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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in cfd_222's LiveJournal:

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    Thursday, January 17th, 2008
    9:17 am
    Well, GRAW 2 has been beaten. Nothing left to do now except homework...
    Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
    11:56 pm

    Right, time for an update. It's been 32 weeks since my last post according to livejournal. 

    Not so long ago I graduated from the Army's Combat Medic course (68W), and was unceremoniously released without so much as a word of instruction or advice on what to do next. 

    First step: I moved back to my parents house...
    ...only to discover that there "wasn't any room for me." So I did the logical thing and pitched a tent in the backyard and lived out of it for a few days. It was cool, I had my own light, cot and more personal space than I'd had for the last few months. If it weren't for inclement weather it would have been a perfect setup. 


    Second step: I tried to retain my rigid daily schedule and high PT rate.
    ...I failed miserably. Not even the first day free did I wake up at 0430 and go to bed at 0900.


    Third step: I tried to find a social system that paralleled all my battle buddies at Basic/AIT.
    ...No matter how hard I try, there just won't be any suitable replacement. Even 5 of my best civilian friends cannot measure up to the 200 and some-odd people I had to interact with on a daily basis. Community rooms, meals, and showers are right out. I'm not even gonna try suggesting that to anybody. That and where else am I gonna find a genuine Kenyan to work out with? Just ain't gonna happen.


    Fourth step: I'm trying not to be a bum.
    ...It's not looking good so far. As it is I'm just wandering from place to place and living from meal to meal. Often times said meals happen to be days apart, I guess I'm just not paying all that much attention. I've got a goal in mind but haven't yet found the motivation to work towards it. I can sit around and think about it all I like but I'm still not accomplishing much.

    I guess I'll keep figuring things out as they come, but I really just need to do something with myself. A job would be good until school starts in Jan. Maybe tomorrow morning I'll run back over to Kohl's and check on the status of my application. Perhaps I'll just fill out a new application, or maybe I'll just buy some shoes.

    Tuesday, April 17th, 2007
    4:09 pm
    March 6 was my last update, perhaps it is time for another. I suppose a fair amount of stuff has happened in 42 days. To be completely honest, I can't remember about half of it but to be fair I'm not too clear on this past weekend either and that was only two days ago. The big things that I can remember though:

    SP2007 A.R.O.T.C joint FTX: 7th Squad:
    Breazeale, Cruz, Gollner,
    Gorton, Hsu, Lee, Moreno,
    O'brian, Quirino, Scanlon,
    Sokrion, and West.
    You can learn a lot about a person and what they're made of in field exercises. I learned that Saint Mary's cadets are a little bit more well rounded than your average bear during this one. Ineffective leadership from all the other schools really was a problem, and it took some Saint Mary's initiative to step up and lead the way. However, with that said 7th squad became a fairly cohesive unit in a short period of time and it was fun working with them all, some of them (Hsu for example) show a lot of potential and I look forward to running into them at future events.

    05APR07 Round Table:
    I went before a council to present my final paperwork for my Eagle project, and was approved by the local council for advancement and now I'm just waiting on word from the National Eagle Council. If approved nationally the effective date of achieving Eagle rank will be April 5, 2007. Supposedly it takes 3-4 weeks to process the paperwork so I should be expecting word around the last week of this month or the first week of May.

    BCT/AIT
    At the end of this semester I shall be leaving for Basic Training at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri. 10 weeks of BCT (Basic Combat Training), followed by 16 weeks of AIT (Advanced Individual Training). So theoretically I will be back in November, we'll see how that goes though. What that means though is that I will either try to see a lot of people before I leave, or avoid everybody all together, not sure which yet. I don't think half a year absence is worth all that much hype. Eh, I'll see what happens in the next 20-some-odd days.
    Tuesday, March 6th, 2007
    1:30 pm
    Excited
     There are a few things that I'm sitting on right now that I think are kinda exciting,

    I'm pretty close to getting my first recruit in the Guard, I'll probably be putting him into the system later this week. Also by the end of this week I should have:
    1) A refund check from StMU, for whatever reason they presently owe me money.
    2) My tax return, I can't claim myself and my parents can't claim me either so I guess I just get all my money back?
    3) Back pay from Guard weekends, I haven't been payed for any of the drills I've gone to since I enlisted in November.

