departure

It's pretty late right now. I'm getting ready for my last full day in South Carolina. I haven't posted on here nearly as often as I'd have liked to. I want to blame it on our days being long and tiresome. The truth is - because we have had free WiFi in the barracks, I've spent most of my time talking to Jen and the boys via Skype. It has been truly great being able to see the family again before heading out.

On the agenda for tomorrow is something the Army calls "Fit to Win". It's a 0.8 mile long obstacle course designed to motivate. If you're not familiar with the military, motivate simply means difficult and tiresome. I anticipate it being quite fun though. It rained today, so the course should be kind of muddy. I got all four of my seabags packed today. Somehow I managed to fit everything from underwear to 60+ pounds of body armor in all of them. We've been issued so much gear, it's ridiculous. Some of the stuff I hope I never have to use, like the 30+ pounds of chemical/biological warfare gear, and all the cold/wet weather gear. I heard it can get pretty cold in Iraq in the winter months though. I have gotten quite a bit of nice stuff out of it.... like 11 cream colored t-shirts. Just kidding. But there is some good cold weather gear in there that I'm sure I'll put to good use when I get back to Chicago for the winter next year... i.e. Goretex boots and nice fleeces. I remember turning my car on this last winter and it displayed -18 degrees! I'm not a fan of that. I know the Germans test their cars in extreme temperatures, but those kind of temps really put a hurting on the old Audi.

To answer some questions that were asked in a couple comments... to really contact me, you should write to me at corey.davidson@comcast.net That will change sometime soon though, and I WILL keep you posted on that. Also, I don't have a clue where I will be stationed in Iraq. There's seven main sites or FOBs (Forward Operating Bases) where I could possibly be stationed, and then there's Baghdad also. For security reasons, I wouldn't be able to tell you anyway right now, but once I'm there, for some reason, it will be okay.

Jen bought me a very very nice digital camera today, so once I get settled in (wherever that may be) I'll be posting some more pictures on here. Right now the only camera I have is embedded in my new MacBook, so it's not very mobile. I also got some new glasses today. They're nothing special, but I'm bored and thought I'd show them off to you. They're a little more trendy than what I'm used to having. CENTCOM (Central Command in Iraq) doesn't authorize contacts to be worn, so that's why I had to go back to the specs.

Another thing I know I'll be missing this year is my beloved Celtics. This is the first year in a while where they actually have a good shot at making some noise in the playoffs, so it'll be disappointing to not be able to see them.

Well, I'm off to bed now. I'll try to update this as soon as I can to tell you how my week in Kuwait has been. So it'll be a little while at least before updating. By the way... Kuwait is supposed to suck. Getting up at 3:00, sleeping in a tent with 7 other guys with no shower. They already told us to not expect to be able to shower for a week, and pretty much wear just one or two uniforms. I'll be showering with baby wipes I think. Have a good one.

-C

South Carolina

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted anything. I just left Maryland this morning where I had another course. I can't really tell you much about it, except that it covered what I'll be doing in Iraq - Electronic Warfare, or EW. Nothing really too special happened in MD. The most exciting thing was that Avis was out of compact cars, so they gave me a mustang. Which was cool, but it sucked on the gas mileage compared to say, a toyato corrola. There were a couple of speakers up there that made me feel a little excited about going to Iraq. And there were a few more who really made me NOT want to go. I was reassured, however, that as EW Officers we will be in a pretty good position to "live the good life" in Iraq. I don't know what the "good life" really entails, but nothing can be as good as home.

Last weekend I went to NC to see my friend Jason. It was pretty sweet. I drank quite a bit of beer (some homebrew) and did a little bit of boating and tubing. The best part was that I wasn't stuck in Maryland for the three day weekend eating fast food. I actually got some good home cooked food. It'll most likely be the last home cooked food I have until I come back for break which should hopefully be around Christmas time.

I mentioned earlier that I just left MD this morning. I am now in South Carolina. I've never been here before, but flying in, it looked really cool. So much greenery. Right now I'm sitting on the top bunk of an iron bed in a room of about 60 bunks. We've got our lockers here, but only the random lockers will actually lock. There's hardly enough room in the lockers to keep all my gear, and from what i hear, they're issuing us another two seabags of gear. Should be interesting. The good thing is that the compartment of bunks isn't at capacity. There's only about 15-20 people here now, but we expect to get more shortly. I don't mind the "open bay" style of bunks, but what I DO mind is the open bay showers. There's six showers, and as soon as you open the door to the bathroom, the showers are right there with no curtains, no nothing. It really brings me back to bootcamp. We shouldn't have any inspections here, so that's cool too. The very very best part is that about 2 weeks ago they installed wireless internet on the entire base, so I will hopefully be updating this more often. It's hot as hell here, but not too humid, so that's good. Still not looking forward to working out in my new Army uniforms - long sleeve.

I've met a few good people in Maryland. There's an OS1 named Matt Thoelke who seems like a pretty good guy that will be doing the same job as me in Iraq, but the chance are not good that we'll be stationed together. Oh well, that's the military for you.

Well, looks like some more sailors are coming in now. I should get going to defend my bunk below me. I'm going to try to keep it as quiet as possible around my area. Matt is going to do the same I imagine. Take it easy all.

-C