while watching whatever movie was playing.  We walked in towards the end of the movie “Django Unchained” which we had all seen, so it was easy to fall asleep in the soft plush recliners even though those were not our original plans. 

A very near and dear friend of mine asked what the night sky looks like out here.  She asked quite a while ago, but I wanted to provide a description that did the night sky justice and didn’t make it seem like an ordinary sky.  On most days, there is not a cloud in the sky.  Our night sky is especially clear because of this, but the sky is not like black glass it is more like black granite.  It is shiny, clear, and spectacular with thousands of stars coming out to see below somehow invoking a feeling in my stomach of awe.  That same feeling one feels when standing in front of an ocean, that feeling that says, “You are so small in this ginormous universe.”  The brightest stars shine through the darkness and constellations are glowing.  Whenever I am away from home, or feeling homesick, I always look to the sky to find the constellation Orion.  It is not only the name of the street I grew up on, but it is the one constellation I could always find as a child.  As I looked up at the sky last week for the first time since arriving into this country, the first thing I saw was Orion.  I felt at peace at once and stopped in my tracks to stare at him. 

It is always a nice feeling to have an outlet for stress wherever you are and it looks like the night sky is following me wherever my travels take me to help me find that deep breath of relaxation.  Have you ever stared at the moon to feel like you are connected to someone else staring at the moon?  Orion does that for me.

The Battle Captain's Creed

A couple of my officemates and I got together and created a Battle Captain's Creed to detail what we do and what mentality we should take to get our job done. 

The Army has a creed for everything, the NCO Creed, the Officer's Creed, and the Soldier's Creed...now we have a Battle Captain's Creed.

Acronyms are explained at the bottom

Battle Captain’s Creed

I am a Battle Captain

I am a Battle Cell Warrior

I have answered my Task Force’s call

 

I am a Battle Captain

My mission is to smile, file, and dial

I am faithful to the DTO

A proud tradition of SITREPs

And all EXSUMs must be just so

I am a Battle Captain

Guardian of BUB, BUA, and OPSYNCH slides

My battle buddy’s CAC card is my plaything

Its appearance is my duty

I defend my PC with my life

I am a Battle Captain

The center of all Task Force operations

Appreciation is not what I expect

Hot chow is a luxury

A day off is not an option

I am a Battle Captain

Administrator, Manager, Clerk, and Information specialist

I will never miss a suspense

I will always update the Long Range calendar

Distro list is my watchword

 

I am a Battle Captain

ACRONYMS:

DTO: Daily Tasking Order

SITREP: Situation Report

EXSUM: Executive Summary

BUB: Battle Update Brief

BUA: Battle Update Assessment

OPSYNCH: Operations Synchronization

CAC: Common Access Card (ID Card)

PC: Personal (work) Computer

Distro: Email Distribution list

Appreciate Life

We had five US Soldiers die in a helicopter crash the other day.  We learned about it on CNN.com right before the reports started rolling into the shop.  No one here wants to talk about it.  When it is mentioned, we all just hang our heads and say, “Sucks, huh?”  I had the honor of talking with one of the construction workers that was told to drop everything and help construct the coffins for these Fallen Warriors.  Even the small task of constructing a coffin carries a heavy emotional weight.  It opens one’s eyes to see how short and precious life really is, and how in the blink of an eye everything can change. 

Laziness or ingenuity?

I was doing laundry last night and realized the US has an interesting concept in execution here.  There were two gentlemen waist deep fixing a dryer.  One man was from Africa and the other was American.  The American was teaching the African how to fix the dryer.  He was quizzing him on which end of the drum goes back in first and giving him pointers on how to make the rebuild easier.  I saw the same thing with the construction worker from Cincinnati.  He had two men from India with him and one local Afghanistan man.  He was teaching them how to build, repair, and evaluate.  The Americans sit back, watch, and give pointers while letting their counterparts do everything else.  I don’t know if this is America trying to teach the world trade skills or Americans just being lazy.  What are your thoughts?

