Cutting all the crap and getting going.

Well this past few weeks has been really busy for me and my family.  First I had the pleasure of attending the wedding ceremony of Kevin and Christy Herp in Tell City, Indiana.  Though already married by the JOP; they decided to spare no expense and have a nice catholic wedding.  It was a very nice ceremony and many of my friends from my unit were in it.  All of us show up in our new Army Service Uniforms and looked on.  The reception was really nice as well and a really good meal was prepared.  I joked with the other guys because when the dinner was served it looked like we were getting field chow from the DFAC....LOL

Kevin and Christy light their unity candle in their wedding ceremony.

SSG Burns, SGT Yoe, a jarhead, SGT Johnson, and myself pose for a picture at the reception.


Next on the agenda was more shenanigans at FT Knox.  We have been busting our butt for the last month to get everything packed and ready to go.  It has been a long a difficult process, but we are finally done as the ADVON leaves for FT Hood today and the connexes and vehicles start shipping out early next week.  It makes thinks kind of hard with the start of the new fiscal year and money for parts and supplies is cut off until the budget is passed like every year, but with us deploying we will only be without funds for a few days.  This makes things kind of ruff especially when you are trying to get 24 aircraft and 400 people to FT Hood.  We were actually running low on oil for the aircraft engines so one of our sister units from our brigade flew from Kansas and brought us some oil in a Chinook.  I have ridden these before and its a fun ride until the pilot starts to sway from side to side trying to make every ones stomach feel woozy.  My good friend Mike Powell and I are load masters for D Co. and we have worked hard to get everything packed.  Its kind of nice for us to get to sit back and relax for a while now until things start picking up again this week. 

Here I pose with the CH47 out of Kansas.  All of the Army Aircraft are nice but the Apache leads the way!!!!

Mike Powell gives orders to get back to work.......LOL


On a lighter note I was able to attend my niece Ashley's 3rd birthday party last week and it was a great.  Being in the Army and always being extremely busy doesn't give me as much time to spend with my niece's that I like so it was nice to catch up with them.  I can't get over how big Ashley is getting; it just seems like yesterday that she was born and still learning to walk and talk, but now she is everywhere.  It is actually amazing to see how big all three of them are getting and how much they are changing.  They can read and are really smart for their ages so I look forward to seeing them all doing well in the future.

Ashley gets help from my sister, Tonya, in opening her gifts....she really likes Dora

On to other action......I decided that I wanted to see a high school football game before I left so I wanted to find a pretty competitive team that was close to home.  Naturally I chose the Male Bulldogs, not only because I went to Male, but because they are consistently one of the top teams in the state year in and out.  Now we don't have the caliber of team from the Chris Redman years, but they still play well.  I went to Ballard which is pretty close to Dad's house so I would not have to travel very far to follow them.  They both had the same record and had been playing well.  The game was a real nail biter, but Male did prevail in the end.  I am kind of sad that I will miss the Male/Manual game on 10/29, but I know Male will beat them like always.  To all you Crimson fans; remember......not everyone can go to Male!!!!!!

The Male Bulldogs prepare to take on Ballard at an away game. I still can't believe Bob Redman deserted us for Hoosier land....NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!


Finally on a side note, the annual Army/Navy game will be played this year in the new Yankee stadium and boy I am sure it will be cold.  I know the midshipmen usually beat us and we lost a bowl berth because of them last year so this year I would really like to see us win.  This rivalry is not like UL/UK this is for real bragging rights....so I leave you with this comment.

This one says it all......so.....Go Army Beat Navy!!!!!

To everyone that has supported me over these last few months I greatly appreciate it.  My next posting will be coming from FT Hood so to all of you I wish you god speed.

Giving up hobbies to go to war

As many of you know I am an avid history buff and have several hobbies including gun collecting, world war 2 re-enacting (living history), and model railroading.  I probably enjoy re-enacting the most because its like your in a movie everyday when you put on your uniform and you never know whats going to happen.  I mean we all know how the war ended, but anything can happen in a make believe battle.  You really get to feel what it is to be a soldier fighting during the 1940's.  People go all out to restore period vehicles, cook period food, and wear period clothes.  Whats even nicer is when a 1940's dance is hosted at an event and spouses get in the spirit by donning their period garb.  I have been involved the the hobby off and on since 2000 so I must say that I really must enjoy things a lot if I stick with it for 10 years.  I have invested a lot of time and money donning period weapons and gear.  I must tell you that is actually cheaper to get involved now than it was 10 years ago.  Before the uniforms were made in the united states by a company called At the Front which is located in Columbia, KY.  Retired employees of fruit of the loom would custom tailor each tunic and pair of kielhosen to exact standards taken from original samples.  10 years later with the state of the US economy and the textile industry in general it has become cheaper to move production of most uniform items over to china.  The chinese to put out a quality product and we reap the benefits of saving money.  Weapons come up and come down depending on the market, but its pretty much a buyers market right now.  I will attach some pictures for your viewing pleasure.  I hope to talk with everyone soon.

