Countdown to Bastian/Leatherneck - 12 March 2009 - 1500

And then we were 6. The rest of the guys finally made it out last night. There was word that they were scheduled incorrectly again but our Movement guy went down and straightened it out. When I got back to the tent last night at around 2000 I was told that the Commander had called and wanted one of the other guys who stayed back and me to get on the flight last night and come down since they are evidently hurting for numbers. I was gunna be a little on the pissed off side if I was only going to get an hour to pack and leave. I wouldn’t care if I had to go down to Leatherneck at any point now, I would just like some heads up as my plan is to be here for a little while and I’m not really ready. A few of us were down at the Boardwalk the other night and we saw that a couple of the guys who were down in Leatherneck had updated their Facebook statuses. That was a good sign that they had obviously found a source of internet down there. I won a hat last night from Tim Horton’s. It’s kinda cool. That brings my total to like 2 donuts, 5 or 6 coffees, and a hat won. We are still hearing horror stories from out in Leatherneck about what our mission is going to be. Again I can’t get into details but it’s getting people pretty fired up. Our tent here, now, is spacious and empty. We have six people in a tent that can hold 40. We are loving it, but I hear that it’s not going to last long for two of us. They couldn’t get us on that flight last night, but they are trying to get us on the next one which is rumored to be Saturday at the earliest, plus you have to figure in a couple extra days after our flight gets cancelled. SPC Taylor and I had to get up early yesterday morning and take a drug urinalysis. I was telling everyone that I was relatively concerned with the results as I am fairly certain Tim Horton’s secret ingredient is Crack. Being here so far has been pretty sucky, but the perk has got to be the untaxed pay and minimal spending. I talked to my wife the other night and had her call the bank that financed my car to find out the buyout cost. She found out for me and I had her send in a check for the amount. In a month or so I’m going to do the same thing with my student loans and I will be square with the world. One of the perks that you lose out on when you take a Federal position while in the Army is Student Loan Repayment. The Army will repay up to $20,000 in student loans but when you take a job like I have you lose it. It will be pretty nice, however, to return home with no debt except that of paying back the $15,000 for my bonus that they are recouping. They take out a small amount out of all my paychecks so I’m not real worried about that one. While in KAF, I’ve been able to chat with my wife almost when ever I’ve wanted. It has made the separation more bearable for both of us. Our coms will probably get a lot more infrequent once I leave here, so I’ll probably have to get used to that for a while. The time really does seem to be going pretty quickly. I have a hard time believing its already mid-March. I’ve noticed no new people are following my blog and the comments have slowed, but I’m going to assume that everyone is still reading. I think writing this and knowing that people back home have a better idea of what’s going on has been helping as well. If you see a large void in my writing, don’t fear. I’m going to write whenever I can and then dump them all on the page at once whenever I get to the internet. I’ve heard that the internet is a bit of a walk down in Leatherneck, but I’ve been walking to the Boardwalk, usually twice a day, two miles round trip, the whole time I have been here. I can’t see it being farther than that. If it is, I will probably only get down there once a day or every other. It really just depends on what we have going on down there, which from what I hear, is quite a bit of crap. I just keep thinking, with all the crap that I’m hearing with our makeshift mission and our Battalion cell, that this is a great way for the Army to lose 46 Soldiers after this deployment.