“I may get called in again who knows?”

Well I guess I shouldn’t have said that, because I got called in again that night, even earlier than the night before. Also this time it was my gruop of guys rioting, they where a little smarter though, they only burned down the tents not the buildings, but they then took the tent poles and fashioned them into clubs and other make shift weapons. Iwas posted on the perimeter fence with my lethal gun incase they broke through, I would be the one to engage them. It was kinda scarey to see. We knew they had plans to break out and try to get into our control center, they probably came closer than they realize. Well I still didn’t get much action, however we did get to go in and work on cleaning up the mess other the last two days. I was exhausted after that day though, I think I slept for about 9 hours, it was great. I definetly wanted to stay in bed though, Well thats it for now. 

Another long day

Well I had a few moments of hopefullness that I would see some action today, I did actually see a little.  I was woke up early to respond to a riot in progress, I was one of the first responders of off duty personnel, so we got shields and went to the riot to play. I ended up just getting stuck with the team leader running around with him. I didn’t even get to see anyone shoot. I guess most of it was conrtolled by the time we actually got there however the next area had set their buildings on fire so they burned to the ground, that was kinda cool.  I ended up going on and continuing with my shift, then after a while, our guys got mad and refused to do what we said. So we prepared to get ugly, I had two stinger grenades,two riot shields, a huge can of OC pepper spray, an entire box full of non lethal ammo, and 420 rounds of lethal. I was also the one guy that had the best vantage point to get them. But after about 40 minutes, they where told if they didn’t do what we wanted they wouldn’t get their tea(chai). They then finally decided to cooperate. I was really quite upset because then, that had two adrenaline rushes that were wasted on nothing, Well because of the previous riot, the other shift of workers were told they could come in late. So towards the end of the shift we were definetly ready to go home, when we hear a call come over the radio about the same group from the beginning breaking through one of the fences, we were ready to hit the scene and take them down but it was, apparently not that bad yet, then by the time we got off I guess it was some what under control again, although the day is definetly not over yet I may get called in again who knows?

Comm lockdown

Over the period of the last few days we have had a communication lockdown. The phones and internet even the stuff we pay for has been locked so we couldn’t use it. Reason being; a convoy out of here was hit with an IED and killed one and severly injured another, so until their families could be notified we were all on lockdown. The good news is comm is up again and I have tonight off, so I can call.

I went ahead and bought my xbox 360, I bought it new from the BX here. I have a few things I could use to go along with it though. I want more games, the selection here isn’t very good. Basically there are seven different sports games and thats about it. I tried to go through Amazon.com but of course they don’t want to ship games to APO adresses. Particular ones I want are; Gears of War, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas, others that I thing I would probably enjoy but don’t really have to have are ; F.E.A.R., Crackdown, Call Of Duty 3. I also want an additional wireless controller for it. Now I know my brithday is coming up so I was thinking you could help me out, I don’t mind getting used games so long as they are in good condition, if you go through amazon.com you can get some good deals and look at the sellers ratings on used stuff. If you order anyof these items you’ll probably have to have it shipped to yourself then send it on to me. Well thats all I have for now, I will try calling Monday day yourtime if anyone wants to answer the phone this time.

Shower

I am about to go take a shower, I am tired and can’t think of anything to really write about so I thought I would address the showers here. They suck. We have to have water trucked in every morning to us, and in order to conserve this water we get 4 miute combat showers. Well if your lucky enough to get to the water while it has been heating up all day, it takes nearly 4 minutes for the warm stuff to reach your shower.If you get to take a cold shower, then it’s great because you get to walk back 5 miles to your room dripping wet in the cold wind. I know it is wierd, but the weather seems to adapt to whatever is the most irriatating at the time. That’s it I’m done. 

