Take Over!

Today is the big day. We officially take control of our mission here in Iraq. For the past two weeks we have been working alongside the unit that we are replacing, and as of tomorrow morning we are officially in charge and they are no longer welcome here and will be leaving soon. The guy that I am replacing has been really nice and helpful with everything, and I am very thankful that he was the one to teach me my job. Some other people have not been so fortunate with who they are replacing and have had a rough time. My guy is a Lieutenant Colonel and has been in the Army for over 20 years, so he is a wealth of information. I am a little apprehensive to take over because I am a sergeant...essentially at the bottom of the food chain and I am replacing someone who is at the top of the pyramid. I am nervous.

I am excited to officially be in charge, because then my email box will be labeled correctly. =) Oh, getting my email set-up was a huge hassle for me. They missed spelled my freaking name!!! WTF?! I have one of the easiest names in the world, but of course they lost my paper work and didn't tell me. Do they just filled out the forms on my behalf and spelled my first name with one "n." So for days I thought I didn't have an account, only to find out I did have an account they just misspelled my name. Ugh. So that took another day to sort out, and yet another day to sort out my email account. It has been a huge pain in my ass. Huge.

So, Shelly made the comment that I should explain the "mortar the heck out of us" statement. I thought it was self-explanatory, but then I realize you guys don't hear that terminology everyday. JBB is huge. Huge base equals lots of soldiers and equipment, so naturally the bad guys would want to attack this place. However, there are too many of us to just try and run up and storm the gates, so they fire mortars at us. Mortars are like bombs...and they try and shoot them over the fence and hit something inside. Well generally they suck at hitting us. They shoot them at us and they either, don't make it past the wire and explode outside, or they shoot them at us, they cross the wire and don't explode at all. So then our EOD team has to go out and blow it up themselves. That happens a lot. I don't know why they don't explode...but thankfully they don't. Everything around here has barriers and anti-mortar roofs to try and protect us in case one does explode...but I have yet to experience one actually going off. We also have a defense system that is suppose to shoot them down. It works pretty effectively, and I would love to see one of them in action, cause apparently they shot off insane amounts of ammo every second. Of course, if I saw one going off then I would be really close to a mortar heading at me....so I guess I will have to youtube it or something.

I loved the mixed reactions to the Colt McCoy comment. =) I am of course a true Mizzou fan, and when Mizzou plays Texas I always cheer for Mizzou. I just wanted to clarify that. However, I will never be an OU fan and if I recall correctly OU lost opening weekend to BYU...hahahaha. AND Sam Bradford got hurt, so much for that national championship... Sorry Tracy, I had to make a comment.

So our commander is all about physical fitness, and he has made an incentive for everyone to run at least 300 miles, walk 315 miles, or bike 750 miles before we leave here. If you accomplish this you get a couple cool things. You can try for one step higher and run 600 miles, walk 630 miles, or bike 1500 miles and you get even more cool stuff. Or you can be an outstanding soldier and run 900 miles, walk 945, or bike 2250 miles and get lots of cool stuff. When I say cool stuff it is all army related (except for the 'Tough O'mbres' T-shirt) so if I were to say what you get I would spend another three paragraphs explaining what the cool stuff was. So I am going to try and go for the 900 miles. The worst that happens is that I don't run that many, and maybe only get a moderate amount of cool stuff. I think I have about a 100 miles already logged. The start date was Aug 1st.

So I saw Serena Williams lost to Kim Clijsters at the US Open because of a foot fault and then cussing out the line judge. I laughed out loud when I saw it...I don't like the Williams sisters and I think Kim Clijsters is a great underdog in this tournament. So I am happy she won it all. Sorry if that upsets you Hayley. If I remember correctly you don't like Kim Clijsters (and I hope I am spelling her name correctly).


Well I am very very tired right now, so I am going to go back to my apt and get some much needed sleep.