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d only be slightly annoyed astoundingly this happened in a war zone where even on the relatively safe bases mortars and rockets could come out of the blue and end your life in an instant this kind of waste is especially significant as congress is looking to lower troop numbers in iraq yet irr call ups continue despite all the supposedly great news stories you may have heard in the past few months about army recruitment it hasn t spiked up enough to end the irr recalls i just got an email the other day from a 2001 west point grad who had just been involuntarily activated the army also has a new muster program to improve its tracking of irr members who have been out of the military for a while jason a fellow irr captain stationed on the decrepit iraqi side of camp taji recently posted a response to an article in the stars and stripes army mustering irr members reinvigorating force his response motivated me to get off my butt and convey my true feelings once and for all so explains this new blog entry tonight in reference to the article thank you mr gall i hope you ll see my smiling face and your name in op ed pieces across the country taji goings on taji s been so quiet that it s easy to forget there is an ugly guerilla war flaring only a short distance away in the relative comfort and protection of this base s blast walls and guard towers most of us are far removed from the daily bombings and ambushes that you read about in the newspaper i don t know about everybody else here but i m glad it s that way posted by admin at 6 50 am no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels без рубрики tuesday february 5 2008 return of the blog hey i m back i was just out on a really long lunch break we take long lunches in the national guard things are fine here at taji my battalion s soldiers dutifully protect our base in our many guard towers and entry points braving threats such as freezing temperatures rain darkness snipers and bouts of boredom i pulled guard duty a few times in germany after september 11 th and was completely bored out of my mind after two hours i can t imagine what it s like to do it on a daily basis for 8 months they re doing a great job though we haven t had many incidents at all we like to avoid incidents around here i have so many interesting and humorous things to talk about from this deployment but i hesitate to write about them because this blog is now officially registered at the multi national corps iraq s command hq a new directive had me report my blog address up to my higher headquarters last week this wasn t a surprise in fact i wrote all my entries with this eventuality in mind so my throat was gulp free when i heard in a meeting that all blogs were to be registered by a certain date iraq is generally safer than it was before the fabled surge but it s still a dangerous country just about 10 miles away from here is diyala province arguably one of the most dangerous places in the world there were also those suicide bombs in baghdad a few days ago the ones where the insurgents from a safe distance blew up two unsuspecting retarded girls in two crowded pet markets what animals then again animals don t exhibit anything remotely similar to this repugnant behavior in the natural world baghdad is safer but what did we expect would happen when we erected 10 foot high concrete barriers between shiite and sunni neighborhoods and poured 30 000 heavily armed american troops on the streets i liken it to a domestic disturbance when the cops show up at the house a husband can t his his wife anymore what s going to happen when we the cops leave that s one of the central questions of american foreign policy though from watching the news you d think the war was already over on a lighter note my unit is scheduled to return to the u s in late april i can t talk specific dates of course but i ll be out of the army and on my own for the first time since 1996 when i entered west point i got out in 2005 and went to school but was still technically in the army something i was so politely reminded of when my parents received the army fedex letter in the mail i still haven t written off the army reserves or national guard though my parents and some friends here think i m completely crazy for even considering it but i want to keep my options open there is the potential for a bonus extra salary for weekend drills and other training leadership experience camaraderie retirement benefits and other advantages but then on the other side there is the chance or more like the certainty of more one year deployments and time away from family and friends during uncertain times starting a new career then having to leave the job after 2 years is not the best way to establish oneself in a field i m jumping into the job market in may so i m doing a bit of soul searching to select a career i ll be happy with i m looking at both government jobs and private sector jobs in a few different areas including state or city public finance economic development and emergency management does anyone know anybody at fema you know what career counselors say about success you should know what your short term and long term goals are before you apply for jobs well that s the thing i m not entirely sure what my end state is is anyone as long as i m doing something i love in a place that i enjoy i ll be a happy camper another decision i ll have to make of course is where to live what will make my job search a hell of a lot easier is that i am very geographically flexible i m most likely going to end up somewhere between boston and d c but i can t seem to get the other interesting places like san francisco the pacific northwest and south florida out of my head i obviously want to wait until i get back to the u s before i make any brash decisions though i hope everyone is doing fine back in the states and i d like to thank all of you who sent me care packages over the holidays posted by admin at 5 25 am no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels без рубрики sunday december 23 2007 down under and back i m back in taji now ready to serve out the rest of my time if the way i write the previous sentence raises any eyebrows it was not by accident or a poor choice of words regardless my 16 day r r left me recharged and ready to tackle my 4 remaining months here i got word that my unit is leaving taji at the end of april so i expect to return to the u s in early may i had such a good time on the second half of my australian trip that it s difficult to write about it without feeling a bit of premature nostalgia on this blog i think i left off at the part of my trip when i was about to go scuba diving in northern queensland i did a 4 day padi open water certification course which consisted of 2 days in the classroom and pool and 2 days out at the great barrier reef alex and i were in a 3 person class with an american girl from chicago the classes are normally a lot larger than 3 people so we basically had individual instruction our instructor was a british guy a bit younger than me named uli he had had enough of the corporate rat race in london and left for australia to do something he really cared for at the end of our 4 days alex and i shared a secret jealousy of him i was originally skeptical about spending 2 days of our vacation inside a classroom and pool but it was worth it there was a lot too learn