Best Sapper Competition

The trip to Fort Leonard Wood was a good one. The Best Sapper competition had 29 teams of two compete in various combat engineer tasks and knowledge. We got all 58 print and video interviews. It sure does help when everyone is instructed to participate.


I got all of the interview forms back and the photographer got all off the mug shots done Saturday. The broadcasters had to finish on Sunday, so I went with them. It only took an hour. After that the civilian broadcaster and I took a trip to Bass Pro Shop, he said it is the headquarters. It was my first time in one, not including that little one in Arundal Mills mall in Maryland. I bet its safe to call it the Redneck Mecca. 


We had early days the three days the competition ran. By early, I mean being on base at 3 a.m. Monday and Tuesday were full 10 hour days, but we were done at 7:30 Wednesday morning. 


Since my main responsibility for the trip was finished Saturday I took one of the office's D2-X cameras so I would have something to do, and the boss thought I might be able to get what the photographer didn't see. Yeah, it has been a while since I've used one, and it showed. I got it figured out after a while. I took, probably close to 2,000 photos, not including the ones deleted directly from the camera, and had one make it into the stock photos that were sent out with the story. We'll see if it gets published at all.


We got to watch them build C-4 charges, breach a door with explosives with just 10 feet and a wall of plexiglass between us and the door. I also go to ride on a Black Hawk for the first time. I think I played it cool enough nobody figured out it was my first ride. 


My next trip should be to Panama next month. I'll be writing about the New Horizons exercise. I will be in a few cities down there. It will be a multi-branch exercise. 


Homie's note: Not sure why I can't load more photos to this right now. 

The first six months

I have been here for six months already. I has been a pretty quick six. Being here has been pretty cool so far. Living with a roommate again took some getting used to, but it's working out. The job is cool, if a bit slow at points. I have been on two trips for stories since January and I leave next weekend for a story at Fort Leonard Wood.

My first trip was to the Carolinas and Haiti, with a stop in Honduras. I went to Pope/Bragg in North Carolina and wrote about people sending supplies to Haiti for the earthquake relief. Then went to Joint Base Charleston, S.C., and while there the public affairs officer offered us a flight to Haiti for more interviews. We accepted and flew down on a C-5. On the way we stopped in Honduras to pick up a couple of fire trucks to take with us. We were there on the flight line a few hours and then took off for Haiti. We got to Haiti at like 1 a.m. and also stayed on the flight line there for about three hours. Since it was dark we didn't see much of the damage other than the big crack on the outside of the airport. The inside was apparently real bad. We took more than 100 refugees and orphans to Miami on the way back to South Carolina. We sat on the floor of the plane under a cargo strap for that part of the trip. That was fun.

A couple of weeks ago I went to Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., to write about the explosive ordnance disposal students. Most of the services are there for nine months learning about all of that stuff. The Navy stays longer than the rest because they have a few months of dive training.

It was cool seeing how they inspect bombs and watching them set up explosions.

In addition to work, my grandma has been down. It was a good weekend with her and her friend going around town and showing them things. I have also had another couple of people down for a weekend and it was fun too. And I plan to have more people coming down while I'm here.

That's all for now. I'll write more later.

Links to the two stories:

http://www.timesleaderonline.com/page/content.detail/id/516397.html?nav=5010

http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/articles/2010/04/06/west/life/0407wc-bomb0.txt

And a wake up

I leave here in the morning. I'll pick Pedro up, get his shots and leave this town. I'll be just short of four years. It has been a decent few years here. The people were ok and the work was pretty easy and every thing was pretty much laid back. The area, not so good. Yes, Atlanta is within two hours. Yes, I went up there a few times and it was fun just about every time. I only made it to Savannah once for work. Most people who visited seemed to prefer going to Atlanta instead.

Tomorrow I will drive to Shreveport, La. and Ben and Missy's place. It's about half way and we will break in their new place.

I'll be in San Antonio at some point Thursday evening. I sure hope the roommate hasn't girlified the house too much.

My last TDY here

I went to Atlanta Thursday to help the Georgia Air National Guard as media support. The Guard took over a building from the Navy since they are moving from Dobbins to Florida. After two hours of being in a meeting that discussed nothing about what I would be doing, I ran into the Army major in charge of media support Saturday. We had things figured out in about 20 minutes.

The hotel we stayed at had happy hour with free drinks. It is possible to have enough drinks in that two hours to get nice and tipsy.

Friday the other two media I was with and I were waiting for our meeting about Saturday when they got a call to cover Biden's tour of the Cobb Civic Center. They wanted an Air Guard crew there to cover it and since we were in the office, and the only three Air Force media there, we went. He was there to tour the flood damage to Georgia and talk to the people living at the shelter since the flooding.