    I plan to take some of that money and get a decent rifle. I'm thinking WWII era Lee-Enfield, maybe a Korean era M1 Carbine if I can get my hands on one.

    I was talking to CPT Supers and SSG Rodriguez about the possibilities of going to Airborne and Air Assault school and I think I've got an in for at least one of them. Although, as I was told, I've "got the ability to play on both sides of the fence" (141st Infantry and ROTC) so I can probably get both if I work things just right.

    At basic, there should be a Guard liaison who I can talk to about Jump school, and depending on my Guard state's budget, they should be able to tell me if I'm eligible or not. Fortunately for me the Texas ARNG is doing something new and crazy this year, rather than "one weekend a month, two weeks a summer" those two weeks in the summer are being switched out for schools (in the order of Air Assault, Airborne, Sniper, and something else) so there's a whole big budget put up for it that I should be able to tap into. Whatever I don't get after AIT, I can probably get through the StMU AROTC Rattler Battalion.

    More importantly though, I think I found a way into Infantry school. Once I'm out school for the spring semester, assuming I haven't contracted with the AROTC program, I can get a company level color vision waver to go and spend some time at Benning learning to become an Infantry soldier and get that as a secondary MOS. As luck would have it, CPT Super is my company commander.

    It just took a little talking, and perhaps things'll work out in the end. I'll see soon enough I s'pose.
    Thursday, March 1st, 2007
    11:20 am
    One of the more annoying things about college that I've noticed is the pattern of grades in relation to effort put into my papers. The more effort I put into the paper, the lower the grade...down to a certain level that is of course, usually around a low B. All my last-minute papers so far have gotten A's - A+'s. The best I've been able to achieve after lots and lots of effort is an A-. I'm not sure what the idea is, and the work I got back today was no exception. I thought I had a well thought out paper that presented my argument fairly well, and I got a check (check minus = "C", check = "B", and check plus =  "A") whereas a critical paper on the movie version of the novel, that was two weeks late had absolutely no point and just a bunch of random observations got a check plus.

    In all honesty, the majority of the movie review was the movie poster that I included...I just don't get it. The well-thought out paper got the comment of "Interesting premise regarding 'character change' and you have supported your premise quite well. Multiple errors [comma usage, run on sentences] distract."

    Grr.

    At least my Philosophy teacher doesn't care so much about commas in a language that doesn't make sense even when spoken, so I think I'll work on that instead for now.
    Sunday, February 11th, 2007
    7:02 pm
    I know that every little while I post an entry about how close I am to getting my Eagle Project done, and I swear that after this one there will only be one more. For now though, I have finally finished the project itself and have only the subsequent paperwork to finish. Some of the numbers from the project are as follows:

    • 23 canes
    • 54 walkers
    • 75 pairs of crutches
    • 93.967 total man hours of work spent by 13 separate individuals
    • 573.85 lbs of goods sent
    • $874.30 - total cost to send items
    Ideally the next post'll be about how I finally made the rank of Eagle, but as mentioned above, there's still plenty of work to be done before I can call it quits. Even after I'm done with the paperwork and various boards, there will still be more paperwork....but more about that later on.
    Wednesday, January 31st, 2007
    9:56 pm
    Well, even if the merit badge counselor won't meet with me, it doesn't mean I can't get things done. And because my leader is getting open heart surgery and won't be around for a while doesn't mean anything either. I've got a limited window and it's closing fast, go figure. Probably not the best time for an unproductive, angry/spiteful mood huh?

