13 June 2009

Frustrating and emotionally unsatisfying.

NTC in short.

I have learned a good deal - but I don't feel it. I feel as if I've been muddling along, occasionally getting things right, but mostly not doing my job. This also comes from the fact that I largely don't understand my job.

I spent 2 weeks on the FOB. I was surrounded by beautifully stark desert terrain, but I couldn't go anywhere but walk back and forth across the dust from sleep to work to food and back. This place would be interesting if I could drive or walk it on my own - have some training or time to learn what the hell my new job entails.
Instead I was driven out of the box inside of a Stryker - unable to even see the terrain one last time.

Perhaps I need a some time to breathe and think about this place and the job I'm to do.

- - -

The above was written as I was leaving NTC in the back of that Stryker. I could see little more than slits of sky passing by - there are no windows. I was able to turn on a B/W thermal video image from a camera fixed on the front of the Stryker so I didn't get motion sick, but it was a far cry from satisfying, and intensely different from being a Platoon Leader in that hatch - in charge.

The following posts were all written at NTC, but as I lacked the ability to access blogger, I couldn't post them. They are, as I say often of this blog, an airing of grievances, not an objective review of the Army, NTC, or my new job.

posted by Interested Soldier @ 16:59