May 2013
2 posts
Watch
Watch
March 2012
15 posts
February 2012
9 posts
Rest & Relaxation – Finally Home
After the five day journey, I finally landed at Baltimore-Washington
International Airport (BWI).
My wife and I agreed that we wouldn’t tell our 4 ½ year-old daughter
that I was coming home; we wanted it to be a surprise for her. While I
was flying from Atlanta to BWI, my wife and daughter were getting a
pass to meet me at the gate. However, my daughter still had no idea I
was coming home,...
Rest & Relaxation – The Journey Home
It is almost unheard of in the United States where a person works seven days or over eighty-four hours a week. I’m sure there are some occupations where it may be required to work a full week or over eight-four hours, but most of those jobs will not continue for a long continuous period. As a Soldier, or even a Civilian Government Service Employee or Contractor deployed in a combat...
January 2012
3 posts
Another Christmas Deployed
Back in the United States, malls are packed with shoppers, kids are on Santa’s lap, and decorations cover the houses – it’s the Christmas Season. Everyone is trying to get that “right” gift for their loved ones and those last-minute shoppers are getting stressed….
However, this stress isn’t the same stress that Soldiers deployed in a combat zone feel during this time of year. It’s a very difficult...
Know It, Fight It, End It
THIS WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN ON MONDAY, JANUARY 9, 2012.
It was the summer of 1995; the Boys Cross-Country team was meeting behind the football bleachers at Long Beach Polytechnic High School, in Long Beach, California. It was our first day of summer practice, and as we waited for our Coach to arrive, we all talked about our summer adventures.
The scheduled practice time was approaching and we...
Deployment Goals Update & New Years Resolutions
I have been deployed for nearly six months and thought I would do a fast update on my deployment goals that I posted at the beginning of December. December was another difficult month for me as we prepared for the holidays, worked on merging two different laboratories into one, finishing two college classes, starting a new weight-training program/plan, and trying to run as much as possible (which...
December 2011
3 posts
Iraq – It’s finally over
***THIS WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN ON DEC. 17, 2011***
I have had a very busy last couple of months and have not had the opportunity, nor the time, to write my blog, but as my semester ended yesterday and now I’m on a three-week break plus the events that have unfolded over the weekend, I felt this was the best opportunity to tell my story again.
Over the weekend, the last U.S. troops departed Iraq,...
Remembering Our Fallen on Christmas Day
It was 9:35am, two years ago today, when the doorbell rang at the Gutierrez household. Staff Sergeant (SSG) David H. Gutierrez, an Infantry Squad Leader whom I had served with in the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment “Wolfhounds” in Hawaii was now patrolling Howz-e-Madad in Southern Afghanistan with his new unit, the 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment from Fort Lewis, Washington. Indeed it...
Deployment Goals Update
I have been deployed for nearly five months and thought I would do a fast update on my deployment goals that I posted at the beginning of October. I didn’t post a November goals update as I was pretty disappointed with not reaching my running goals after I became sick the last week of October. I remained sick throughout the entire month of November, where I only felt good enough to run for two...
November 2011
4 posts
Keeping a SECRET
We have all heard of the WikiLeaks incident where a U.S. Army Specialist gave SECRET military documents to WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks released the documents on their website, disseminating some of the United States’ classified information. I truthfully have never read the documents that were released and don’t plan on doing so.
The military has established regulations and ways to protect our most...
Uniform Standards
When I was back in the States, there was one thing that I wanted to do after a long day at “the office” – take off my uniform and put something comfortable on. I like to take off the combat boots that I had been wearing all day and the Army Combat Uniform (ACU) and slip into shorts and a t-shirt.
However, while in combat, our daily schedules are never the same and working 12-18 hours a day puts a...
Happy Veterans Day!!!
This week’s TIME magazine stated that “Most Americans have not served in uniform, no longer have a parent who did and are unlikely to encourage their children to enlist….Think of the U.S. military as the Other 1%-some 2.4 million troops have fought in and around Afghanistan and Iraq since 9/11, exactly 1% of the 240 million Americans over 18.”
I think of these numbers on this...
Targeting Government Officials
Unlike what we see in the United States, government officials and key leaders, especially those working with the United States and Coalition Forces, are a target for assassination attempts. Unfortunately, an individual that believes in improving the community and ridding the area of terrorist ways is a target, but it’s common.
When I was in Iraq in 2008, an up and coming activist named Sheik...
October 2011
6 posts
Super Cuts!
Army Regulation 670-1 directs all United States Army personnel to have a professional haircut, whether you’re a male or female Soldier. There are hair standards established that we must abide by; however I’d say that they are fairly “relaxed.” We don’t have to have the “Jarhead” or “High and Tight” haircuts, even though many Infantrymen sport that cut. The females don’t have to shave their heads...
