the busy life of a chaplain assistant preparing for war...

I know a lot of people wonder what I do normally at work, and I've talked about some of the big things that have happened, but here's a brief overview of the last couple weeks and whats in store for me at work:

Well, the conexes (sea containers) are sealed, our bags are packed, and we are now pretty much ready to head out to the sandbox. Almost is the key word. We still have a lot going on. Last week and this week, there has been an Arabic Language training class going on. I was supposed to be in, but fortunately they didn't have room for me. But my chaplain is in there. I still plan to learn the basics, but thankfully, it won't be from a firehose. This week has been pretty busy in the office. We ordered some spiritual reading and cds and such a while back, and it finally came in, so people have been stopping by to check out what we have on our shelves. We also have a lot of soldiers coming in for counselings--mostly typical military stress and combat concerns. Those who have never been combat really don't know what to expect, so it is natural to have some concerns. I give kudos to the soldiers who are willing to admit that they have fear or concerns about deploying rather than letting it bottle up inside.

I've been pretty busy myself preparing for a spiritual fitness breakfast we are hosting for our battalion next week. It took quite a bit of doing to get the food situation handled. The Dining Facility and their rules make it difficult to aquire food from them because they do not see a "prayer breakfast" as an official training event, which does not justify them allowing us to pick up hot chow to bring to our area for the event, nor is it enough to justify opening the DFAC early to allow us to us the space there before normal DFAC hours. Its all a bunch of politics that had to be sorted out. We have our command Chaplain (a Colonel) coming to speak to our soldiers about faith in the fight and some tips for keeping a good spiritual life while serving in the military. I am really excited for this.

Once that is over, we are preparing a pre-deployment blessing service for our battalion at the chapel. We'll offer prayers for every faith represented in our battalion, probably have a speaker, and just ask God to bless our battalion through our deployment. I have to finish most of the planning for that before block leave in December. I finally got my leave approved, and bought my plane tickets the other day, so I'll get to spend about 10 days with family and friends in early December. I am very excited for that. After block leave, I've got Christmas, and then immediately after that I turn in my car, store my household goods, and head out the door to Iraq. Its going to be very busy when I get back.

For the past 2 weeks, we've been preparing for our brigade organization day tomorrow. An organization day consists of subordinate units of the host unit competing in different sports, and my battalion has consistently come in 2nd place in our brigade for a while now. So the LTC and CSM decided to really put forth the effort--all our sports teams that will play tomorrow have been practicing together and developing as a team in order to hopefully win as many of the events as we can so that we can take home the trophy. Despite my success on my company team at our battalion org day, I chose to try out for volleyball--less pressure on my knees. I didn't make the cut though, so I will be a cheerleader tomorrow. No worries, it'll give me a chance to take some pictures, and maybe even relax without the stress of winning games on my shoulders. I'll post the outcome later--hopefully I'll have good news!

In the meantime, pray for our sister battalion, 84th Engineer who heads out in the next couple weeks for their deployment! In particular, the chaplain assistant from their bn and his wife, a 56M up at command, who are expecting their second child to arrive right before Thanksgiving! Maybe he'll come a little early so Dad can meet him before he leaves for Iraq!

My biggest accomplishment in the Army thusfar...

So I have been in the Army for 16 months now, and so far I've completed basic training, earned Distinguished Honor Grad (Valedictorian) of my Advanced training class, earned the respect and trust of the chaplain and command staff I will go downrange with, even got an Army Achievement Medal for being proficient and "forethinking" in my work.

But my greatest accomplishment thusfar would have to be proving myself able to compete with the best of the Sappers in Ultimate Frisbee, and helping HHC (Headquarters and Headquarters Company) win the Battalion Organization Day trophy. Its always nice to come to work the next day and receive compliments from the command staff (the big guys in the battalion) for playing well.

Ok, time for more packing before bed. But first a little hint of advice for anyone looking to get permanent marker out of clothing (or military gear before turning it back in), Extra strength freezing aerosol hair spray works wonders, especially when combined with Spray-n-Wash with Resolve power. But it is mostly the hair spray that does the work. Trust me. I may be speaking from first-hand experience.

Pro Deo Et Patria!

In case you hadn't heard...

So I've decided to include in this blog little news tidbits and such that most people don't hear about the military and especially about chaplains/catholics in the military. Most of these can be linked back to http://www.catholicmil.org

This is the first of such entries.

Franciscan Priest Survives IED
In July, CH (LTC) Michael Travaglione was traveling on a patrol with 1st Armored Division when his HMMWV struck and detonated an IED. His immediate response as reported by his assistant: “Chaplain T was like ‘Wow, that was exciting!’ with a big smile on his face.”
An interesting sidenote--Chaplain Travaglione operates out of COB Speicher, where I am supposed to be headed in just a few months.

Fr. Timothy Vakoc
A priest who was injured by an IED on the 12th anniversary of his priesthood is the only chaplain casualty of the war in Iraq. He suffered severe brain damage from the blast and was expected to remain a paraplegic the rest of his life. Slowly he has shown miraculous recovery. This website follows his story.


Its late here and I am just procrastinating from sleep as usual, so I will limit myself to these two for the moment. I'll post more when I have time...

85 days and counting...

85 days is approximately how long we have until our main body deploys to Iraq. Some will be leaving up to 2 weeks earlier, and we have about a 7 day window for the main body to deploy, but after the last 3 weeks, I know that some of us are ready to just get on the plane and get over there. Our battalion had our MRE (Mission Readiness Exercise) over the last 3 weeks, spending 13 days in the field doing missions and being graded on our readiness for war. Now that we are back, it is time to pack up all our equipment to ship out and do our last minute prep for deployment before block leave in December. This weekend I will be doing all my shopping for supplies to pack in the containers that are being shipped so I don't have to try to get things once I get downrange. Monday is a day off, but we have a battalion organization day at Bellows Beach, should be a decent time. I'm hoping to represent my company in volleyball or ultimate frisbee, but we'll see if they let me this time. (Last org day I got passed over for playing softball, it made me a little upset, but they just don't know what they were missing.)

Not really much else to report on...lots of training and packing going on, its gonna be busy for the next 2 months, but hopefully not as busy as it was the last 2 months!