Day 202

One day closer to home and the day I got to shed a LOT of gear. If you remember back to my first few weeks of this deployment, I was issued a lot of gear including my body armor...about 3 seabags worth of "stuff." Today at 8am, I was in the first of 3 groups to haul their gear out of their tents and bring them over to the entrance of the main tent. At 8am, we were briefed that as soon as the big roller door went up, we'd all walk in and be told how the gear drop would go then we'd come out and get our gear. The door went up and about 70-100 sailors broke out in thunderous applause. We were totally shocked as we walked through them all. It reminded me of the night we boarded the plane to leave the United States. Remember that? All of those Boy Scouts and VFW members were out there to send us off. It was really cool today and I'll admit, it felt darn good. Like I was telling Dorothy earlier, we don't look for thanks or anything and haven't heard any kind of applause since that night we boarded that plane, but to be thanked in applause like that from fellow sailors who are deployed themselves is pretty darn cool. The gear drop went well and in under an hour, we were done. I also got rid of all my Army uniforms except for my favorite pair, the ones I'll wear on the flights home.

Afterwards, I watched another movie, had a catnap, then was back for our admin brief at 1:30pm. Talks from the Chaplain and others regarding future travel were covered. I picked up a command t-shirt and coin afterwards. For the rest of the day, I just hung out and relaxed. Not much to speak of. Tonight at 7pm, the Chaplain invited us out to the Memorial Garden for "Holy Smokes," as he called it. Cigars for all and a time to just unwind. I'm no smoker but I figured I'd give it a puff. Afterall, the Chaplain said smoking isn't a sin, it's a vice! True dat! So I did and after a few puffs, it was confirmed why I never took up smoking...yuck! Still, some good downtime to relax with the others. Tomorrow, we have more briefs on travel to our processing site Stateside following by a workshop to "talk" about our deployment. I'm not sure what this workshop entails but it is CNO-mandated. (Chief of Naval Operations) I'm curious to see what it's all about. Not much for the rest of the day after that. Sunday will be busy, though. :-) With that, Day 202 is history. Time for a shower and bed.

Goodnight, everyone.