Henry's Web Log

One of the other Majors with us actually manages an OfficeMax warehouse. So I thought it would be appropriate to tip my hat to him and use the OfficeMax "Elf Yourself" tool. We had fun with it last year, and this year they've got more features built in. Cool. But it just goes to show you can't leave Majors idle around an Internet connection!

Lisa and I made a promise before I left: we'd each try to loose 10 pounds. I've got a lot more than she does to loose, and I've gotten right to work on it.
One of our briefings on "battle mind" (or as a football coach would say, "getting your head into the game") was about coming back as a 300. It's your choice whether that's a 300 on your PT test (perfect score on Army Physical Fitness), or 300 pounds. Because there's considerable discretionary time, and lots of really good food. See an online calculator for the Army's PT test
So I'm working on my weight goal, and hopefully improving my PT score in the process. I started at 226 pounds on October 5th. I was within Army standards, but have to be body-fat measured. My goal is to be below the screening weight for body-fat testing ("tape test" - because they measure your girth and use various look-up tables to guesstimate your body fat percentage). So my goal is under 214 pounds. Right now, I'm 218! I was pretty frustrated last month as I was eating right, exercising more than most of my peers, and still not loosing anything. Well, I took a dramatic step last week: I stopped all caffeine and artificial sweetners. No Diet Coke, my favorite beverage! And within a week, about 4 pounds have come right off.

I want to stress that this is all self-imposed. The Army is really not enforcing body-fat except in extreme cases right now: seeing as how they're calling us old Individual Ready Reserve folks out of the woodwork. In fact, I'll go so far as to confess that no one has given us a physical fitness test or tape-test since we re-entered active duty. I do know they looked at this in the medical fitness review, but it wasn't a very close look!

I'm pretty excited about my progress, though, and I look forward to the benefits of dropping this extra weight: faster run times, easier to do push-ups, less stress on my knees, and above all, looking good for my Lisa!

We did the HEAT simulator this week. That's the HMMWV Egress Assistance Trainer (an acronym within an acronym- the very best kind!!)
The HEAT trainer lets you experience a rollover in an uparmored HUMMWV, then practice releasing your seatbelt while upside down, while taking on water, or under darkness. Then you're balanced on your head, so you need to get out without choking! Rollovers are a big cause of injury right now, so this is very relevant training for us.
Take a look!

Seattle is known for rain, and has been true to form this first week here in Fort Lewis. We could easily see Mount Rainier the day we arrived, but I haven’t seen it since!
With an average annual rainfall of 37 inches, this is a far cry from the 4.1 inch average annual rainfall Nasiriya, Iraq. So I’ll be careful what I wish for!
Speaking of rain, Eric recently participated in the Christiansburg High School Marching Band recruitment night. Eric has played baritone for 2.5 years now, and said he had a great time at this wet event.

Wow! Last weekend was great, spending time with Lisa, Eric and Ethan! Too bad I didn’t have any information yet on where I was headed…that came on Monday. Thomas (Mark) and I both received orders for a Sustainment Brigade, mobilized from Kansas National Guard, and currently in Ft. Lewis.
Aberdeen has done all they could do to educate us, so Retired Seargent Major Posadas helped us get a flight to Fort Lewis, which is just south of Seattle. Tuesday we took care of little things to prepare to move out, including yet another Anthrax shot (3 out of 7 are complete!).
Today we left at 5:30am, flew to Detroit, then to Seattle in a little over 8 hours. With the time zones on our side, we arrived by 2pm, which gave us enough time to start the in-processing today. Third time is a charm, right? We’ll see.
The unit is pretty close to flying to Iraq. Right now the question is whether we’ll be trained up enough on THEIR processes to fly with them, or have to join them later in Kuwait. The final destination is varied, since a Sustainment Brigade supports an entire theater. About halfway between Bagdad and Kuwait, lies Tallil. As a brigade-sized support element, we’re a couple of levels higher than most maintenance, supporting a division. Or at least supporting the battalions and companies that are supporting the various brigades in a division. I'm still in touch with the 111th Multifunction Medical Battalion. Their XO is here at Ft Lewis as well, so I may meet him tomorrow morning.
Fort Lewis has barracks that make McCrady look appealing! Doesn’t matter much to us, since this is just a pit stop. We’re glad to finally be meeting and talking with the folks we’ll go to war with. At this level, a sustainment brigade is built from plug-and-play elements, so I would expect less cohesion: but my first impression is that this is not the case! They seem trained, cohesive and intelligent. They just got the bad luck of the draw for billets.