Sour Swinger Predominantly follows my Army & Iraq Deployment. Also has some Geek, School, and other talk.

I haven’t talked in depth with some of the specific training I’ve been doing in Shelby. Unfortunately, most the training done thus far hasn’t made me feel more prepared for Iraq.  Quoting a fellow soldier, “Training here on Shelby is like someone showing you how to bake a cake once then expecting you to go out and start your on Bakery.” Now don’t get me wrong, some of the training has been pretty awesome but we only do it once and that’s that. In retrospect, Shelby probably isn’t designed to get you ready for Iraq but get you familiar with certain soldier tasks. Tasks that active duty trains on a regular basis. Hence why Reservists/National Guardsmen require a few months of pre-train up. Its at JRTC/NTC where the mission specific training will come in.

Today and yesterday we learned/conducted base security.  Yesterday involved 3 classes each 3 hours long.  Today was the execution of that power point hell.  The FOB (Forward Operating Base) we stayed at for the night is a mock base one may see in Iraq.  There’s a bunch of conexes that act as barracks as well as tents for showers.  The perimeter is surround by a concrete wall with several guard towers posted along.  There are also a few barn like buildings that are used as a day room, chow hall, and classrooms.

The power point classes were boring and waste of time.  Correction the one hour block on personnel and vehicle search was interesting.  Though it not being a power point probably helped.  Otherwise, my ADHD kicked in and I zoned out everything else.  I learn via practical application not by some Joe Shmoe talking for several hours.  The day was shorter then normal with classes ending by dinner.  That night we pulled ammo and practiced the mission we were assigned for the next day (today).  First and 3rd platoon were tasked with ECP (Entry Control Point).  Basically its the entry gate where vehicles are checked and searched.  Headquarters took roving base security, PSD (Personal Security Detail) took QRF (Quick Response Force) with some excess going to help 2nd platoon with the tower guards.

Day two involved (supposedly) multiple assaults via insurgents.  With all the above assignments, you’d think this would be awesome training.  Instead, it was a major lack luster.  The ECP saw the most action with a couple of mortar rounds or something exploding up there.  I’m sure they learned a bit as they were able to practice searching people/vehicles and reacting to contact.  The rest of us sat around doing nothing.  QRF went out a few times but were never actually used.  Only a couple tower guards saw anything to report to higher.  In the end, hardly any rounds were expended and a general consensus of this being a waste of time was reached.

For example, here’s how my training day went:  Spent the entire morning and part of lunch (5 hrs or so) standing in a cramped guard tower with my bunk mate, Woody.  Our sector of fire covered an out of play road which meant no enemy attacks would ever occur in our area and no surprise…NOTHING happened!  My ADHD was driving me nuts so half way through I popped on an iPod and did a white man dance for quite awhile.  My climax came when my right foot got tangled in the camo netting which made me flop to the ground backwards.  The impact shook the tower enough for my rifle to fall off and slam into my head.  Woody laughed for a good 10 minutes.  Halfway through lunch, Woody and I switched out with the roving base security.  Since roving security consisted of two teams, my team took the first break.  I managed an hour nap, before being switched out.  I then did a lap around the base (took an hour) before training ended.  I helped the clean up process a bit and then played catch with a football for almost 2 hours while we waited for chow to arrive.  Yup, that training was time well spent.  Shelby needs to rethink that one, though I thank them for an easy day.

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It seems like its been a while since I really wrote about anything going on down here. My goal is to post at least once a week. Last week only ended up being pictures. Speaking of pictures, I have bad news, my camera broke. It survived some harsh environments in the pocket of my uniform to be cracked and destroyed by bumping into a hard wall while not training. I was issued a crappy digital camera a while ago but that too was lost during an IED training exercise. So for now, no pictures.

Our sleep has greatly improved since hell week. Though we are still staying busy, we are actually getting descent bed rest. There are some exceptions such as yesterday. We ended up going for 24 hours straight at the gunnery shooting range. That’s that same 24/7 firing range we’ve all come to hate. Moral is staying somewhat good but is being eroded away heavily by certain individuals within our chain of command. Can’t really talk about it for now do to Op Sec purposes, but don’t worry. I plan to discuss it as soon as its safe.

I’ve literally become the IT professional for our Company. Over the past month, I’ve been getting drilled with computer questions and requests for help. Its obvious most the soldiers do not usually have a goto computer guy handy. Some of the many things I’ve done: salvage music from MP3 players, setup & update brand new iPods, fix problematic computers, install security software, teach how to copy movies, distribute Nintendo emulators, and a TON of tech consulting questions. I still need to recover the information of the XO’s laptop that was smashed into the ground. I also just setup Apple’s Time Capsule (wireless router & 500g hard drive combine). We now have a central location to share everyones music, movies, games, porn, etc wirelessly. So far we have 25 gigs of porn, 5 gigs of TV shows, and 8 gigs of music. Yes military and porn go hand in hand.

Time off is something none of us will ever see until Xmas. The closest thing we’ve had was that football game which I opted to skip. Even then, that was only half the day and everyone had to go in uniform. Usually a good day is one in which we end our day after dinner (about 1800) though we only had a few of those. I and most everyone cannot wait until our Xmas leave which no set date has been given yet. That’s the Army for you. I’m not planning on knowing for sure until December.

