1 December 2007
Okay so from what my Mom tells me it's been quit some time since I last wrote. Which means get a bowl of popcorn and a comfy chair...
Since the last time I've written I've had a couple months of learning the hard way all the things I didn't know. Unfortunately even though I always knew there was a whole lot I wasn't doing that I should be as a Platoon Leader, I didn't know what I didn't know, and the one person who's job it is to teach me has failed immeasurably at his job. I'll save the complaining for an in person conversation since it would just take too long, and I only have 1 bag of popcorns worth of attention here to catch you up on the past couple months.
So the first thing I did since the last writing was make a couple new friends. The two big surges in Korea for new people are Winter and Summer. About 1/2 our company left Korea over the summer, leaving us at one point very short on people. But we managed and brought on a bunch of knew people who weren't tainted by the problems the company had gone through last year. So come August we had a company of motivated Soldiers (minus a couple bad apples) and things started to turn around.
We started training and preparing for another field exercise. It was pretty quick, but we still accomplished what we went out to do which was practice going as a unit. It was pretty cool to be the convoy commander for my company because I went to the brigade movement brief. We moved over 700 vehicles from various training sites in about 18 hours. I had to remind myself that the colonel could see me standing in front and I should probably not look so amazed.
After the field problem we had a 4 day weekend for Columbus day. Becca and I put in our first pass of the tour and went down to Deagu. It's southeast of Seoul, about an hour from the coast. We took the bullet train, first class (for an extra $5). The train goes something crazy like 100mph. It doesn't feel very fast, but I guess that's the beauty of technology. We spent about two days down south wondering around and realizing how Americanized the area around Casey is. We couldn't talk to anyone, to get around we had to get people to write in Hangul the place we wanted to go and hand a slip of paper to the taxi drivers. A little embarrassing that after 10 months here we no fewer words in Korean than we did upon arrival. We went to the musical Chicago while we were there. Some of the songs were in Korenglish which made us laugh, but for the most part it was the same as the movie...as far as we could tell.
After Deagu I got picked up for a month long exercise where I read 3 books and only got yelled at once! I worked 12 hour night shifts during a computer simulated battle, since training here is actually really hard to do without the aid of Nintendo. Or I guess XBox now-a-days. The exercise as a whole was interesting for me to see the big picture of the unit I'm in. But working 12 hours at night is rough. The computers had a tendency to crash at night, hence the 3 books I read.
November was me catching up on the month I lost. One of my best Sergeants was switched out of my platoon so I've ended up working extra hours to keep myself satisfied with the status of the platoon. It's been a slow process for me to really figure out what my role is, but now with about a months left I have a clue. I'm excited for my next job though because I feel like this year has been a 'rehearsal' for my next unit. It's unfortunate that there were Soldiers in my platoon who lived through a couple hard months since I didn't know what was going on, but never again will people suffer from my ignorance, I know now what types of comments to question and what to expect from everyone I work with.
For Thanksgiving I went to China on a four day tour of Beijing with 9 other people from my Unit. We flew over Thursday morning and spent the rest of the afternoon there touring a couple sites and eating Peking duck for dinner. It was really good, but since we had over 100 people all together on the trip, each table didn't get a lot. Friday we went to the Great Wall. We went to a section that goes straight up a mountain. There are 7 guard towers you can walk to and getting to the 7th one is no joke. It was a steep climb on uneven stairs, but getting to the top was a pretty awesome feeling. We also toured the Forbidden City, Tien An Men Square, Summer palace, Temple of Heaven, and three different factories - the Pearl Factory, Silk Factory, and Jade Factory. The tour was clearly influenced by the government as far as what we would see and how long we would spend at each place, but it was still a great trip.
This past week I got promoted to First Lieutenant. One of the first Officer's I met here, Captain Morris, a nurse at our clinic, promoted me. It was really nice to have him here and able to 'pin' me since we are all away from our families and he was one of the few people to take us all under his wing when we first got here. He has always taught us everything he could, mentored us in our jobs, and been an ear for the issues we've had in our unit.
Last week the 2ID Commander, Major General Coggin retired and relinquished his command to the incoming Major General - Morgan. We participated in the ceremony - 15 Battalions making up 3 Brigades all on one Parade field together. We had to practice for three days, the first two were rainy and cold and miserable, but the day of the ceremony was actually a nice day. I've never been part of a ceremony that big so it was interesting, but practicing for over 10 hours in the freezing cold was not.
Now that December is here - I still can't believe I've been here 11 months already - we're preparing for our first Brigade level exercise of the Fiscal Year (October 2007 - October 2008). We wont be in the field too long, but the restraints of Korean traffic laws are playing a major role in the struggles we're having preparing. Unlike in the States, all the training sites in Korea are at least 30 minutes from Camp Casey. There are also no training sites big enough for our entire Brigade, so we are spread out along the DMZ at various training sites. The exercise is supposed to be focusing on the medical aspect, so we'll see how well our plans all work out.
Well, now that you're licking the popcorn bowl trying to make it last, there's a lot more I could say, but this gives me an excuse to make personal visits and show you the hundreds of pictures I have.
