Things in Kuwait

I am exhausted! They have us on this crazy schedule. We landed and took off running. We never really got the chance to climatize or adjust to the time change. Our schedule is sporadic and the hours are long. the past 72 hours i've had 5 hrs of sleep. And none of that was continous. We have been doing a lot of training and driving all over the Kuwait. It's a lot different from last time. The places that I've been have all changed dramatically. A forward operating base(FOB) that was just a poop whole has 4 dining facilities(DFAC), 3 PX's(like walmart) and 4 recreation centers. Not to mention the Facilities themselves have improved a lot. People are still in tents but these are nice tents. Tents on concrete pads, a lot of lights and power outlets. The people in my company are being run ragged. And we just got here. That really isn't good because when this other company leaves and we have to take over people are going to be worn out. Last night we were on a mission and we had the other unit riding with us as instructors but our people started swerving all over the place,not because we needed more experience driving the vehicles we had but because they were falling asleep! Typically falling asleep when driving is something that just happens but it shouldn't happen with in a 6 hour time span! Its really not that long! The people from this unit we are replacing, the 1175th, keeps telling us about things that they see as problems in our unit. In the short time we've been here they've already identified our commander and several leaders as the problem. That coupled with kids that joined the Army yesterday and think they know everything and can do whatever they want. About the commander though, its kind of funny but really not. This other unit is happy that we are being rushed through all this training and have started running missions with them, because the faster we get through the training the sooner they can go home. But there are rules. Like a 72 hour climatization and time change time. A period of time that you are supposed to have as soon as you land on ground before you do anything. ANYTHING! There is a training schedule that goes 40 days out from the day we landed we are supposed to adhere to a way to gradually phase out the 1175th and phase us in. A transitory period to allow the soldiers of the 257 to gradually acquire experience and confidence in the job they will be doing. But we haven't been doing any of that! Your commander is supposed to look out for the interests of their soldiers. Not just say yes to every request from her peers or superiors just so that she can look good. She needs to learn how to just say no. It really isn't that hard. This other unit really doesn't like her either and I think that's funny cause they think she's a worthless piece of #$(* too. What makes it even more funny is they try not to say our commander and have a code name so that they won't scare the kids here in thinking that we have a worthless command. Moving on. The weather out here is humid! A lot more than I remember it being. Sitting in the drivers seat I'm dying! All of the gear that you have on contributes to your sweating and the humidity of all that just makes you feel nasty all the time. Not like a regular nasty cause I know what it feels like to be regular nasty, this is Army nasty which means super gross by most girls standards when they are at home. As far as things i want to do in my off time i' m trying to set up a flexible schedule where I allot a designated time length to each activity then just adjust fire. The difficulty is finding sufficient blocks of time to fit that activity.
but aside from all those things people in our living area are easy to get a long witha nd its definetely more fun having a lot of friends to run around with than a bunch of strangers so this deployment is one up on the last one in the friend/familiarity department.Thank you all for your concern and prayer they really do help a lot.on a side note I have the opportunity to lead prayer before each mission and its made people a lot more open to talking to me about spirituality. If I stay in the Line platoon I will be mostly witnessing to my squad and the TCN's, if I go to gun trucks then i have the opportunity to witness to more people because we'll be running with different clips.