For those of you that have spent time in this sandy hell before, you can probably just skip to the end. January in the middle of the Mojave Desert is cold. Cold enough to freeze giant puddles solid in a few hours at night. Those of you that know me, are fully aware of the fact that such temperatures fall well below anything meeting my approval. Fortunately, I remembered to pack my entire sleeping bag, so the nights are not that bad.

As with all training I’ve done in the Army, I find little relevance to anything in the real world out here. Hopefully my soldiers will learn something of use, though it will probably come as hip-pocket training from myself or one of the two other NCOs that actually care. The GoodIdeaFairy(tm) is alive and well in 3rd BDE, and is in no way experiencing any difficulty coming up with GFIs (Great F’ing Ideas) on a daily basis. For those of you that don’t know, the fairy is an idiot and any ideas coming from said fairy are far removed from reality, logic, or even the most remote regions of sanity. Do not ever attempt to question a GFI, particularly if you have a real solution that will save time and maximize the efficient use of available resources.

The above rambling aside, anyone holding out hope that I would make it out of the Army on time (read: August) had best let that go. I will be going back to Iraq in short order (read: March-ish), and I will be gone for a while. When I get back, the Army can stick a fork in me – I’m done. Having limited access, I will make whatever updates I can make, whenever I can make them.