Stereo Type

The elections are upon us.  More on that later.

Everything’s shut down.  The roads are black, meaning no missions.  Air travel is minimal, the Iraqi borders are closed.  We’ve shut up shop and are going to weather the storm.

I’ve been in Taji since Thanksgiving Day, the longest I’ve been in camp.  And I’m drifting toward cabin fever.  Now with the elections, I’m doomed to spend another week or so at the behest of the staffers and brass.

There’s been much to do in the office, namely getting caught up on Hometown News releases.

The Army has a great program where you are able to fill out a little form and turn it in to your local Public Affairs Office.  We’ll take it, type it in, and release it to this organization that fires it out to local news papers and TV stations in that soldier’s hometown.  Cool, right?

We had a quota of providing eight to 10 of these per battalion per month for our higher headquarters.  That was just to ensure we didn’t blow it off, and gave soldiers a chance to be seen back home.  Not a problem, it only came in to about 30-40-ish per month.

Where the “whoopsie” came in was when our colonel chose this as his flavor of the week sometime while I was gone and demanded 100% participation.

So, there sits on my desk around 600 forms so far.  I’ve filed away close to 70, and expect a couple hundred more to arrive in the next day or so.  Nearly all of them are just saying we’ve arrived in theater, with a couple “hey, I got promoted” ones for color.

It used to take me 10 minutes per to get these things into the Hometown News database.  I’ve scrapped it down to five or six minutes.

That’s a lot of typing.  I’m on day five and my mind is numb.  Lord help the admin people who do this all the time.

I’ve caught up on all the office gossip and have snacked incessantly on the goodies people have brought in from family and friends.

Still, I’m looking forward to next week when I kick out again, this time to the north.  Until then, I’m stuck in Fobbit land.

P.S.  For those who don’t know:

Fobbit (n) – term of disdain for personnel deployed to a war zone who cower, hide and never leave a FOB (forward operating base).  Replaces the vulgar term, REMF.

P.P.S.  We’re hitting blackout comms a lot these days.  I’ll try posting as much as I can.  Peace.

P.P.P.S. Thanks to finch for my Christmas present!  I put it on the Book list.  Rock.

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