OpportunityLost

I was feeling so beat up by work yesterday that I wanted to cancel the dinner plans previously arranged with my MP buddy.  I didn’t because my roommate says I need to be more social and we always have a good time together.  I am so happy I did not cancel.  I felt so much better after talking and laughing with him.  He provided me an update on my opportunity that was not what I wanted to hear.  My MP buddy was informed by my boss that in order to allow me to work with his team, they needed to send a request to our higher headquarters so that they can task us with this request.  In making this request to our higher headquarters, my MP friends would not be able to request me by name.  Therefore my MP buddy asked his LTC to call my boss to see if this lack of a name was going to bite them in the butt or work out for the best.  His LTC boss called my MAJ boss to discuss, officer to officer, my opportunity to work with his team.  He also wanted to see if he could work out a deal under the table since they only required my assistance for 60 days.  His LTC said my boss sounded very shady in that during their discussion my boss said they could find someone better qualified if they were sent a tasker by our higher headquarters and re-iterated that they could not request me by name.  Since there is no guarantee they will be assigned me, they are not going to put in a request.  This is disappointing to me because there is no one else in this building more qualified for this job than I.  I am a prior service, MP, combat vet with strong deployment ties to members of this team.  Please tell me what nurse is better qualified to head out on a mission to a small outlying FOB and defend as necessary.  My roommate, bless her heart, doesn’t even know how to clean her weapon. 

I digress. 

Frustration

My COL pulled me into his office today and told me he has noticed that I lost the pep in my step.  He is somewhat aware of my situation in the office with my boss.  I told him I worked in a toxic environment and gave him a few examples.  I discussed it with him a bit more and he said he would think on things a bit and get back with me.  How am I supposed to work for a boss who tells me to be more professional while he is playing with a remote controlled car in the office?  I wonder what the COL is thinking of doing.

The girls and I had a complaint circle last night.  The three of us huddled up outside and just kept going around and around with complaints about this unit.  The sad part is that we all have legitimate complaints.  The noticeable part is that most Soldiers in this unit have orders or are awaiting requested orders from Human Resources to remove themselves from this unit as soon as we hit ground in the States.  That alone should say something about this unit’s work climate.

I searched my boss’s office today to find the original evaluation he handed to me (the one that says good things about me).  He requested it a few days ago so that he could make some changes as discussed with the COL and myself.  I couldn’t find it in the obvious places so I thought to myself, “Where would I put something I don’t want anyone else to find or see?”  My initial thought was that he went and shredded it himself, but he is too lazy for that, so I searched the shred box (the box we put whole documents in and hope one day someone will take it to the shredder for shredding).  At the bottom of the box, torn in half and hidden in the middle of a thick, stapled together packet of slides, I found my original evaluation.  I taped it back together and put it in my folder with the submitted evaluation as evidence of what a back stabbing idiot he truly is.  I am building a packet against him to prove I am not a bad Soldier and that he is a horrible leader.

I have sent him my award submission for when I move from this unit.  I have sent it to him three times thus far and have yet to receive any kind of feedback.  I have started to send it to him every day.  If it doesn’t annoy him enough to sign it and submit it, hopefully it at least grabs his attention. 

Due to budget cuts, Soldiers are no longer permitted Tuition Assistance.  We received this email early this morning.  This does not affect me personally because I never took advantage of this program, but it does affect a lot of other Soldiers.  This program assisted Soldiers with tuition funding for college level courses.  I find it interesting that this is one of the first changes we see out of the sequestration.  I know there are more cuts to arrive, but there is something that seems wrong about cutting out education first.

Confused

I realized in my office yesterday that I am not the problem.  While the boss was away at some meeting, the entire office was laughing and having a good time.  The interesting part was that the entire moment of fun stopped suddenly when the boss walked in and we all went back to our desks to stare at our computers.  So, either he was projecting onto me the day we sat down and talked because we talk about him behind his back or the XO read my evaluation and told him to change it.  The reason I suspect the XO is because I have spoken with every member of this office about the discussion I had with my boss.  Everyone gives me a weird look and tells me that he is crazy, they do not have an issue with me, and they know when I am kidding around.  Everyone finds me very professional when I need to be professional.  I also think it is the XO because my boss initially gave me a superb evaluation prior to changing it and sending it to the COL. 