    No worries I'll just take all my aggression out at fat kid PT tomorrow. Really it's called BC PT but it's for kids who failed their PT test today, yep that's right, I failed. As an MSI I would have needed at least a 60 in each event for a total of 180, but I got 174. On top of that I decided it'd be a good idea to get moved up to MSII when I found out that I was a sophomore, and as an MSII I needed a score of 210. I should probably add that I only did 2/3 events...I didn't run. I didn't run because I messed up my knee last Thursday while working out to be ready for this PT test (payed off as far as situps are concerned, I was two away from maxing out the scale!) and I don't really want a chronic injury. However, I'm not on a 'medical profile' so I just failed. As a result I get to go to BC PT "untill I can pass a PT test", which really just kinda pisses me off.


    It's almost as bad as trying to complete my DoDMERB. I called today because I've got to follow up on a problem or two with my initial testing but they told me that they hadn't sent me the paperwork instructing me to call them, and to call back when I received it. I'm kinda pissed off about that too.

    That actually reminds me of MYPAY too, I got my new 'temporary PIN" assigned Jan 12 that's good for 45 days. However, it said that the PIN had expired last night when I tried it (compare 30/01/07 to 12/01/07 = 18 days. 18 != 45 days), and when I called (after being on hold for 20 mins) they told me that my account was suspended but wouldn't tell me why. I'm actually kinda pissed off about that too.

    Today's just been one hell of a messed up day truth be told. Maybe tomorrow'll be better, probably not...I'm riding shotgun with Murphy.  Anyway I need to go, I've been sitting here brushing my teeth for the past 30 mins and I think I finally out-music'ked my suitemates and their horrible crap.

    Current Music: Static - X,, and that's just the beginning....
    Tuesday, January 30th, 2007
    8:08 am
    Alright, finally over the first hurdle. I got all the packing done for my Eagle Project, 15 or 16 boxes in all. Now I'm just working out how it's gonna get to Utah and finally Iraq...God willing it shouldn't take anywhere near as long as it took me to get over the first major obstacle. Once I get the boxes to FedEx I am technically done! There's still the issue of the last merit badge that I need to finish, but I'm gonna wrap that all up this Wed! I'm getting to be pretty excited about this because it's almost done. There's a few pics of it all up on myspace for a little if you care to check it out.
    Friday, January 12th, 2007
    10:19 pm
    Green light means go
     I got a call today from the big man, "Chief Wiggles" himself, the founder of Operation Give. I guess I did call a lot, but to be fair very few of my calls were ever actaully answered. I started a log of calls but gave up after about the 5th or 6th unanswered call.

    Anyway, the whole point to this is me being happy that I finally got to talk to the Chief myself and get some real answers. I will be sending my stuff to Iraq through Operation Give, and Operation Give will be paying for it all. It will be sent via FedEX ground services, so that gives me an idea of what I have to work with....which is good.

    So all is well now, just need to finish up and get all the paperwork done, which Chief Wiggles also offered to help me with. Only problem, getting my leaders to sit down with me and do it all.
    1:56 pm
    Today has been a semi-productive day, not quite what I'd hoped for but things got accomplished nevertheless.

    Without explaining how, why, or when I figured this out, I stumbled across a small conspiracy today in relation to my "scouting career", it's rather amusing I think but at the same time very frustrating.


    During my time in Troop 620 there were a lot of very "odd happenings" so to speak, a lost check here, not getting credited for a merit badge or two, a lost form there, and most recently a curious lack of my personal records as maintained by the troop. Apparently some of the leaders felt that I was a cocky, arrogant individual who needed some "humbling" and it would seem that preventing my progress was their idea of doing just that. By preventing my progress I make reference to the above mentioned "odd happenings", oh but how it must have spurned them considering how much I managed to do anyway. I remember at various Courts of Honor being awarded 8 merit badges (8 all at once! Other badges did trickle in but not quite like that), two rank advancements and I was also nominated by my fellow scouts to become an Order of the Arrow candidate (Yes I've suffered the "ordeal" and an now a member of the Aina Topa Hutsi, Lodge 60) etc.

