Tuesday, November 9, 2004

Day two is done!

Hey all--Day 2 is done and we're halfway there--signed the contracts,
went over payroll and benefits, emergency procedures, company guidelines, uniform regs, rules, saw some great orientation pics of the various bases. Kris from *The Company** is great--he has been very patient answering our zillions of questions (some are admittedly pretty dumb but I guess not new to him).

I also got 2 more sets of the khaki utilities so should be set for the sand. Most of the guys with our group have never been in the military so myself, a former airforce guy, a former Army guy, and a Navy guy (hey all the services are covered here) have been taking the lead on the deployment tips--the 2 officers with us are acting as the command leadership and is pretty strong so things are pretty squared away and organized. Kris is a former Army Warrant officer so I (and the other military guys) understand him pretty clearly--we translate to the rest o the group and things get done pretty quickly. Even Kris admits were a pretty squared away group.

Generally things are shaking together pretty well here and I am getting excited to get on with the mission. Evidently we are a priority mission and we get a lot of questions from the other civilian contractors waiting to go over (some have been here 6 or 7 weeks waiting for the big 'bus ride'). It seems us (the firefighters) and the PSD's (Personal Security Details) get priority in the chow line and just about every other line in site.

The guys are a great bunch of guys here. Besides the obvious adventure and financial gains to the mission, all are here because they want to serve the country in a little way and we are very spirited. We do have a tighter group that seems to get along pretty well--Dan is from St Louis and is quite a riot--he's already organized the class into a group where we vote on issues such as how much beer to drink before we get to Iraq (where there is NO alcohol--don't worry honey, all is in jest at this
point-we're kinda too busy and all of us are extremely broke. They call me moneybags because I have $16). We got a guy who actually served with me at Bogue Field in 89! We call him pork chop for his prolific pork chop (astonishingly he runs pretty fast and although getting the situps done was tough he has giant arms and pumped out the pushup). He is also a very funny guy. LA is the mexican guy from Jacksonville. He is 44 and easily the most fit in the group. He did 102 pushups (as a reference--I got out 65). Have Paul from Cleveland (he tells me Ohio is as bad as every makes it out to be-but he's a Bushie so I like him! As a side note, we all asked everyone who was present who voted for who and Bush won 20-1 --the lone dissenter being from Florida no less). Got "Jersey Jonas" who is really tall and has a very Sardonic sense of humor. He is lamenting that he must shave his mustache--a former Navy guy with the
Golden Shellback credential! Boston comes, of course, from Boston via Kuwait. He was Army firefighter that saw **The Company** in action and put a resume in the second his enlistment was up. He doesn't say much else because "he is still in shock over the Red Sox winning the world series".

As I get to know this bunch, I am reminded of my military days--all a bunch of characters! Believe it or not, there was another guy with the same last name as me
but he did not make the trip--too bad that could have been fun and I've never seen that in my life, even in the Marines. We will be together until we get to Iraq, then we will be split up according to our skills, certs and needs of the Army/Marines. I am told since I am a former Marine, I will more than likely be at one of the Marine bases (Mosul, Kirkuk, Fallujah) but that will depend on what needs are going on when I get there.

Anyway--I'm off to dinner, a phone call to my wife and family whom I already miss very much and then bed--we have another busy day tommorow--We have a Security Briefing all morning and then we get a cash disbursement as we prepare for our Military Briefings on Thursday. **The Company** prohibits pictures inside the processing center but I will try to get pictures of the group when I can.

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