When I went to Iraq, medical was a full day. Some of the lines were three hours long. We did not even start medical until 130pm and were done by 5pm. Hearing, dental vision and everything else checked out fine. When I got to the final sign off with the doctor I remembered him from the last trip. He is a National Guard doctor with a private practice. He has patients my age that are way out of shape. He likes meeting people who are not killing themselves with their own lifestyle choices--even if those people are getting ready to deploy.
So I got through everything. Now back to regular training.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Annual Training, Day 2, Paperwork and Medical
This morning I set my alarm for 5:26 am. This gave me a 4-minute head start on 80 guys using the six sinks in our shared bathroom.
My teeth were brushed and face face clean shaven before the farting herd crowded into the latrine.
I packed up my bedding, got dressed and went to an Army breakfast--eggs, bacon, potatoes, toast, cereal, fruit, juice and coffee.
At home I hardly eat breakfast, but as soon as I put on a uniform, I am hungry at O-Dark-30.
At 0640 we formed up for one-day processing. We got our records and headed for the ten paperwork stations to be sure we had wills, insurance, financial arrangements for deployment, plans for our family, a current ID card and two sets of dog tags. They gave the one-day people VIP tags and put us at the head of all the lines!!! This was cool. In 2008 this process took all of a long day. We were done by 1030.
Next we went to field-gear issue. We boarded a bus with our clothing records and they gave us body armor and whatever we were missing from our field gear issue. Many of us had field gear we never used from Iraq (it is mostly cold and rain gear) so we just got the things we were missing.
After field gear we changed from our camouflage duty uniform to PTs. We had a box lunch of Lunchables (no kidding the crust-free sandwiches!!!)Lorna Doones, TGI Fridays chips and water. Healthy choice!!!
Next is medical processing.
More on that later.
My teeth were brushed and face face clean shaven before the farting herd crowded into the latrine.
I packed up my bedding, got dressed and went to an Army breakfast--eggs, bacon, potatoes, toast, cereal, fruit, juice and coffee.
At home I hardly eat breakfast, but as soon as I put on a uniform, I am hungry at O-Dark-30.
At 0640 we formed up for one-day processing. We got our records and headed for the ten paperwork stations to be sure we had wills, insurance, financial arrangements for deployment, plans for our family, a current ID card and two sets of dog tags. They gave the one-day people VIP tags and put us at the head of all the lines!!! This was cool. In 2008 this process took all of a long day. We were done by 1030.
Next we went to field-gear issue. We boarded a bus with our clothing records and they gave us body armor and whatever we were missing from our field gear issue. Many of us had field gear we never used from Iraq (it is mostly cold and rain gear) so we just got the things we were missing.
After field gear we changed from our camouflage duty uniform to PTs. We had a box lunch of Lunchables (no kidding the crust-free sandwiches!!!)Lorna Doones, TGI Fridays chips and water. Healthy choice!!!
Next is medical processing.
More on that later.
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