September 2004 - Posts

• Proof Time In Iraq Goes By More Slowly Than in US!

  FYI, clocks in Iraq are falling back an hour tonight (Oct 1st at 0100). I figure this post won't be much help to any soldiers over here who will be undersleeping tomorrow (it means an extra hour of sleep for everyone except those with duty tonight), but Read More... Posted Thursday, September 30, 2004 2:50 PM by ssmith | 0 Comments

• So Called 'Critically Needed IRRs' Not Even Filling Open Positions

  I've been receiving an alarming number of emails recently from IRR-activated soldiers who are just now reaching their units in Iraq, only to find that the unit had no idea they were coming and has no slots open or jobs for them to do in their actual MOS. Read More... Posted Thursday, September 30, 2004 2:00 PM by ssmith | 9 Comments

• How having troops in Iraq protects people in the USA

  I think many people who favor the immediate pullout of our forces from Iraq believe that our presence here is not protecting US citizens from attacks (and surely many have other reasons for wanting us to leave, but I'm just going to address one at the Read More... Posted Wednesday, September 29, 2004 1:53 PM by ssmith | 14 Comments

• Black Scorpions

  Things are going fine here. Getting settled in, have everybody here now that's not on leave. Was out talking to my commander and the other LTs in the company tonight and when we got up to leave (after dark) we picked up our helmets and one of the other Read More... Posted Saturday, September 25, 2004 1:31 PM by ssmith | 7 Comments

• New Home

  Moved to a new home a few days ago. On the trip here our convoy was hit by a roadside bomb, injuring two of my fellow soldiers. Both will return to duty soon, though, as neither was very serious. It was a wake-up call, though, and for me it was the closest Read More... Posted Wednesday, September 22, 2004 10:14 AM by ssmith | 0 Comments

• Central Perk, Iraqi Style

  A few weeks ago a new building completed construction at FOB Caldwell. The Hickory Cafe (30th BCT's tagline is “Old Hickory”) provides a Starbucksesque atmosphere and serves a few flavors of coffee that the chow hall doesn't. I guess it's Read More... Posted Friday, September 17, 2004 7:16 AM by ssmith | 1 Comments

• Awesome Rock Band (local to northeast Ohio)

  An awesome rock band for anybody interested in such things is Redshift . Their song Infamy got a ton of play time on local stations back a couple of years ago (about a year after 9/11). At the time I really liked it because I could relate to it from my Read More... Posted Thursday, September 16, 2004 12:01 PM by ssmith | 0 Comments

• New Domain, More Bloggers

  I've registered ArmyAdvice.org and mapped my ArmySteve.com domain to it. If you're just interested in me, you'll want to go to http://armyadvice.org/ArmySteve/ . The main url at http://ArmyAdvice.org/ will show posts from a growing number of army bloggers. Read More... Posted Sunday, September 12, 2004 11:29 AM by ssmith | 2 Comments

• Mail Call and WebSite Info

  For those wondering how long mail takes, I got 2 letters and 2 packages today (9/10), 3 of which were sent on 8/26 and one on 8/28. So 13-15 days. I had some time today to play around a bit with the look my section of the site ( click here if you're on Read More... Posted Friday, September 10, 2004 1:33 PM by ssmith | 3 Comments

• More Stuff To Bring

  Here's some gadgets that are nice to have: 1) Laptop. Yes, bring one. They're great for watching movies on and you may have the opportunity to use it for email, webcam, computer games, etc. 2) MP3 Player. If you like music. Something tiny that runs on Read More... Posted Monday, September 06, 2004 1:10 AM by ssmith | 10 Comments