Henry's Web Log

Wow! Last weekend was great, spending time with Lisa, Eric and Ethan! Too bad I didn’t have any information yet on where I was headed…that came on Monday. Thomas (Mark) and I both received orders for a Sustainment Brigade, mobilized from Kansas National Guard, and currently in Ft. Lewis.
Aberdeen has done all they could do to educate us, so Retired Seargent Major Posadas helped us get a flight to Fort Lewis, which is just south of Seattle. Tuesday we took care of little things to prepare to move out, including yet another Anthrax shot (3 out of 7 are complete!).
Today we left at 5:30am, flew to Detroit, then to Seattle in a little over 8 hours. With the time zones on our side, we arrived by 2pm, which gave us enough time to start the in-processing today. Third time is a charm, right? We’ll see.
The unit is pretty close to flying to Iraq. Right now the question is whether we’ll be trained up enough on THEIR processes to fly with them, or have to join them later in Kuwait. The final destination is varied, since a Sustainment Brigade supports an entire theater. About halfway between Bagdad and Kuwait, lies Tallil. As a brigade-sized support element, we’re a couple of levels higher than most maintenance, supporting a division. Or at least supporting the battalions and companies that are supporting the various brigades in a division. I'm still in touch with the 111th Multifunction Medical Battalion. Their XO is here at Ft Lewis as well, so I may meet him tomorrow morning.
Fort Lewis has barracks that make McCrady look appealing! Doesn’t matter much to us, since this is just a pit stop. We’re glad to finally be meeting and talking with the folks we’ll go to war with. At this level, a sustainment brigade is built from plug-and-play elements, so I would expect less cohesion: but my first impression is that this is not the case! They seem trained, cohesive and intelligent. They just got the bad luck of the draw for billets.