What is Tobasco Sauce worth?

We knocked out some battle drills in one of the training area today, it was good to get out of the FOB for a while. We pretty much covered the drills we did last week, just added a few more details to them and added two drills: What to do if a vehicle is completely disabled and can’t be towed away and how to move with the Iraqi’s when we are moving together.

We spent about 5 hours in the training area, this was our last opportunity to do that sort of stuff, the big wargame starts up at noon today, so all of the gates will be locked up and the enemy will be prowling about.

We were training in an area that was a lot like Western NC, the Smokey Mountains specifically. The same sort of trees, the same sort of terrain, some nice hills, just a pleasant area, I felt very comfortable there. I am attaching a few pictures to the blog, they are shots of my vehicle, the seat that I have to cram myself into and some of the guys on the team.

We had a little MRE picnic out in the woods, I found out exactly how much a small bottle of Tobasco sauce was worth.

MRE History lesson: Starting in the '90s the Army started to put about an ounce of Tobasco sauce in each MRE, it truly made an improvement to the overall MRE. As the MREs evolved, someone started leaving the Tobasco out of certain versions. The Tuna version (which is the king of lunch time MREs: A packet of tuna, a packet of mayonnaise, two flour tortillas, some spices, pretzels, chocolate chip cookies AND a bag of peanut M&Ms, way to civilized for Army food) does not have Tobasco sauce in it. I have no idea what they were thinking, but it proved to be a boon to me.

Superman makes it a point to always grab a Tuna MRE for his lunch, yesterday as we were having the picnic, he really wanted some Tobasco sauce for his Tuna. As noted above, there is none in the MRE, but, MY MRE had Tobasco sauce. I am not a Tobasco sauce fan, but I am a fan of bargaining. He started the bidding by offering me his moist towelette for my Tobasco, I counter offered with his bag of peanut M&Ms. Round one ended with no trade made, he queried the rest of the team, they turned him down. Round two started off with me offering my Tobasco for 4 Peanut M&Ms and the moist towelette, he countered with 4 Peanut M&Ms. I settled and celebrated my victory. 1 ounce of Tobasco sauce is worth 4 Peanut M&Ms in the MRE auction society.

Situational Training Exercise

Today was our first and only graded exercise - - a Situational Training Exercise (STX). Our mission was to move from our Forward Operating Base (FOB) to a smaller FOB to link up with our Iraqi Army counterparts. Or so they said . . . What we were actually doing was moving down a planned lane where we encountered typical tactical situations that occur in Iraq so we could be evaluated on our reactions and actions during the encounters.

Right up front, we smoked the lane. Good training, but we did good.

The situations that were on the lane were the same as the situations that we have planned battle drills for, our rehearsals over the past 4 days paid off in spades. We linked up with the Observer/Controllers (OCs/evaluators) and moved to the assembly area and waited for our turn to go down the lane. While we were waiting, we reviewed our battle drills, did some more rehearsals (rock drills – using rocks to simulate our vehicles and what each vehicle would do, while the driver, TC, gunner and passengers talk through what they would do in each situation) and talked to George, Ali and Safaree our interpreters. More about George later . . .

When our turn came up and we rolled down the lane, things went very well. Our first situation in the STX was a small ambush, two enemy soldiers in an ambush, they fired at us, we unloaded on them and broke contact. Good driving, good communication, good fire control. All in all, a good event.

The second situation was a more complex ambush that involved a series of IEDs as well as enemy soldiers. The first IED went off between vehicle 1 and 2, neither vehicle was damaged. The complexity started after that: A civilian vehicle (part of the problem) drove itself into the road and separated vehicle 1 (Superman’s vehicle) and vehicle 2 (mine) and 3 (MAJ D’s vehicle), while that was going on, enemy soldiers started firing us up. Once again, good communications, good fire suppression (the enemy soldiers did not get near our vehicles), the vehicle separating our vehicles was a bit confusing - - if we had been in Iraq, we would have just rammed it and pushed it off the road, but here, we didn’t want to wreck our HMMWV or the Toyota pick up. Once we maneuvered through the ambush and linked back up, we spotted a surface laid IED, called it in to our higher headquarters and proceeded. We didn’t see the one that was on the other side of the road, that one took out vehicle 3 (MAJ D’s), and one soldier (SSG K) was assessed as a casualty. Luckily, our team medic (SFC J) was in the vehicle and immediately started to do first aid. The team executed our vehicle recovery battle drill (my vehicle pulled security, Superman’s vehicle hooked up and towed the vehicle out of the ambush site) and moved about 600 meters away to call in a MEDEVAC. There was actually a helocopter standing by for MEDEVAC, and it was as close as a live situation as we can get. Pretty cool actually, I am the primary talker with external units, so it was cool to talk in an actual pilot, and watch the MEDEVAC happen.

