Today we start a new chapter in the ever-lengthening saga of "Twitchy Bill"...
Okay, after a solid week of getting refresher training in the military skills I *won't* be using in the sandbox (convoy security, IED marker recognition, treating sucking chest wounds, tactical interrogation of EPWs, how to contact the Chaplain), becoming re-introduced to the delights of the MRE and becoming a human pincushion (most of the stuff I got for PakTheStan was still good, but I got a second iteration of my third Hepatitis B -- the Jersey Guard gave me the first iteration in May of '04 but never entered the info in Big Brother's database), smallpox, anthrax #1, flu and three or four more sticks for things I never could pronounce anyway (hey, why not -- they were *free*...), I'm finally outta here. Even managed to get all my body armor and battle rattle into one duffle bag.
Of course, Delta's stats for losing my luggage favor them losing *both* hold bags this time. And they're about rdue for sending them to Philly via Anchorage -- again...
No pix (photography seriously verboten) and sorta-kinda lockdown, so I never even attempted to contact Madame Criquette and fambly (don't think they could have found the place and they close the gate after dark), but this place has been Old Home Week -- I bumped into a Hmong who was a kicker for Air America and sometimes made it into Can Tho when I was there, a guy who worked for Monmouth CSC when I was subbing for them and now works for BAE, a bunch of Titan linguists who knew some of the L-3 translators, some Blackwater and DynCorp guys who knew each other from the 82d and the 101st and a Northrop guy I met in Pakistan. Met dog-handlers, poppy-eradicators, cop-trainers, interpreters, linguists, IT geeks, Blackwater-types, a couple of other helicopter pilots, a guy who'll be giving classes on "How to be an Entrepreneur" out of the Iraqi-American Chamber of Commerce office and an AAFES managerial trainee who looks like he's still in grammar school.
Yeah, this job *definitely* beats raking leaves...
[Update: Bill also sent another missive which I will share in it's entirety:
Bloggable. If I start with an OPSEC header, it's Eyes Only, but if not, I already scrubbed it. Example follows...-the Armorer[OPSEC] awwubf sd hie yhud fufb; eitj brty erll uio vhsnr ig ho rll likr domr;yhinh rrl hsye she ouf ehoy er nrhl yo drjj ypes vomrdhinh rldfr sdg druoddrf yo nr rtrf [/OPSEC].
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