One Week Out

It's about a week until I leave for Ft. Benning and two weeks until I depart for Iraq. I signed in at my new organization - JIEDDO - and have done my inprocessing with them. Next week I have some orientation briefings and I think I'll be in a meeting with the team in Iraq so they can brief me on anything I need to know before I get there. From a military standpoint this is the strangest deployment I've had. I barely feel like I'm leaving and it's a week away. Usually I've had a large amount of gear issued to me so I've had mobility bags sitting around the house in the weeks leading up to my departure. They keep telling me I'll get everything I need when I get to Ft. Benning so I don't really have anything except my personal stuff to pack. For those of you who aren't familiar with how this works, you can't wear civilian clothes in Iraq so no need to pack that. What I am taking is my laptop, a couple books, an MP3 player, one set of civilian clothes (to fly to Georgia in), my Physical Training (PT) gear, my toiletries, and some documentation I need. All in all, that's very little. My last deployment I had six very full mobility bags. While I'm glad I don't have to carry that much equipment, it's disconcerting to be leaving for a year and not really taking anything. When I get to Ft. Benning, I'll receive uniforms and weapons along with some small uniform items like socks and t-shirts. When I stop in Kuwait I'll receive body armor and chemical warfare gear. It's really a much better way to deploy.

On the home front, I think most of the things on the list have been crossed off. I can always think of a hundred small things I wish I had time to do before I leave. As I've said in other posts, just imagine you had to leave your family for a year and think of all the things you'd want to have done before you leave. I want it to be as easy on them as possible while I'm gone. The often overlooked when it comes to deployments, are the families back home. My wife, now becomes a single working mom. My kids have their lives disrupted and everything changes for them (never underestimate the impact of something like this on kids) and everyone back home will have this low level concern eating away in the back of their minds about my safety. I have the easy part in all this. So back to my point, I want to make sure as many things around the house are taken care of as possible. From my perspective I'll be as worried about them while I'm gone as they are about me - it's that protective instinct for the family. I'll feel helpless to do anything for them while I'm gone and that's not a good feeling. One thing that has helped is getting a nanny. I guess the true term is Au Pair. We have a young lady from Germany coming to live in our home and take care of the kids while I'm gone. She'll be here a couple weeks after I leave and will leave right before I get back - so I won't even meet this girl until my mid-tour, but it's still a good feeling to know childcare is locked in. Let me just say a little about this method of childcare. We looked at every possible method for child care. We assumed we would use the before and after care program associated with the kids school but we were too far down the list for them to get in the program until Jan so we were in a real bind. The problem with that program is you have to pick them up by 6:15pm and you can't drop them off until 7:15am. Anyone familiar with traffic in D.C. will understand why that's a problem. My wife would be stressed everyday trying to make it to child care and work on time. When we started thinking about live in child care we thought the cost would be prohibitive, but in reality the cost is almost the same. Of course you have to provide room and board, but in our case I'm not there anyway so it's really an offset cost. If any of you ever find yourself in need of child care in a similar situation take a look at the State Department's Au Pair program.
Keep checking back - the good stuff is only a couple weeks away. I'll present it all, the good, the bad, the boring, the exciting. The only thing not open for discussion is operationally sensitive information and personal information about my family (after all - anyone in the world can read this) I have a companion web site andyiniraq.com where I'll have a large photo album. That site is empty right now, but once I get there I'll keep it updated with pictures. If anyone wants to know something specific, drop me a line.......

Andy