Great training day, I was pretty happy with how we reacted.

About George: George is one of our interpreters; he is from Bagdhad and left in 2001, before everything happened. He is an Arabic Catholic, a minority in Iraq and left for religious/political reasons. I chatted him up about his military experiences in the Iran/Iraq war, very interesting. Because he could speak English, was college educated and could type, he worked in the Iraqi Ministry of Defense as a contract writer/typer. He primarily worked as an interpreter for the Iraqis working in Jordan and Syria as they purchased rockets and missiles from the Soviets and other countries that were supplied by the Soviets. He said he had it good until he made ONE typographical mistake on one of his contracts, then he got sent to the front for 3 years. Remember that when you are typing, one mistake, 3 years at the front.

Nickname update: CPT F is close to earning a nickname, and two have been picked out. His first nickname was Ghost because he has a tendency to disappear when we are heading out to class our to training - - my normal quote is “why do we only have ten people? Oh, wait, where is CPT F?”. Ghost does not start with an “S” so we are pondering Spook or Supernatural. More to follow.

The Alternative to the Techno Café

We have found another chow hall here on the FOB that is as close as the Techno Café and it seems to be better than the Techno. We were walking to the Techno one day for dinner when we saw two Germanish females standing around in cooks uniforms. They waved at us very nicely; we waved back and asked them what they were up to. They had opened up another chow hall two buildings down from the Techno, and nobody was going to it, so we started to. All of the chow on the camp comes out of the same boxes; it all comes down to atmosphere.

To be honest, I was a getting a little tired of the oppressive beat of the Techno, so the Happy Café is a pleasant alternative. They play pop-ish music, not too loud and they are always happy to see us, normally we are the only folks in the chow hall. It is kind of funny, whenever it is breakfast or dinner-time they are waiting outside the chow hall with no customers, they see us walking up, wave and run inside to get the food ready to serve. They have even picked up on some of our bad eating habits and enable them: They always have bananas and oatmeal at breakfast (my favorite), they put out a lot of Rice Krispie Bars and White Chocolate and Macadamia Nut cookies (the team’s favorite snackish food) and they give us extra large portions of everything we ask for. Pretty cool to have almost personal service in an Army chow hall.

We have spent the last couple of days practicing and refining our battle drills and integrating a few new personnel. The first new person is SSG K, a replacement for SFC C; he came from another team and has been welcomed all around, especially in his vehicle, now they have 4 people in the vehicle to do all of the drills instead of just 3.

We also now have 3 interpreters attached to the team, they are pretty happy to be here and working with us. Two of them are from Iraq, the third is from Morocco, and they all have been living in Europe for the past few years. We spent today integrating them into the different battle drills, they were a little leery when we told them that they will be required to drive from the back seat of the HMMWVs in case of injury to the driver: Their assigned seat is right behind the driver seat, if the driver is injured they are the only ones that can quickly reach the steering wheel and keep driving. The first time they did it, they were a little tentative but they got the hang of it. They even go to the point where they could accelerate the vehicle, drive around curves and corners, and stop the vehicle, all from the back seat, pretty cool for the first day. They also got into the vehicle rollover drill - - If the vehicle starts to roll over (which happens in Iraq, especially with heavier vehicles that are driven hard) they have to help pull the gunner out of the turret and hold on to him to keep him from bouncing around the vehicle. Every one else is strapped in with our seatbelts, but the gunner would be loose, so we grab hold of him to keep him from bouncing around.

Once again, they are an extra hand in the vehicle and really have gotten into the mission: All three of them know where the first aid kits are, where the evacuation litters are kept as well as the landing zone marking panels so they lend two extra hands to the casualty evacuation drills. Very cool. One of them is a veteran of the Iran/Iraq war, I am going to ask him about that some tomorrow. My interpreter is Kurdish from Mosul, he left shortly after the first Desert Storm, when Saddam cracked down on the Kurds. We had a very interesting discussion about how hard the life of a refugee has been for him and his community.

Tomorrow is more battle drills, we will throw in some more variations, but we should get good at them here shortly.

