So far, Korea ain’t a bad place to be, other than the rain that’s been hammering us for the past few days (we had a typhoon in the neighborhood… missed the peninsula, but Shanghai got hit by it pretty hard). My only gripe with Camp Hovey is that the main PX is over on Camp Casey, requiring a shuttlebus to get to. What-the-hey… if that’s my worst complaint, I think I’m doing okay.

I had CQ yesterday (24 hours, from 09:00 to 09:00 this morning), and managed to make it until about 04:00 this morning before the ZZZ-monster started biting me. Another what-the-hey… if I’m going to lose a Friday night, at least it was early in my tour, while I’m still restricted to post (newbies in Korea aren’t allowed off-post until after 30 days… helps keep them from getting into trouble, here).

Time being, today’s festivities are another trip to the PX and Commissary, to pick up sundries for the room. For now, at least, I have the room to myself… one of the few perks of being a senior SPC, and being as old as I am. I’ve already gotten a nickname within the Medic platoon, here… they’re calling me “Scrooge,” thanks to SGT Ashlock who misreported my last name as ‘Ebenezer’. I’m still not used to responding to ‘Scrooge’ yet, but it could be worse… there’s a guy in the platoon who’s nickname is “Bambi”.

Bah, Humbug, y’all!

The Army is a small, small world.
One of the guys in my inprocessing class, it turns out, is a former comrade from my days at Ft. Polk, back in 1992.
(Jeez, I feel old…)
Guy named Savage… I don’t know if any of you remember my story about the dude whose computer was stolen, and how our company clerk took revenge on the thief by “disappearing” his immunization records?
Well, Savage was the guy whose computer was stolen.
Fortunately, he’s one of the ones I was on good terms with while I served in Charlie Company, and best-of-all?
1. He’s being posted at Camp Casey (which adjoins Camp Hovey, where I’ll be stationed), and…
2. He’s married to a Korean national, and has been living over here, working as a Dept. of the Army civilian contractor, for the past 15 years. Speaks fluent Korean, knows his way around, knows all the good places to see/go/eat/etc., knows all the etiquette faux-pas to avoid… probably the BEST possible contact I could’ve made, here.

Some days, you hit the jackpot, y’know?
This almost makes up for the issue of my missing luggage.
Almost.

Well, I made it to Korea safely… and my luggage didn’t. Had to buy new toiletries to get me through the 48 hours until my baggage arrives, and I’m gettin’ kinda’ tired of wearing the same clothes.
C’est la vie.

News: I’ve got my pinpoint assignment… I’m being assigned to Headquarters, Headquarters Troop, 4-7 Cavalry (Air), at Camp Hovey, Korea.
What does this mean?
Well, for now, it means Air Cavalry, but they’re supposedly transforming into an Armored Reconnaissance squadron. I don’t know what the current status of the unit is.

Regardless, it’s gonna’ be a cool assignment.

For those who are interested, the unit’s webpage is…
http://www-2id.korea.army.mil/organi…nits/4%2D7cav/

Ah, bliss… I get to sleep in my own bed, again… don’t get disturbed by 58 other noisy, smelly Gis in my space… life is good, for a little while. Just sitting around listening to Pete Yorn’s MusicForTheMorningAfter, sipping my tea and checking my email.

My schedule for this Leave is now pretty full, so for those who want a chance to see me before I depart for overseas, it’d be best to contact me within the next two days. It’d be easier if the softball team still had games scheduled, but apparently that’s over. Was the Bats’ record this year any better than the previous year’s?

BIG NEWS!

I’ve finally got orders!!! I’m being posted at Camp Casey, Korea, with the 2nd Infantry Division. Assuming the Brigade I’m going to isn’t set to deploy to the mideast, I’ll be in Korea for about 13 months (maybe longer if it turns out I like it there and choose to extend… I don’t know… I’ve never been to Korea before.)

Aside from that, Friday was a really good day for me.

Validation lanes, trauma exercises, and I got THE toughest lane they’ve got in the evaluations. Scenario is a soldier with massive trauma to the lower face & head and a partial amputation of the left hand with an associated compound fracture. All that involves treatment of a dummy. You also get a LIVE volunteer to serve as the arm you have to place the catheter in when it’s time to initiate the IV. There’s a 30-minute time limit, within which you have to treat all injuries, initiate an IV, and package the dummy for helicopter transport.

