Deployment Days 26-37, Mobilization Days 69-80 – 3-14 February 2010

In the infinite wisdom of the United States Army, possibly my leadership a bit, after not even 30 days in a combat zone, six of us are returning to the states for some training, training that we came to find out was conducted in theater, and training that will be given to other members of our Task Force in theater. But it’s all good. Aside from nearly three total days of flying, six days at Fort Bragg not doing anything, having to pay for everything in the hopes that we would be reimbursed later (note: reimbursed), the trip was worth it… sort of. But it still seems like a waste, especially since we were gone for 12 days for about a day and a half of actual training. Being locked down at Fort Bragg sucked a bit, but we made it worth it. Luckily, I had received my tax refund prior to departure so I could afford to pay for everything. Again, this training could have been completed at Fort Dix, instead of wasting time doing training that we did not need on our mission.

The training we received was to become certified customs agents. With this training, we are allowed to clear people leaving theater and heading back to the states, ensuring they don’t have illegal items, like Cuban cigars, or other restricted items. They aren’t allowed Cubans because of the U.S. embargo, and plants might introduce some weird disease amongst the vegetation of the United States. Don’t want that to happen for sure. But the class itself was about 400 Power Point slides about all sorts of stuff that we will not be finding. A nice distraction from the monotony of what we do every day, but I wonder how exactly they will be using us in this capacity.

Also, as of February 6th, I have exactly one year left on this enlistment. I still have a lot of work to do before I can reenlist, needing to pass the APFT and lose about 60 pounds or so to make “tape.” That, or lose 80 pounds and not have to get taped at all. We have our first APFT the end of March and hopefully I’ll show some improvement over the one we did at Devens back in the fall. If I don’t show any improvement, it will at least give me some idea of where I am at and give me something to start working towards. Right now, I can only pass the sit-up event, and I am really struggling with the push-ups and the run, but I have been eating better, this trip to the states excluded, and hopefully when it starts to get hotter, I will seat off some water weight. I guess we will find out.