Cultural Note: British people are incapable of closing doors. We share a latrine/shower facility with one of the British units in the exercise, it is not uncommon to be enjoying a nice hot shower and get a blast of cold German night air. When you feel that, you know that some British soldier came in and left the door wide open. We may have to have some door closing lessons if it gets much colder.

Nickname update: SSG W has earned his nickname: Slim. During the past two days of casualty evacuation drills he has turned out to be the worst casualty to have to evacuate: He is about an inch taller than me (6’4”) and weighs 250 lbs. He is a LOAD to pick up and carry around, especially with his 50 lbs. of extra gear (body armor, helmet, etc.)

The Techno Cafe and other Germany notes

We are here in Germany and have settled into what the Army calls a normal Battle Rhythm. For the most part we are over our jet lag and have begun to have a regular daily schedule: PT, chow, training, chow again, off to bed, with some integration with the Brigade we are working with for JRMC.

The day in Germany starts with some PT, right now there is a small gym here, so Superman is happy and there are some tank trails to run on, so I am happy. I took my first good run this morning in about a week: Took a right at the parking lot, hit a tank trail and just kept going. I do have to say, there is one thing that is better than running along a machine gun range when the machine guns are rocking: Running next to a column of tanks or tank-like vehicles as they are driving by. First of all, you can hear them about mile away, it was a nice, quiet morning, then you can hear a distant rumble, then a good solid sustained rumble, then the ground starts to shake and the tanks come around the corner. There was probably a company or so of Bradley Fighting Vehicles (tank-like vehicles, armored personnel carriers, APCs) rumbling by me. Pretty cool, they were probably thinking “who is that dumb-ass out here running in the middle of nowhere?” and I was thinking “Bet they wish they were running with me right now.”

After PT, a quick shower then off to the Techno Café for breakfast. There are probably about 6 chow halls here on the FOB, most of them are run by a regular Army battalion mess section, except for one. The one that is not is run by three contracted German cooks and we call it the Techno Café. At every meal they play very loud, techno and trance type music and I have been told that it is typical German music and everyone here loves it. Now, being of German descent, I can’t really get into it, so I am not sure that everyone here in Germany loves it. But, the cooks seem to like it, and there is nobody else in the chow hall, so we can sit and eat without a pile of soldiers crowding up around us.

Each meal in the chow hall is a standard Army meal, mostly out of a box and easily prepared. OK food, not the best, not the worst I have had. The worst was our first month in Haiti (My SF Team was stuck supporting the Brigade Headquarters) when the brigade’s cooks cooked the same box of supper every night for a month: Chili and Rice, corn as the vegetable and a rock hard chocolate brownie for desert (13 years later, I still remember it). To this day, I have no desire to eat chili. Every night for a month, we would line up with the anticipation that the Army chow elves had delivered a different meal to us, just to be let down like a kid at Christmas that didn’t get quite what he wanted. After about a week, the cooks didn’t even bother to apologize, they just put it on the plate.

Nowadays, along with the standard Army meal comes a pile of help yourself supplements: Rice Krispie bars, Nutrigrain bars, Pop Tarts, Reeses Pieces, bags of cookies, fruit, just about anything sweet. SFC T (Smooth) asked me if I was happy with all of the sweets, I told him that yes, right now I am, but after a week of the same things, I may want to cut back. Of course, if I can keep knocking out a run in the mornings, I will endure.

This afternoon, we finally got to do some driving around and knock out some training on our standard battle drills. A battle drill is similar to a football play for a specific situation that comes up. Today we did our first three battle drills: React to Contact, React to an Ambush and React to an Obstacle. We did pretty well beings how this was the first day that we have actually worked with our vehicles and radios at the same time. Tomorrow, we will knock a few more of the more difficult battle drills and add a few different elements into the training. Should be interesting.

On to Germany

The team has deployed to Hohenfels, Germany to the Joint Multinational Readiness Center (JRMC) to work with a US Brigade Combat Team (BCT) that is going to Iraq. We left FT Riley, KS on 13 AUG and arrived in Germany on the 14th. The actual movement was pretty uneventful (outside of a little excitement when our weapons cases didn’t show up with our baggage, but that was quickly sorted out: The German security service wanted to move the cases separately from the rest of the luggage.) I am good with the extra security and all, just let me know BEFORE all of the luggage is gone and they are shutting down the baggage claim area.

JRMC is a training event based around a US BCT using external evaluators and realistic OPFOR. Most everyone in the Army has been to a training center like this before, either at FT Irwin, CA (National Training Center) or at FT Polk, LA (Joint Readiness Training Center). This one just happens to be in a foreign country.

