Sunday, September 20, 2009

In 3...2...1...

I'm Richard Colletta, a Specialist (E-4) in the United States Army. I'm a former US Marine (radio operator/forward observer) who did his time, took a vacation, and then a while later decided to join the Army. I'm a Broadcast Journalist (46R) with the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, which is of course the coolest job in the Army. You know all those other Soldiers who complain about their jobs? Well...I'm the guy that gets to shoot video of them working while they complain! (I kid...a little)

I've also been known to take photos and scribble down a story or two occasionally. But don't think it's all fun and games in the Public Affairs Office. We get serious and we work pretty hard too.

Our unit has been gearing up for the last year to deploy to Iraq and now we're there! This will be my second deployment to Iraq. But before I get ahead of myself let me take you back about a month ago.

It was midnight on the 25th of August when I finished packing my bags, trying to cram a year's worth of things I needed and was required to have into bags that were hopelessly too small to fit them. My 4 children, Ryan (7), Leilani (5), Ian (3), and Gabriella (23 mos) were all asleep. I didn't want to wake the poor little dears. I had already given them hugs and kisses before they went to bed but I gave my son Ian one last kiss before I headed out the door. We're best buds and we would often sleep together with Ian cuddled in my arms.

At 3am we drew weapons from the Armory and dropped our gear off at the staging area. From there things dragged on. I said goodbye to Tatiana, my (smoking hot) wife around 4 or 5am. It wasn't until 12 in the afternoon we actually got on a plane.

We had a stop in Germany for about an hour. As we landed the sun broke over the horizon and cast a golden hue throughout the plane. Beyond the flight-line lay an expanse of grassy plains surrounded by beautiful forests stretching as far as the eye could see. I kinda wished I was a sword-wielding adventurer with long wavy hair and could just go exploring, slaying blood-thirsty wolves, rescuing fair maidens from cutthroat bandits and whatnot but alas there was no way I could get my hair to curl into illustrious wavy locks so I decided to make the best of it.

We got back on the plane for the final leg to Kuwait. For what must have been the 5th military flight in a row I was subjected to the awful acting of Keanu Reeves in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" which was a horrible remake of the original 1951 film. What really gets me is that they don't even say, "Gort! Klatu, Berata, Niktu!" I mean...c'mon.

We got off the plane and piled into charter buses headed to Camp Buehring, Kuwait where we would wait to fly out to Iraq. But due to a series of infuriating circumstances we ended up playing the infamous waiting game, adding nearly another half a day while waiting for new bus drivers to relieve the old ones who refused to drive anymore for the day.

After what was nearly 2 days of travel, we finally made it Camp Buehring.

We had a few mandatory classes while at Camp Buehring, what some might call check-the-box type stuff, powerpoint slideshows and stuff of that nature.

But what should have been a week in Buehring before flying out to our final destination, COB Speicher, Iraq turned into almost a month, of waiting, sleeping, eating, sleeping some more, doing that eating thing again, and well...you get the picture.

Critical Training Continues as Dragons Deploy
A quick refresher in first aid in combat

Greetings from Kuwait
Hi Mom!

Hot Running
I pun whenever I can get away with it...

Remembering 9-11
Soldiers at Camp Buehring run a 5k in remembrance of September 11th.


Friendly Competition

What to do when you've got nothing to do? How about a game of Spades? (Personally, I would've gone with Dominoes)

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