Life in a Trailer

Well I know that most of you that don’t me that well probably think that because I’m from Arkansas, I grew up in a trailer. And though I didn’t, I know plenty of people who did. Its ok to. Anyway on with the real point here, I now live in a trailer and yeah the area around us even looks like a trailer park. The worst thing is I have to share my little trailer with nine other guys. Yeah, it isn’t pretty. I work the AM schedule and so do six of the guys I live with, the other three work during the PM shift. I am sure you can see where that may raise some problems. Actually it will only effect us on our days off because other than those we never see each other. the thing about our days off is we haven’t had any yet, and don’t know when we will pick up enough people to allow us to. The bed layout is another rediculous thing it has 5 bunkbeds in it and 2 of them have half of the trailer to themselves. We also have so much luggage and extra gear that we probably won’t ever use but, are required to have.  The smell doesn’t seem to bad yet, but again it is 10 guys in a room. Thats is all I have now before I go to bed.

15 hr work days

Well the excitement doesn’t seem to end, today I ended up have to work an addittional three hours. That isn’t including our showtime for guardmount or transportation time to my area. The good/bad thing was I didn’t shoot anybody. Though it seems plenty of my counterparts did, I don’t really kow many details as to what happended and even if I did I couldn’t talk about them. I do know that a riot occurred and we gained control over the problematic rioters, enough said. Well due to the simple fact that I have to wake up in six hours to go back to work I will end this and go take care of the rest of my errands before going to bed.

Have I done anything cool recently?

I have done a few things that I enjoyed in the last couple of days, I have also experienced something that was really, in a strange way, exciting.

1. I convoyed from one location to another, then from there I flew in a British helicopter with heavy guns mounted at the doors to my current location. There are a few more details that I am not authorized to go into.

 2. Then, after having been here for a little more than 32 hours, I was on the way to chow with a friend of mine and we heard an explosion, so we go back and grab our cameras and start looking for it, then we were told we are being mortared get in some cover, then some things were a little chaotic and we had to get into our battle gear, I was in my pt uniform so it looked wierd having my other gear over it. Anyway, the explosion wasn’t really quite close to us and we were released, after a while, to continue on with our day. 

3. Just a couple of hours ago, I got of work from my first shift, I can’t really say much about it other than it was an interesting learning experience, and I think it will be alot of repetition.

Well that’s all I have for now.  

I’m back!!!

I have decided the time is right to resume my blog updates, I will make an attempt to add something new everyday. However the undisclosed location I am at may not allow me to do so. We are very limlited in the abilityto communicated effectively to the outside world. I know I have the ability to post pictures on my blog however I am likely to refrain from doing so for reasons that don’t apply to the regular American. I am not exactly sure how many people will stumble upon my little land of thoughts, however they should know I am not posting anything to irritate, sadden, or discourage anyone. In fact my postings are just to inform those you are interested of what is going on in my life, while I am away, and unable to tell them directly. That is all for now.

Cardio Kills

I have quit lifting heavy, and started doing my cardio again. Today was my first time running more than a mile in over a month and a half. I couldn’t believe how much it hurt, so after I finished running I went to the pool and I swam a few laps. My lungs were really hating me, and my arms were dead I had to take breaks in between each lap. I know that as long as I keep it up I should be back to where I left off, when I quit doing cardio, in a week or so. I kind of wish I had not quit doing my cardio at all, but I needed to bulk up some and cardio doesn’t help for that. EST tryouts are going to be here soon, and I want to be sure I am prepared for them. I know once I get back to Utah I am going to have to run alot to adjust to the altitude difference, I think it is nealry 4,500 ft higher than here. 

Emergency Service Team

E.S.T. also know as the air force’s SWAT team. Hill AFB is fortunate to have such a team and being located in between several large cities (Salt Lake City and Ogden) we have the opportunities to attend their SWAT schools we also have slots to Army S.R.T. School (very similar.) I tried out in Febuary and wasn’t selected for the team, however I believe that will benefit me for the next tryouts, which are supposed to be in September. There is a different guy in charge of the team now though and he may change things, so I am hoping that I still have a little bit of a lead as far as knowing what to expect. I really am not looking forward to going through the tryouts again, even though I had a good time it still beat me down and exhausted me more than anything else ever has. Wish me luck.