Dirk gets chatty

Hey folks, Dirk posted a description of everyday life in the military on our discussion forum at Nauvoo. Here it is:

Housing when deployed, may be a tent, my LT has lived in a tent the entire time we've been here, but then again he had the thing to himself. The rest of the personnel from my unit at my base are in Brick and reinforced concrete barracks, that were completed just before we arrived, Several more rows of these buildings are being built all over this base, so they can get everyone out of the tents. Other teams on other bases are housed in quarters varying from tents, to Buildings like mine, to B-huts (wooden structures that are usually subdivided into eight small individual rooms, to traditional Afghan Qalats (these are made of adobe like mud bricks and look like forts). Space wise, I'm a Sergeant First Class, so I shared a room with my Warrent Officer, most of our other rooms are three or four to a room. (Our building is different from most, rather being divided into five or six long rooms with six to eight persons per room and a door at each end of each room, our building has a hall down the middle and smaller rooms off the hall designed for a max of four per room.) We have commercial internet service here, it's Satellite service so it's expensive for what we get, but Melinda and I can usually get the web-cams to work.

I brought my own multi-media projector (experience purchase from my two prior deployments) that I have hooked up to a small DVD player and my Nintendo Wii, and occasionally my laptop.

In my off time I play the Wii, read books like crazy, surf the interweb, and play computer games.

The quality and style of housing varies greatly by base and country. My first deployment to Kosovo, my four man team had a large room probably designed for an entire platoon of Yugoslav infantry, we were on the second floor of a three story barracks. My second deployment, to Bosnia, we were in C-huts which are long structures of about five b-hut style rooms per structure. Basically with these B, C and new barracks buildings, each room is about the same floor space as what you find in a typical General Purpose Medium tent. And is designed and planned for eight persons in single beds.

Another note on tents, while they can be thrown up on the ground, they are usually set up on raised wooden platforms, have an inner insultating layer, and are always hooked up to AC/Heating systems, no more pot bellied stoves as seen on mash, at least not on most bases I've seen, some of our rougher combat outposts most likely do rely on diesel fueled potbelly stoves and or smaller generators to heat their tents, but the personnel in those outposts tend to spend about a week at a time in the outposts then a couple weeks back at a larger base with full amenities. (oh and they tend to be those psycho infantry types who actually like roughing it.)

I know many people in the Iraq invasion who were originally living in Palaces when we first invaded.

Work space can again vary greatly, I work in a tent, inside a secure sub-compound. We have a hard building being built but it won't be done before we leave. The team I supervises that lives in a Qalat has their office space also in the Qalat. Others have b-huts for offices or are also working out of tents.

Our office is equipped with five computers, only one of which is unlcassified. Unlike many personnel, my job requires that I have the ability to communicate, so I have the capability to call home nightly if I wished, but I'd have to use calling card minutes. If we lived close enough to Hill AFB for calls to be local then I could call without using a calling card. (Hint to other deployed peoples and their families, don't call to your nearest base if you have to use a calling card, call a different state, interstate LD charges are cheaper than intrastate.)

I'll fess up now, that I'm not big on talking on the phone so Melinda and I chat via IM and occasionally Webcam.

We eat in a Mess Hall, the food is good, but they have a seven day menu with very little variation. Our PX doesn't really seem to stock much in the way of a alternate food supply, mostly just various overpriced snacks. So I do eat all my meals at the mess hall. The food is mostly good if repetitive, Fridays we usually have steak, and often either Crablegs or Lobster and shrimp as well. Sadly as they have to cook it in such mass quantities, the steak is always well done, and thus usually rarely all that appetizing. The crablegs and Lobster are always good as are the shrimp. That's the best day menu wise. It is true the mess hall only serves meals at certain times, but the cold-cuts section is always available and well stocked. In addition we have a Subway sandwich shop here, but I can't bring myself to pay for a meal when free food is less than 30 meters away. Oh and our mess hall always has ice cream ready to serve, It's Baskin Robbins brand ice cream. And coolers well stocked with water, Gatorade, and several flavors of pop. I like Mt. Dew and they ususally have it in stock, it's produced in the UAE and has real sugar instead of High Fructose Corn Syrup, so it's healthy.