and a few things to make sure we could accomplish underwater before trying it out for real in the ocean the reef was amazing with all the coral giant clams sea cucumbers and odd fish i d never seen before i d snorkeled on reefs before most recently in the red sea but nothing compares to actually getting deep down in the water i d recommend it to anyone even if you get seasick like me as those of you who saw me on the infamous 3 hour kennedy school whale watching trip barf a thon know take some dramamine you ll also feel so much better when you jump in the water while alex decided to an extra day and a half of scuba diving i went along with my original plan to rent a car and drive up and down the coast to see the beaches and rainforest i d read so much about it was at first extremely odd to be driving on the left side of the road in a car with the steering wheel on the right side but i got used to it i m now even an expert on queensland traffic law having been pulled over for doing 100 km hr in a 80 km hr zone near cairns by a policeman who looked about my age i played the dumb tourist role rather nicely and the policeman let me off the hook with a warning not to speed on my holiday lest i want to give up 300 australian dollars his leniency was representative of the especially pleasant and welcoming attitude we saw in all the australians we interacted with after this incident i made it to the rainforest areas of the daintree national forest and went on some hikes through the jungle i swam in crystal clear river pools and also visited virtually empty tropical beaches i unfortunately couldn t swim in the ocean water because of the box jellyfish that infest the shallow waters in the australian summer cape tribulation after our time in queensland we flew down to melbourne to spend about 5 days checking out the city and its environs namely the great ocean road we rented a car and drove along this famous stretch of 2 lane road stretching west from the city s western suburbs according to the two travel guide books i had with me it s one of the world s most scenic drives i thought that the drive certainly lived up to its reputation the beaches that skirt this famous road are known among surfers worldwide for their amazing breaks i learned that the ending scene of point break was filmed there the twelve apostles great ocean road the road also served up a great opportunity to see some koalas in the wild right off the windy road we saw about 15 of them just sitting up in the eucalyptus trees sleeping and eating although i liked sydney s scenery a lot more alex and i enjoyed melbourne s nightlife more they say that melbourne is more like a european city than sydney and i definitely saw that melbourne skyline i hope everyone has a nice christmas and new years posted by admin at 11 52 am no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels без рубрики friday november 30 2007 down under ahh r r soldiers in iraq or afghanistan get the opportunity to take a 15 day vacation during their deployment most soldiers choose to go back to the us but i wanted to use the break to visit a place i d never been before australia theoretically i could have gone anywhere in the world even a place as obscure as greenland the soldier simply names the destination and the army pays for the round trip civilian flight i convinced my friend alex to come with me he d never been to australia before either there is a catch though getting out of iraq is not easy the plan is for you to get to balad then kuwait then germany if you re going back to the us because i m stationed at taji which doesn t have a runway suitable for larger fixed wing aircraft like the c 130 or c 17 i first had to fly to balad via helicopter we were supposed to fly out of taji on november 20th but ended up leaving on the 22nd because of cancelled flights the unfortunate combination of bad weather and higher priority emergency leaves kept delaying us there was one instance when we were about 50 yards from a blackhawk helicopter when the crew chief came out and said he only had room for one more we didn t want to split up how cute so we opted for a chance at a later flight finally after two days of waiting and wondering we left beautiful taji and arrived in balad balad turned out to be a more organized disaster with us mostly lying around on the airport terminal floor for 15 hours trying to get some sleep after a nice thanksgiving meal we caught a flight to kuwait at kuwait we in processed for r r and were assigned a temporary tent until our flight to dubia sydney the next day i m not really in any danger at all on camp taji but it still felt good to be out of iraq it must be a big relief to the soldiers who have to go out on the roads in iraq to finally be out of danger i overheard one homeward bound soldier in my tent showing his friend his purple heart and the wound in his leg that got him the award next we flew out of kuwait city airport the next night on emirates via dubai to sydney on a 15 hour flight the longest flight i had ever been on was the 7 or 8 hour new york to frankfurt so the kuwait sydney long haul was definitely a test of patience for me luckily emirates is a great airline with outstanding food good leg room and a lot of things to keep you busy each seat had a personal tv with all the newer movies that just came out on dvds i call dubai the star wars bar at a crossroads of asia and the middle east dubai is rapidly becoming one of the region s most important cities this attracts travelers and businessmen from all over the world you see indian men with turbans africans in traditional dress russians on vacation fillipino workers arabs in white robes and germans on their way to wherever in short a layover in dubai is a bit more interesting than a stop in pittsburgh sydney i ve been to about 30 countries in my life and can say with confidence that sydney is the most beautiful city i ve ever seen its summer here now so the weather was warm and sunny almost every day we were there the city is right on the harbor so we got around on ferries to different parts of the city got to see the iconic sydney opera house with the sydney skyline in the background went to the taronga zoo and got up close with a koala walked through the botanical gardens and saw probably one hundred different trees i d never seen before sydney s residents are beautiful in shape young our necks are sore from checking out all the female scenery that is to be seen here bondi beach was awesome too i went swimming there for an hour or two and saw some surfers impressively handling some nice waves sydney harbor sydney harbor sydney opera house me and a koala cairns today we flew up to cairns the major gateway to the great barrier reef australia is about as big as the us so the flight from sydney to cairns covers roughly the same distance as new york to miami it feels very south pacific here with the humid temperature turquoise water and lush rainforest mountains surrounding the city had some kangaroo emu and crocodile meat today we enrolled in a scuba certfication course so thats what i ll be doing for the next 4 days we had our first day today and i really liked it can t wait to get out on the reef to see some cool stuff next we re off to melbourne hope everyone is doing well posted by admin at 4 41 am no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels без рубрики wednesday october 24 2007 crimes and misdemeano...