Checking the Sensitive Items
If you don’t know, there are some highly expensive and sensitive pieces of equipment in the Military. There are items that, if studied and examined by the enemy, could be used against us. There are high-value pieces of equipment, that if lost may not only jeopardize the mission, but would cost a tremendous amount of money to replace. The Department of the Army has established a policy where all...
Shipping the Evidence
A continuation of my job as Evidence Custodian includes the packaging and shipment of the cases to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Terrorist Explosives Device Analytical Center (TEDAC) where they conduct further exploitation and store our cases for possible future prosecution.
Packaging and shipping the evidence to TEDAC sounds much simpler than it really is. It takes a couple hours...
Tracking the Evidence
We have pretty much all heard of instances when criminal cases were thrown out of court because the evidence wasn’t tracked properly, it was mishandled, or it might have even been lost. For the last few years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Terrorist Explosives Device Analytical Center (TEDAC) has provided an individual to be the Evidence Custodian and FBI Liaison (LNO) at my...
Lickies & Chewies
The CEXC Laboratory Snack Platter!
The first time I walked into the CEXC Laboratory, I noticed that there were three large refrigerators that were empty. The freezers were packed with frozen meat, fish, shrimp and cheese, while the refrigerator itself was empty, with the exception of a few bottles of water and cans of coke with initials written on top of them. I immediately felt that everyone...
Deployment Goals Update
I have been deployed for nearly three months and thought I would do a fast update on my deployment goals that I posted at the beginning of September. I know that it’s been awhile since I last posted a blog, but obtaining these goals, in addition to work has kept me away from post as much. I promise to get back on it again and I’ll be playing catch-up this month – so much as happened and I really...
September 2011
8 posts
A Hail – then a Sad Farewell
It’s only been a month since we arrived in Afghanistan, but things have moved quickly. We learned the tricks of the trade, how things operate, and befriended many of the civilian contractors that worked in our lab, plus reduced the IED cases on hand by more than a hundred while still receiving more.
Contractors come and go; whether they leave country and go back to the United States, or move to...
Barracks Inspection
It was supposed to be a sleep-in Sunday, but instead it was an early-morning wake-up. A wake-up that I had never expected in my wildest dreams in a combat zone…a wake-up to conduct a Barracks Inspection!
The barracks have been the focus for the First Sergeant of Combined Joint Task Force Hurtlocker since we arrived in July. First Sergeant (1SG) Figg has had difficulty in maintaining the two...
A Hot August Saturday
Get Your Souvenirs
Just one day after we sold our last CEXC performance t-shirt, Major Lego was told by Lieutenant Colonel Zipper that we needed to remove our “CEXC” Souvenirs” section off of our main website. Lieutenant Colonel Zipper stated that “someone” at our higher headquarters didn’t like that we were advertising our souvenirs on the site, which is understandable. I guess in a way of...
Protecting Against the Sun
We all know that we should protect our skin from the sun by wearing sun screen, but what we never really think about is protecting our buildings from the sun. Today, the team met at 5am to erect a solar sun shade that would provide additional protection from the Afghan sun and heat that beat down on our chemical and triage laboratories. None of us exactly knew how to erect the solar shade, as none...
Been There, Done That and HAVE THE T-SHIRT
Have you ever traveled somewhere and purchased the best looking t-shirt you could find from there? Or buy a shirt because you did something, like survived the Earthquake, or jumped out of a plane? I have…it’s seems that now I look for the best surf shop and try to get a shirt from there. However, here in Afghanistan, it’s hard to find a surf shop.
It seems that t-shirts are available everywhere...
The Fine Print
A few people have asked me about my blog, and how accurate things are in it. So, I thought I would explain the fine print to make everyone aware of this blog.
I decided to write this blog to really educate the “civilians” back home on what a deployment is like for a Soldier. This isn’t going to explain the on the ground fighting, combat, or the interaction with locals in the villages of...
Training the French
During the month of July, one of my favorite sporting events occurs - the Tour de France or in French, they say “Le Tour de France.” Just a week after the Tour de France ended, we had a group of French Army Soldiers in our CEXC laboratory. We had heard that a French Army unit would be stopping by our laboratory to learn how a CEXC laboratory operates, as the French would be establishing and...
Deployment Goals Update
I have been deployed for nearly two months and thought I would do a fast update on my deployment goals that I posted at the beginning of July:
GOAL: Run at least 1,000 miles during the deployment.
UPDATE: Ran 120.46 Miles since arriving in Country. I wanted to run an average of 20 miles per week in August, which I did, for a total of 80.93 miles in the month of August. My plan is to increase that...