James Calton aka Dominic Kaelin SS Sturmann

That is me with my Walther P38 getting ready to get some action at The Secret City Festival 2010 in Tennessee.

An awards presentation at Jefferson Barracks, MO 2010.  Notice how short I am compared to the tall guy in the middle......LOL

Getting ready to go into action at Jefferson Barracks.  The Kubel belongs to a good friend of mine, David Ackerman, of Jeffersontown, KY.

Getting ready to march into battle during The Secret City Festival 2010.  I am second in line once again kind of short.

Waiting in line for pay at The Secret City Festival.  Wow I wish those German marks were real.....

Riding into battle on the STUG III at Jefferson Barracks.....This made me want to say Hooah, but I was playing army; not living the real army.  And I thought we had cool toys to play with now.

The last year and a half...my how time flies by when you are having fun

Well what can I say; it seems like the last year and a half have flown by too fast.  Things did start a bit rocky last July.  I started out as a specialist who had never done an aircraft phase much less most of the in depth maintenance that went with it.  I had a totally green crew as well, but as time went on things got better and easier.  I had my squad leader push me in many ways to be a better soldier and a better person.  I was on the way to becoming an NCO and developed the strengths to be able to lead my team no matter what was going on. 

From July to October 2010 I pushed myself to get in the best shape of my life and it has paid off.  I passed the elusive or so it seemed 2 mile run on the APFT and finally I started getting noticed.  My company commander started pushing me to go to WLC and put in my E5 packet, but I wasn't quite ready yet.  You have to understand that I had a lot on my plate at this point.  I was a full time student, plus I was working full time trying to get my first Phase out the door.  I felt like I was hitting a brick wall until October when one of the most caring NCO's and person that I have ever met came into my life.  I learned to respect myself and other people more.  I learned that through strong discipline and hard work that anything could happen.  I feel that by this point most of my comrades and peers had written me off.  I noticed that when I started to get my run time in the 14 and then 13 minute time frame that people started to notice me again.  I took the time to work out with my soldiers to show them that they to can do the same that I could .

We ended up having a 2 and a half month break from the phase so this gave me more time to concentrate on school and get finished up before we deploy.  I started my final semester of college in December and finished up in March 2010.  With graduation looming in June we started working on Phases again in January 2010 in prep for deployment and to get our phase program tuned up.  I was put in charge of the Armament team on the phase since I was the most experienced phase person that we had and continued to learn as I went.  I have learned  my specific system of doing things in coordination with the phase books to make sure that we are doing the proper inspections all of the time.

Here we work on finishing up our last phase before we head to FT Hood this fall. AH64D 975039

Phases are always rocky because it seems parts are always what holds you back.  After 3 phases since the beginning of the year you know this.  It seems like the army is always running out of parts.  It doesn't help anyone if you need a part to get your aircraft back up to FMC status and you aren't going to get it until a year from now when you needed it 5 days from yesterday.  With the war and all I have come to understand that some things there are just not enough of to go around.  One of the finest NCO's I have ever met works in supply and through them I learn more everyday and I have really come to respect the supply system and the people working in it.  Here lately it seems that a few SGM's have really started picking on some S4 shops in a few units and are under the impression that they do nothing all day.  Well believe you me when I say that the S4 shop and tech supply (92 series) are the most over worked and under paid branch of the army.  They get hell from all of us for things like when is my part going to be here or whats my document number.  We have to learn to be patient with these skilled individuals.

As winter became spring and spring became summer things have sped up tremendously.  We tried with everything to get our last bird done before we left for RTC at FT Hunter Liggett and FT McCoy.  With parts delays and things being broken after they were fixed this did not happen.  We were happy to hear that the civilians at ASF were going to get it finished for us while we were gone for most of the month of July.  Sadly this would not be the case.  My jaw dropped when I walked into the hanger after returning to see that more parts were gone from the aircraft now than were gone before we left.  Things were still hanging in limbo and with the pending aerial gunnery things were going to get pretty difficult.  Once again parts became an issue and those that were in short supply (IE Boeing specific parts) were swapped around so we could at least keep the pilots in the air so they could get qualified on their airframe.  We have worked hard as a unit to get this far and with our aircraft nearing completion and getting ready for some maintenance test flights everything has come to fruition.  Now its on to packing and moving out.  Stay tuned in as I keep everyone updated on our progress.

GAAF at FT Knox sits aircraft ready to seek and destroy....

As we pack and sort through things we place excess junk in Mil vans to await turn in while we are gone.