I'm painfully behind on this

It is now 5 Nov 2008 and I'm watching NCIS, all FIVE seasons, while waiting for my time in this country to expire.

What is most notable about November, well two things OK three actually, is that the First marked my two year in service mark. That's right I have been a Private in the US Army for two years. Which brings me to point 2. Two years active duty in the service, barring any misconduct, means an automatic promotion to E4 Specialist. Yes that means after MONTHS of working, straining, begging to be promoted, the Army just gave it to me. I forgot part of point one, looking back in retrospect, the two year in service mark comes with a tenure raise. That promotion to E4 also comes with a raise. The third point is that it's November, which I have said twice now, but that also means that I'll be coming home. Soon in fact. Avid followers of this blog know I cannot discuss confidential information on a public forum or unsecured channel. Suffice it to say there is not long now.

I really wish I could say more. I'm practically oozing with emotion, but nothing I want to say can be said. Those of you in Michigan can look forward to seeing the whole fam in mid-late December.

Also I'm pretty sure now that I will be going officer. I've done some more research and it seems like I pretty much qualify without anything more than I already have. Have to double check on needing a security clearance yet, but I'm working that angle too. In any event that put me in the Army for at least two more years to get a degree and that's just the time it'll take to get my commission. There is no minimum commitment time once I get a commission but with the amount of pay I'll be getting I may just stick this military thing out. A military retirement is highly desirable. Retire after 20 years and the medical benefits continue for life, for you and your spouse, and you get 50% of your base pay for life. Stick it out for 30 years and the compensation ups to 100%. Officer pay with that much time in service? I'd not only never have to work again I'd likely never need to. Once I get my commission my starting pay will $3215.10. add in housing pay, benefits, substance allowance, it really starts to add up.

That's all future though. My focus at the moment is getting out of this country. Right after I watch a few more days worth of NCIS. It seems most of you have found me on Facebook but if you would actually like  a live chat look me up on AOL's Instant Messenger, www.aim.com and look up jcpahman77. If I'm awake and the internet is working out here, I'm on.

Until we meet again in person, this is SPECIALIST Pahman, signing off...

SPC Pahman, Jesse C.

United States Army

Camp Liberty, Iraq

Not much longer now.

It really stinks not being able to say more about when I may be coming home. At this point I still don't have an actual date and it's not far out. We won't know when we'll be in the states until we make it to Kuwait, just too many variables and concerns for safety and security until then. I absolutely cannot wait to see many of you again. Until then I honestly feel that I have been blessed to be able to keep in touch as well as we have. This is a very long distance to be away for so long, anything helps.

Until I'm home I want to thank all of you for your continued prayers. I know it's God's grace that has kept me as safe as I have been. There have been some times when I can recall being scared but I don't feel I was ever in any real danger; I could be wrong I guess, I just didn't know if I was.

For now I'll wrap up 'till I can think of more to say.

As Always:

PFC. Pahman, Jesse C.

United States Army

Camp Liberty, Iraq

Facebook

If I had known that so much of my family was on Facebook I would have joined long ago. I don't have much in the way of news, just the day in day out business everyone goes through. OK so day in day out business in Iraq is a bit different than it is other places, but after 13 months here that is what it feels like to me.
For the family I haven't had a chance to share with since I've been deployed, or in the service for that matter, let me tell you a little about what my life is like. My job title in the Army is 88M, we say 88 Mike, in English it means truck driver. I drive the Army's Heavy Equipment Transporter. The truck's main objective is to be able to transport the M1A1 Abrams main battle tank and it's crew. This makes it a very large truck. The photo above, or wherever blogger put it, is one of my favorite shots of the truck, the only thing it fails to do is show the scale of the vehicle. The tractor tires are over 50 inches tall and the bottom of the doors is almost 6 feet in the air. I could talk about the truck all day, it's why I picked 88M as my job, I love to drive, but enough about that for now.

