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Even medics get sick....
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A bit of irony here, even though I work in the medical field, I hate going to see the doctor when I’m sick. I would rather try to ride it out at home, then get up and go sit in a doctor’s office with a bunch of other people who feel as miserable as I do. For the first time on this deployment I feel really sick, Upper Respiratory infection. Lucky for me I know the Docs (personal friends of mine) and was given a shot of steroids and some antibiotics to try and knock it out quick. Still, you can’t take a pill and instantly be better, I have to work today, so I will still have to be around people as miserable as I am feeling.
If it isn’t the medics making someone feel better physically, then it is a battle buddy lifting the spirits of someone else when they are feeling miserable emotionally. It seems everyone has been a little busier making each other feel better around this holiday, there’s a lot of homesickness goin’ around.
It is easy to feel miserable around Christmas when you’re deployed, and there are times that I do, but what helps me through it is remembering what I do have. I have great friends, that provide amazing support for me here, I have a wonderful girlfriend who somehow is getting through this deployment without me being home (she is truly the best thing to happen to me), and a family who loves me. You appreciate these things so much more when you’ve been away from home as long as we have been. I see a lot remedies for homesickness around me that help as well, homemade cookies or fudge being sent to us, Christmas stockings and Christmas cards hanging from soldiers bunks, pictures of Christmas scenes drawn and colored by children for someone special here, homemade cookies or fudge…(I said it twice for a reason). Little bits of home that bring memories of family to mind, just by glancing at them.
Upper Respiratory Infection, I’ll get over it…homesick? Yes, but It’s not too bad, I’m willing to bet that next Christmas will feel so much better at home than it ever has before.
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SOLPUGIDS...
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That is what their technical name is, There have been a lot of questions about them, and what tour in Iraq would be complete if they don’t come up at least once while you are here…I’m talking about the popular Camel Spider, Here is a little info to help you understand what that creature is all about.
What do they look like? Usually light gray, tan, or brown in color, Spider-like in shape with a bulbous, segmented abdomen. Legs and body covered with long hairs that glisten in the sunlight. Large, paired jaws used to grab and crush prey, are jointed like pliers. Each jaw forms a pincer and can work independently of each other. It is a Solpugid, but it is more commonly known as “camel spiders”, “sunspiders”, or “wind scorpions”.
Where are they found? Greatest numbers are found in hot dry desert areas. Most active at night. During the daytime will retreat to scrapes they build in the sand, or under logs, rocks, or debris piles. Will routinely seek out prey (insects, scorpions, spiders, lizards) inside tents and buildings.
What is their behavior? If active during the day they will try to stay in shadows to avoid hot ground, Will follow a moving human shadow, making it seem they are chasing you. They run very fast with pedipalps (like little arms that are sticky at the end to aid in holding prey) and front pair of legs held up over their head. Attracted to campfires, street lights, and other sources of light at night. (flashlights…..I hate that).
Info on their bite – Do not have any poisonous stingers or fangs. Jaws are capable of inflicting painful pinches, and small wounds to the skin. If you are pinched, clean the wound to prevent infection.
Ok, so I am not scared of bugs….unless they have clingy feet and are crawling on me, I can’t stand that. If a grasshopper lands on my arm, and his little feet grab hold of my skin I freak out because…..it freaks me out, I can’t stand it. Now, after finding out all the things I know about these camel spiders I hate them, they have clingy feet and can get pretty big and their bite hurts like a dog bit you, plus they try to stay in your shadow so it “seems” like they are chasing you if run from them, I hate them for making me think they are chasing me, that reason alone is enough for me to hate them. I read a little factoid once that said in a persons lifetime they will swallow an average of 2 spiders in their sleep from sleeping with your mouth open. I am glad that being from Minnesota the camel spider will never be one of them because you could choke on this fella. I don’t kill spiders back home because the pros outweigh the cons, they catch and eat flies which pester me and grasshoppers which grab me with clingy legs, so I generally don’t mind them, and I’m sure the camel spider does his fair share of good deeds here as well, eating scorpions and such, but I will be glad to leave them behind when I finally get outta here. I have yet to encounter one face to face thankfully, but the idea of one “chasing” me, with its front legs waving in the air so it can run fast…. doesn’t that make you cringe? If there was ever a scary bug on this planet it is the spiteful bully, known as the camel spider.
I hope that was informative, more than you ever wanted to know about the creature. Thanks for checking in, Take care everyone, Troy.
[click for video]
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old school looks.......
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So I had wrote a little story about my first car awhile ago, a ’78 firebird. I had so many adventures in that vehicle. A buddy of mine sent me some photos of the vehicle, along with another gem, a photo of me when I was 17. I just wanted to post the photo because though some of you readers have known me awhile, you have not seen anything like this.
