All Downhill

Older video, fall 2010. Longboarding hills at Ft. Bragg.

EFMB Fort Bragg

EFMB is an army abbreviation for Expert Field Medical Badge. It's a competition available to soldiers of all ranks in medical occupations. At this competition, in Ft. Bragg, ranks from Private through Major were in attendance. I did well on the written test and felt pretty confident about testing on "the lanes," but missed the mark on the land navigation test, something I haven't done since basic training, 3.5 years ago, and is done with army, methods, maps, compass and protractor. The Test Lanes are much as it sounds. Soldiers progress along a path, in this case, the North Carolina forests of Bragg, and demonstrate skills and competence in various tasks, medical and military alike. The photos are of the train up and course orientation in fairly casual situations. The actual testing went unphotographed and involved a far more serious scene and stressful scenarios.


I enjoyed the experience, and look forward to my next attempt, perhaps in August. Doing things like this competition, and other forms of non-deployment training and and self development have been unavailable till coming to Fort Bragg. The first three years of my army career were spent in Basic/AIT, then assignment to a line unit - a military police unit that had the development of medics low in its priorities. Then there was 15 months in Iraq. Now I'm working at Womack Army Medical Center and I've had time to sharpen my skill set in clinical and field environments.

Some Random Febuary Photos...

...for the sake of a month not abandoned, while left behind.

Some Random March Photos...

...for the sake of a blog not abandoned.

Back to Bragg

Not in order, almost in reverse order really, recent shots of leaving Florida in the early morning hours and driving north to Ft. Bragg. Though not really that far away, North Carolina feels like a world away from Florida. Funny that I say that after spending most of last year in Iraq. One could say - close to home is still NOT home.

Clouds clear on Bragg Boulevard as I come into the last couple miles before reaching post.

A couple of Fayetteville.



This is Womack Army Medical Center. I usually work in one of the associated clinics at Ft. Bragg. Everyday usually requires a trip to WAMC for one reason or another.

In South Carolina, near the state line, the historic NY/Florida I-95 mid-point, "South of the Border" . It's still there. How they afford to keep it open I have no idea. With all the lights they run at night the electric bill must be huge.

Georgia.

I-295, near I-95, on the northend, about 0600.

Giving Thanks, From Fayette'nam

The following account has been toned down (28NOV09), and subsequently more coherent than it was a few days ago when I posted it, on Thanksgiving. It took me almost a month to come to a point where I felt like writing about the incident, and in the original version my emotions surfaced. A good thing to get out of one's system, but not to leave as a lasting public document, viewable to the world.

Strange to think, for a couple of days, how though I was safer in Iraq. I came to Ft. Bragg with a mix of expectations, but I didn't expect to get carjacked - shot - and stabbed in this small city outside the U.S. Army's "Center of the Military Universe." This was far outside my expectations in spite of my fellow ex-N.C. soldiers at Ft. Carson CO giving me warnings before I left for home on the east coast, "be careful in 'Fayett'Nam' and '...stay off the strip.'" Now I ask - "what part of Fayetteville isn't the F'k'n' strip!?" Miles and miles of "strip" in this "conservative" area. I asked in one establishment why being a customer required a membership. "Cuz of the government, you know, fees and taxes." Sounds conservative a la cart to me. Conservative used to mean conservative use of government, now the word tends to apply more to social issues and a conflict results.

Fayetteville North Carolina, a place that would, by the mouth of the average church going local, consider the liberal big cities to be sinful satanic hubs. All the while Friday nights are big here, and Saturday nights are a close third to any given weekday night as the average 6 day patron has to make it to church on time. This is the only place on earth where I've seen on the signs outside retail shops, "Dancer Discount" along with the more common, "Military Discount."

I've had poor experiences with the locals in regular interactions as well. For example, as I bought groceries at a local store here recently, the cashier asked me as she rung up my reusable $1.99 Green Grocery Bags, paper or plastic? This is not just an indicator of a single person's lack of insight, but moreover an alarm to the lack of awareness in the general population. I was apparently the only person who ever bought the reusable grocery bag at her register.

Growing up near Daytona Beach, which I had always considered the seediest place on earth, with the highest homeless person per block ratio, at least in my experience, I thought these warnings about a little place in North Carolina to be the words of country folk. I often considered my fellow small town soldier, no matter the rank or combat experience, to be much less seasoned in the ways of street people and the like than myself.