The living conditions aren't bad here at all, depending on which FOB you get to call home. I've been on 3 so far this tour. Most people live in what we call CHU's, or Container Housing Units. There are three rooms per container and 2 people per room so my space ends up being about 6x12', I haven't actually measured. In that space they provide a bed, a wall locker, a small end table and a reading lamp. There is usually reasonably good A/C and if you have a TV you can connect to AFN, the American Forces Network, at no cost and get 11 channels to keep up on current events. Also depending on the FOB, and this one is among the best, there is wireless internet in the rooms for the paltry sum of $65/mo. which unfortunately struggles to rival the speed of a good dial-up modem. On top of what is in the room already we have the chore of fitting our military gear and any other amenities we might want to make the tour more pleasant. For my part I have my laptop, a TV, DVD Player and a small surround sound setup, I love my movies. As we are so close to the end of our tour now most of my gear has been packed into tough boxes to get ready to be shipped home.

I carry an M16A2 with an attached M203 40mm grenade launcher. I've been fortunate enough not to need it yet. As for what I actually do, I can only give so many details, MUCH of what I have seen, carried, and where I have been is classified, or at least that is what they tell me. During the hot months, and hot doesn't really do it justice, but during the hot months we work nights. My current schedule has me going to the gym at midnight for PT and then work call in the motorpool at 0230 in the morning. Most of the time in the motorpool is spent trying to keep the trucks running. The problem with a tractor trailer system that weighs 45 tons empty is it has a tendancy to fall apart. Once you factor in that it can haul another 70 tons it really becomes obvious how much work these trucks need. When I'm not in the motorpool I'm mostly left alone. Missions take me outside the wire, a term used to indicate when we've left the FOB and entered into an unsecured area. I've been on so many at this point that I have lost track. This is the part of the job I cannot talk about, suffice it to say that almost anything can and does happen outside but that I have been safe throughout the tour and to date my unit has not lost anybody.

I'll be home to the states by Thanksgiving and our little family is hoping to make the trek to Michigan to visit in late December. The Army likes to do things to change perfectly good plans for no reason at all, but that is the plan for now.

Until then take care and God Bless.

PFC. Pahman, Jesse C.

United States Army

Camp Liberty, Iraq

link to new blog

http://web.me.com/jcpahman77 Much easier for me to manage my blog this way. If you like it, get a mac and get a .mac account lol.

Back in VBC!!! Woot

I'm back in VBC, land of good internet. I'm working on a new site for the blog, it's one where I can make the posts on my laptop and then upload them when they are ready so I don't have to rely on the internet just to write a post. I actually started making entries when I first heard we'd be going to VBC so there are a few entries there to get caught up with. Comments can be left as well so it should work much like this one does. I'm back with 3rd Platoon and SFC. Kinninschkze who I haven't seen since I left TQ. I'm looking forward to finishing out the tour with some old friends, both from my old platoon and from 57th TC who I got to know when I was here the first time. I'll post the link to the new blog once it uploads and I'm sure exactly what the link is.

Stay tuned.

an exercise in patience

Trying to get this page to open on my laptop has been quite an exercise, but a blog post is needed.

I've responded to everyone's comment on the last post so I won't go over that material twice. They are still working on the internet out here. Anyone with enough motivation could stand to make some money if they could figure out how to make this work, look-up USComz. Anyway, since the last posting I've been staying busy and safe as usual, but now I get to add injured to the list. It didn't happen on a mission or anything, it's just age catching up to me. I've always had bad knees and it seems that they are getting worse. I was working on a trailer this past Saturday and just went to stand up to lend a hand. I was standing and turning at the same time and when I put weight on my right knee it popped and it seems I have a partially torn meniscus now. For those not familiar it is a tendon in the knee and apparently is fairly painful when pulled. There is nothing that can be done for it out here because it requires surgery to fix. Normally this is the kind of injury that would get a person sent home but our company is short handed and can't afford to loose anyone else at this point, even an injured person can do some work.

Yesterday I went in for a follow-up and they tried to drain the fluid off of the knee cap. I say tried because in order for it to be successful the patient needs to remain motionless. I did not. I've never had a needle that large in my knee before and it was a very unpleasant sensation. I'm on an anti-inflammatory and a fairly large pain killer to help deal with it but I won't be able to get it fixed until we return to the states. They also gave me a cortisone shot which didn't hurt nearly as bad as when they tried to drain it, and that seems to be helping a great deal. I can walk on the leg, but not well. I was on crutches for a few days but they say it will heal better if I try to walk on it as much as I can. For now I'm off of the road while it heels. I'm working in the base tire shop which is run by our company.

