Henry's Web Log

We finished at Camp McCrady and received our travel orders at 6:30pm Friday. Myself and Major Tom Jadrich were to leave for Aberdeen Proving Grounds at 9am Saturday morning. We’ll both receive additional training in Ordnance, specifically regarding maintenance management. The McCrady staff scribbled a contact down for me: "Aberdeen Proven Ground, 888-555-1234" Note that they have been sending soldiers to one of only 12 training posts in the nation for the last 4 years. You'd think the specifics of making flight arangements, and spelling would have come up sometime before today.

In spite of both leaving the same place at the same time, and having the same destination, we flew into separate airports: me into Reagan, Tom into BWI. Our contact, a retired Command Sergeant Major, met me and we drove to BWI to get Tom. The odd thing is, both of our flights were less than half full. Go figure.

In the ride to Aberdeen, we learned that there will be 3 more days of SRP: Soldier Readiness Processing, the same thing we just finished at McCrady/Ft. Jackson. Why? Well, I cite the evidence above as illustration that the McCrady staff may not fully grasp their mission. By the second week, we should receive confirmation of our deployment unit. After 3 weeks at Aberdeen, we should be on our way to join a unit that is stateside and in the process of deploying to Iraq.

Aberdeen is nice- we’re in superb quarters: small apartments instead of open-bay barracks. Everything is in walking distance. Saturday I caught a live comedy show at the post theater. Sunday we went to the post chapel for a protestant service. Interestingly, the sermon tied the parable of the talents to the Army’s risk management system. You don’t get that kind of sermon just anywhere!

Tom and I went through the medical inprocessing, and sure enough, Fort Jackson missed a few things. I needed a few more shots, Tom needed glasses and shots, and we both had to receive a legal review and antiterrorist training. We finished up the day at the post gym and DFAC (dining facility). Well, not quite finished: the post library has a 3,000 volume DVD collection, so we checked out a few movies, picked up some popcorn & soda, and will watch “We Were Soldiers Once.”