This is what I am dealing with:

1.       My boss leaves the office for a week to go on Battlefield circulation.  Prior to his departure, he sends out an e-mail notifying the unit that while he is away CPT’s (insert new CPT’s name and myself here) are in charge of the office.  He also sets up the auto-reply for his Outlook email that also states we are in charge in his absence.  The boss walked me through the XO huddle meeting notes for an upcoming meeting with the XO detailing what he wants me to address at this meeting and giving me updates on topics that the XO will bring up.  My boss also informs me that I am to host his weekly Thursday meeting with the staff to include the XO.  He sends me the slides for the meeting to review and polish then leaves on his trip.  Upon his return, he informs me that while he was away, I was in fact NOT in charge and that ultimately the new CPT was in charge.  (I spoke with the new CPT, he was not comfortable being put in charge because he just arrived to the section and asked if I would take the driver’s seat on this being in charge thing)

2.       The boss tells me that I need to step it up and be more visible, so I volunteer to take charge of the upcoming Commander’s Conference, I rock at his Thursday meeting, and project confidence at the XO huddle.  He tells me that I have yet to step it up.

3.       The boss told me I was unprofessional in our office huddle when I clapped for the new CPT being put in charge while the boss was gone.  He told me I needed to step it up and assist instead of applaud the shift of responsibility off myself (the new CPT knew I was going to help him and not leave him hanging; it isn’t in my personality to watch someone fail).

4.       He tells me everyone in the office complains about me but only gives me two examples of his perceptions, not actual complaints from anyone.  I have spoken with every member of this office and no one has any issues.  They are actually appalled at the boss’s comments.

5.       He tells me that I have sent out ONE unprofessional e-mail.  The e-mail went out about a month ago and the only part of this e-mail that was deemed unprofessional was the header which said, “Dearest DRUs Located on KAF,” furthermore, he never told me he thought it was unprofessional.

6.       He says I am too bubbly when I say good morning and it is perceived as insincere.  Again, another perception issue.

7.       He tells me to be a team player but chides me for not taking responsibility on group projects.  I have also offered to assist in everything he is working on only for him to tell me, “No, I got it.”

8.       He tells me that I need professional counseling.  The last time I was informed I needed professional help, I sought professional therapy and the psychiatrist told me I was wasting his time and that the person who told me I needed professional help was probably the person that needed it.  (Oddly, this was true at the time, so I am inclined to believe it now)

All this is coming from a man who just hosted a party with the sole intent of making fun of people.  A man who is constantly putting down fellow co-workers, and stating he is the only person that works around here.  He admittedly cussed out a British Soldier in a dining facility for no real reason.  He spends time in his office making road warrior gear for the zombie apocalypse.  He searches the internet to post pictures around the office making fun of co-workers.  He spends a lot of his time on the internet and yet becomes angry when he sees me checking my personal e-mail.  I can go on for pages, but I will stop here.

I am still investigating this to see if it is personal, sexist, or influenced by the XO and am open to opinions.

Speaking of investigating, my investigation is closing quickly.  The only person involved that has supplied a statement is the Soldier I work with here in Afghanistan.  With that being the only evidence I have, this report will be short and sweet.

I have refrained from drinking coffee for the past three days.  I am trying to cut back on the amount of caffeine I intake on a daily basis.  I have already completely cut out soda and lent has me passing on snacking, therefore my sugar intake is down as well.  As everyone tends to replace one bad habit for another, I have taken to drinking tea in the morning now.  I think I just like drinking something warm in the morning, especially after my cold walk to work.

APFT for Schmucks

The office is quite the interesting place lately.  Yesterday, they hosted their chips and salsa party for schmucks.  I had to leave because the insincerity of the entire situation made me sick.  I walked over to my roommate’s office and chit chatted with her until the new CPT tapped me on the shoulder to let me know I had a phone call.  It was a friend of mine from college letting me know he was here.  He is with some Special Forces group so he is here for about four months and then goes back home for a little bit only to return for another four months or so.  I started joking with him by telling him that it was not fair that he arrives in country after me and leaves before me.

I took a diagnostic physical fitness test yesterday.  The First Sergeant wanted to gauge everyone to see where we were physically and open some eyes to those who think they are fit and are not.  It worked.  A lot of Soldiers did not pass the run portion.  I quickly understood why as soon as I started running in the heat of the afternoon. 

I took my diagnostic separate from the other Soldiers, mainly because I work at six in the morning and no one else really wants to work a full day prior to taking their fitness test.  I arranged to have two pace runners with me because we were running on a track and I become easily distracted/bored when I am running in circles.  The First Sergeant told me to be at the track at four forty five.  I arrived a bit early and had the pleasure of watching a large group of guys play ultimate football on the field.  Our supply NCO arrived shortly after and we watched the game together for a bit.  Then we started to wonder where the First Sergeant was and why he was late.  He was never late.  We decided to go ahead and start the test without him.  The pushups and sit ups went well.  I did not do as many as I wanted to, but there was no use wearing myself out on a diagnostic.  The run was the most interesting portion.  I told the supply Sergeant that I wanted to run a pace of 2 minutes per lap.  This would have me complete the run in 16 minutes.  I also told him that I would be happy with anything under 17 minutes.  He agreed and told me he would set the pace and I would just have to keep up with him.  That didn’t sound too difficult. 