Recreation and free time: I work seven days a week, I'm lucky in that I only work eight hours a day. I show up an hour late on Sunday's as Sacrament is right when I should start work. So I attend Sacrament, then go to work missing the combined RS/EQ and Sunday school hour. Otherwise the base has a Morale Welfare and Recreation (MWR) Facility with DVD's to be checked out, A movie room where they always have a DVD playing. A computer lab for if someone doesn't want to spring for the paid internet service, and a phone calling center.

There is also an education center, that I would have loved to taken advantage, but all they ever offered was lower division basic credit stuff that I don't need. There is also a nice big Gym facility with Treadmills, Stairsteppers, stationary bikes, various weight machines and free weights. And for the occasional treat there is a Greenbeans Coffee shop which also makes a few good smoothies, those I will occasionally pay for.

As to the other type of facilities. A mix of both Port-a-potties (only a few) and fixed, plumbed, toilets and Showers. Those are in pre-built shipping container sized trailers, that they place and hook up to the water and seage system. But in the last Tent city area (big block of tents) there are field toilets installed in tents. Not a lot of privacy with those.

As to checking in here, I use my paid internet service. I Pay $100 a month for 132kbps down and 64 kbps up, which is dreadfully slow versus my cable at home.

I believe I would be able to usually hit Nauvoo from a government network computer but not always, and .mil networks don't like our family email server, so I couldn't use my normal email to email family.

You are allowed a limited amount of personal browsing on the gov computers, or you can go to the MWR computer lab, but that is limited to 30 minutes at a tim, or you can bring your own computer (I highly recommend this) and pay for the service. Unless you are an infantry soldier who expects to be living in the field most of the time, I would highly reccomend bringing a laptop.

Even if internet service isn't available, it can be used for playing computer games, by yourself or networked together with your team. Or for playing DVD's and digital copies of movies.

And every laptop on the market today is multi-power capable, meaning that black box (or white if you have a Mac) is capable of handling power supplies at both our stateside 110 volt, as well as the European's (and a lot of the rest of the world's) 220 volt power supplies so all you have to find is plug adapters, whereas with many consumer electronics you may bring from the states. In some areas you may have to buy power converters which are not cheap, though always worth the cost.

Laptops can help you pass the time, and endure the deployment.

Normal life, is get-up in time to work-out then eat then go to work for how ever many hours a day you have to work. Then get off work, and find a way to chill out and pass the time without going stir crazy. The majority of our personnel, don't get outside the wire on a regular basis, so you get to feel penned in. And often times when in that situation it is easy to wonder why you have to pack a weapon around at all times.

Add to that situation some dumb policies on some bases. For example, on our Main base in Afghanistan, Bagram Airbase, every person is required to not only have a weapon on them but to actually have a magazine in the weapon, making it rather easy for a careless soldier to have a negligent discharge of their weapon, which is A: Very dangerous, and B: very bad news for that soldier's immediate career.

Whereas my base, we all have weapons with us at all times, but no magazines in the weapons unless one of a few specific alerts are called. Much safer, and wouldn't slow most soldiers down much in being able to return fire.

So life is generally good, some people have to work 12 hour days Seven days a week, others work as few as 5 or six days a week and only eight hours, or possibly even less. It depends on their jobs, how much work they have to do, are they sufficiently staffed, and their command environment. Most soldiers are in ACU's when on duty and switch to their authorized PT uniforms as soon as they get off duty (Most the units have Unit T-Shirts that they are authorized to wear as an option to the official Army PT shirt.)
As to what I wear I have some ACU's around here somewhere but my job allows and requires me to wear civilian attire and a full beard.

One last thing on reading, Used books are great, my great aunt sent me some and they were some classic sci-fi and fantasy that I hadn't read for years, I loved them. There are also usually several trading shelves located around most bases. Usually at the MWR facility, the post chaplain often maintains a shelf, and most air terminals have a shelf. I've found and dropped many good books on those shelves. Find em read em and put em back for someone else. In addition get a book from home or elsewhere, read it and toss it on the shelves.