Home on leave

I'm home on leave for a few days before we do our final push toward the big desert "over there". *Sigh* someone called me this morning @ 0730 to tell me they were up (present and accounted for). I guess they didn't get the memo I was on leave. I wonder if its too late to relay that message at 1 pm?

Will

Duty part 2

To answer questions that have been rasied. No they do not provide explicit directions on what to do if the building moved. Fortunately the military is no different than the civilian sector of the work place. I had 3 chain of commands. Typically as a duty you should have 1 chain word gets passed, information flows down the rank structure. Since 3 companies have Marines in the barracks, three OODs(officer of the day) felt the need to check on their building. Most likely because had the building been stolen then there would not have been a telephone to call them to let them know. So for barracks duty,since I was the fourth man from the top or next to last from bottom depending on your current viewpoint, I had 9 different bosses spread amoung 3 different agendas.

-Will

Duty

Today I landed Barracks duty. Its a 24 hour unarmed post. I am the Cpl who acts as the duty non-commissioned officer (DNCO). I have a faithful companion who is my assistant the ADNCO. Its rather a mundane task of making sure a building stays where it is supposed to be. I have a 12x12 room (luckily with air) that has a telephone and a desk, and about 4 years worth of Maxium magazines (I am not over exaggerating here). We actually have been rather busy today with opening the doors for the various maintenance people that stop by. I feel like a mall security guard, I have a shiney buckle on my duty belt. Picture a big batman style belt but OD green and without a grappling hook. A grappling hook would make duty more interesting though. I wouldn't have to use the stairs to sneak up on people smoking on the 3rd deck.

Whats in an ELMACO

An ELMACO is short for Electronics Maintenance Company. If it's a radio or a telephone our shop is trained to open it up and fix it. We also will receive other pieces of gear such as telephone switch boards and a nifty little spy plane called a dragon-eye. The dragon-eye is a little styrofoam plane that is designed to fly over an area and survey it without endangering the troops. Many of you have seen it on shows such as modern military marvels etc. The gear is great and is designed to break apart on landing, no big deal. Unfortunately units usually forget about the building or trees in between where they are surveying and where they tell the plane to land, resulting in the plane hitting objects faster than anticipated.

PRC-119 = Personal Radio Communications. Its one of the main radio's the Marine corps is currently using. There are about a million different configurations for this actual radio. Then it is no longer called just a PRC-119. No we make it confusing by sometimes hooking two of them together and sticking them in a humvee, amplifier or no amp. Fixing radios is what I spent 3 months in my secondary school once upon a time in 29 palms.

Then I checked into my unit and they didn't fix radio's, they only fixed telephones! More on that later.

OUCH!

Will hasn't even left the states yet and they are already taking under-utilized body parts from him! Wednesday he will end the day with 4 fewer wisdom teeth from what he woke up with. Fortunately the Marines are kind enough to allow for a tiny bit of recovery time.

Since I haven't heard too many stories about the wonderful memories of the removal / recovery, I shall keep my fingers crossed for an easy removal and fast recovery.

PS - Any Marine at Camp Lejeune want to do good dead? Will is going to need a Dairy Queen Blizzard or a Steak and Shake milkshake delivered. I'll owe you one! :)

Sunset

If you pretend it actually is a sunset over the water. No really, there just happens to be a barracks in the way and or a few trees.