Sunday, March 25, 2012

Getting into the Fight

I am going to Afghanistan--getting into the Fight.

At 0715 Friday morning in early February, a clerk handed me a note from my boss: "Call me at home."  Okay, strange.  He'd be in soon--why not talk in person, I asked myself.  But, he's the boss, so I called him.

Here is our conversation:

Me:  "Good morning, sir.  What's up?"  Waiting for my computer to finish loading.

Boss:  "Izac, you need to talk to Jessica."

Me:  "Okay."  (That sounds ominous.)

Boss:  "You still good about deploying?"

Me:  "Yes, sir."  (Uh...)

Boss:  "Okay, talk to Jessica.  I'll talk to you and Sam when I get in."

Let the roller coaster begin.  In 21 days I learned the meaning of "expeditionary" and that a lot of preparation is needed.

Training, training, annual training, and more training.  And gear issue.  Orders, travel orders, verbal orders, force of will to make things happen.

One day, my minion  and I were preparing to take on a complicated and interesting case from another office.  My office had a small case load, so we could take another case and spend plenty of time on it.

The next, I'm working up for a deployment.  2 months to boots on the ground and half that time would be spent traveling to and training in Virginia and Okinawa.  I had 21 days to essentially prepare for a deployment.

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