#152 - Capstone - day 4

Last night I was attacked again by fire ants while I slept. I have 17 ant bites on my face, and dozens on my hands and feet. I am one big, freaky-looking itch! There are so many unpleasant insects in the South. I won't miss any of them when I leave Fort Gordon.

Well, it is Thursday, and I'm back at the barracks. I have left Capstone a little bit early, and am missing out on today and tomorrow. Honestly, I don't think I'm going to be missing out on much. We've already finished with the ranges, and completed our MOS validation. It sounds like much of tomorrow is going to consist of a Capstone graduation ceremony, and cleaning up the FOB where we were staying. My battle buddy Jeanene is being sent home from AIT several days early because of her upcoming deployment to Iraq. She needed a battle buddy, so I've been accompanying her all over base for outprocessing, which involves visits to every conceivable place on post to make sure you've fulfilled your various obligations (going to the dentist to get your records, library to show you have no overdue books, etc.). The fringe benefit of this is that I've been also taking care of my outprocessing along with hers, since we have to go to all the same places. The rest of my classmates will have to wait until Monday to do their outprocessing. Unfortunately it doesn't mean that I will necessarily get out of here any earlier, but at least I will have fewer things to worry about for the remainder of my time here.



<--Jeanene packing up




I am really happy to be out of the field. We had a long day yesterday, and it was tiring and boring. I worked on an ammo detail stuffing magazines with blanks and live rounds, listening to the guys tell a lot of off-color sex jokes. The only highlight of my day was helping some Sgts to dissassemble a huge radio tower (the thing was amazing - super light and everything fit into a suitcase-sized pack). Another attempt at "personal hygiene" yesterday was once more interrupted by a simulated attack. This time the role-players had M-16s hidden under their robes. They pretended to pray, then opened fire on our encampment. We were also roused during the evening by a "sniper". I guess this kind of thing would be more fun if you were into war games. Maybe I would be if I wasn't so tired. Guess that's how I slept through the aforementioned fire ant attacks.