Sergeant Dave

Friday
Left for drill after finally tracking down a place to get a haircut. Even 95 was a nasty drive, but luckily the traffic was lighter than usual. Eventually I pull into a rest stop to gas up and...presto, I have 2 new voice messages. Hmmm that's odd. The phone hasn't rung. Turns out they're 3 hours old and she's calling to tell me the friday night drill is cancelled because of the snow. We had been joking about the irony of canceling a military "field exercise" due to weather. Doh! I call my platoon SGT and, since I'm 15 minutes away, I decide to stop by anyway. About 8pm I start thinking that sleeping in a big, cold auditorium is going to suck and start doing the math on driving home (8 + ~2 hours home = 10pm - (0830 report time - 0600 wake up) = 8 hours sleeping in my nice bed). I didn't actually get to sleep until close to midnight, but 6 hours sleep was still better than 10 hours tossing and turning.

Saturday
I take back every bad thing I've ever said about the Navy Reserve (well almost everything). It's not that I don't like it here: everyone is super friendly. It's just that things aren't exactly gung ho military. In fact there's really not any work for me to do. I was so worried that there's be too much going on, but in reality things are slower than the typical Navy drill. I hate slow weekends with nothing to do.
     In the continuing series "Why My Recruiter is an Incompetent Ho", it turns out that the MOS the recruiters assigned me is wrong. This is not in itself terribly surprising since I am a UH-60 Blackhawk repairer who, in point of fact, has never actually worked on a Blackhawk. I did mention that as a possible "issue" during my enlistment but they assured me that I qualified. What surprised me is that despite the fact that I have signed, written orders giving me that MOS, apparently the Army can just say, "Oops, they were wrong. Here's your new MOS. Have a nice day!" I could stay if I agreed to go to the 13 week 67T school (heh heh ummmm........no) and I suppose that technically I could fight the reassignment, but there's not much point (see below). So I'm not even through my first day and I'm already being moved to the engine shop. While this is where I belong based on my prior service, it's not where I want to be. UH-60s have to be better than working on those flying pig P-3s, but if I wanted to be an engine monkey I would have stayed in the Navy.
     So as I went walking, pondering how I would wreak unholy vengeance, I decided to head up to the 1159th Medical office. I knew they probably didn't have any open billets but I thought I'd say hi and find out how long I might have to wait to transfer. Turns out they have lots of billets, though they weren't sure if they had any medic openings (possibly crew chief, though). Apparently my recruiter found my request for "any openings in the 1159th" unclear. I've been operating under the principle of never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but they're pushing the envelope of reason (or stupidity, I'm still undecided). I'll check back with the 1159th later today to see what they have open.
     On the positive side, I have learned a new word: hooah. It is not pronounced hoo-ah, ala Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. In fact it's not so much a word as a grunt with attitude. However, it is amazingly versatile. In much the same way as “dude”, “f*ck” and the nightmarish “smurf”, with subtle changes in inflection the word hooah can have a dizzying number of meanings. These include (though are certainly not limited to):

Sunday
Slept in the conference room instead of the armory, thank god. We were up until midnight drinking beers and laughing our asses off. 3 of us had our cell phones set to wake us up at 6am, and all 3 of us hit the snooze. First Sergeant was nice enough to remind us to get up. Breakfast was pretty good considering, and now I'm waiting for the 0900 formation. I was sitting at a table in the armory when bunch of guys from the Med came and just plunked down a half dozen M-60s to clean [those are large belt-fed machineguns, btw. Like in Rambo]. That was a fairly surreal moment. You know, like John Cleese would come out with a handful of rifles, drop them on a table and say "Oh terribly sorry, is my pile of machineguns interrupting your breakfast?"

>>
It's just after lunch and I'm sitting in the parking lot, typing and watching a few helos do laps around the airfield. The food here is pretty good, especially since I was expecting MREs this weekend. We have our own cooks in the unit, which also makes it convenient since they're in the same building. I'm officially with my new platoon and spent some time at the engine shop. It's pretty much the same as vp-64 so I feel comfortable. I bumped into First Sergeant from Med and he said they don't have any spots yet, but I left him my info and will keep checking (every few weeks) until one opens up. I have to schedule my NREMT exam and PHTLS class.

>>
Very tired and hoping the next 2 hours goes quickly.

>>
Spent the last 2 hours field stripping and cleaning M16s. This is considered annoying grunt work by most, and I’m sure I’ll agree with them in a few months, but for now it’s interesting and fun. We should get out of here by 3:30.

Sunday, February 09, 2003