We draw vehicles, radios and other equipment tomorrow, then we will start team level training until all of the official training events start up.

TEAM NOTE: SFC C will not be deploying with us to Iraq, he has some back issues and ended up with some stress fractures in his foot. SFC C is a great soldier, total team player and will be a solid asset to his next unit, we are all sad to see him go.

We also had to leave MSG P (Sweetface) behind while his stomach gets checked out. He should join back up with us when we click our heels together, say "there is no place like home, there is no place like home, there is no place like home" and get back to KS.

Two new team names have been assigned:

MAJ L will now be known as Superman. On several occasions, he has swooped in at the last minute and executed a super human feat. First on the night .50 caliber machine gun range, we had to have two firers qualify with the weapon. MAJ L was the first qualifier, and SFC T was supposed to be the second, unfortunately, SFC T was having an off night with the system. On the last possible firing order, MAJ L coached up SFC T well enough that he qualified. His next superhuman feat was as we were traveling to Germany. Somehow he managed to talk an innocent travel agent into upgrading some of our tickets from coach to first class for the flight from Detroit to Germany, huge difference.

SFC T will now be known as Smooth. Some of the ways SFC T handles situations make it seem like he is moving very smoothly. On the converse of that, when he does something that is kind of humorous, it is pointed out that whatever he did was not so smooth. Case and point: Our bus driver in Germany stopped at a McDonald’s for lunch on the way from the airport to Hohenfels Training Area. The rest of the team manages to order basic McDonald’s food, broken German, broken English, broken McDonaldish and we got pretty much what we wanted. SFC T, after flying all nightt, riding on a bus for 4 hours and being immersed in the intricate German culture of a McDonalds, could only manage to point to the picture on the menu and wait for the cashier to confirm his order. Pretty Smooth.

Little Weekend Break

We had our first real weekend this past weekend, and we took advantage of it. Most of the guys flew home a few of us went to KC.  I went to KC for two days - - The big events were a KC Royals baseball game against the Boston Red Sox and a visit to the National WW I museum.

There were 5 guys from the New England area that really wanted to go see the Red Sox play, so I tagged along. To be honest, I can watch baseball games live, it is fun to be part of the crowd and all, but on TV, no joy. As far as the game went, I was pulling for the Royals, my brother in law Wade is a fan, I think that rubbed off on me. My favorite American League baseball teams in order are: The Texas Rangers (used to live down there), the NY Yankees (gotta love Derek Jeter going headfirst into the seats for a foul ball), the KC Royals and the Red Sox (from my Boston Marathon adventure). Tim Wakefield was pitching against the Royals, so there was a bonus for me. Wakefield is the same age as me (43) and is one of the last knuckleballers in the game. He was on, and the Royals couldn't get a bat on his pitches. The Royals went down, but they tried hard and hustled. We were sitting on the 3d base side, so there were a lot of Red Sox fans there and the guys from New England got to hang out with folks from where they were from. Pretty cool.

I started the next day off with a nice run through Memorial Park in KC and back into some of the neighborhoods behind the Crown Center, about 7 miles worth. When you think of KC, you don't really think of hills, but there were some good ones there, they didn't really rival the Sisters on FT Bragg, but they did a number on me. I have been running at FT Riley, but the only course that we have is pancake flat, down by the Kansas river. The hills woke me up. I ran by a bust of GEN Pershing and through Memorial Park, pretty cool. Lots of folks don't know this but GEN Pershing was a military instructor at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, my Alma mater, so it was a extra special for me.

The highlight of the day I was the National WW I museum (admission is free for active duty and retired military) http://www.libertymemorialmuseum.org/ and spent the whole day there. What an awesome museum! The folks in KC have a great resource and memorial of a very important time in the world's history. The museum is an underground museum, you go through some huge, heavy bronze doors into the museum. I thought that added to the environment of the museum, most of WW I was fought in trenches and the underground effect created by the museum reminded me of that. There is some very good architecture above the museum, the tower gives a good view of KC and there are two halls that flank the tower, one is a exhibit of the artwork that came from the soldiers in WW I and the other holds a very impressive mural painted to commemorate the end of the war.

