When I joined the Navy, part of my reason for joining was that I knew I didn’t want a boring job, but little did I know how exciting things can get. I will definitely have stories to tell my grandkids. At least, I’ll never wonder…what if I’d joined the Navy. Haha
For those of you that are wondering, no I did not volunteer to go to Kuwait. I wish I could say that I did because it’s sounds more heroic. But when I found out that I might be voluntold to go, I asked God to please not send me, but if he should choose to… give me peace about going…and he did. I’m still not sure why He chose me to go, but I hope to find out soon. Some of the little lessons that I’ve learned in my short life already: “I can do all things through Christ who strengths me” Phil 4:13. I am capable of doing a lot more than I thought possible. I never thought I would be able to get through pharmacy school, military training, and deployments. If you think you can’t do something, with God anything is possible! The second major thing I’ve learned is to be more grateful for what I do have. The small things, like comfort, a warm bed, my own space, beauty in nature. (Kuwait is lacking in the beauty department.)
My mission: department head of the pharmacy. I work 6 days a week for about 10-12hrs/day. We are on Camp Arifjan which is an Army base.
My journey (click pictures for larger version): From the Norfolk airport, we left on Jan 4th to Gulfport M
ississippi. I spent a week there in basically a processing center. They hooked us up with a ton of gear like uniforms, IBA (Individual Body Armor), helmets, gas masks. We got lecture after lecture on stuff like stress management, sexual assault, and financial services. We stood in lines to make sure our health records were up to date and making sure we were deployable. It wasn’t bad because they were too full to have us stay on base, so they put us up in a nearby hotel and we went out to dinner every night. I got to go to New Orleans on the Saturday before we left. I’ve never been there, and never plan to go back.
On Sunday the 11th, we left from MS to fly to Miramar California. A side note: I was working in Portsmouth, VA in the hospital pharmacy. I don’t really think you can call it the real Navy, only experiences on the ship or on deployments are like the real Navy. If you’re on a shore command, you do your job and then go home. You don’t really get close to those you work with, but on the other side, these people who you’re working with now, become your family. You don’t have a choice or you’d be miserable. So, it is a neat experience. These trainings could have been crammed into a week and a half instead of three weeks, but I think they do this so you get the bonding experience which produces unit cohesiveness.
We landed in Miramar and were bused to Camp Pendelton (NEMTI). We had two weeks of training in a “semi-field environment.” We did fun stuff like lots of lectures, gas mask chamber, M9 pistol qualifications, land navigation exercises, mandatory movies, MOPP gear drills… Yes, watch out, I qualified on the M9. The food was pretty good, but it was very cold at night and we slept in huts with a cot and a sleeping bag. So, it was pretty much like camping for two weeks. Yah, yah, some of you are going to say that sounds like so much fun, but trust me it gets old. Very cold nights and group showers are not my idea of fun. :P
Towards the end we packed up all of our gear. I think I ended up with 3 huge sea bags and 1 backpack. It probably weighed over 150lbs. We all piled in 5 buses and drove to the airport. It was pretty cool leaving because people could see there were a lot of military people leaving and would lean out of their car on the highway and wave us goodbye. It was a neat feeling. We were greeted by the USO, who fed us a meal and there were some really great ladies who had never missed a deployment leaving in 5+ years. We had to wait for 6hrs in the airport to leave. Finally, EMFK Hotel Detachment boarded the plane at 10pm Sunday night along with a unit of Marines going to Iraq, and we stopped in Bangor, Maine, Leipzig Germany, and then finally Kuwait City Tuesday morning around 5am local. (23hr. evolution and we hadn’t even made it to the base!) It was a very uncomfortable flight because it was very full and I barely slept at all. We all muster and wait around for a couple of hours and we finally get on another bus to drive an hour and a half to Camp Arifjan. They warned us before we got in those buses to use the bathroom because for NO reason would they stop. I basically dehydrated myself to prevent any accidents. We had to keep the curtains completely drawn to prevent any targeted attacks. I had a little gap in the curtain I was next to, so I could peep one eye out to see what was happening. We were in a convoy of buses; each bus came complete with a driver and a shooter. In front, behind, and in between we had vehicles with machine guns on top, with gunners ready to protect us. It was kind of a sinking feeling looking at the countryside. I have one picture that could describe the way the whole country looks. It’s so ugly! Nothing but sand and oil rigs and more sand. I think God created ugly places on the earth, so we would really appreciate the beautiful places when we see them. We finally made it to the camp and then had to unload all of our bags and were sent to our designated tents. We tried to stay awake for as long as possible so that we wouldn’t sleep all day and then be up all night. I looked like a walking zombie for the first couple of days
I'm finally getting adjusted to the time difference. It took a while because we were coming from California, an 11 hr difference. And yes the temperatures really are in the 70s during the day and 40-50s at night. I looked at a newspaper the other day and my "Local weathercast" included places like Baghdad and Turkmenistan...Crazy! I'm really glad that we are here during "winter" because it would be a shock to get out of the plane in 130 degree heat. (That's what happened to the previous wave of deployments.) I'm in a routine here of getting up around 5:30AM to get ready for work, eating breakfast, and trying to be at work by 7. Then I work until about 5-6pm and eat dinner, work out, maybe watch a movie and then go to bed. It feels like Groundhog Week (the movie) here instead of Day. The galley food is really 
good here, free, but it rotates on a weekly basis. So, the other day I said, didn't we just have lasagna? We were told on our second day that we were going to leave here as a “chunk or a hunk.” There are THREE big DFACs (Dining Facility as the Army calls it) in Arifjan. Each one is a little different, but my favorite meals so far are: Mongolian BBQ, Surf and Turf, and the eggplant lasagna was surprisingly good. There are at least 10 different options for dinner every night. Salad bar, hot food line, soups, fast food line, cereal, fruit, yogurt and much more. Click the picture to see a larger version.
It feels kind of like you're in jail because we can't leave without written permission. I haven't slept that well since I've gotten here. It should get better once we move to our permanent location. Up until yesterday we were living in big tents until the previous deployment leaves. It's either too hot or too cold or loud.
We do have a lot of patients. This is a big Army base, so we see Army, Navy, Air Force, and even British/Australian forces (They're fun to hear talk!) We don't get a lot of battle injuries, but we do see people right before they leave to go to Iraq or Afghanistan. They call us the "tip of the spear". Most of the battle injuries are treated in Germany or Baghdad. They showed us a documentary called Baghdad ER on HBO right before we left and I'm very thankful I'm not there.
We just had a sand storm yesterday! Two nights ago when we were going to sleep, the wind started to pick up and it blew all night long. I probably only slept a few hours because the flaps of the tent were really loud. It was so gusty it was moving our bunk beds. Some of the tents were torn the next morning. Anyway, the next morning we walked out of the tent and it was like a fog everywhere. You could barely see 20 yds. During high noon, it looked like it was 5pm with yellow sunglasses on. It makes you cough and puts grit in your teeth, yuck. Today it's still hazy, but not as bad.
Thank you again for your prayers. Don’t forget about the people serving in much worse places than I am. This is a “good” deployment. Be grateful for what you have, God has really blessed America!
