http://aggiefamily.com/ Aggiefamily.com en-us Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:28:56 GMT 1440 CPG-Nuke Dragonfly Aggiefamily.com News http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html http://aggiefamily.com/images/logo.png http://aggiefamily.com/ http://aggiefamily.com/News/article/sid=275.html Here's my address in Iraq: SFC Wyatt, James Troop A, 1-124th Cavalry Camp Slayer APO AE 09342-1400 On my wish list: - Golf balls (old beat up ones from the driving range so I can hit them into the lake) - Fabuloso deodorizing cleaner (the purple one. It smells nice and plumbing here is terrible so it tends to stink up the houses) I really don't need much of anything else. I have a truck that I can drive around on the camp and eating snack foods is just going to make me fat. I'll add to the wish list once I've moved in and figured out what my platoon will need. Did I mention I'm living in a lake house? I managed to get my entire platoon to fit into four lake houses. I wouldn't call them the greatest houses in the world. They may have been at one time but five years worth of soldiers living in them has pretty much torn them up. We're trying to acquire lumber to build shelves and beds because the beds we have are falling apart. Unfortunately, with everything under contract, it's expensive to get lumber, much less anything else. The markup is ridiculous on everything here and we can't really do any of our own work without breaking the contract. The catch-22 is that the only things in our houses under contract are the electrical (another nightmare) and the plumbing. Everything else is basically whatever we can scrounge up either by dumpster diving or "re-appropriating" from elsewhere. I'm trying to work some magic with the civilians to get what we need. While on the subject of civilians, they outnumber us on Camp Slayer. And they think they can get away with everything. The Platoon Sergeant I'm replacing explained their attitude well. On other, more remote basecamps, civilians realize that the military is there to protect them because there are bad guys out there. In Baghdad, they forget that there are people out there trying to kill them and their only defense is the military. On Camp Slayer, that's us. We're their protection but they don't appreciate it. It became an issue with the previous unit and I'm sure it will continue to be an issue with us. Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:28:56 GMT http://aggiefamily.com/News/article/sid=274.html Mon, 17 Nov 2008 04:49:15 GMT http://aggiefamily.com/News/article/sid=273.html We made it to Kuwait, after a couple of days of delays. It's amazing how the smell and endless expanse of desert brings back the memories....and the flies. I hate flies. These damn things land in your ears and mouth and have no fear. We'll be here for a bit to do yet more training and then we'll head north. Since I have to be aware of Operational Security (OPSEC), my postings will be vague and usually a few days late, just like last time. Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:25:24 GMT http://aggiefamily.com/News/article/sid=272.html The Brigade, and specifically Troop A, is approaching the halfway point in our training. We've completed an excellent three days in urban operations training and have demonstrated how well we have come together as platoons and a Troop. We've also gone through our combat patrol lanes where we were thrown to the wolves at the squad level. Alpha continues to prove its worth. We are at the end of our scout gunnery and a comment made last night by an OIC with the observer controllers struck us as both amusing and irritating. Upon looking at our qualification scores and the lack of Q2 (second time qualifications), this OIC said the evaluators were being too easy on us because a National Guard unit shouldn't be doing so well in a gunnery. He was set straight by our evaluators...they said, Alpha is just that good. It helps that quite a few of us come from the organic Troop and the concept of gunnery is not foreign to us. Humvee gunnery is simple compared to Bradley and Tank gunnery and we have demonstrated how well we can accomplish any mission put before us. Granted, we're a little irritating, slightly arrogant, and don't exactly like to conform...but that's ok, we're the Cav and know we're always right. My Platoon is coming together and we've grown into a tight knit group of guys. I've been blessed with some great troopers and the majority of them are a great fit, given my style of leadership. We've got a Mission Readiness Exercise coming up in a few days where we'll combine all of our previous training into a force on force exercise. While it will be exhausting, we're looking forward to it because it means that it's all downhill from there. Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:16:26 GMT http://aggiefamily.com/News/article/sid=271.html Here's the mailing address at Fort Stewart: SFC Wyatt, James M A/1-124 CAV, TF Knight 845 HASE ROAD, STE 102 FT STEWART, GA 31315 Update!! If you are sending a package using anything other than USPS, you must send it to the following address: SFC Wyatt, James M A Trp 1-124 Cav, TF Knight Building 13140 Niles Road Fort Stewart, GA 31314 Any packages sent to the other address are not being signed for by our Brigade and are being returned to sender. Mon, 01 Sep 2008 13:36:01 GMT http://aggiefamily.com/News/article/sid=270.html My Squadron just completed training at Fort Wolters (Mineral Wells), Texas. It consisted mostly of weapons ranges and the month we spent there flew by pretty quickly. We are now at Fort Stewart, Georgia, where we will complete our premobilization training and processing. We arrived throughout the day last Thursday with the latest arrival being Friday morning on the red eye. I got here just before midnight and spent the first hours of my birthday on a bus from Hunter Army Airfield to Fort Stewart. The accommodations here are slightly better than Fort Wolters, where we had no functioning air conditioning in the living area. The humidity is borderline unbearable here but the scenery isn't bad. Spanish moss drapes over the oak and pine trees and mosquitoes the size of small birds carry off the occasional soldier for some blood sucking. It apparently rained a solid two weeks before we got here so we're dealing with the effects of that. The training schedule is pretty filled up, though these first few days here have been pretty light and full of a lack of common sense on the part of certain certifying parties. We've gotten our immunizations and the anthrax shot hurts more than I remembered. I've been pretty busy and taking pictures hasn't been much of a priority for me. I'll try to remember to take more as training starts to kick off. Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:56:14 GMT http://aggiefamily.com/News/article/sid=269.html Pictures from the San Antonio trip to Sea World and the Zoo are now posted in the Family section of the Gallery. Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:26:46 GMT http://aggiefamily.com/News/article/sid=268.html I finally got the pictures from the Cancun vacation we took last month uploaded to the website. You'll find 233 photos in the gallery. I'll throw a couple of videos on the front page of the site when I get the opportunity to upload them later. I am no where near being caught up with photo uploads but maybe I'll have time next month since the training tempo will be a little slower. Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:19:13 GMT http://aggiefamily.com/News/article/sid=267.html I have finished up training at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana. Three weeks of training that included convoy situational training lanes, weapons' qualification, and individual warrior task training proved to be rather tiring and, at times, frustrating for all involved. I'm the Platoon Sergeant for 2nd Platoon, Alpha Troop, 1st Squadron, 124th Cavalry. As most who know me are aware, I've been with this Cavalry Squadron for my entire career in the National Guard, with the exception of my deployment to Bosnia with HHC, 49th Armored Division eight years ago. I'm a proud cavalry scout and have been waiting for the opportunity to lead a scout platoon into combat for a long time. It will prove to be challenging as I begin to develop my platoon, which is comprised mostly of "fillers" from other units across the state, very few of which are actually cavalry scouts. Our mission remains up in the air and even if I knew it, I won't be talking about specifics here anyway. My platoon has made it to Fort Wolters in Mineral Wells, Texas and will be here for a few more days before moving back to Waco to release for the 4th of July. I'll be back on orders again following the holiday and at this point, I have no idea what I'll be doing during the period between now and our next training period in August. We'll be in Fort Wolters again at the end of July and will remain here until our Federal active duty orders kick in, at which point, we'll begin the official preparation for deployment to Iraq. I'll get into more of that later. Fort Wolters, located in Mineral Wells, was an old World War 2 training camp and during Vietnam, was an Army aviation training camp. The most significant part of its history, as far as I'm concerned, is that it was the drilling location for F Troop, and specifically, Jack Knight, the only Medal of Honor recipient in the China Burma India theater of operations in World War 2. F Troop was part of my Cavalry Regiment and Fort Wolters served as the drilling grounds for one of the last horse cavalry regiments in the US Army. Jack Knight served at the commander for F Troop and served along with his brother Curtis, who was the Troop First Sergeant. I had the pleasure of meeting his youngest brother, Bill, who happens to live in Mineola and also happens to know Kristi's grandmother....small world. Learn more about the Regiment at the other website I maintain, http://marsmen.org. Internet access, while present, is miserably slow through the tethering on my phone so photos will be uploaded while I'm home for the holiday. Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures but promise to make up for it in August and when we get to our mobilization station. Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:08:03 GMT http://aggiefamily.com/News/article/sid=266.html Some brief updates: - I stopped working on 16 May and took my three weeks of accrued vacation to carry me through 7 June. - Got back from our Cancun vacation on Sunday...Wow, I have a new found respect for the Mayan culture. We visited Chichen Itza, Tulum, and Xel-ha. Chichen Itza left me in awe, Tulum was beautiful, and Xel-ha was fun. I know I've been a little negligent with the pictures and updates, so I'll try to get caught up with pictures tonight or tomorrow. - 7 June is my first active duty order. I'll be gone for a month and back home for July 4th. Then it's up in the air for the rest of July until the 26th, when I have to report back to Waco. I'll be put on the mobilization orders around that time and I'm off to Fort Stewart within the next couple of weeks. No exact times can be given for the obvious reasons, but I'll try to post pretty frequently once I leave. I'll hopefully have the new website up and with that I'll be able to post directly to the site from my phone...with pictures too. I'll have Internet access through my phone while I'm in the States and will most likely get a SIM card in Iraq since my cell phone is a global phone. - Katie is 8 years old! She's growing up fast, along with her brother, who is developing a really fun personality. He's a little genius like his sister and has developed a love for books as well. We hope he'll be reading early like Katie and since he won't start school until he's six, because of his birthday, we're going to try to find a school to get him a head start. Especially since we don't qualify for Head Start here, because our income is too high. Don't get me started on that...though I did learn that Mexico does not have a welfare system, which means they HAVE to work to live. Since everyone works that leads to fewer available jobs, hence the illegal immigration problem...but don't get me started on that either. We could probably learn a little bit from Mexico regarding the welfare system. Those who know me well, know my opinion of those who abuse the system. Anyway, we're heading off to San Antonio next week for a free visit to Sea World. We'll try to catch the zoo while we're there too. Stay tuned for updates...and check back for new pictures. Tue, 27 May 2008 20:05:01 GMT