If you really sit down and think about it. this was the war that woke up several of the conflicts we are still dealing with today. I read a column by Thomas Friedman a few years back that postulated that the end of the Cold War was really the end of WW II. I think he missed it by a war, and it is not quite over yet. A lot of the conflicts that the world is facing today are a result of the colonial practices or from the artificial borders that were established in the Mid East and Africa. In my opinion, WW I also marked the beginning of Arab Nationalism. There were a lot of things to think about as I went through the museum.

After the museum, we had pizza at Minsky's Pizza, a KC original pizza then headed back to FT Riley. This week we are getting ready for our trip to Germany where we will take part in a Joint Readiness Maneuver Center rotation, working with an Army Brigade Combat Team (BCT) that is getting ready to go to Iraq. They aren't the BCT we will be working with, but I am sure it will be a good training experience for everyone involved.

G Family note:  Fantasy Football season has started.  For those of you that aren't G family members, this is the beginning of the competition between me and my brother in law Wade (I think my other brother in law Mark may join us this year).  Wade did extensive research into our Fantasy Football history and reminded me that he has beaten me a couple more years than I have beaten him (7-5 or 8-6 I think?).  

BUT, I have won the league one time (got the check to prove it), came in second one time, and finished in the top 7 (in the money) another year.  He has a sixth place finish or something un-impressive like that to his credit.  Whenever he starts barking about him beating me in a few years, I point out I have the Lombardi trophy on my shelf, along with a couple of good playoff victories to my credit.  Kind of like a team that has never been to the Super Bowl or won the Super Bowl claiming that their regular season record is more important than hauling in the hardware.  Not sure how the deployment will affect my performance this year, but I am feeling pretty confident.  If anyone is interested in joining the Fantasy Football league we are in drop me a note on here or send me an email at FRGOTT2@yahoo.com  or contact our league commissioner Tim at:  Tslippin@cox.net.

A Little More Training

The past couple of days have been pretty good training for the team. After the excitement of the ranges we settled into some classroom stuff and a little bit of driving training.

The classroom stuff has been specialty training for the different disciplines on the team ranging from Advanced Communications for SSG W to Logistics Training for CPT P and SFC R, Advanced Coallition Effects for SFC T and MAJ D and digital battlefield training for me, MAJ L and MSG P. Throw in some more medical training and for SFC J and military intelligence training for CPT F and SFC C and we have pretty much the whole team covered. Most of the guys are letting me know the training is ok, nothing they weren't expecting or out of their ability sets, so that is a good thing.

The digital battlefield (aka: Blue Force Tracking (if you go to Wikipedia and type in blue force tracking it gives a pretty good run down of what we have. Here is the link to it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Force_Tracking) training can be confusing, mostly because it is something new to me (once again, old LTC, new trick) but it is very important to understand, it makes communications on the battlefield very fast and allows instant tracking of battlefield assets. In the stone ages when I was a LT tramping around Panama we had no idea GPS navigation was out there, the map and compass were skills to be mastered. If you ask my mom, she will tell you I rarely mastered those. Luckily I had some very good NCOs that could keep track of our locations as we were moving along (We were never really lost: My definition of lost is they never find you). Navigation got a little easier by Haiti and Bosnia time, we had Global Positioning Systems and I kind of knew how to use them. Now, everything is digital, if you understand a computer game, you can understand this. Luckily, I have played a few of those. Tomorrow is another day of digital battlefield training, should be a hoot.

We also had a day and nights worth of HMMWV driving. The HMMWVs we are driving are not your grandpa's HMMWVs - the first generation of HMMWVs weighed about 7,000 lbs. The monsters we are driving now weigh just shy of 13,000 lbs and are armored like crazy. The doors alone weigh over 450 lbs, pretty incredible. Nothing but armor, bullet proof glass, engine, radios and one bad ass air conditioner, which was quite a pleasant suprise - - nothing like opening up your vehicle on a 105 degree day and being met with a blast of cold air. They drove pretty well, SFC R let me know that I drove like his grandma and I should speed it up a little bit. I let him know that I come from a long line of poor drivers, once I get used to the vehicle, my bad driving habits and poor automotive genetics will come out and me driving too slow won't be a problem.

Finally something I recognize, sort of, kind of, maybe . . . .