As he said “GO” and took off at a sprint, I thought, “Lord, help me.”  I kept up with him for a little bit and yelled at him that I couldn’t maintain that pace.  He tried to tell me it was a two minute pace but when we passed the start point he admitted he was wrong and that we had just run a quarter mile in one minute twenty seconds.  That is almost as fast as my high school 400meter sprint.  I was dying!  The cotton-mouth took effect within the first 100 meters.  My mouth was so dry it was hard to breathe.  My legs felt like jello, but I had seven laps to go.  My pace slowed and all I wanted was a drink of water.  I started to search for a water station like the ones they have at marathons with the people holding cups of water out for runners to grab, splash, and throw.  I had no such luck.  By the end of the fourth lap, I was starting to feel warmed up.  My pace quickened and I fell into a rhythm with my steps and my breathing.  I was starting to feel good.  The supply NCO was giving me words of encouragement and continuing to push me to quicken my pace even more.  He wanted to sprint the last lap.  I started to oblige, but quickly slowed again.  I felt like I was going to hurl.  I finished with a less than satisfactory time, but it is done and I am thankful.  Now I have to start working to improve upon this test for the real fitness test in a month.

Teeter Totter

My opportunity is about to come to fruition!  My MP buddy called my boss after hearing how he degraded me and spoke with him about the opportunity for me to go out on missions with his team.  My buddy told me that my boss sounded receptive to the idea, but that it was ultimately up to my COL.  The COL likes me and I need to be removed from this toxic office.  We started organizing for my transition exchanging information about the gear I have, the equipment I have, what I will need training wise, and my sizes.  It is easier to turn something off than it is to start something around here.  The process has begun, now just to attain approval.  Once my foot is in the door, my MP buddy is going to see if he can get me moved to his building as well.  He has two open cubicles that I can choose from!  That sure beats sharing a desk with three people and having random people take things from your desk drawers.  I pray to God this happens.  My buddy put some pressure on my boss too stating he had 48 hours to give him an answer!  It pays to have friends in great places.

Did I ever mention what the number one complaint is about me going around the office?  I am too bubbly and seem insincere.  So when I say good morning to someone when they walk through the door, they think I am telling them to go to hell.  Interesting concept and I wish I had thought of that first because quite honestly, if I want to tell you to go to hell, I will.  I sent out an email stating that if anyone has an issue, complaint, or criticism about me to confront me about it.  Thus far, no one has said a word to me, but my NCOIC keeps sending me notes telling me how much he appreciates my work and efforts.  I don’t know if he is being sincere or if it is all bullshit and lies.  I can’t wait to be removed from this office.

I confronted my COL today about my bad evaluation.  I handed him the good evaluation that I was handed by my boss two weeks ago.  Then I handed him the evaluation my boss submitted to the COL.  They are drastically different.  One says I walk on water, the other says I do my job.  I also spoke to him about my job opportunity.  I didn’t think my boss was going to bring it up on his own, so I decided to add a little pressure myself.  My boss is currently in the COL’s office being told to rewrite my evaluation and being asked about my opportunity.  Hopefully the results are positive. 

I have been keeping myself busy with work that is not due for another two weeks.  This is good, but what am I going to be doing in two weeks?  This boredom is killing me especially when I have to make it look like I am being productive.  Oh well, this is actually good for me because in two weeks when I am on mission, someone else will be able to take my product and be successful.

Fallen

I read an interesting story yesterday that involved a donkey falling into a well.  The donkey was obviously trapped and his owner didn't know what to do.  The farmer decided to bury the donkey in the well.  He did not use the well, it was obviously dangerous and needed to be filled in, and the donkey was old.  He gathered his neighbors to help him fill in the well.  As each shovelful of dirt went into the well, the donkey shook it off his back and stomped his feet packing the dirt below him and eventually stepping up and out of the well.  There was a moral to this story.  Life will throw dirt on you, but you have to be resilient, shake it off, stomp it down, and step up out of the pit.

