Week One

I will lump week one all together from Friday, 4 Feb – Friday, 11 Feb I was in or headed to Fort Benning Georgia in order to get all my training and my gear to head out for my deployment so I will put those days together.  It is funny, from the beginning I haven’t been worried about being in Afghanistan and the violence here, maybe that will come, but I have no doubt that it is more likely for me to die at home from an accident then here.  Morbid I know but it is a fact of life, the difference is here my death would make a blip on the news at home it would not.  Anyway, that just hasn’t been a fear of mine, my biggest fear has been doing this all alone, and not knowing anyone.  Going into something completely blind and having to guide my way through it by myself.  But God is Good All the time and he has provided (a benefit to not having time to really write until now I can see a lot of things that occurred to make things easier).

                So to start on Friday the 4^th of February my dad and I began our driving journey down to Fort Benning.  There were a couple of ways I could have gotten down to Fort Benning, one was to go back to the Fort Leonard Wood area, and fly out of St. Louis or Springfield, or drive down on my own and find a way to get my vehicle to someone.  I went back and forth on this issue but the decision was made for me when the case I was working on got delayed a week because the government didn’t get the discovery they were suppose to provide to me.  That cut out a week of my time I should have been spending with my family so I decided that I would drive and not fly.  I would have had to leave and drive back to Fort Leonard Wood in order to fly out from there.  Well that ended up being a good decision because there was a huge snow storm that went through the Missouri area and a lot of flights were cancelled and delayed.  So the driving began…  While we were driving we listened to a book on tape/cd, and just kind of talked.  It was not a very eventful drive which is a good thing we just drove with some stops for food and bathroom breaks.  Then we got down to Columbus Georgia and the fort Benning area and found a hotel and checked in.  We got some dinner and ran a couple errands and then went to bed, neither my dad nor I had gotten a lot of sleep the night before.

                The next day started the CRC (Conus Replacement Center) part of my trip.  This was not a good start, I must say, I had to check in sometime between 9 am and 5 pm, so dad and I decided to take our time in the morning and then head on to post around 10.  Well it was a good idea to get to post early because we drove around for over 2 hours looking for the CRC.  The exit we were suppose to get off on was closed the directions were terrible and the signs didn’t start until we were almost were we needed to be.   Needless to say Dad was trying very hard not to get frustrated with me while we were driving because he knew it wasn’t my fault but if any of you know my dad you know that it took a lot for him to hold his general frustration of the situation in.  We finally found the place though and I checked in put my stuff in my room and was told I had about 3 hours before I needed to be anywhere, so dad and I went and grabbed some lunch, we were careful to note the course we took back so that we could get back to the CRC.  Once lunch was over and we made it back to the CRC, it took much less time this time, I said my goodbyes to dad and the journey alone began.

                This is my first deployment and I was doing it through the CRC, it is the sight that military personal and contractors go through to insure that they have everything they need, are medically, qualified, and have the proper equipment to deploy when they are not deploying with a unit.  For most military deploying they deploy with a unit, usually the one they have been working with and attached to, their unit does all of these things as a group.  I was in a situation where I had no idea what to expect and what I needed to do, other than the notes and information I gathered from websites and others experiences.  In my opinion this is a tough way to deploy.  You are changing everything in your life and making a huge adjustment and you are doing also while trying to make friends so you have someone to eat lunch with.  It didn’t take long to meet people though, we are all in similar situations, I was at the first formation and another woman noticed my patch as being JAG.  (Where most JAGs wear the patch of whatever unit they are attached to, TDS wears a unique patch with scales and a sword on it, it is easy to identify us as lawyers, most JAGs you can’t tell right away)  She came up and started talking to me she too was a JAG coming over to Afghanistan, a different base, to do detainee operations.  Ended up she was in my room with me (we were the only two which was nice).  Instant friend, then I just started being myself and talking to people, there were a few people from or recently from Fort Leonard Wood, none had been my clients although some knew a few of them. 



Getting ready for the range



                The CRC is a bunch of check the block type stuff, make sure you have all your computer training done, make sure you have all your shots, make sure your dental records are up to date, and you have all the qualifications you need on weapons.  Weapons qualification was something that worried me.  As an officer we carry 9 mm hand guns, shooting one has never been a strong point of mine.  I am pretty good on a M4 or M16 rifle I shoot pretty high but 9m is just something I don’t have a lot of confidence in.  Dad and I had gone out right before we left to the range and it didn’t instill a lot of confidence in me either.  However, things were not as bad as I suspected they would be.  I did go out on the range twice the first time I failed to qualify, however it was a pop up target range and timing is everything, I didn’t have the timing quite down, however the second time I went out I got a 27 out of 30 (26 is expert).  I fell much more comfortable now having a 9mm.  The CRC was what it was, a lot of get here and wait in line for them to check my paperwork and see that I had everything done, go here and make sure that I got all the equipment I needed and then figuring out how to pack it all.  We receive a lot and I mean a lot of jackets and rain gear and tops etc.  The weather here is very similar to the weather in the states so I was pretty much spending my time figuring out what I needed to leave behind to save space and not have to lug around with me.  I met my goal, I had one bag of stuff I brought with me and two bags of gear, I left behind one bag with the SJA office at Fort Benning, mostly the extreme cold weather gear.  Everyday at the CRC we would all check the roaster that was continually updated to insure that we were a go, you didn’t want to be on the no go list, that is for sure.  Obviously I made it on the go list, in fact I was never on the no go list other then needing to get medication, which was malaria pills that all of us going to Afghanistan were required to get.  So off to the flight I go!





Preparing to leave