I'm not the only one with knee injuries right now so I've been getting some good advice on how to handle it and I'm confident that I'll be able to make a full recovery once I am home in El Paso, in the meantime I have to live with it. Luckily we are nearing the end of our tour, the countdown has begun. With any luck I'll pickup my E4, specialist rank, in October and that will feel good. I was close to getting it for September but I didn't have much time to study.

I'm working days for now, so as with the last entry that means I need to wrap this up so I can get some sleep. I'm trying to check my e-mail at jesse.c.pahman@us.army.mil as much as I can, but that site is also hard to load. I'll be home soon, and I look forward to sharing the experiences I've collected along this tour. I hope that you don't find I have changed too much, but I know that I have. Know that at some point I may snap for no good reason at all and that whoever or whatever it was I snapped at, it probably wasn't provoked. It happened once on R&R and I've seen a good deal more since then. I'm learning some Arabic as well and I will share what I know when we all get to meet again in person.

Until then, take care and know that despite how it may sound I am doing very well.

PFC. Pahman, Jesse C.
United States Army
Camp Taji, Iraq

An exercise in patience

Trying to get this page to open on my laptop has been quite an exercise, but a blog post is needed.

I've responded to everyone's comment on the last post so I won't go over that material twice. They are still working on the internet out here. Anyone with enough motivation could stand to make some money if they could figure out how to make this work, look-up USComz. Anyway, since the last posting I've been staying busy and safe as usual, but now I get to add injured to the list. It didn't happen on a mission or anything, it's just age catching up to me. I've always had bad knees and it seems that they are getting worse. I was working on a trailer this past Saturday and just went to stand up to lend a hand. I was standing and turning at the same time and when I put weight on my right knee it popped and it seems I have a partially torn meniscus now. For those not familiar it is a tendon in the knee and apparently is fairly painful when pulled. There is nothing that can be done for it out here because it requires surgery to fix. Normally this is the kind of injury that would get a person sent home but our company is short handed and can't afford to loose anyone else at this point, even an injured person can do some work.

Yesterday I went in for a follow-up and they tried to drain the fluid off of the knee cap. I say tried because in order for it to be successful the patient needs to remain motionless. I did not. I've never had a needle that large in my knee before and it was a very unpleasant sensation. I'm on an anti-inflammatory and a fairly large pain killer to help deal with it but I won't be able to get it fixed until we return to the states. They also gave me a cortisone shot which didn't hurt nearly as bad as when they tried to drain it, and that seems to be helping a great deal. I can walk on the leg, but not well. I was on crutches for a few days but they say it will heal better if I try to walk on it as much as I can. For now I'm off of the road while it heels. I'm working in the base tire shop which is run by our company.

I'm not the only one with knee injuries right now so I've been getting some good advice on how to handle it and I'm confident that I'll be able to make a full recovery once I am home in El Paso, in the meantime I have to live with it. Luckily we are nearing the end of our tour, the countdown has begun. With any luck I'll pickup my E4, specialist rank, in October and that will feel good. I was close to getting it for September but I didn't have much time to study.

I'm working days for now, so as with the last entry that means I need to wrap this up so I can get some sleep. I'm trying to check my e-mail at jesse.c.pahman@us.army.mil as much as I can, but that site is also hard to load. I'll be home soon, and I look forward to sharing the experiences I've collected along this tour. I hope that you don't find I have changed too much, but I know that I have. Know that at some point I may snap for no good reason at all and that whoever or whatever it was I snapped at, it probably wasn't provoked. It happened once on R&R and I've seen a good deal more since then. I'm learning some Arabic as well and I will share what I know when we all get to meet again in person.

Until then, take care and know that despite how it may sound I am doing very well.

PFC. Pahman, Jesse C.
United States Army
Camp Taji, Iraq