And by "March," I mean "January"

A lot has been going on the past few weeks, and I know I've been pretty bad about updating you, my undoubtedly dwindling readership.  But on the off chance that you clicked the wrong bookmark and somehow ended up here, let me catch you up and let you know in some more detail what's coming down the pike for me. 

Where to start.

My last post was from Yuma, AZ, where we were doing a three-week drill called Scorpion Fire.  That was a blast, and by "blast" I mean it was hot, slow and boring.  Prior to that drill, you might recall, I was back at my unit at Camp Pendleton, CA, where things were actually pretty busy.  By "actually pretty busy" of course I mean I spent almost every day trying to make 45 minutes of work last eight hours.  (Don't give up on me; I'm going somewhere with this.)

Anyway, I don't know why I whined so much about not being busy.  After a fairly full year in Afg I wanted nothing more than nothing to do, but it turns out I'm too antsy and impatient to leave well enough alone.  So in June or July or so a schedule came out with rosters for four upcoming drills and I was on none of them.  I whined, and now I'm on all six.  (It's Marine Corps math, to wit: how many paragraphs are in the Five Paragraph Order?  Six, naturally.)  

I think I also previously posted that I would be deploying again (to Afg) some time in March.  Well by "March" it turns out I meant "February."  By "February" I soon found out I meant late January, and of course "late January" is just MarineSpeak for early January.  Making plans lately has been about as useful as a football bat.

As you can imagine, with the compressed timetable things have gotten really slow and relaxed at work, if by "slow and relaxed"...well enough already, you get the idea.  We had a drill two weeks ago, have another in a week (that I'm currently scrambling to design), then I'll be in Yuma again for the whole month of October on an exercise called WTI.  November brings the Marine Corps Ball (a wasted week if you know what I mean), another exercise and Thanksgiving weekend.  Early December is the culminating exercise - two weeks of 24/7 ops I believe - followed hopefully by pre-deployment leave.

And then one morning about 10 months after I got home, I'll wake up in Afg again and wonder if I ever really left.

Well not exactly.  This time I'm supposed to be in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand.  This is a good thing.  It's a British base (I love the Brits) and even better, it's not Camp Leatherneck, where I spent the year last time and to which I'm in no real hurry to return. 

So that's what the next few months, and beyond, will look like for me, at least as of this moment.  Other than that I've been doing some hiking and camping and a little schmoozing and OH YEAH I'M GOING TO BE AN UNCLE! 

My brother and his bride will be returning from the desert in just a few weeks, and they're pregnant!  Well, she's pregnant, he's just hormonal.  I'll be hanging out with them and fam over Thanksgiving and it'll be really nice to have them back in the states.  If the prospect of me as an uncle (or A as a dad) gives you arrhythmia...well you're not alone.  I believe there's even a support group already.

OK as you can tell by now, I recently broke my funny bone and I'm still rehabbing it.  More later.

Currently in NH for a quick visit.  Pic credit: AH.