Month 11 Day 18

Notebook entry 13 reports given, Najib and Major in Garmsir, Qais class, Garrison support unit counter intelligence, teleconference one showed up.

Journal entry

Felt a little bad this morning about not going on the convoy.  It is odd, I don't actually like putting my life in danger, but I still have that feeling inside me that wants to go out there and do it because there are other Marines there.  The reason I didn't go on this one was ostensibly because I was not feeling well, but in truth, Capt Nowak wanted to go, and there could not be two lead-vehicle commanders, so he left me off the roster.  Oh well, a day to work on GMAT/jobs/Book.  Especially since the SIPR has been down all morning and the Fiber somehow got cut over by RedHorse, so we are about to go down on everything.  I guess is it God telling me that he doesn't want me to work.

I tried to go track down  Najib and Qais, but Najib had gone to Garmsir with the Major.  This has really got to be pissing Qais off.  I gave a class to Qais and the GSU CI, just a basic IPB review (mostly, because I refuse to advance until Qais gets it) the GSU CI said that it was not basic, and he too was having trouble with the cardinal directions, he is a 2ndLt and we were just going over the places in the AO.  The Marine CI also came to help him out.

I spent a good portion of time after the class looking for jobs, doing a costing of the MBA, and finding out more about the GMAT. 

In the afternoon the RCT came over and we did the teleconference, Qais was 20 min late, only the GSU CI and 1st Kandak showed up (he was also late).  No reports exchanged.  Resounding success.

The guys made it back from Garmsir at about 1530, NSTR. 

I went to dinner last night pretty tired.  For the first time in a long time I had worked almost an entire day on stuff that was challenging.

After the evening meeting, we discovered why our tent stunk and it didn't have anything to do with my upset stomach as we had thought, there was another foot-long rat caught in one of the old-school traps under my bed, I had not noticed him.  I threw him in the tiger-trap (the giant hole that has been excavated for the water tank for the shower that is months overdue), when I did, we saw that there was another one down there, apparently one that Josh had caught the other night had resurrected himself, so we killed him too, I'm quire certain that it is permanent this time, it was the most excitement we've had in a long time. I hate rats.  

I came back and worked on the book proposal and watched a TED about human rights abuse and giving cameras to people around the world so they can film the acts of abusers.  

What happens when you drill a well in the desert?  The local soldiers decide to use HESCO barriers as flower pots.