    Now I'm a member of troop 640 where I've got good people watching my back, they just don't do anything for me which is okay...it's a step up from T620. Still though, the good people of 620 are trying to impede my progress by not sending my records to my new troop thus, theoretically speaking, forcing me to start over. I wouldn't have thought twice about it, but I did my homework and found out that I'm the only prior member of T620 who transferred out to a new troop whose records have not gone through (I'm one out of maybe 10 guys) to the new troop.


    Ahh, finally an end to my story is in sight...however it is not yet over. I've got a few ideas in my pocket but I don't want to get ahead of myself.
    12:26 am
    It's 2309 on a Wednesday night, only a few days before I move back into my dorms and I'm starting to realize how little I've actually done over this Christmas break. I realized this because I just finished reading every headline on cnn's frontpage and most everything that msn.com has to offer too. An amusing bit from an article on MSN:

    "Q: Why do men clam up during a fight?
    A: It could mean two things: One, he doesn’t want to say something that will get a turkey roaster thrown at him. Or two, he knows that keeping silent will make you so mad that you’ll want to throw a turkey roaster at him. "

    To be fair though, for the past few days I've had a live-in guest that's made things pretty enjoyable around the house. Such adventures as appliance shopping...poor salesman wasted all that time on us for nothing, box stealing, and the like. I've even got a few new bruises out of it all. I've decided that if that's what the future's gonna be like I'm ready for it even if I'm not. It'll be fun in it's own particular quirky ways, just need a bigger couch is all.

    I'm still stuck on my Eagle project, waiting on other people...it's very frustrating. I'm boxing it all up either way on Presidents Day, and StMU owes me about $1000 right now so I'll pay for shipping myself if I have to. I'm going to get this done one way or another.
    Friday, December 22nd, 2006
    11:23 pm
    Break so far in summary:

    • Friends ambushing friends with paintball guns from the roof, somehow led to cops getting involved...but the cops were after I left so I'm still not sure what in all happened.
    • Ethan broke his ankle maybe 45 mins after he got out of school, we had to transport him home. Next day we made him a brownie-cake and took him a pair of crutches.
    • Lots of work and stress as a result of continuing work on my Eagle project including a new donation I picked up the other day.
    • Making tamales and going to the TSO concert tomorrow.
    Now it's tomorrow, and we should start making tamales pretty soon. I guess this Eagle Project is starting to bear down on me, 'cause last night I had a pretty intense dream about it. There was ice skating, a midget, a small troll hoard that I led into battle, friends from real life, and characters from various TV shows (like Mr. Feeny from Boy Meets World, and Kate and Gordo from Lizzie McGuire....Kate was my arch nemesis). If I remember right there was even some mad scientist who was stealing the thoughts of those unable to hide/control/protect them to reanimate a human female body or something like that, in any case it was kind of weird.

    I don't even know why I'm posting this, it was all really kind of weird. There were other issues involved too, like "the machine" and how I'll respond when it's my time etc...
    Tuesday, December 19th, 2006
    4:34 pm
    Excited!
    As you can see in the subject heading of this entry, I am in fact "Excited!" There are several reasons for this.
    The first one of them being that for as little effort as I put into school near the end of the semester my grades are still as follows:

    Brit Lit through the 18th Cen       Final Grade: A       
    Fund of Leadership & Mgmt 1    Final Grade: A       
    Programming 1                           Final Grade: A-  
    College Alg & Trig                     Final Grade: A- 

    Secondly, and probably more importantly, Operation Give said that despite initial appearances that they will probably be able to send my stuff to Iraq for me. It also means that there's gonna have to be a mad dash here really soon to finish up my project (clean, box, ship, etc) as well as finishing up my req'd mb's for Eagle Rank (just have to do Citizenship in the Nation). However, before the mad dash there will be a massive coordination effort on my part that I'm not looking forward to, it'll probably take the better part of my afternoon/evening if I start on it today like I suspect it will. Problem being that I'm pseudo-in-charge of my youth group's activity tonight...Elf Louise. Something about the leaders not being able to show up...dunno. To make things more fun I've still got a donation I'm trying to pick up (more walkers) and I'm have to be at the church by 1700 hrs (It's 1530 right now, giving me a little under an hour and a half). In light of all this I should get to work..there's still more though, but I'll save it for later.




