Fort Bragg

Well, I'm all settled at my new duty station, Fort Bragg, Fayetteville, North Carolina. I planned, while in Iraq, to go into an Airborne unit, and eventually 160th SOAR, a medical special operations unit. I submitted my airborne packet and reenlisted for Bragg. This I was told, should be more than enough to set me on the road to my listed goals.

As it turns out, the airborne packet I sent ahead of my return to the states, didn't make it any further than the bottom drawer of some PAC clerk's desk back at Fort Carson. My unit failed to further any and all forms and paperwork submitted, and lost my 4187 to change my report date to Ft. Bragg twice. So in less than 2 months after returning from Iraq, I'm was left with no choice but to PCS (change locations) and out process in less than half the time normally allotted. So be it. It was better in all aspects to get away from the 110th MP Co. as soon as possible. And I did.

Within the recent days, just shy of two months total, I went on block leave, came home to Florida, drove out to Colorado, after having my car broken into in Dallas, out processed, drove back to Florida, cross country (see the previous VV entries), and made it to Bragg to in process and get settled in with my new life.

My past imaginations are oft the pains and chagrin of times come to toe the line. Fruition fails expectations and I settle for less, but only as a step back from hope, as chance filters, wedged between. So now, I'm working in a clinic, at the "center of the military universe," sitting at a computer, looking up medical records as soldiers come in and leave out. I get a 1.5 hour lunch and ease is the way. I'm perhaps an ungrateful bastard to claim, but this is not what I hoped or planned for. To add to the quiet mental scream, after glancing through my personnel files I find my "lost" airborne packet lying there, lost and sleeping, to be handed to my new unit, far after the fact.

Yet, all in all, all is not lost. From my new spot, my new position, this new "unit," I'm told that I can apply to all and as many "schools" desired. A new perspective, since I'm no longer with an outfit about to deploy or redeploy, I can take advantage of the calm and missionlessness, and put myself forward. This is quite a change. The "whisky 1" school I wanted (Special Operations Medic), who's building is ironically a stone's throw from my barracks room, on Combat Medic Blvd. is in some ways even more available now, as is getting Airborne wings.

First things first though. My EMT certification ran out while downrange and I'm going to the recert class in a couple weeks. This is certainly something I need to get back in place first and is easier said and done from my new low key vantage point of my slow flow clinic bunker.

We'll see what happens next. I've been unsure of what to do with this blog. I changed the header and image. I'm no longer in a line unit, or in Iraq, so I'll keep the new Plain Jane header up top for now and see what comes next, but I recognize that it's important to keep writing. At my core, more than a soldier, medic, photographer, music lover, surfer or whatever, is my need to write. Nothing else feels like a religion or spiritual than writing, lining up and spitting out all those thoughts in my head. Knocking 'em down like karmic carnival bottles, one by one.


So, from time to time, unattended, my computer screensaver jumps to the random slideshow of all those pictures taken in Iraq of children, trucks, and soldiers and I can almost doubt my own memory that I was even there. But the blog stands for that reality, and stands for those scenes, those lives, and though it's a huge change from that world, now where I stand, as a long growing shadow, I'll see what evolves and report.