One of the many reasons

Korea is boring especially when you're in the middle of nowhere. I started a game with my roommate to help pass the time. It goes like this, you pick a topic, job, event, or anything related to you and you state one of the many reasons why you love and hate that certain topic. I'll start to give you an example.

One of the many reasons I hate being in a mechanized unit: Vehicles breaks down. And when they do, it's our job to do maintenance of the stupid things.
One of the many reasons I love being in a mechanized unit: We don't have to walk everywhere coz you just ride the stupid things.

Goes something like that. It can go on and on and on and on. You can keep giving reasons on the same topic (I know I will). Entertain me please.

One of the reasons I hate being a minister is sometimes I have to put others before my family.
One of the reasons I love being a minister is sometimes I get to be so involved with people other than my family.

One of the reasons I love shooting Armadillos is the satisfactory feeling it gives me because I am removing prehistoric rats from GA.
One of the reasons I hate shooting Armadillos is I might catch leprosy from one and die a slow uncurable death.

One of the many reasons I hate being in a mechanized unit: Our point of advance is dictated by the terrain (Paladin's can't climb mountains).
One of the many reasons I love being in a mechanized unit: We're sorta weather proof (Raining? Just go inside the stupid thing)

flipa, it's great to see you posting from overseas...

-a|ex wrote:flipa, it's great to see you posting from overseas...

Well there's no local internet where I am, so I bought a Korean phone that can be a hotspot but still not that great of an internet connection. There's nothing to do where I'm at even though I'm in Korea... One of the many reasons why I hate Korea: Great country but they keep us on post on purpose to drive us insane.

What Camp are you on? Casey/Hovey? CRC?

Andy wrote:What Camp are you on? Casey/Hovey? CRC?

Casey/Hovey. The place itself seems... old and weird. It smells horrible from the huge sewage, it rains like crazy, all you look at are mountains, the chow hall's food SUCKS so bad the quality isn't even funny. And yeah we get briefs about threat levels, NK, blending in Korean culture, etc etc etc.

Which one are you on? I was at Casey. A Co, 1/503 (AASLT). We we all the way at the end of the road, just before the gate to do the "School House Run". Ask your Team Leader if you can do that some time. It is a great run. I think about the only thing past us was a motor pool and then the range.

The "new" barracks ( built in the late 90's), were all going to be pre-wired for internet/cable tv. They had a nice gym, 2 man rooms, with 2 rooms sharing a bathroom/shower. The 503rd chow hall was not built yet, but was supposed to be a good one. Try the Katusa Cantina's behind most barracks. Get the "spicey noodle bowl with an order of yakimandu". That is some good eatin' right there. I can only imagine how much better it is now, about 15+ years later.

Keep this in mind, where you are, does NOT suck. Stay in long enough and you will find out just how crappy it can get.

Right now is the rainy season. It goes till almost Aug-Sep I think. Then it gets cold and snows. But the Spring is beautiful. It really is. Keep your camera handy and take lots of pic's. I wish I had had a really nice camera back then.

Most of all, enjoy yourself.

I'm with A Btry, 1/15 FA over at Hovey. I haven't had much time trying to figure out the whole post yet since we're about to go out on the field.

The Barracks where I'm at might be the "new" barracks you're talking about back in the 90s. We had a 2 man room with a bathroom (we don't share with the other room). Yes the gym is nice and that's pretty much the only other thing I do on our free time. I do prefer eating at the snack bars and yes I'm a regular at the Katusa snack bar but saving money, I go eat at the chow hall anyway.

It rains and rains and rains and rains some more. I can't imagine being out on the field during monsoon season even the winter. I heard winter here gets crazy too.

We went to Seoul over the weekend and the place is beautiful. It's like what our 1SG said, "The country pretty fun, the post pretty darn boring".

Honestly, if it weren't that far away from home I might even go for another year depending on how the first one goes. It's miserable but bearable to me at least.

Go by the MWR and see what they have for Tours. Take the one to Pan Mun Jom. That is where I started my time in Korea. It is on the DMZ.

Hike the hills around Camp. It's good PT and you can see a good bit of the area from the top. Have you enjoyed your first "IT'S 0 DARK 30!!!! GET UP AND GET YOUR KIT!!!! WE GOTTA GET UP THE MOUNTAIN!!!" Well, YOU won't have to get to the top of any mountain with all your grip+NBC detection gear+extra commo gear+Dragon+extra MRE's/water/ammo. Aahhh....crawling up a mountain on all fours becasue it is sooooo steep. And you have all that extra crap that it takes you 2 trips. Then you sit there all day and watch for the enemy (your plt sgt and 1sg trying to find holes in the perimeter and guys sleeping).

