New Job

Well, this marks the end of my first week at the new job. For the last year+ I have been serving as a platoon leader in the 82nd ABN Division. Throughout that time I have learned more than I ever thought possible. It has been tough and not always rewarding, but looking back on it, I now know that I will remember the experience as one of the best of my life.

At present I am serving with an infantry battalion in the 82nd. I'm still interested to see how I am received by the other officers since I am not combat arms. So far, however, I have been treated extremely well. We have been working long hours on training exercises, but I look forward to this job more with each passing day. I already feel like what we do makes a difference. As time goes, I hope I grow to love it more. We will see.

Egyptian protests? Tunisia? Yemen? They say there is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.

It's about time . . .

Well, I have allowed more than a year to go by without posting. I'm sure that all the millions of people out there that read this have been anxiously awaiting for my return. Well, wait no longer. The glorious day of your liberation has arrived. I am sitting here in Fayetteville on the end of a four day weekend, or a 96 to some of you. I have thoroughly enoyed my three and a half days off, and I think I will prob spend the rest of this day dreading tomorrow. That seems to be my new schedule: anticipate the coming weekend and, once it arrives, dread the coming week.

With that being said, I am spending my last two weeks in my current job before switching. I am actually swapping job positions with a good friend. He will be coming to take my job, and I will take his. Unfortunately, we will do this on the exact same day so there will be no time to pass of any knowledge. It's not the end of the world, but I'm certain that a day or two together would help pass quite a bit of instiutional knowledge on.

The stressor in this job change lies in the fact that I will report to an infantry battalion. They generally push their officers to go to RANGER school, and I am gearing up for the pressure that will no doubt be laid on me as soon as I enter the door. I have spent the last several days trying to drum up in the internal stamina and intestinal fortitude to convince myself that I want to go to Ranger School. I know it would suck to do, but I'm sure the reward and fulfillment at the end is worth the hunger, lack of sleep, loss of energy, loss of massive amounts of weight, teeth falling out, hair falling out by the roots, general loss of will to live and co-exist in a meaningful manner on the planet, and so on. A piece of cloth with RANGER on it has got to be worth that doesn't it?

I haven't figured it out yet. I'll try and post more and keep on top of things here.