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

This past extended weekend, Delta company found ourselves joining other units at the GAP for SRP.  Unfortunately there’s no wikipedia entry for SRP or Soldier Readiness Program.  Basically its the process all deploying soldiers go through in order to determine eligibility for deployment.  Its a 5 day process involving three stages: admin, health, equipment.  We had to report the morning of the 17th and were released on the 21st.

Since I’ve been deployed before, I was already well aware of all the waiting around that goes on.  This equates to a lot of free time.  As such I left school work to complete during (a first in months).  My gamble payed off, as I successfully completed my assignments.  With all the free time and the nature of what happens during SRP, there’s not a whole lot to talk about.  Nor was there much to take pics of and absolutely nothing worth video taping.

Day one started off with us packing and loading up all our gear.  I was surprised to see they sent a coach bus to take us.  The GAP is only a 45 minute drive away.  Upon arriving, we moved into a barracks, received instructions for SRP and was dismissed.  That night we got a rather large group together and went for run.  Others played a game of football both in the barracks and outside in a nearby field.


Day two, the admin process.  We all bussed over to some building and received a few speeches.  I totally interrupted the one speech with my camera.  I took a picture thinking the flash would not go off.  Oops.  The rest of the day involved everyone going from station to station reviewing our records.  There were 10 different stations (tables) such as security, FRG, finance, DEERs, etc.  Poor Johnny B got the shaft.  He had to redo his security packet which took 4 hours.  Johnny B was quite frustrated and ready to bash up some computers. LoL.  Later that day, we started pre-filling out our medical forms.  This took most the night.


Day three, the medical process.  Lots of examinations such as hearing, dental, vision, etc.  A significant portion of soldiers had to get dental work done.  Mostly fillings, however there were some teeth pullings.  Three civilian doctors in a nearby truck would immediately perform the required dental work.  Though I passed my hearing requirements I learned that my left ear has taken significant damage.  I’ve lost most my higher toned hearing and some of my lower toned as well.  My right ear is still in perfect shape.  Later that night, we put another group run together.


Day four, the equipment process.  Basically we were issued any missing gear.  I was looking forward to receiving the new sleeping bags, however they ran out just before I got it.  My current sleeping bag is from the vietnam era…literally.  Unfortunately, the GAP was running short with other gear as well.  No worries though, we’ll go through this all over again.  This SRP just clears soldiers from PA to be deployable.  We’ll need to do SRP again at the fort that will actually deploy us.  So anything I didn’t get now, I will get then.  Later that day, we did some map reading training to help fill the time.


Day five, the pack and return home.  We cleaned up the barracks and waited several hours for the bus to come.  In that wait, we got a good game of football going.  And ummmm…thats about it.
 
Like I said, nothing really happened.  Check out all the SRP pics here.

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