I found myself lost, on the south side of Fayetteville, the same day I picked up my vehicle after it was recovered and repaired, I stopped inside a convenient store and asked for directions toward Bragg. The woman behind the counter quipped, "Jus' keep goin' strait!" Indeed. I asked for details on "strait," and with aggravation she obliged, "...strait up 301!" N? S?E?W?!! WTF!

But my perceptions have always been a bit outside of reality as well. Of course, just as it is for everyone, each of us, singular and lost from time to time. As close as I may ever get to truth, I find again and again how un-bespeckled within, and short-sighted I am. Dare I be critical of the locals when I'm the one who let himself be suckered into a violent carjacking, at 36 y.o.a., and fresh back from Iraq? But the sun comes up. I pull on my trousers. We go to work. You live to see another day. One gives thanks. From Bragg N.C. giving thanks, on Thanksviving, as things could have been worse in recent times past. A long road home, away from home, wherever that is anymore.

All Downhill

A various collection of my clips, skateboarding and Iraq, set to the music of Subeena. Click on the word "collection" in the prior sentence.

Fort Bragg

Well, I'm all settled at my new duty station, Fort Bragg, Fayetteville, North Carolina. I planned, while in Iraq, to go into an Airborne unit, and eventually 160th SOAR, a medical special operations unit. I submitted my airborne packet and reenlisted for Bragg. This I was told, should be more than enough to set me on the road to my listed goals.

As it turns out, the airborne packet I sent ahead of my return to the states, didn't make it any further than the bottom drawer of some PAC clerk's desk back at Fort Carson. My unit failed to further any and all forms and paperwork submitted, and lost my 4187 to change my report date to Ft. Bragg twice. So in less than 2 months after returning from Iraq, I'm was left with no choice but to PCS (change locations) and out process in less than half the time normally allotted. So be it. It was better in all aspects to get away from the 110th MP Co. as soon as possible. And I did.

Within the recent days, just shy of two months total, I went on block leave, came home to Florida, drove out to Colorado, after having my car broken into in Dallas, out processed, drove back to Florida, cross country (see the previous VV entries), and made it to Bragg to in process and get settled in with my new life.

My past imaginations are oft the pains and chagrin of times come to toe the line. Fruition fails expectations and I settle for less, but only as a step back from hope, as chance filters, wedged between. So now, I'm working in a clinic, at the "center of the military universe," sitting at a computer, looking up medical records as soldiers come in and leave out. I get a 1.5 hour lunch and ease is the way. I'm perhaps an ungrateful bastard to claim, but this is not what I hoped or planned for. To add to the quiet mental scream, after glancing through my personnel files I find my "lost" airborne packet lying there, lost and sleeping, to be handed to my new unit, far after the fact.

Yet, all in all, all is not lost. From my new spot, my new position, this new "unit," I'm told that I can apply to all and as many "schools" desired. A new perspective, since I'm no longer with an outfit about to deploy or redeploy, I can take advantage of the calm and missionlessness, and put myself forward. This is quite a change. The "whisky 1" school I wanted (Special Operations Medic), who's building is ironically a stone's throw from my barracks room, on Combat Medic Blvd. is in some ways even more available now, as is getting Airborne wings.

First things first though. My EMT certification ran out while downrange and I'm going to the recert class in a couple weeks. This is certainly something I need to get back in place first and is easier said and done from my new low key vantage point of my slow flow clinic bunker.

We'll see what happens next. I've been unsure of what to do with this blog. I changed the header and image. I'm no longer in a line unit, or in Iraq, so I'll keep the new Plain Jane header up top for now and see what comes next, but I recognize that it's important to keep writing. At my core, more than a soldier, medic, photographer, music lover, surfer or whatever, is my need to write. Nothing else feels like a religion or spiritual than writing, lining up and spitting out all those thoughts in my head. Knocking 'em down like karmic carnival bottles, one by one.


So, from time to time, unattended, my computer screensaver jumps to the random slideshow of all those pictures taken in Iraq of children, trucks, and soldiers and I can almost doubt my own memory that I was even there. But the blog stands for that reality, and stands for those scenes, those lives, and though it's a huge change from that world, now where I stand, as a long growing shadow, I'll see what evolves and report.