All of the crew from Robins and a few Army went to dinner. There were almost 30 of us and dinner was family stile. That was cool, but the three plus hours it took, not so cool. There was quite a bit of food tho.

I guess they were expecting a huge group of local media to cover the transfer of facilities and wanted me to stay in the media tent and talk about the Air Guard. Hm, I'm Active Duty and don't bother myself with Air Guard Details. There ended up only being four and I signed them in. They didn't ask any questions other than where the ceremony was. That could be because they were all late. The ceremony started late and they still didn't make it in time for the beginning.

It wasn't a bad TDY for my last one in the 116th Air Control Wing. I'm looking forward to frequently being TDY as part of the Hometown News Service in San Antonio.

10 down, ? more to go

The 25th marked my 10 years in the Air Force. Its been a pretty interesting time with all the places I've been, things I've done and seen and the trouble I've gotten into. Even most of the people have been o.k.

Its been a decade of 3s. Three bases: Japan, Montana and Georgia. Three jobs: 1A4, structures and public affairs. Three deployments: Turkey, near Saudi and Iraq.

After 10 years I'm still me. It was rough going for a while. I came in with a dislike for authority and was in trouble a lot in Japan because of it. Don't worry, I'm still a smart ass and say what's on my mind, I just say it differently now.

This new job in San Antonio is coming at a good time. With two years left on this enlistment it could help me decide to stay in and finish, or get out and move on. I think I'll like it. I'm told that I'll be traveling about 10 times a year all over the world. That's the part I'm looking forward to since that's one reason I came in as a flyer.

Will I make it another 10? I don't know. I'm surprised, as I'm sure most of you are, that I have lasted this long. The retired at 40 makes sticking it out real tempting tho. Guess we'll just wait and see.

Homie's note: This was written at Turner Field while the Braves were getting whooped on by the Padres, my first major league ball game, or else it would have been posted yesterday.

Found what I was looking for

My trip to San Antonio was pretty much a success. I found a house the first day of looking and met a few people from my new shop. The house is nice. It's three bedroom, two stories. Tile and wood on the first floor and carpet on the second. There is a loft on the top of the stairs that will make a good game room.

My office is the Hometown News Service office and I will be traveling for work about 10 weeks of the year all over the world. A few of us, Air Force and Army, will go and get a few hundred troops to fill out forms with questions and come back to spend a few weeks writing the same story over and over.

I stopped in New Orleans on the way. The French Quarter is a pretty neat place. I went exploring off the main streets and that place stinks very bad. Seen the basilica that John Paul II worshiped on one of his American trips.

On the way back I stopped in Biloxi, Mis. for a couple of days. Drove down I 90 along the coast and noticed that Biloxi has been busy rebuilding since Katrina, but Gulfport, not so much. I'm still curious why there are three new high rise condos right across the highway. That doesn't seem smart at all. I noticed that one Waffle House hasn't been rebuilt, but that's ok because the other 4 are still there along the coast. Sharkies, the gift shop on the beach is now a seafood restaurant. The strip next to the mall is rebuilt and occupied. Two years ago it was just studs and a roof.

When I got home Saturday, there was a dotson on my porch. It was all scared but I was able to pick him up after a couple of treats. I took him to the neighbor's house but he didn't belong there so now I have another dog. It stayed in the cabinet most of the night and then Pedro's little couch until this morning. He's not house broken yet so I get to go thru that again. I won't be able to train him like Pedro since he doesn't mind laying in it. Hopefully I can find him a home before I leave, or else it's off to the pound with him. His name so far is Joey Wiener.

Paper work

I'm going to buy a house when I move to Texas. I've seen a couple on line that I like. I am planning to drive down and spend a few days looking and putting in offers. Well, I need a pre-approval letter from the bank to do that.

I call the bank and get approved, but I have some 20 pages of forms and other proof of identification before I can actually get the application for the mortgage loan. More than half are VA papers to prove that I'm eligible for it. Some of the papers can't be filled out until I find the house and have the sellers fill them out too.

I call the loan officer and he says that I can wait because those will be sent to me again in a couple of days. That seems quite redundant. Then again ... And, he said that he already sent some forms into the VA to get the eligibility letter. I sent him most of what i had for him today. I printed but didn't fax the TSP information. I lucked out since my quarterly statement will be available in a couple of days and has more in it than the one I was going to fax.

It looks like I'll be in good shape to move right in when I move. I'll probably have to go up one day and close before the big move, but that's ok. Well, I'll be in the house, but my stuff will be there a good while after I get there. 

Tip of the day: If you are planning to use your VA loan to get a house, buy a car first. It makes the 2.15 percent one time charge cheaper.