One Week

January 6, 2010
Camp Lejeune
13:36

A week from yesterday, I'll be on a plane ride to Afghanistan. I'll probably actually still be flying at this hour, or at least just landed.

Today is the TMO storage day and it's irritating to have it a week before we leave instead of maybe this Friday or something. I have to get everything I'm not packing or throwing away before I leave into three boxes for storage. It only took me two last night. We were told yesterday after the "class" they gave us on properly storing the items that they'd come around the barracks at 8. They still haven't showed up. I called one of my Corporals to let him know this, he hasn't gotten back to me in forty minutes and the rest of my platoon is at the gym working out right now. I haven't eaten lunch.

This is my fourth day getting back from leave. From December 19th through January 3rd I was back in Champaign. It was an enjoyable experience and worth the 31 hour trip it took me to get home due to bad weather. The only thing that was awful was the torture I went through knowing that my return here was imminent soon. It was constantly on my mind. I even had a nightmare or two about it, just like I had nightmares about coming home while I was at Camp Wilson for Mojave Viper training. I had a couple dreams that I arrived home and forgot all of my stuff back in the barracks. I had a dream about halfway through leave that I was already back here.

We haven't done too much since I've been back. I've had to get a second missing gear statement for lost CIF gear during the Mojave Viper movement. They gave me almost all of my gear the first time, but I guess they'd rather be smartasses instead of help me out. The woman working there knew full well that when I wrote "ILBE Main Pack" on the first statement that it included all the components which I wasn't aware needed to be listed seperately.

So she said, "Do you need the shoulder straps?"
"Uh...yeah, I didn't know that was seperate," I answered.
"Yes, it's a separate piece attached to it."

Of course she didn't ask me if I needed the waist straps, radio pouch, or lid. Now I have to get a second missing gear statement passed all the way up the chain of command and get what I'm missing probably by Friday, and I've been sitting in my room all day doing nothing but waiting for someone who's probably not going to come. And that's a wasted day I could've spent going to the S1 to get the last signature I need from "someone out of my chain of command" and the stamps on the paper so I can get it passed to my platoon commander.

Worthless. We're so time efficient around here.

Of course I asked "Who do I need to sign this as the counseling officer?"
"Someone out of your chain of command," one of my other Corporals said and pretty much handed the papers back to me and walked away.

It kind of reminded me when I first brought this up to Corporal Cardec and he said "Yeah, we'll take care of you" and never said anything about it again before leave, so now I have less than a week to get it done. The best part? Those three worthless components are worth almost $140. So total, almost $3,000 worth of crap was lost in my main pack during the movement to Mojave Viper. The worst part is that it's a fucking hassle to get it all back. There's a cloud of bureaucratic bullshit between me and the missing gear that's so thick you could...you know, cut it with a knife.

So while I've been waiting, what have I been doing? I took a two and a half hour nap. I've been watching videos online. Of course if I had my car I would've gone to the S1 myself to get that crap done with.

This is the Marine Corps.