It sucks getting deployed. It's not JUST the fact that you're separated from your family for an extended period of time, or putting up with explaining to your employer you're going to be gone for a good while, or putting your entire life "on hold"... but it's also the train-up process of doing a bunch of stupid unrelated training, sometimes three or four times because, although you signed the roster and did what YOU'RE supposed to do, the rosters get lost, the lazy soldiers tracking the training fail to update their spreadsheet, or you took the training "too far out" from your ship date. Many times, you're trained by reservists who've never even been deployed!
Well, we arrived in Kuwait, and (besides our four-day pass right before leaving), we can FINALLY let our hair down a little bit. From the beginning of our mobilization, I've been telling the other soldiers in my unit who have never been deployed before that life gets MUCH better once we "go over". Well, here I sit at the Green Beans Coffee House with gentle African music playing in the background, sitting on REAL furniture, reading a newspaper, and sipping on a double Cafe Mocha. It's just like visiting your local Starbucks, only all the patrons have rifles.
I was NEVER able to do anything like this during my train-up at Ft. Stewart. Why? Because First Army wanted to make our lives as miserable as possible to make the training as "real as possible". I guarantee the training is MUCH worse than actually coming over.
I'm glad I made it here, because it's going to be smooth sailing until this deployment is over. I did, however, come up with a brilliant quip about this brigade during my train-up:
Whoever says perpetual motion is impossible was never in the 56th IBCT...
...you get a LOT more bullshit out of them than you put in!
From the beginning of our mobilization, I've been telling the other soldiers in my unit who have never been deployed before that life gets MUCH better once we "go over". Well, here I sit at the Green Beans Coffee House with gentle African music playing in the background, sitting on REAL furniture, reading a newspaper, and sipping on a double Cafe Mocha. It's just like visiting your local Starbucks, only all the patrons have rifles. 
