Taking In the Options So, as the deployment has been going along, I've been got pretty lax about certain things, found my routine and have been busy working hard or hardly working. Basically, we've been doing a lot of inspections, but have been moved to bigger and better things like teaching classes. I got to go to the Irish Camp on Tuesday and teach them all about Snakes. It got so much fun that when I told one of my friends in Task Force Tornado, he talked his squad leader in having me teach his squad all about them as well. I had even managed to acquire a live snake for the Irish. It was just a harmless little 'frog snake' but the visual aid was all that mattered. There are no snakes in Ireland. I would like to be able to teach more classes in the future, it is one of my favorite points of my MOS. Speaking of which, today I went and inspected the Midtown Gym, which was fine as usual, and noted the address to the onpost retention NCO. So I stopped by his office for a little chat. See, I'm up for Re-enlistment this November and I want to take in all of my options in the army, whether I want to get out after this deployment, stay reserves, or go active duty. If I do stay in, I'll probably change my job field. So there's that to look at as well. As much as I sometimes love the army, the role of Preventive Medicine doesn't alway click with me. So, there's that aspect to consider as well. And being female, all combat arms related fields are automatically nixed. So, moving on, I checked out GoArmy.com to see what they had to say about me re-enlisting and checking out all of my job options. And the 15,000 sign on bonus is kind of a clincher. Dollar Signs are in my eyes. And its tax free. I would get it all within a month. That's like a down payment on a house! Or a new car. or something. Flippen Sweet! Um, maybe for now I'll just keep my options open. Becuase I still want to go back to school. Maybe the Reserves is a better option in that case. I don't know. I'll figure this all out over the next 6 months. -SGT E: # 10:41 AM - |

Monday, May 23, 2005

Snakes and the Irish We got a request from the Irish Camp here in Kosovo to give them a class on Snakes and Arthropods in the Balkans. I got tasked to do the portion on Snakes. I'm excited :) I borrowed a lot of information from this site. See, there are no Snakes in Ireland. So now its my job to train up some Irish soldiers on what to do if you encounter one of these critters. And this will be the first time I've gone to a Foreign National Camp outside of MultiNational Brigade East. Also, I signed up to run a half marathon. I think I need to see the Psychiatrist again after that is all said and done. (yes, I'm making an effort to post to this thing again.) -SGT E: # 5:22 PM - |

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Mogila Vetcap Boy have I been ignoring this thing. *scolds self* Anyway, recently I was priveleged in attending a Vetcap in Mogila which isn't very far from Bondsteel. It was in conjuction with a Medcap, except for we went to various people's homes and offered to deworm their animals as opposed to the people coming to a fixed location to see us in regards to medical treatment. Most people were open to this, anything to make their animals healthier of course. There was a handful of us who offered to help the Vets with their job, myself included. Anything to get out of the wire, and even doubly fun when we get to hang out with doggies and cows and pigly wigglies and horsies! Um, can you tell I'm an animal nut? Anyway, we provided medical support to the animals of Mogila and went house to house trying to help whoever wished for our services. As soon as the kids found out we were treating dogs, they went home and got their pooches and brought them to us to treat. At first, the resident animal care specialist on the ground took care of deworming a few of the first animals, but then, of course, this is something they do every day so they quickly passed it onto the hired help, which includes myself. I gleefully took over, and started deworming a lot of dogs. Um, there were a few dogs that I just passed the syringe to the owner and said 'You do it.' See, there are two kinds of dogs in Kosovo. Big friendly dogs that just want to lap your face off with their big slobbery tongue, and big mean angry dogs that want to eat you for breakfast. This dog is the Latter. Well, I wasn't the only hired hand for this mission, and so other people took over the deworming of the dogs and I got this little device. Next came the Pigs and the cows. We did a lot of Serbian Homes during the Vetcap. Mogila is an unusual community in that its about 40/60 ratio of Serbians and Albanians (I don't know which ratio belongs to who) and they seem to get along alright. But the problem with us Americans is we can't always tell them apart. Well, one way to tell them apart is if they have pigs, they are most likely Serbians. If they don't, well, they could be Serbian or Albanian. Kind of narrows it down, doesn't it? Piggies! Piggies didn't like to be sprayed. You sprayed the dewormer on their back and they absorb it through their backs. Thing is, cows don't like to be sprayed either. the little pigs are to small to be sprayed, we just gave the owners Iron Supplements. I also got to spray the Moo Cows. There were a lot of cows, most of these families had at least one or two cows. They have these little lots, you are surprised by how much they have in them. Its a full fledged farm on an average city lot. I also almost got kicked by a cow, but it did leave a layer of cow crap on my pant leg. We didn't use the spray on the horses, and we couldn't find the owner to this horse. Excuse me, its a pony. There are no horses in Kosovo. So we gave the neighbor a vile of Dewormer to give to his friend so that the horse could get dewormed. He was such a cute little horse too, I couldn't resist giving him a pat on the head. Yeah, with how I talk about animals, you would never believe that I'm famous for being an advocate of things that go bang. But I can't hunt. I like aminals to much. -SGT E: # 3:35 PM - |