Thanks to all of you who have sent me packages and letters. The mail room guys know me very well and it's always a day brightener to talk with them, regardless of the mail.
Since the last time I've written I've had a couple months of learning the hard way all the things I didn't know. Unfortunately even though I always knew there was a whole lot I wasn't doing that I should be as a Platoon Leader, I didn't know what I didn't know, and the one person who's job it is to teach me has failed immeasurably at his job. I'll save the complaining for an in person conversation since it would just take too long, and I only have 1 bag of popcorns worth of attention here to catch you up on the past couple months.
So the first thing I did since the last writing was make a couple new friends. The two big surges in Korea for new people are Winter and Summer. About 1/2 our company left Korea over the summer, leaving us at one point very short on people. But we managed and brought on a bunch of knew people who weren't tainted by the problems the company had gone through last year. So come August we had a company of motivated Soldiers (minus a couple bad apples) and things started to turn around.
We started training and preparing for another field exercise. It was pretty quick, but we still accomplished what we went out to do which was practice going as a unit. It was pretty cool to be the convoy commander for my company because I went to the brigade movement brief. We moved over 700 vehicles from various training sites in about 18 hours. I had to remind myself that the colonel could see me standing in front and I should probably not look so amazed.
After the field problem we had a 4 day weekend for Columbus day. Becca and I put in our first pass of the tour and went down to Deagu. It's southeast of Seoul, about an hour from the coast. We took the bullet train, first class (for an extra $5). The train goes something crazy like 100mph. It doesn't feel very fast, but I guess that's the beauty of technology. We spent about two days down south wondering around and realizing how Americanized the area around Casey is. We couldn't talk to anyone, to get around we had to get people to write in Hangul the place we wanted to go and hand a slip of paper to the taxi drivers. A little embarrassing that after 10 months here we no fewer words in Korean than we did upon arrival. We went to the musical Chicago while we were there. Some of the songs were in Korenglish which made us laugh, but for the most part it was the same as the movie...as far as we could tell.
After Deagu I got picked up for a month long exercise where I read 3 books and only got yelled at once! I worked 12 hour night shifts during a computer simulated battle, since training here is actually really hard to do without the aid of Nintendo. Or I guess XBox now-a-days. The exercise as a whole was interesting for me to see the big picture of the unit I'm in. But working 12 hours at night is rough. The computers had a tendency to crash at night, hence the 3 books I read.
November was me catching up on the month I lost. One of my best Sergeants was switched out of my platoon so I've ended up working extra hours to keep myself satisfied with the status of the platoon. It's been a slow process for me to really figure out what my role is, but now with about a months left I have a clue. I'm excited for my next job though because I feel like this year has been a 'rehearsal' for my next unit. It's unfortunate that there were Soldiers in my platoon who lived through a couple hard months since I didn't know what was going on, but never again will people suffer from my ignorance, I know now what types of comments to question and what to expect from everyone I work with.
For Thanksgiving I went to China on a four day tour of Beijing with 9 other people from my Unit. We flew over Thursday morning and spent the rest of the afternoon there touring a couple sites and eating Peking duck for dinner. It was really good, but since we had over 100 people all together on the trip, each table didn't get a lot. Friday we went to the Great Wall. We went to a section that goes straight up a mountain. There are 7 guard towers you can walk to and getting to the 7th one is no joke. It was a steep climb on uneven stairs, but getting to the top was a pretty awesome feeling. We also toured the Forbidden City, Tien An Men Square, Summer palace, Temple of Heaven, and three different factories - the Pearl Factory, Silk Factory, and Jade Factory. The tour was clearly influenced by the government as far as what we would see and how long we would spend at each place, but it was still a great trip.
This past week I got promoted to First Lieutenant. One of the first Officer's I met here, Captain Morris, a nurse at our clinic, promoted me. It was really nice to have him here and able to 'pin' me since we are all away from our families and he was one of the few people to take us all under his wing when we first got here. He has always taught us everything he could, mentored us in our jobs, and been an ear for the issues we've had in our unit.
Last week the 2ID Commander, Major General Coggin retired and relinquished his command to the incoming Major General - Morgan. We participated in the ceremony - 15 Battalions making up 3 Brigades all on one Parade field together. We had to practice for three days, the first two were rainy and cold and miserable, but the day of the ceremony was actually a nice day. I've never been part of a ceremony that big so it was interesting, but practicing for over 10 hours in the freezing cold was not.
Now that December is here - I still can't believe I've been here 11 months already - we're preparing for our first Brigade level exercise of the Fiscal Year (October 2007 - October 2008). We wont be in the field too long, but the restraints of Korean traffic laws are playing a major role in the struggles we're having preparing. Unlike in the States, all the training sites in Korea are at least 30 minutes from Camp Casey. There are also no training sites big enough for our entire Brigade, so we are spread out along the DMZ at various training sites. The exercise is supposed to be focusing on the medical aspect, so we'll see how well our plans all work out.
Well, now that you're licking the popcorn bowl trying to make it last, there's a lot more I could say, but this gives me an excuse to make personal visits and show you the hundreds of pictures I have.
Thanks to all of you who have sent me packages and letters. The mail room guys know me very well and it's always a day brightener to talk with them, regardless of the mail.
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