Complications on the lane I was on? The lights are turned off in the building, there’s a strobelight going, there’s a lot of smoke in the air from a stage fog machine, there’s a soundtrack of gunfire & explosions blaring in the background, and the evaluator in my lane was just a little bit psychotic… this guy likes to stand behind the person being tested and scream obscenities at them to see if he can rattle their cool.

I had the soldier on the LZ in twenty minutes, and the volunteer actually thanked me for not mangling his arm during the IV. One shot, one kill.

Uh-huh, dat’s right, We Bad. If you can get an IV stick on the first try with all that chaos around you, you know you’re gonna’ do well in this job. (Just as an FYI, the idiot who forgot to bring his Aidbag? He was a no-go on his first attempt, and if he can’t pass on Monday, he’ll be recycled. We’re all hoping that’s what will happen.)

This will be my last update for a few weeks… I’ve got the Field Exercise which overlaps next weekend, and the following weekend I’ll be packing to come home on leave.

See you on August 28th!

Thursday… oh, Thursday was funny. You can’t make shit like this up.

We’ve got one particular IET soldier who’s… how shall I put this… a flippin’ idiot. Kid’s got a habit of allowing his mouth to hang open if he’s not paying attention to it… yup, literally he’s a slack-jawed fool.
Anyways, he’s had more-than-one incident of leaving his weapon unattended, so recently they’ve taken to attatching his rifle to him with a dummy-cord. This has helped with the rifle, but I think they may need to go a step further.

Thursday, we were running a simulation exercise, where we’re doing triage & treatment on dummies; the dummies are attatched to computer controllers and pumps, so they have pulses, their chests move like they’re breathing, and there’s stage-blood leaking out of their wounds. High-speed stuff; you’ve got a team of 5 medics, and there are 10-15 “casualties” to be treated.

So, on my run through lane #2, I get put into the group containing this idiot. All of us made certain to check the guy to see if he had his rifle, but none of us bothered to see if he’d remembered to bring his Aid-bag.
Yup, that’s right, we were 30 seconds into the exercise when he realized he didn’t have any first-aid supplies to work with, other than the single tourniquet in his right cargo pocket.
How in the blue blazes do you forget your Aid-bag?!?!

The instructor gave him a lot of grief, all of us in his team gave him a good razzing for it, and when the others in the platoon started giving him flak about it, he finally snapped and started screaming… and started to lunge for one soldier in particular… and then stumbled and nearly fell because his rifle got tangled in his gear, and it was still dummy-corded to his LBE.

I really hope they recycle this clown, or even better, reclass him to some other MOS where he’s less likely to get somebody killed.

BTW, I return to STL from 28 AUG – 10 SEP, including my birthday, 05 SEP. Hope to see many of you during that time.

Ciao!

Well, we’re now into “Reverse Cycle” training schedule, which means our Duty Day is now 03:00-13:00 in order to adjust to the Texas summer heat. Hasn’t been much in the way of summer heat, these past few days, but instead we’ve gotten a lot of summer rain. It’s done a lot to separate the Men from the Boys in the company… funny how most of the prior-service former Grunts don’t really complain about it much.

The only annoying thing about this reverse-cycle stuff is that we’re living on MREs during this time, since we’re not on schedule with the messhall anymore. To explain why this is annoying, understand that most of the contents of an MRE are condensed, freeze-dried, or otherwise reduced in size/weight, and that they’re heavy on the Fat Content in order to pack as many calories into as small a space as possible.

Which means, if you aren’t drinking enough water with them, they’ll stop up your gut like a cork; uncomfortable, to say the least. I’ve at-least got enough experience with them to know how to avoid most of that problem.

Still haven’t gotten notice about where I’m to be stationed at.

Amateur phlebotomists are (literally) a pain.
Friday was all about sticking needles into each other, and since I’m (un?)lucky enough to have good, thick veins in my arms, I was the practice dummy for four other soldiers. I’ve now got tracks like a flippin’ junkie.

August 28th… just keep tellin’ myself, August 28th I’m outta’ here…

Hooray, hooray, I’m a licensed EMT now!

All that remains for me to complete the trifecta is to become a Notary Public & a Licensed Dog.

Eight weeks left to go… still don’t have a follow-on assignment yet.

What a lovely sunday in San Antonio… we were awakened this morning to the sound of the fire alarm going off in the barracks, and I’ve got an abscessed molar that I’ll be going on SickCall Monday morning to get taken care of. Nothing like an impending root-canal to liven up the day, eh?

Aside from that, we do the National Registry test for EMT-B next week, and I’m still hangin’ in there. Have fun!