This story fits my day yesterday.  My boss has mood swings.  His mood yesterday towards Facebook, personal email websites, and blogs was of anger.  He wanted me to work on items that I had yet to receive information for because the suspense had yet to arrive.  In other words, it is hard to write a report without any resources.  I did as I was told and focused on the work computer writing aimless sayings on a word document that would later be deleted, but it looked like I was working intently.

Around the time I was to leave for the day, my COL calls me into his office.  He informs me that my boss wishes to write me a bad evaluation for my annual report.  I told him I was confused because I just spoke with my boss who informed me I was doing fantastically.  M COL told me that he stood up for me and blocked the bad evaluation, but that next time he would not interfere.  I had to talk to my boss.  I went back to my office and asked the boss if I could have a few moments of his time.

We walked over to the conference room.  I confronted him about what the COL informed me.  He denied ever telling me I was doing good things.  This turned into two hours of him telling me how horrible I am.  He told me that everyone in the office was complaining about me.  I asked for examples, he gave me two examples of misperception followed by, "it's basically everyone in the office."  He told me that he didn't put me in charge while he was gone, that the new cpt was in charge.  I told him that the new cpt didn't want it and thanked me for taking it.  He told me he knew I was having relationship issues, to which I replied, "Sir, I'm not in a relationship, don't you have to be in a relationship to have relationship issues?"  He told me he would support my decision to see someone to talk to professionally.  He told me I sent an email once that didn't seem to be professional in his opinion.  Ugh, what in the world is going on here? What kind of a leader keeps all this information to himself?  Before we went our separate ways, he said, "it's a good thing you are changing duty stations when we get back so you can get a fresh start." How did I go from being the previous boss's number one to being the most useless person in the office?

K9 5K

The 5K this morning went very well.  It was cold and windy this morning, but I didn’t think it would be so bad as I left my room for the run.  As we all huddled on the boardwalk, I thought that I may have overdressed a little bit.  I was in my winter PT’s which consist of wind pants, a wind breaker jacket, and my fleece cap.  I was comfortable with the temperature and that is an indicator of overdressing for a workout.  I have always been told that you want to dress a little chilly for a run because running tends to heat a person up fairly quickly.  It is no good for the runner to dehydrate due to overdressing.  The Veterinary Hospital Officer in Charge gave a quick speech referencing the importance of Military Working Dogs.  He mentioned how much heart these dogs have and how much they love their job.  The K9 unit Officer in Charge spoke next and provided some brief details of what these dogs do for us and how they are one of our most important weapons in the fight.  The two most important weapons are the Warfighter and the Military Working Dog.  There were six dogs present with their handlers and they were energetic pups.  They were feeding off the excitement of the crowd and looked as though they were ready for an all out sprint.  Looking around the crowd, I can tell who is dedicated to winning this race as he is outfitted from head to toe in expensive running equipment, compared to everyone else in PT uniforms or fleece jackets depending on if they were civilian or military.  Finally, it was time to start the race.  As we gathered in the street for the start, I became chilly again.  The wind was really blowing hard this morning.  The dogs started in the rear of the crowd but quickly dragged their handlers to the front.  I felt sorry for the handlers because they really did look like they were being drug by their dog.  I felt really good for the run and started off at a good pace.  I was passing people left and right ensuring I was keeping up with a guy I had overheard was training for a marathon.  I passed him and made it to his buddy, who I also passed.  I was feeling great!  Left and right the dogs were stopping to sniff a rock, relieve themselves, or take a drink of water.  By mid race, all six dogs were evenly spread throughout the group.  I arrived at the turn around point in time to be struck by a big gust of wind.  This time instead of pushing me forward, it was pushing me back.  “No worries, this is a game of heart, I got this,” I told myself as I dug deeper into my energy vault.  The wind was relentless, picking up dust, dirt, and debris to fling in our faces.  The wind was so strong that at times I didn’t think I was moving forward.  I wanted to give up, but I knew I couldn’t.  The finish line was not too much farther ahead of me.  I rounded the last bend and gave it my all until I crossed the finish at just under 28 minutes.  After the race, the runners stuck around to pet the dogs, take pictures with the dogs, and ask the handlers questions about their jobs.  I was looking at the finishing runners to see if anyone in my unit had run as well when one of the dogs stuck his nose in my hand and licked my palm.  It surprised me a bit, but I was able to sneak in some puppy lovin’ time.  It truly made my day.