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Bads news, the internet here on base is totally jacked up. Its been down for the past 3 days. Many of us who spent the 50 bucks to buy it are pretty pissed. I’ve been forced to use my own Sprint Mobile internet. Good news, Sprint finally shaped up its act and the internet is not as slow as it was. It appears the upload speed is actually better then the base supplied internet.

With that said, we had quite a bit of down time yesterday. The brigade took most of its soldiers out to a football game. I choose to stay back to utilize that time for uploading pictures. After the 4th hour, I stopped keeping track of how long it was taking. I didn’t finish until today. Its about 80 some pics. Enjoy!

Latest pics.

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Last week was fairly rough. Spending most days out in the field getting very little sleep, heading out to the ranges and lighting up targets. Most of us only managed one shower. If we were lucky, we got 4 hours of sleep. Third platoon took a major hit with one day not getting any sleep.

Over the weekend before this past weekend, we conducted some miscellaneous training. Come Sunday started the good stuff. This was the same exact range we ran during annual training. This was a 24/7 continuous task of shooting down targets. I’m not gonna waste time re-describing exactly what we did. Instead read this post, which describes the same thing but during AT. The only difference is Delta was the only company there and we had to run everything. That includes 2 beach masters, ammo point, gate guards, and an SOG. Add those tasks to trying to get 3 man crews firing down range with only 34 able bodies. The first day and night run went HORRIBLY!!! Sleep was a luxury no one got. There was a general consensus that we weren’t a big enough element to run the range. A huge incident occurred that night involving me and a few other soldiers. Yes it was total bull but no I won’t go into details. What’s important is that no one got in trouble and the company straightened up its act. Oddly enough, a lot of this bullshit we encounter during training is good. It help flushes out problems within the company before we get overseas. Better to make the mistakes now during training then overseas in combat. The last day and night on the range ran a hell of lot smoother.

We then had one day of rest before heading back out into the field. This time around we did IMT training. Once again it was the same thing we did during AT. The highlight of that 2 day training was the scenario training. Basically we receive an Op Order and patrol into a mock Iraqi town. There we interact with COBs or civilians on the battlefield with a few people insurgents and what not. Some of them actually spoke Arabic. Ultimately a huge fire fight ensues and we take appropriate action. I managed to take a really good video of one of these scenario runs. Part of which involves Gumby doing a move straight from a John Woo movie where he dives across a window shooting his M4 one handed and emptying the whole clip. Haha. He ended up getting in trouble for that but it still looked cool.

We had been loaded up with several vaccines including small pox, anthrax, flu, typhoid, hepatitis, and PPD to name a few. Granted each have been tested but I wonder what testing was done for getting all at once? Mix that with our continuous lack of sleep and the Mississippi heat and you can understand when I say we were dragging quite a bit. The small pox was the worst shot. Everyone’s arm hurt for several days and we actually develop a small pox blister about the size of a quarter. One of our soldiers didn’t fair too well with all the shots and ended up getting the flu. Suffice to say our second week down here was pretty rough.

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First week in Shelby has been pretty relaxed. Averaging 6 hours of sleep, moral stayed pretty high. Really the only thing to occur was admin tasks, unpacking, and receiving new gear. No real training began till this past weekend.

Our trip down started with a very quiet bus ride to the Philly airport. There we sat for an hour or so until our plane arrived. Oddly enough we parked 200 meters from John McCain’s bus. He was giving a speech in Media, PA and was planning on returning to the airport. Unfortunately he arrived a couple hours after we already flew off. A plethora of soldiers took pictures of his bus. SSG Troisi and I decided to take a walkthrough. Talk about high class! These presidential candidates travel in style. Bus included a large flat screen television plus one smaller one. Yup thats right, two TVs on either end of the bus. Seats were a comfortable leather with glossy wood trim everywhere. SSG T and I took a few comical pictures including the thinking on the toilet and the passed out soldier sleeping on the couch.


The 3 hour flight was followed buy another 1 hour bus ride into Shelby. The buses greeted us with a thousand squashed bugs on the front. We soon learned why….LOVEBUGS! Ugh, those little insect things are annoying. Just picture the fly plague of Egypt. Those little buggers were everywhere. Luckily we arrived at the end of their swarming cycle. They’re called lovebugs because they are always having sex. Seeing a lovebug that isn’t “attached” to another is as rare as a four leaf clover.


Speaking of sex….a certain someone bought a playgirl magazine. Before you ask, yes they sell playgirls on military bases. Odd for a “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policy. Must be for the few dozen females floating around. The magazine became quite a comical joke. It was placed on a variety of soldiers who were sleeping. Similar to the condom joke done during annual training. It’s ultimate placement was in one of the platoon leader’s foot locker. ROFL. We all got several good laughs. Of course my camera was used to photograph all the on goings though I deleted the relating images since all involved naked men from the magazine. Hopefully this doesn’t disappoint anyone.


Otherwise everyone is in good shape. We did loose two more soldiers due to medical reasons, though the one everyone expected. He suffered some slipped disk of sorts during military training a couple months back.


Fyi, I know I recently posted about not being able to upload pics and yet seem to be posting pics. These pictures plus those from previous post took about +4 hours to upload. It was during that process I made the decision on no more pics & vids.

See all related pics to this post.

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