It is becoming increasingly difficult to get up and go to work every day. For the past few weeks, I have tried to sleep after the gym and before work. While this has given me more time at the end of work to do things, it has also made it difficult to get enough sleep, or get to work at a reasonable time. One benefit is that I am definitely getting to the gym when I need to instead of blowing it off more, and frankly, I would rather go to the gym every day than worry about being at work at some arbitrary time working for perhaps the least smartest person on this task force. And while sleep is a bit overrated, I do have two days a week that I do catch up on sleep. If I am able to keep this up for the next month and a half, I should hopefully at least pass the APFT in July, and potentially come a bit closer to meeting height and weight standards. If both those things happen before we leave in November, I can determine whether I want to reenlist, even if it is for three years, and at least have a bit of job security going forward, at least in the short term. While I don’t feel that the Army is compatible with what I want to do with my life over the next 10-15 years, it would be nice to have a buffer there until I finish my accounting degree and get a job in the accounting field. Plus it would make a move to Utah a bit easier if I can find another MilTech job out there, instead of relying on finding something else. Ultimately, the initial desire is to find a non-MilTech job, but we’ll see what actually happens if/when I actually have to find my next job, be that in February or a little later. I still think that Utah is in my near future; I just want to brace my fall a bit before moving. I have already moved across the country once in my life without a job lined up and I don’t really want to do that again if I can avoid it. All it does is give me more options.

And that was it. Other than the bit I wrote about leave, I didn’t write anything else about my deployment. And I’m going to be a writer…

Happy birthday United States Army! The Army is officially 235 years old today, having been founded on this day in 1775. Today is also Flag Day, which means that it is important to recognize the flag of our great nation and all that. MAJ Moulton mentioned in his speech that the flag initially meant nothing, or that it did not represent anything by itself, but it has come to represent freedom, liberty, justice and all of that. I would tend to agree. He also mentioned that our flag is flown over more than 230 different countries around the world today, which is pretty remarkable when you think about it. Granted, many of those flags simply fly over embassies and/or consulates in countries that many people couldn’t even find on a map, but there are also the flags that are with our troops all over the world, like the handful of flags that are flying over our compound, not to mention those at other bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have always thought that the flag was a bit special, but it ultimately is no more important than any other flag from any other country around the world. It means more to me than, say, the flag of Germany, but for no other reason than it is because I am from America. And for those that say I am sworn to defend the flag, I am not; I am sworn to “defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States from enemies, foreign and domestic.” While the flag is part of America, it is not what makes America the greatest country in the world.

As we reach Day 200 of this mobilization, I regret that I have not kept up better with this journal/blog/book, whatever it ultimately ends up becoming. I have a lot of themes and other ideas for things that could be written about during this deployment, but at the same time, the dynamics of this deployment have not been nearly as interesting as I thought they would be going into it, especially after COL Follansbee left. Things have really just been status quo for much of the past 45 days or so, doing the same thing day in, day out. There are small insignificant stories that could be mentioned, but they are small and insignificant for a reason. In a way, I guess it is ultimately a good thing that nothing serious enough has happened to write about while we have been here for the past five months or so. Hopefully it will stay that way for the next five months.

Had the day off today, which was very nice. Normally, I would have found something to go and do, but I decided instead to catch up on some sleep that I have been neglecting a bit. I should probably work on this journal a little bit more, or should do one of the other things that I wanted to do while I was out here, but sleep is just as good as anything else that I could have done today. Even days off are getting old though. We just need to be done with this place and on our way home.

Tonight, I realized that there really is no reason for us to be open 24 hours a day in the supply room. I think we had about 10 people come in to get supplies the last 8 hours of my shift. It was slightly ridiculous if you ask me, but like I’ve said before, we have no labor costs to worry about, so why worry about it. However, if we were open 16 hours a day, we would be able to double up a lot of shifts and actually get a lot more accomplished. Seeing as how it has been done this way forever, why change now? And maybe it will start to get busier as more people leave, but I really doubt it.