In the "Narmy" Now....

(ABOVE- CDR, me, Noah, back row- Mike, Doc, Weiss, Big-O, Bills, Mike and Baylor

So, as you know i've been at FT. DIX for some predeployment training. Well i'll try to describe the madness... Above is the group I went through training with. We were a group of 4 navy guys and 6 coasties, all "attached" to a navy command on base. The ten of us did everything together day and nite 24/7 practically, we lived in 4 rooms right next to each other in one part of a barracks. Notice, i'm the only girl in the group.. yeah that was interesting..... The guys were great, they took good care of me... and of course they liked to pick on me a great bit too.

The gang got along real great, nicknames started pretty quick... there were 5 officers and 5 enlisted. Three of the O's were named Mike... one we called doc... bec he's a PA. We called the CDR, CDR bec he was in charge! The senior Navy PO we called Big-O or alphabet soup bec his last name was so long.. BIG-O did a lot of extra work and we owe a lot to him for finishing up! Weiss we started calling the kid, bec he was the youngest and is practically an olympic runner, weiss ran me to shame a couple times, i couldnt keep up! Then of course they had a nickname for me... they called me Princess... well mostly Mike (the NYC mike) called me that.

The gang was pretty good though!

The trng was definitly beneficial, the navy unit hosting us called it "You're in the Narmy now" bec we definitely played army. One thing i'm certain of... I'm glad I didnt join the army! It was fun but I wouldnt want to do this stuff forever.

We got combat lifesavor certified, that was fun, we did real iv's on each other in that class.. check it out

(above- Me just having successfully given a combat IV to Bills)
(below- Me after my 2nd IV, I volunteered to get stuck twice, one in each arm bec i'm not afraid of needles, fun stuff, hehe)

The land nav course was interesting, We went through the training with a lot of Air Force folks deploying. My land nav team was Doc, Doria, Me and Rosanne an AF Major who loves driving the humvee... man that course was crazy... we almost got lost but we actually finished all three courses really fast! we ended up waiting around for almost 3 hrs waiting for other teams to finish. At one point Doc surprised us all by climbing a tree! We couldnt figure out how to get around a swamp and all of a sudden Doc was up in a tree... OMG it was funny!

(Below- Rosanne and Me at one of our markers)

Ok... so one of the STUPIDEST things ever.... the Army has GOT to change this one... OMG, no wonder they have problems in theater with rapes and sexual harassment... they ADVERTISE where the damn females are... like are you kidding me???

look at what i had to have outside my tent on at the "FOB" (forward operating base). LIke seriously... lets advertise where all the females are! and this one I was in the tent by myself bec there were no other girls... not that I'm not tough, I am, I can handle myself, but still, the tent shouldnt be singled out like that!

(below- The dumbest idea the army had).

We did so much trng i'm trying to remember all the stuff we did... it was crazy... long days some days.

I'm really comfortable with my m16 now though, I can fully take it apart and clean it all by myself no problem, I'm really comfortable shooting it. I shot more the past month that I previously had in my entire CG career, so that was cool.

well i think thats all the highlights i have time for right now... i'll try to remember more later...