Has it only been a week?

Semper Gumby!

That means "Always Flexible" in Latin. hehe

And it's our motto for this deployment. We're finding that the things you were told 2 hours ago are no longer "operational" and that you need to be ready to drop what you're doing and forget what you've done and move on to the next thing.

But that's not where the story left off, is it?

Okay, 2 Feb, we arrived at Camp Shelby. We had a little while to move stuff from one container to another (that was when I last updated), and then we moved to the "Forward Operations Base" - henceforth, the FOB. My duffel bag was missing, sadly. It did eventually turn up, a day later. No big deal.

Anyway, we were put into 16-man tents. Ours had 19 men in it, lol. There was hot chow at the FOB, and there were porta-johns, as well as a shower tent and a shaving tent. There's heat for the tents, and bunker simulators, as well as guard towers and stuff. All very good.

The first day was mostly briefings. Dull, boring briefings. Sexual Harassment. Sexual Assault, that kind of thing. Ridiculous stuff. Frankly, if you can't handle a bunch of guys making offensive jokes about sex, do NOT join the infantry. Or any other combat MOS, like Armor, Artillery, etc. In the Infantry, you better have a thick skin. So the briefings were dull, and a waste. Although there were some good ones that I can't talk about (I could, but I shouldn't, so I won't).

Eventually, I was assigned a squad automatic weapon. I started training on it, cleaning it, and etc. By Thursday or so I was qualified with it, and looking forward to training with the M9 pistol, and thinking about what my role would be in the squad.

Then I was reassigned to the HQ platoon, to the mortars section. Now, I dunno what that's all about (I was told they wanted someone bright who wouldn't fail out of the school, but I'm not sure how much I believe that!), but I'm here to do my job and do it without complaining, so I said "Yes, Sergeant" and turned in my SAW, and moved over to HQ.

Since then, it's been a mix of good and bad. Mortars have longer hours sometimes, but more privileges other times, so it's kind of a wash, I guess. Right now, I'm attending a school for mortar teams on-post, that is supposed to last two weeks or so. I'm enthused about getting all three Infantry MOS's locked down tight, since I was originally trained as an 11M, and spent a while as an 11B, and since the 11H has been done away with.

I should write more, but this alone will be pretty long, and so much else is just details about what happened. Very little of it would mean anything to the casual reader. There's been a lot of early morning formations, standing in the cold, standing in the cold and the rain, shooting in the cold, shooting in the cold and the rain, marching for miles with body armor and weapons and gear, and using the latrine at all hours of the day and night in the freezing cold. But like I say, that's just details.

Semper Gumby!