Day 1 at NMPS

Today was the first day of NMPS check in. In fairness to them, they have to process a lot of folks. On the individual level, it is 2 days of processing crammed into a week. At least I have a car to get about in. Our days start at 0600 with group PT followed by filling out paperwork, medical exams and a lot of waiting around. Today, I snuck out and hit the gym for a quick working out during my lunch break. Speaking of food, since government messing is available, we are on the PMR (partial meal rate) so the per diem we get is pretty minimal. The galleys her have pretty good food and they have convenient hours.The big lesion I learned today is that flight suits are cool at NMPS. I regret bringing my khakis.I met some of the other RTF-611 guys that I’ll be going over to Iraq with. We are all pretty much in the dark as to exactly what we will be doing and where we’ll end up. There is a fair amount of information out there, but a lot of it is contradictory. I guess we’ll find out once we get over there. I just got an email from a friend of mine from Japan. He is currently in Iraq and saw my name on a list of folks coming over there. It will be good to hear what he has to say.As of right now, my schedule is to process here in Norfolk until the end of the week. On Saturday, I will go to Ft. Huachuca, Arizona for 3 weeks of training. After that, I get to come back to Pensacola for a week. Once I completely disrupt the household and ruin what ever system Braye sets up, I’ll head for Ft. Jackson, S.C. for 2 weeks of Army training. After that, I catch either a NALO flight or a commercial flight to Kuwait. I’ll spend up to 2 weeks in Kuwait conducting training. After that, I’ll head to Camp Victory Iraq