Mobilization to Deployment, 16 January - 9 March 2007; part 2

16-19 January 2007, Camp Shelby, MS - as I recollected:

Hello Everyone!

Did I mention that Camp Shelby is the armpit of the Army? It's quite possible that it qualifies for an even more infernal description. There hasn't been a sunny day yet. The past week has been busy, boring, tedious.... get the point? Today we fired 9mm pistol qualification. That was actually a welcome excitement compared to some of the lectures I've sat through in the past few days. Tomorrow we have combatives training. It boils down to this - every unit has to validate a long list of training tasks before it can deploy. It's a "crawl, walk, run" approach that makes veterans of this process (like me) suffer.

Some of you have heard me describe "General Order 1". It basically states that soldiers deployed to the Mideast are not allowed to drink or possess alcohol. I won't go into the why. However, it turns out that this craziness also applies to Camp Shelby. So for your enjoyment I will be listing my "days without a beer" counter. You all at the Ivy know that I'm somewhat of an amateur beer connoisseur. My last beer was Sunday night in Baton Rouge, LA while I watched the Pats dispatch the Chargers. It was a Shiner Bock (from Spoetzel Brewery in Shiner, TX). Damn it was good.

So this weekend we will continue our training with hand-to-hand combat tomorrow and orienteering on Sunday. It looks like we'll be back from training just in time on Sunday to watch the Pats game. I'd love to hear from all of you when you get a chance. I have a lot to be thankful for in my life. Experiences like this really highlight how wonderful all of you are and how much I enjoy the fun I've had with so many of you. If I could have packaged up Ivy Tavern and taken it with me then many of you would be deploying with me. I'm sure your all much relieved I can't do that! Rock on and GO PATS!!

Days without a beer: 5 (and counting)