Week 1 (Apr 4-12): Welcome to Fort Riley

On Saturday, April 4th we departed on buses from NB San Diego to NAS Coronado, where we boarded a Marine DC-9 for Manhattan, Kansas (Ft. Riley, Kansas). As you can see Thuy was there to see me off. This is picture of me right before I stepped onto the flight from NAS Coronado.

Although, I've had almost five months notice for this deployment, I think it finally hit me the moment I stepped into the tail of the DC-9 that I was deploying. It was both a moment of excitment and nervousness at the same time.

Once we arrived in Ft. Riley, we were bused to our temporary barracks on Custer Hill. We'd only be staying for one week here. Basically long enough for the Army to issue us the rest of our gear. We arrived from NMPS with one seabag of uniforms and boots. After this week was completed we'd have another three seabags of gear to include: more boots, more ACUs (Army Combat Uniform) both flame retardant and regular, IBA (individual body armor), cold weather gear, M4 rifle, and M9 handgun.

The big red one is also known as the 1st Infantry Division. This is the unit that has been assigned to train us at Ft. Riley and get us ready for deployment. Our team SGA (small group advisor) is SSGT Walters. We'll be working with us as our liasion. The Navy liasion officers are CDR Troup and HMCS Osoroz.

Week 0 (Mar 30-Apr 4): NMPS

I'm going to call checking in at NMPS (Navy Mobilization and Processing Site) week zero. While most people had to fly from other commands and stay in the BOQ, I was fortunate to live only 2 miles away and be able to continue to stay at home with Thuy the entire week. We were able to visit some of our favorites restaurants like O-Nami and 99 a couple more times.

NMPS is a command originally designed to process reservist as they become activated for active duty, but this mission evolved to processing active duty too as more IAs (individual augmentee) were asked to join the fight. At NMPS, they mostly made sure our medical records were up to date, shots complete, our pay was setup, and all of our computerized training done. The days were mostly half days, with time to be spent at home with Thuy.

Here's a picture of me being fitted for a gas mask during this week.

This other picture is of Thuy and me hiking up to Cowles Mountain the highest point in San Diego City. We love this place and visit often as this was the place where I proposed.

Memorial Day

I think it's fitting that the first blog entry should be posted the day after Memorial Day. It is important to remember all of those who have given the ultimate sacrifice so that we may live the 'American dream' and enjoy our daily freedoms.

What I hope to accomplish with this blog is to create a place to share my journey to Afghanistan with my family and close personal friends. Unfortunately, I'll be starting this about 6 weeks into my training at Fort Riley, Kansas, so what I'll do in the next couple of days is to give weekly summaries from the very beginning. I hope you will enjoy this blog as much as I will have writing it. Thanks again to my family and friends for supporting me.