Welcome!

Welcome all! I decided to collect some thoughts and images here in an easy place to find for anyone who is interested, so feel free to share the URL. Keep the comments clean please! :)


I am now in Afghanistan after about a month's worth of training. I'll back up and start at the beginning. First was a week in San Diego getting a few uniforms issued, making sure our medical stuff was ready to go, etc. Here I am ready to leave San Diego (well, not really!) and head to Fort Jackson:














Our 2 1/2 weeks of training at Camp McCrady (a tiny part of Fort Jackson way out in the middle of nowhere) was full of long days and lots of new things to get used to - like carrying not one, but two weapons everywhere and learning Army jargon. What does hoo-ah mean anyway? Definitely depends on the conversation. :) I lucked out and was assigned to a BOQ-style building with four other LCDRs who turned out to be great roommates. The style of the buildings around the camp made me think of Gomer Pyle.






So what did we do at McCrady? LOTS of range time. I had to qualify on both the M-9 and the M-4. South Carolina set several records for cold temperature while we were there, so we were able to "field test" a lot of the cold weather gear that we were issued - lucky us!






Did I mention that they issued us a LOT of stuff? I had a duffle bag and a backpack when I arrived in San Diego. Leaving San Diego, I had a backpack and a seabag. Leaving McCrady I had FOUR seabags and that same backback. At least one of those seabags is FULL of stuff we will never use but have to drag along anyway - makes perfect sense to me!




From McCrady we traveled to Camp Virginia, Kuwait. There we were given some down time to rest, relax, and get used to the time change. After about four days, we went out to the Udairi range for close quarters marksmanship and more convoy training. I was the convoy commander this time - lots more work for me than the one at McCrady! And yes, I'm in this picture if you look really hard...








Our convoy finished first, so we had some time to kill while we waited for the other convoys. Lucky for us, we found a few friends. :) Isn't it mandatory to get a picture with a camel when you visit Kuwait???








As soon as we got back to Camp Virginia, we found out we were traveling that night to Afghanistan. After a mad flurry of laundry, packing, showers (did I mention there's no running water at the range?), and some quick chow, we headed out. We landed at Bagram Air Force base and then convoyed down to Kabul. The "Rhino" is the mode of transportation of choice (actually, it's not that bad!).






It's tough to function (and meet your new boss!) on about 10 hours of sleep over a three-day period, but I didn't have a lot of choice in the matter! I was assigned to temporary lodging, but there were only 8 other females and lots of empty racks so it wasn't too bad. That brings me to my first full day in Afghanistan - I'll post more soon but it's taking forever to upload these pictures!










Special thanks to Maureen and Steve for the use of their pictures - it's good to have friends that are MUCH better at remembering to take pictures than I am!