ENDX

ENDX = end of exercise. I know coming here wasn't an exercise, but I didn't know how else to label a post about our mission has being curtailed. This means the 90th no longer serves a purpose in the Iraqi theater. You may be wondering what this means for me and the other soldiers over here that belong to the 90th. Well, it means we are coming home early and we have eaten up a nice portion of your (and technically my) tax dollars. Thanks for paying your taxes.

I am trying to not sound too bitter when I say that, but it is hard to not feel slighted by the Army.

Our mission ended at the end of December, and we have been sitting around waiting to go home ever since. Our mission ended for a couple reasons, but the reason I will share with you is that we are downsizing in Iraq and trying to withdraw troops so there is no longer a need for the 90th over here. So we didn't get "fired" from our job or anything like that (even though we like to say this for our own amusement). Our mission was handed over to another unit that is already in country, so they absorbed our responsibilities into their mission. Don't worry...it is a little more complicated than that, but that is due to the politics of the situation. I will leave the politics out of this blog post, because that will lead to me standing on my soap box. However, I may explain my opinion of the situation when I get home... if I am feeling talkative (and we all know how often that happens).

Anyway, the 90th is sitting around with nothing to do. Most people don't have to go to work anymore (I am not one of those people), so going to the gym twice a day has become popular. The Iraqi bazaar is probably making bank on our lack of mission, because everyone is going there and spending their not hard earned money on pirated DVDs.

We are suppose to be home and back to our units sometime in March. That wasn't a typo. I mean March, as in the month after February and before April. I am still a little hesitant that it will happen, but the wheels are in motion to get us out of here by then. I still lack faith.

You may think that I am overwhelmed with joy to be going home in a little over a month, but I have reasons to be hesitant about being excited. First of all we are not home yet so there is no need to get excited until I am actually there. Second, the whole no job thing is a little scary and stressful. And three I am not exactly sure how much stabilization time I will have when I do return. Stabilization time is the time after you return from a deployment in which you cannot be deployed, unless you volunteer to be deployed. I am fairly confident that I will get the year long stabilization time that most reservist receive, but as always I have heard two different stories as to what the policy says. Obviously, one version says we get the year long stabilization. And the other version says we have not been over here long enough, so we won't get it. That would be terrible.

Now you guys are up to date on what the 90th is doing. Nothing. Oh. To explain why I am still working and so many others are not has to do with my job. I work at the headquarters building and they (the headquarters people) feel a need to keep us up here so they can communicate with us and us with them. I don't actually do anything at work, but sit at a computer and watch movies, TV shows, use facebook in the computer lounge, and call home. Its seven hours of being a face for the 90th, but not actually working.

Currently, I am logged into the computer that we use for work and I have Zuma pulled up. I haven't even opened Outlook Express to check our in-box. I am going to beat Zuma for the second time, go check my face book and update it with a new quote, go to chow, and then I will open my email. At which time I will scroll through all the emails, and not look at any of them, unless it says 90th in the title and then finish watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Thanks again for paying me to do this.