    Current Mood: stressed
    Current Music: The Offspring.
    Sunday, December 17th, 2006
    12:11 am
    Tonight was a fun night, fairly interesting especially the paintball ambush when we went to go pick up DP... I'll have to save that one for later use, after making a few modifications though.

    I've added a few books to my reading list for this break:

    Tactical Emergency Care - Military and Operational Out-of-Hospital Medicine
    Weapons of Mass Destruction Emergency Care
    US Army Special Forces Medical Handbook.

    On top of that I'm also excited about seeing friends who've come back into town for break, I'm looking forward to that very much.
    Saturday, December 9th, 2006
    2:11 pm
    Mmm, weekend is off to a really good start so far. I sat down and beat "Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse." Not sure what else is in store for the weekend but I'll take it as it comes.
    Wednesday, December 6th, 2006
    12:00 am
    It's an uphill fight that probably won't be ending any time soon, but that's alright I enjoy a good challenge. That's exactly what this project is turning into.
    I called Operation Give,  FedEx, etc today and found out a few things that should make for more fun.

    1) Operation Give has spent their entire budget for the year so I'll have to wait if I want to get free shipping through them next year.
    2) Everything I send to Operation Give will have to be sent as parcels instead of freight or anything convenient.
    3) I'll have to get a hold of enough boxes for 87 pairs of crutches, 40 walkers, 15 canes, and 2 wheelchairs
    4) I've got more donations that I'll be picking up next week, so I'll have to figure out how much that'll be and find boxes for that stuff too.
    5) If I'm gonna be going around asking Wal Mart and other stores for boxes I might as well ask if they have any school supplies or toys that they'd be willing to donate in addition. I'm fairly certain that at least somebody will have something to donate so that just adds more boxes that I'll need to find and more tape that I'll have to pay for out of pocket.

    I've asked my Company Commander and a few other people for help now before this mushrooms out of control, so hopefully I'll be able to get a good solid grip on this all before Christmas break. Any help or suggestions are welcome btw...just to put that out there.

    Current Mood: Invisible
    Current Music: Violence - b182
    Monday, December 4th, 2006
    7:51 pm
    To me, programming has become a very slow and painful task not to be taken on all at once for the sake of finishing, but dragged out for as long as possible programming only a minimal amount at a time. I hate programming, and I'll be glad once I finish the current project that I'm working on and the final is done and over with. On the note of the final exam from programming I just realized that I also have a review that's due tomorrow which involves a bunch of pseudo-code that I'm expected to write tonight. I'm glad that I don't have pt tomorrow 'cause I think I'm gonna pull my first all nighter and it's really gonna suck.

    To be honest, I don't even know my exam schedule, which is probably a good thing because that means I don't know which day to dread (that day being the day of my programming final) just yet. I'm sure Dr. Redfield will remind us tomorrow.

    Current Music: Recently ~acquired~ music, no pirates here
    Thursday, November 30th, 2006
    1:06 pm
    A few days have elapsed, not much has happened. Finals are coming up I guess, but's one of those inevitable things. I'm trying to finish up my Eagle project so I can make it all happen during Christmas break (gets me two free stripes! plus my college credit hours should make me an E-3, PFC, when I report to Ft. Leonardwood). Also though, I'm trying to leave to BCT in January of next year (07) rather than waiting around 'till May so there's a bit more urgency than existed previously.

    26 weeks is a long time though, but I think I'm ready for it. As a combat medic/healthcare specialist (68W) I think I'll have fun, it's not infantry (11B) like I wanted...something stupid about being red-green colorblind but it'll do just fine. In fact, I've even started to become attached to the idea.

