I just finished out a two week long exercise for the Army. I can’t talk about what I did, because the nature and conditions of my work are classified. That’s too bad: my role in all this doesn’t really deserve the paranoia, and I would really like the opportunity to vent a bit. Nothing, really, [...]
“It’s really a pain to take leave to a foreign country; I’m just trying to take my wife and kids to Thailand and I’m getting all kinds of procedural flak about it.” “Yeah, the S2 shop at Brigade has to approve all travel not to the US. It’s all to cut down on the Prostitution [...]
I am now a Chief Warrant Officer 2. Unless I stay in the army longer than I expect to, this is the rank I’ll leave it with. It’s no mark of special merit: every Warrant Officer gets this promotion automatically after two years as a WO1. Still, it’s nice to have the recognition, the pay [...]
Let me tell you my work schedule, because it is crazy: Last Friday: 2pm – 2am Saturday: 11am – 9am Sunday Monday: 3pm – 5pm Tuesday: 9am – 9am Wednesday Thursday: 8am – 3pm Friday: 2am – noon This has a lot to do with the fact that half the BN is currently tasked to [...]
I never thought before going to flight school that weather would be such a big part of piloting. Even in flight school, I figured that since they train us in instrument flying techniques, bad weather wouldn’t be a huge deal. Now I’m learning that I was naive. The fact of the matter is that pretty [...]
Duct tape a coffee mug securely to the front end of the brim of a baseball cap. Tape two rolls of quarters to the sizing strap to balance the weight. Acquire a pair of thickly tinted green round spectacles, such as can be found at the gates of the Emerald City. Lightly fog the surface [...]
Anytime an Army pilot arrives at a new post, they have to get to a status called Readiness Level One, which just means that they’re familiar with the local flying procedures, the local area, and their new unit’s mission. This can take several months. Here in Korea, since the default tour length is only a [...]
The Army has determined in its institutional way that morale is a good thing to keep high. As such, every so often, they let people out of work and take them on a field trip. The nature of the trip varies according to the circumstances–one of my friends was in the Old Guard previously, and [...]
I was awakened this morning by an unexpected phone call: there was an alert and I had to get to the company right away. Outside, I could hear a horn blaring; when I stumbled out into the rain, the first thing I saw was a startling number of people running around in uniform, in vehicles, [...]
In case anyone was wondering, this is what I was up to last week. The reporter dramatizes quite a bit, but the essence of the story is correct.