RANGE WEEK! We have spent the last two days, nights and mornings (nothing like firing at 4 AM! I am sure the fine residents of FT Riley and the greater Manhattan area appreciate a machine gun range at 4 AM) on the pistol (M-9), rifle (M-4), grenade launcher (M-203) and machine gun ranges (M-240B and M-2) ranges. I am relatively familiar with the M-9 and M-4 pistol and rifle, but I have to confess I haven't fired either of them in over 6 years (since right before Afghanistan). We went through some basic marksmanship instruction (PMI), did some bore-sigthing (aligning the barrel of the weapon with the sighting systems) and did a few simulations. Most of it came back to me slowly, kind of like riding a bike I guess, you never really forget. I was having a few basic training flashbacks mixed with happier range times in my former life (we weren't so concerned about wearing all of our body armor to each range, rarely wore our helmets on the ranges and may have not been so determined that everyone stay on line when we were firing).

The PMI woke me back up and introduced me to the new sighting systems that the Army has developed to make things easier for the soldier, I kind of dig them. When I was in my former life, we were still using the iron sights that are on the weapon, now they use a optical system that once zeroed to the firer makes it very easy to get a good sight picture and hard to miss. Pretty much alls you have to do is put the red dot in the sight on the target and squeeze the trigger. The night sight uses a laser and night vision devices to fire. In the old days, we just kind of winged it, which never really worked, now night firing is pretty cool, put the laser on the target (which you see with your NVGs) and squeeze the trigger. Imagine the targets surprise . . . I was very impressed with what we were using, a far cry better than what I grew up with in the Army.

I did OK with the M-9 and M-4 ranges, we were using pop up targets, which are more realistic as far as shooting go, but are questionable as far as actually scoring how well you are shooting. For example, I know I hit most of my M-9 targets, but because the targets could have been beaten up, going back down at the end of the time period or chock full of holes the computer may not have given me credit for a hit. No big deal, I was pretty satisfied. The M-4 range was about the same, once I got my rifle and sights zeroed to my eyes, I was on it. The targets ranged anywhere from 50 meters out to 300 meters, I was able to hit the 300 a couple of times, but I have decided that if there is a target for me out around 300 meters, I will let him get a little closer to me before I take care of it, just to make sure.

The night M-4 range was pretty cool, lasers, rifles, Night Vision Devices, every kids dream. Put the laser on the target and squeeze the trigger. When I was growing up in the Army night firing was pretty much just a guess, try to put the round in general direction that you thought the enemy was coming from ( ". . . use the force Luke, the force . . ." ) and let it go, if you don't hit him, you might scare him enough. Now, you see the target with your Night Vision Device, put the laser dot on the target and well, you know . . . Pretty slick system.

Machine guns are fuuuuuuuuunnn. The other weapon system I actually recognized was the M-2 .50 caliber machine gun, this system has been around the Army since just after World War I and is one of the most accurate weapons around, also easily the funnest one to fire, nothing like a weapon that will make a 14,000 pound vehicle rock when it fires. Me and my primary gunner SFC R were teamed up and shot the heck out of the weapon, about 600 rounds apiece in the daytime fire. Because this weapon will not be our vehicle's primary weapon system, we were just familiarizing with the weapon, so we had a good time. Old fashioned iron sights, no cool optics, no lasers, just the friendly front and rear sight posts and a lot of ammo. I was getting pretty good at it, SFC R was definately ON with it, he even helped MAJ L qualify in his lane a little bit. Teamwork on the range.

The M-240B was fun, but not as much fun as the M-2. Like most everything here, new weapon, cool new sight paired up with a LTC that has never seen it before. The first half of my turn on the range I was trying to figure it all out, last half, those rounds were dancing all over the targets. SFC R once again was ON with the M-240B. He is my vehicle's gunner and that is the weapon we will have on the vehicle, so I am pretty comfortable with his abilities in that regard. Now if I can get as good with the radios as he is with the weapon, we will be in business.

TEAM NOTE: We have decided to assign each other nicknames based on our personalities, the only catch is you can't name yourself (because your ego will get in the way) and the nickname has to start with the letter S. So far, only a couple of us have been given nicknames:

MSG P: Sweet Face. He was thrilled to earn this one. When were getting on a bus for some event, he was telling a silly private/basic training story from when he worked as a Drill Sergeant, the female bus driver was listening to the story and said "I can't believe someone with such a sweet face did something like that . . . ". Immediate nomination and approval.

Me: Sweet Tooth. Some of the team has noticed that I kind of like chocolate, and most anything else that involves sugar (thanks mom and dad for passing that gene down to me). Nomination based on bad diet and chow hall selections (hey, if they take the time to cook it, someone has to eat it) and approved.

Working on the restof the nicknames, a few folks have names floating around and are in the process of nomination and approval, we should have this done by the time we get back from Germany. More to follow.