Validation

I am now six weeks in on this deployment and what a six weeks it has been.  When I last posted we had just finished our Base Defense exercise and were heading in to Gunnery and then our FTX.  Gunnery is where you fire crew served weapons from moving vehicles along a convoy route.  There were four days of that, and I partipated in the final two days.  I was assigned to be the gunner (the guy who fires the big gun from the hatch) in vehicle 6.  Although normally the gunner fires a big gun, the last vehicle did not have to fire on the targets that were popping up along the route.  That's good, because I didn't know nothing about firing anything other than an M4 or M16.  At anyrate, we left very early each day and did a day fire and than a night fire.  Long effin days, let me tell ya.  Night fire was fun...pitch black and trying to fire on targets you'd couldn't see without using your NVGs.  (night vision glasses)  We did very well though.  The next four days we headed out to the field again and slept in tents and did a little ECP (entry control point) training.  Mostly we just slept though.  On Thursday and Friday I attended COR training.  COR stands for Contract Officer Representative, which means that I will be checking on any contractors who are assigned to our unit in Bahrain to ensure they are compliant with any contract they have with the Army.  Today, I am just resting a bit and doing some laundry before I head out bright and early tommorow to attend a one week course called Law for Paralegals in Charlottesville, VA.  That course should be interesting because it relates directly to my MOS.  Then it is back to Shelby for a day before I head back to Albany for leave.  Wow, time is really starting to move.  Back when I went to Iraq, once we accomplished all of our pre-deployment training we were declared "Fit to Fight".  My unit has now officially qualified (or been validated) to go overseas.  Fit to Fight?  Well sure... I guess.  Though we will be getting combat pay, not sure who we will be fighting in Bahrain.  But anyhoo, we don't always have to kill people to make a difference in the world, so I accept base defense in Bahrain (aka, the Vegas of the middle east) as the cross I will bear the next few months.  If everything goes as plan, I should be in Kuwait a month (more or less) from today.  I still have my doubts about this deployment...but it seems to be more certain than it was a month ago.  I'll write again from Virginia.