Get with your Katusa. Learn the culture/language. It will get you a lot of respect with them.

Ask about airsoft over there. I got my first springer there in 1996. A Glock, 2 mags, and 1000 bbs for about $20.

If they still do it, do Army Corrospondance Courses. There are many to choose from. They will help you pass the time and even better, get you points for promotion. If you can get CLS, get it. I heard you don't do IV's anymore so you don't need to worry about that. You are in a great place to do this stuff. Nothing to do and nowhere to go. Nothing but time to further your career and get into better shape. More points and a top PT score will help set you above your peers and get you promoted. Even though you have to wait something like 24? months to get E4, the points really pay off when it comes time to get E5.

Take care and have fun.

yeah...it could be worse..you could be at ft. polk this time of year...

Polk is great. My first time there, we stayed in this "FOB" thing they constructed. It was sloped. It was pouring for days and the low end flooded so bad that it washed the wall away. Totally gone. We stayed in Circus tents (no joke) that had rivers running through them. It was great.

The second time was the complete opposite. We stayed in real buildings and the weather was great.

Well I just finally completed in-processing and settled in my final unit. NCOs are straight and they do take good care of you here. Apparently the 1SG requires my chief to take me out friday night so I can see and experience the "Ville". The funny thing about my unit is our 1SG and our platoon SGT's both Airborne, Air Assault, and Pathfinder qualified. Soooo, here's how PT goes as I was briefed, Monday, Wednesday is "running at a 6:30-7:00 per mile pace for an hour", and Tuesday, Thursday is "muscle failure for 40 minutes then we run a 6:00 per mile pace for 20 minutes" then friday is just straight up 6 mile ruck march with a packing list that could last me the initial invasion of NK. We do this every week. Hooah? More like Hoo-ouch. Good way to get in shape though seeing as how the terrain around here requires crawling up. I'd share more but that's already OPSEC since yeah.. OPSEC.

One of the few reasons why I love being in the Army right there.

Before you PCS, that PT will seem like nothing. It will also change along with your ENTIRE CoC. Your next 1sg could end up being a no-Pt-slacker-POS-never-been-anywhere-or-done-anything....POS.

Well my section chief does have about 39 days left before he gets replaced by someone new. He might be replaced by someone as good or better or he might be replaced by some PT-NO-GO Shammer.

we talk about all the awsome stuff were going to do in college lol

zachbarren wrote:we talk about all the awsome stuff were going to do in college lol

College? Sadly the only reason I'm taking random courses right now is for promotion points. How's the Corp treating you? I'd assume you have less political problems to worry about.

maybe you could visit guam....lol...
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20100112f1.html
or darwin australia...(not like we didn't have marines and navy based out of Oz during WW2)
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/us-to-have-new-darwin-military-presence/story-fn7x8me2-1226192278832
or PI ..since we are basing out of there again...
http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/operations/231257-philippines-re-opens-military-bases-to-us-forces-
or best of all beautiful cam ranh bay,vietnam...one of the best deep water ports on the planet...
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/06/pentagon-cam-ranh-bay-vietnam.html

Flipa as Andy said correspondence course and PT score help for promotions. Also there used to be a gate behind 1st Tanks barracks over on Casey runs up the side of the mountain with some decent places for repelling, I would go up there about once a month. Also you could take a buddy and just ride the buses around they go into some interesting areas. Make the most of it remember the best way to get promoted is to not screw up.

I read about the US reopening bases in the Philippines. That would be cool if they sent me there instead, at least that's where I'm from so I can deal with it better.

I'm trying to start early since I'm really aiming on a good career. I've already been nagging my chief about Airborne school and he's looking at me like "seriously? already?". Been busting myself off the gym and running trying to max PT (slowly getting there) and believe it or not I volunteer for everything, even teaching little Korean kids how to speak english, I signed up for that and other random community service events. Makes the time go by faster at least.

Argghhhh Last minute instructions...

So we're to form up at 0400 in full alert gear (alert gear equals what we'll be on us if ever NK starts something, which means I'll have EVERYTHING ON ME...) and we'll go climb some mountains.. So 150+ lbs of gear on me, climbing basically vertical terrain and the forecast is... RAIN. Oh let me add, I carried a SAW the last time we did a toned down version of this so I'll probably be carrying a SAW again... and we'll have ammo with us this time too. I'm definitely gonna get some. I freaking love the Army so much...