    I've actually starting thinking some about a military academy recently. I've got a friend who's trying to get me to apply to Westpoint with him. I like the idea, but certain conditions preclude me from actually applying. As much as I'd like to go to the USMA I'm hoping that the reason(s) that keep me here in SA TX don't dissolve anytime soon, and I honestly see no reason why they should.

    I'll write more later, but for now I've got a 1235 class. (It's 1206 and I haven't had lunch)

    Current Music: Pirates soundtrack
    Tuesday, November 21st, 2006
    10:19 pm
    I figure now that I've had a relatively sane and slow day that I can properly reflect on recent events. First though, a recounting of events so that I can keep this in context later on.

    Thursday I leave work early and head over to UIW to spend the night there, rather than catch the shuttle to UIW from StMU at 0400 for PT.

    Friday morning I go to PT, we ended up doing a Battalion run. I think it was maybe 2 - 2.5 miles so it wasn't all that bad except for the fact that it was 40 or 50 degrees outside. After PT I just go back up to the same dorm room I'd been staying in and spend the day there 'cause all my classes were canceled.
    Friday night I went to go see Casino Royale with this incredible girl, she's kinda funny/corny though and a little quirky/clumsy (I think she likes me~) but she definitely has her moments that make everything worth it, whole point being that I was actually comfortable enough around her to sit and watch the whole movie without paying too much attention to what was going on around me which hasn't happened for a good while. I don't care what anybody else says, I personally think that Daniel Craig did an excellent job as Bond even if he is blonde (It's the complaint I hear most...I still fail to see why hair colour has anything to do with acting ability, though) and my only complaint was with the black and white opening sequence that just didn't belong there.

    Saturday/Sunday I go to David's house to do whatever and unwind for a while and Sunday night I go and check in to the Holiday Inn or whatever hotel it was. My roommate was okay, but he started and ended every sentence with "man" and he left the TV on all night so I didn't get much sleep. The rest is a bit more detailed...except the real MEPS experience was way longer and less fun to experience than to recount.

    0400: Courtesy wakeup call
    0430: Breakfast, which wasn't all that good
    0530: At MEPS on Ft Sam
    1350: Done with my paperwork, just waiting to swear in
    1830: Sworn in to the Texas Army National Guard as a 68W (Combat Medic) in the 141 Infantry Division, A Company.

    I get back to campus and eat dinner with some friends (first time I've actually voluntarily eaten with a group). Afterwards some of us decided to go swimming, and some decide to have some fun in Henry's bed while he's at the pool with me. Then we went to IHOP about midnight, so by this point I was all kinds of out of sorts and I just decided to go in my swim clothes and Chucks. It was an interesting night, and just being at IHOP brought back memories that I (surprising even myself) decided to share. It's odd to think about in retrospect...I dunno it's a rather unresolved issue that I don't expect to ever really clear up but I guess putting it out there, while being entertaining ( I can't help but find the humour/irony in it all now ), just puts it into a little better perspective.
    Monday, November 13th, 2006
    11:49 am
    It would seem that May 11 is the last day of school here at StMU, so I guess that's not so bad. I'm looking at going with the May 5th BCT/OSUT 11B* class which means I'll have to try and get everything in order before then.

    Everything includes but is certainly not limited to:
    1. Registering for the Fall 07 semester.
    2. Completing all my paperwork for an AROTC scholarship, and making sure that the Colonel knows what I plan on doing so I don't get hosed.
    3. Making sure that Ethan and maybe David are good on their Eagle stuff so that they will be just about finished when I get back.
    4. I guess I really should make sure that I'm either done with my own Eagle project or really close to it.
    5. Make sure that I'm in line for finishing my Duty to God award.
    Okay so maybe it's not that long of a list, but It'll keep growing as I get closer to that day.




    *BCT = Basic Combat Training
    *OSUT = One Station Unit Training = BCT + AIT
                 *BCT, see above
                 *AIT = Advanced Individual Training
    *11B = Eleven Bravo, which really means Infantry
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