On my way…

Back to the States folks…hooooray! – I bought my tickets this afternoon – two words – Bling Bling! – wholly crap is it expensive to fly back to the EastCoast from here…you’d think I was all the way on the other side of the planet or somethin’! ha!…I can’t say when I’ll be there ‘cause it’s a secret to some – but I will say that I ain’t coming back to Kimchi-land ‘til June – bong!

Anyway – I’m freggin’ exhausted…been a looooong week…just one thing after another – nothing major – just a bunch of little annoyances AND I’ve gotta make sure I knock the magazine out before I fly…here's some of the goings on from the land of the morning calm...

Monday morning I was up around 5a.m. to get ready to go to the range and shoot my M16…good stuff – you’ve got to qualify in order to be “allowed” to take leave so I’ve been trying to get on a range through my unit for a couple months now…never seen such a jacked up situation as how they run the ranges in this unit – simply amazing…anyhow – coordinated with the Special Reaction Team (A group of high-speed military police personnel who are there to shoot to kill and what not at a moments notice) and they let me come out and shoot while they were there – simply put – the BEST and easiest range experience BY FAR that I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing since I’ve been in the military… I got there – qualified – and was back before lunch…had I gone to a regular range with my unit – I’d probably STILL be there…good stuff…

So that afternoon I took my new range qualification scorecard up to the unit along with my leave request to turn it in…and they kicked it back…apparently 12 days before I return from my leave my PT test will have passed six months and I would then become “out of tolerance” (while I was still on leave) and this dickhead handed me back my leave form and said I had to take a PT test – fucker…

It wasn’t so much the fact that he told me I had to take one – it’s just the apparent attitude that I couldn’t pass one or that I was somehow trying to jump the system and get over…whatever…

Tuesday morning formation and physical training was cancelled due to the treacherous Yellow Dust…this shit apparently is blown in from the deserts of China and will “fuck you up” – it even made the front page of the paper in D.C. as being one of the worst “Dust seasons in recent memory” - so we were all advised to stay in doors and minimize outside activity…done and done…nonetheless, that night one of my Soldiers goes to the freggin’ hospital because the she apparently developed an allergic reaction to the Yellow Dust causing conjunctivitis – or “eye shits” – and they put her on quarters for 24 hours…amazing…

Wednesday it rained, which was great because it killed all the murderous yellow dust…meanwhile I’m (we’re) in an ongoing pissing contest with a commander from one of our subordinate commands about what I’m going to run in our magazine…he wants his unit’s stuff in the ROK Steady because he freggin’ cancelled the funding for his magazine and now needs pages in ours – to which I respond to my boss with a forceful - yet professional - “fuck that ma’am” ...fair enough…

People all over the Peninsula send me stuff all the time – I read it – look at the photos and give it fair consideration as to whether or not it’ll fit within our pages…the ROK Steady ain’t Rolling Stone or anything, but I do hope to at least maintain the level that we’ve established with our placing in the last Army level competition…that being said – what his unit is submitting is utter crap…like I said “fuck that ma’am”…and she supports my decisions – which is nice…hell, he’s only a one-star general! Ha!

Thursday I made a lot of progress with some layout things in the magazine – I think I like it – not sure – but I think I do…we shall see…it’s training, training and more training – some of the best photos in one magazine that I’ve ever seen and I think it will go over like a champ…anyway – around four o’clock I’ve got an entire office of Soldiers sitting around with their proverbial fingers up their butts (Thursdays are usually a slow afternoon throughout the entire Army)…so I tell them to go home…oooops…

Not six minutes later my major is freakin’ about nobody bein’ in the office…hasn’t needed anything done all day and suddenly at four the sky is falling…so I bring EVERYONE back in – for what basically amounted to them re-inserting their fingers into their respective anus’s…whatever…in turn – the hours of the public affairs office will now be strictly enforced and adhered to…word! In other news – the beatings will apparently continue until morale improves…

Friday I woke up to take a PT test so that I could finally get my leave signed – bastards…I’ve got to do 42 push ups in two minutes and 50 sit ups in two minutes and then run two miles in 16 something minutes…I got down there and knocked out 80 (no shit!) push ups – I did 64 and a half in the first minute (really surprised myself on that - good stuff)…and then slowly pulled off 72 sit-ups…I can’t imagine what would happen if I actually worked out…scary! Ha! – oh, and I passed my run…(shut up)…

So I’m on my way folks – back to the States for a while…should be interesting – especially since it will just be a prelude to when I move back in a couple months…word up! Mahalo…