Parting Ways - 05 March 2009 - 2200

So we were thrown a little bit of a curveball last night after I submitted my post. Turns out they were able to get the group that was going down to the FOB on a flight at 0530 this morning. So they got up and went down to the Flight Line, only this time, for some reason, the bus was allowed to pick them up in front of the tents. Who knew. I didn’t find out until later as SPC Taylor and I left for the ASP at about 0700 but they did make their flight and are currently in their new home. With most of them already down there, I’m sure the word is out back home so I think it would probably be alright for me to say where we are going. West of here, around an hour’s flight away, is a small group of FOBs. The central FOB is known as Camp Bastian, It is a British post. Surrounding it are 3 smaller FOBs: Leatherneck; where the US Marines are held up, Shoreback; where the U.S. Special Forces are, and Tombstone; not really sure who is there. We are one of only a couple Army Units in the area, which will have its perks and drawbacks. One of the perks would be that we are off kind of doing our own thing away from the watchful eye of 1000 officers. That can also be a drawback though. Out of sight out of mind can’t get you forgotten about sometimes. The early reports from down at Leatherneck, which is where we will be, is that the chowhall is close and is 5 times better than the best day here. Also, our tent area is brand new and right by shower, laundry and latrine trailers. I hope they are like the ones we had at LSA. I’m tired of having people watch me make brown. Our living arrangements will not be in hardside buildings like we had hoped, but in a tent just like the one we are in now. The difference is that the one we are in now is actually two set back to back. I hear we will have 6 tents with about 8 guys per, which isn’t horrible. Worst part is that we are back to sleeping on cots. The girls, all 4 of them, get their own tent which is a sham deal. When we were mobilized to Ft Riley in 02-03 (the one where we never really went anywhere), we slept in an airplane hangar for 2 months, about 400 people deep, on cots with male and female all intermingled. I get tired of all the equality crap and them getting all the freaking special treatments. Barriers can be, and will be, put up in the rooms to cordon off everyone’s area anyway. That’s more than we got in the hangar. Anyway, so now there are only 13 of us here in Kandahar. SPC Taylor and I went out to the ASP today to work with their SAAS Control Section. Again, SAAS is the Army’s ammo tracking system. We were again reminded all day of what we missed out on by getting bumped off the Kandahar job and moved to Bastian. The group that is running the ASP out here was actually in Ft McCoy doing the same training we were at the same time. They are the 826th Ordnance Company out of Illinois. We were grouped up with them a lot in McCoy since we were doing the same things at the same time. Every job has a number and letter designator called an MOS. An Ammo Specialist is 89B. About 90% of the guys with us on this deployment are 89Bs. (Bravos) We also brought some 63Bs which is a mechanic. The guys in the ammo field that run the SAAS system are 89A’s. (we call them Alphas) It is a brand new MOS. They used to just have the B’s do everything but they found that the SAAS operators needed more specific training so they created the A’s. We were supposed to have 4 A’s with us but since it is so new, we didn’t have anyone who was qualified to do it, so they picked a few guys who were computer savvy and sent them to a 2 week course to figure out as much as they could. I am the leader of that group. I’ll talk about that class in the next PreMob post. So since don’t have an extensive background in the system, our Chief sent us out to work with the 826 89As at the ASP today. (Amazingly enough, something like that rolls right off our tongue and everyone knows exactly what you are talking about) I’ll save you all the details but I’ll just say it was a slow day. Everyone in the 826 was cool and ready to show us what they knew, and SPC Johansen and PFC Kimberly, their 2 A’s, were especially helpful. SPC Taylor is kind of our “In-house I.T. guy”. He will be working with their I.T. guy over the next day or two on some stuff they have going on out there, but I don’t think I’ll be going back out, only because there just isn’t much going on, to no one’s fault. We still are unsure of when the rest of us will be heading down to join the group, but it should be within a week or so hopefully. It will be nice to finally get to work. It should help the days go by quicker. For all of you who were asking for my address, I’ll put it at the end. My mail will actually be going to Bastian even though I’ll be here in Kandahar a while longer. I figure even if someone mailed something to me today, I should still beat it down there. I hear that it takes about a week for something to get to Kandahar and a few days past that to get down to Bastian. Thanks again for all the words of encouragement and support from back home.
SSG Cody Christ
295th Ordnance Company
FOB Bastian/Leatherneck
APO AE 09355