I feel inclined to explain a couple things from this photo, You’ll notice I’m a lot skinnier, seems that back then I could eat gross amounts of anything and it would not affect my weight, somewhere along the way I lost that ability but still maintain the eating habits…Grrr. The shirt…..this was back in ’89 and Miami Vice was a popular series at the time, I’m trying to come up with some good excuse to be wearing a pink on black shirt but that is the best I can do. It is a football jersey type shirt worn over a Bart Simpson T-shirt Proclaiming not to have a cow man. You will notice the glasses, they were huge, and my eyesight is so bad they were as thick as they come, they probably weighed 5 lbs. The blue hat…..I don’t remember that hat so even though you can see it in the picture I am going to deny ever having it. You will notice a bit of my mullet sticking around the back, that was all natural…it’s been so long since I had hair I wouldn’t know how to comb it anymore but back then it was parted down the middle and feathered…yes, it was pretty cool. The jeans were probably Guess jeans since at the time I thought they made my butt look good…but then again at the time I thought that outfit made me look good so……
As I’m looking at the picture again I notice that out of the 4 people in that picture, my outfit is the only one that would really stand out in a crowd in today’s world so I think that really says something, in fact what is says is “ignorance is bliss”.
The fact that these guys are standing next to me in the picture, and still talking to me today, shows that it isn’t the outfit that makes the man, but the man that makes the outfit.
Alright people, laugh if you want, I did, but I know you all have pictures of yourselves you keep under wraps. Thank goodness the army uses a uniform so we all look the same, some of us have no sense for fashion.
Until next time, Take care, Troy
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Somebody send me some Velveeta, I like cheese with my whine……
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I like to think of complaining as a way for a person to vent, it’s healthy as long as it isn’t done in excess, a way to blow off steam. Of course it’s pointless to complain to people who don’t care, so I use the sympathetic ear of my loyal readers, so they can stroke my hurt feelings and make them feel better.
A week ago, those of us who lived in my “tent city” were moved in a mass exodus to a new location, I guess somebody had came in and did an inspection and found that our living conditions were unhealthy (eyebrows raise in shock), so anyway, we were moved to some different tents and told that in about 2 weeks we would be moving into “cans”. We call them “cans”, they are actually a small trailer, or basically a metal shed big enough for 2 to 4 people to live in depending on the size shed you end up in. I found out today that the date to move into those cans has been pushed back indefinitely. I have been living out of a backpack basically because I was planning on moving to my new can, but I might as well set up home here as best as I can, knowing how things have been going so far on this deployment this could be home until I leave. I’m not happy with the living situation now because I have new, loud neighbors. I think that we will be the only unit in Iraq that will have lived in tents through our whole deployment in Iraq, not that tents are bad, it’s better than digging a hole in the ground and throwing a poncho over my head, I’ve even got a T.V. its just that we live in worse conditions than any other person that works on this base, military or hired.
I feel so much better having told you that now, to be honest I’ve been in crabbier moods since my deployment, it’s the only thing I can find to complain about so I’m not doing too bad here I guess. I like the people I work with, I enjoy the job I do, and they serve hotdogs ever single day. The weather has been getting cooler, and it has been chilly in the mornings even for a Minnesotan like me, I must have acclimated too well this summer.
Tomorrow night a band is coming in to play a concert for us, Shine down..or something like that, they have a hit called “save me”, so maybe I’ll slam a couple Sprites and go rock out at the concert tomorrow…..or maybe I’ll just lay on my bunk while everybody else goes and enjoy the peace and quiet we so rarely get a chance to enjoy here.
I have a couple more ideas for blogs, I find myself scratching my brain to come up with stuff that is interesting, without violating opsec and pissing off goober, I’m going to write about camel spiders, and Tim, a buddy I have known since high school, found an old picture of me after reading my firebird story and sent it too me and I gotta think of a good way to put that up, I had to laugh at myself after seeing it, so keep checking in and I’ll get them up soon. Take care my friends. Troy
The picture is my new living arrangement…
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fresh meat (chuckles to self).......
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Hello people, as I have told you guys before, things can get pretty boring around here, so when something new comes along to play with everybody likes to get involved…we recently had some new medics join our family, mostly they are fresh out of basic training and AIT, we knew they would have a hard enough time coming into a group that has been together for 13 months already, and try to fit in. They were going to have to prove to us their skills and that they could be trusted to watch our backs when your neck deep in the craziness that can instantly happen when things go from quiet to BOOM! Out there. So for a week straight they were having their skills tested by a couple of our NCOs with different types of scenarios that can happen here, running around in full gear, with a full load, fast pace to see how they work under pressure, but the best was yet to come.
At the end of the week they had one final test, nothing official of course, and it was voluntary, but none of them passed on the opportunity to fit in. One night we had them dress up in special combat gear (see attached photo) and run through a 2 hour scavenger hunt of sorts, they needed to collect information on our time in Shelby (mostly stories involving stuff we did and got in trouble for) from other units in the company, they were running from tent to tent, doing push-ups, standing at attention, all the while collecting the information from tent to tent, with a group of medics shouting and following them through the whole process, after the 2 hours they stood at attention while we grilled them on the info they collected. At the end of it all we officially welcomed them into the medic platoon, with a quote read from a bruce lee book (it happened to be on hand), hand shakes, and hugs all around.
It was fun for awhile, but now they are catching on that have the time we look serious and crazy we are just messing with them. The new rookie smell is starting to fade away, but for a while they brought fresh entertainment to us we needed badly.
I sent new Pictures home and hopefully they will be up soon, until next time people, take care. Troy
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