The fun begins...

Early Saturday morning all the service members loaded onto three coach buses and began the long trip down to FT Jackson.  Mid afternoon we arrived and began the basic in-processing and were told the schedule for the next couple of days.  We were assigned barracks, so all O-1 to O-5 males are in an open bay barracks, as seen in the pictures.  The guys on my neighboring racks and I have become friends, so its going pretty well.  One of the guys is also bound for Djibouti to be a physician at the clinic there. 

Last night was our last night of drinking for the next 19 days, so the club was packed.  This class is nearly 300 in size, and everyone wanted to get their last beers/drinks.  Everyone partied hard, so I was one of only a handful in my barracks to be up for some breakfast.  During my morning run, I found a couple of obstacle courses, the repelling wall, and other confidence courses in the surrounding forests, so I hope we get to go train on them. 

This is a picture of my neighbors.

I will post more updates while I am here as allowed.  I am not sure about their rules about camera around the post, but I will try to get some pictures of the ranges. 

Goodbye to much of my family and friends

On Saturday, 11 September, my mother hosted a welcome home to Virginia party that many of my family and friends were able to attend.  The party was catered by my favorite BBQ restaurant, Andy Nelsons, serving pulled pork and BBQ'd chicken.  At this party many people found out about my deployment to Djibouti and wished me farewell and the best of luck while over there.  My nephew, Matt, made a poster board about Djibouti with maps and fun facts about the country.  I would like to thank my mother for putting this party together and hope that everyone enjoyed the food and drink. 

I would like to thank everyone for their very gracious gifts to Wenonah and me.  The wine and spirits will especially come in handy both before and after this deployment.  We hope to have a bottle a night at dinner until I deploy. 

I enjoyed this long weekend spending time with my mother, brother, close friends, and in-laws before leaving.  Now its time to start making piles and  packing everything I will need over in Africa.