$4193.70 worth of gear issued me for my trip to Afghanistan. And I thought women over-packed.
It is finally raining here. When I arrived Friday night, at midnight it was 85 degrees with 90% humidity, and it's only gotten worse. The last two days the heat index was 110 with very little wind, making the outside air stuffy like a sealed up attic. In short, it's been downright miserable. But tonight, our first rain shower rolled through. The storm brought a slight temperature drop and a breeze. It was quite a relief.
The slate for today had us finishing up the last of our stack of paperwork (I think - I hope), and getting issued all of our gear from the Central Issuing Facility (CIF). Formation was at 0640, and we loaded the buses again to go to an office building in another section of post. The CRC compound is pretty isolated on Ft. Benning, way out near the firing ranges and tank trails, so anytime we have to go somewhere, it involves about a 20 minute ride. Given the hour, we drove past quite a few units out doing morning physical training (PT). The post I work on, Ft. Leavenworth, isn't home to any military units, so it's always cool for me to see what a "real" Army post is like.
At our stop, we were put through several different stations to get our final paperwork addressed. All of the soldiers and DOD civilians, about 200 people, were going through the process at the same time. Thankfully for the civilians, we had fewer briefings and less paperwork to do, so we were able to start rotating through the stations before the soldiers. This ended up saving us about 2 hours worth of lines. Considering the whole process still took 3 hours, I was very happy with this arrangement.
So what did I get for my 3 hours of bureaucratic navigation? A new ID card, a secure debit card I can use overseas, filled out personal information that will allow friendly forces to verify my identity should I be captured or MIA, emergency contact data completed, and a check mark on a form that said I already had a Will. Stimulating. I'm pretty happy with how my ID picture turned out, though. Sadly the card expires in January, so I only get to keep it for a few months instead of the customary three years. Phooey.
Next came the fun part, as we took a trip to Sam's Club for GIs. I wish I could have taken pictures, but cameras were strongly discouraged inside the facility, and I didn't want to push my luck. CIF was a giant warehouse with racks of gear stretching to the ceiling, and giant bins of gear in the middle. We rotated through 9 different "departments", starting with duffel bags and ending with socks and boots, though soldiers ended with picking up their weapons (9MM for officers and highly ranked enlisted, M16s for everyone else).
In the useful category, I received hot and moderate weather boots, desert camouflage uniforms, t-shirts, hat, winter coat, poncho liner (it's thick enough and large enough to use as a make-shift mattress), my body armor and a kevlar helmet. The body armor is pretty interesting. In total, the Interceptor Body Armor (IBA) is fourteen pieces: vest, front and back chest plates, neck collar, throat protector, underarm shields, shoulder plates, side armor plates, and the side armor plate holders. It weighs 33 lbs. It took me more than an hour to put all the pieces together and get it properly adjusted. Once it all fit together though, I was impressed by how seamless the whole thing was.
I'm really not looking forward to wearing this thing though. Since I'm going to be flying into Afghanistan on a military flight, I'll be required to wear the armor and my helmet on the flight. I'll also have to be humping my duffel bags and backpack, which I'm not even sure is going to be possible. All the protection comes at the cost of mobility, as the IBA is very restrictive. I'm honestly not sure how soldiers are able to fight in this stuff. I'll also have to put on just the vest whenever the security on the base deems the environment dangerous enough. Other than that, it will just sit in my closet.
In the category of completely useless equipment received, I got extreme cold weather boots (that's my third pair of boots if you're counting, all of which I get to keep when I come home), the poncho, and a gas mask. I took the boots cuz they're free boots. I plan to mail them home before I leave. The poncho was a package deal with the poncho liner, so it balances out. The gas mask was required. The chances I'm ever going to wear this thing are extremely slim.
Oh c'mon. It was too cool looking to not put on at least once. But it shouldn't need to come out of its bag again. I promise.
In category of useless equipment refused, there was a canteen/cup combo (I'll have a water bottle), sleeping bag, sleeping mat, and associated sacks (I'll have a cot), cold and wet weather pants (I'm not camping in the woods), shooting gloves (not shooting), safety goggles (again, not shooting), knee and elbow pads for firing from kneeling and prone positions (yet again, not shooting), and an entrenching tool. I hadn't planned to refuse any gear initially, because the items aren't listed by name but by the Line Item Number, or LIN, on the equipment list. Since I didn't know what LIN corresponded with what item, I had just accepted my fate of hauling a bunch of junk I didn't need. Lucky for me, someone I work with returned from Afghanistan the day before I left, and was able to tell me what was what and help me draft a memo of refusal for my colonel to sign. This saved me an entire duffel bag worth of crap. Very, very happy.
Here's what all the stuff looks like after I packed carefully and assembled my body armor. The larger bag weighs about 50 lbs, the smaller about 40 (33 of that the body armor).
My personal gear MIGHT fit in the space of the second bag plus my backpack, meaning I'd only have three pieces of luggage instead of the usual four. I'll have to wait until Thursday to see if this is possible, but I'm optimistic.
*****
As I type this, there's an uproar in the recreation room. A large crowd of people had gathered to watch Game 6 of the NBA Finals, but ABC isn't coming through on the cable here. Every other channel works perfectly fine, while ABC is just a blank screen. Instead we're watching the ESPN ticker for score updates every few minutes. These soldiers are not happy campers.
During our nightly phone call/video conference, Little One got a curious look on her face. Pointing to the other people in the camera's view she asked, "How come there are other people there? I thought you were the only one going?" Her sweet little child understanding of everything is so darn cute.
First formation tomorrow is a 0615. We're scheduled for classroom work all day, doing things like IED identification and first aid training. At the least it will be more interesting than standing in lines all day, but these classes are also supposed to last for 11 hours. Ewww.
See you again tomorrow. Out here.
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