Government Credit Card

Well, the mandatory US Government credit card changed again, from Bank of America to a Citibank Visa. It last changed in about 2005, I can't remember from what.

I've always hated the government card. In short, it is a card you are required by law to carry and use for all travel expenses. Here's why I don't like it: It works just like any other credit card but not as well. The government doesn't have a credit line, it's my credit rating the card is issued against, but I am required to use it. If the government is slow to pay my travel voucher (still haven't been paid for my deployment, due to DTS problems), it's my credit rating that takes a hit. I also have less control over viewing charges online than I do with my own bank (USAA). This thing is a waste of time for everyone except the youngest military members, who haven't yet established credit.

FOD

I was out driving today and I had to pull a U turn. The road was narrow, so I had drive on the should a bit, which was dirt, not asphalt, and had some gravel on it. As I did so, I instinctively said to myself that I had left a prepared surface and would have to do a FOD check before driving further on the flightline.

(FOD=Foreign Object Damage, a term that describes rocks or any other object that gets out on a flightline that can be ingested by an aircraft engine and cause damage.)

tags:
email, deployment, 2008 rote,

edit 2 jul, line breaks, minor editing

coming home 4

I have two keys on my keychain for my apartment complex. One is for my front door, the other is for the amenities (gym, pool). The amenities key has a diamond shaped head, just like my room key while deployed, so I keep trying to use that to open my apartment.

More that I miss from the desert:
One of the greatest perks that You often don't hear about is the embroidery shops there. With all the uniforms we have, and all the different badges and ranks, a tailor/embroidery shop is pretty important. A shop like this is often two to five folks working sewing machines, with someone working the counter. They usually do their work by hand, so if you can draw it, they
can make it. (Unlike in thje U.S., where everyone is now tied to computerized embroidery machines; you need a digital image file or they can't make it.) It's pretty cheap, and usually faster than here (a couple of days at the most).

coming home 3

It's also nice to not have to shred or burn anything with my name or address on it.

Something I miss: free postage on letters.

I still tap my right leg in gym shorts. The only pocket in the USAF PT gear was a small velcro thing on the lower hem of the right leg, it's where I would keep my keys.

coming home 2

My body still doesn't quite know what time it is...I fell asleep at about 2000 last night and just woke up (0200).

Yesterday I went to bed at midnight and woke up at 0430 and couldn't get back to sleep.

Coming home

More things to get used to to:

Being able to drink out of the faucet.

Being able to drive faster than 15 miles per hour (It still looks like everyone is speeding, everywhere, all the time.)

Hearing the sounds of children. Seeing children, and old people, out in public.

Seeing grass. I spent a night on the east coast before coming back to Vegas, and the grass and trees were so green there, it hurt my eyes.

Fast internet. I have the middle speed available from Cox, and it is so much faster than every connection available it the desert, it is like regaining a sixth sense.

timestamp

Okay, this is annoying.

I just changed my timezone back to pacific (Zulu-8) from Iraq (Zulu+3), and this changes the timestamps on ALL entries, including the ones when I was in Iraq.

Rote complete

I hereby declare the spring '08 rote complete. 12 Feb - 21 Jun 08

I am firmly back in the U.S. and it feels good.

Everything has a familiar and yet exotic feel...even sitting down at a desk to surf the internet free of restrictions or letting myself go three days without shaving. I got home late last night and started turning my regular life back on. I took down the drop cloths and began locating all the important things I left in stay-behind locations, like my datebook.

More to come.

Arrived in Iraq...

updated 19 feb 08: I have to get in the habit of not hitting enter, since blogger scrolls the lines for you. I normally write my monthly email in a basic text editor, where you have to insert
carriage returns to make the paragraph look right. So anyway, removed all those here...

So I'm at my final location in Iraq, been here a couple days. Already flown a couple times, this is the first time I've had time to check out the cyber cafe (which is also a DOD system and subject to monitoring).

We flew here in a C-17 from Al Udeid, which is where the rotator stopped after leaving from the east coast of CONUS and a few stops in Europe.

I hadn't been to the Deid in almost two years, and I haven't been deployed there in three, and yet it was all too familiar. I realized as they bussed us to our rooms and I was pointing out some of the basics to a first timer with me that I have spent more time at Al Udeid in the last 5 years than I have anywhere else but Abilene, TX.

Some notes for future entries: for opsec reasons I may omit or deliberately distort certain facts.
I may or may not note this when I do it.

An Iraq fact that gets overlooked even by DOD personnel: The U.S. has more contractors in Iraq than it does soldiers. No one tracks casualty counts on them.

They're booting us to clean the place, so I have to go.