Hi All!  I am finally getting a free moment to sit down and give an update!  I am currently in my 22nd day on Active Duty and I have about 343 days left…but no one is counting!  The crazy part is, even though it feels like I have been gone forever already, I haven’t even left the States!  To date I’ve spent about 3 weeks in between Camp Blanding near Gainesville, FL and now Fort Dix, NJ for the last round of training.

I am slowly adjusting back into the “military mindset,” and even though some things are still misunderstood, I am picking up the lingo again.  Here, the cafeteria is the “chow hall,” the restroom is the “latrine” and the morning is always “0′dark thirty” no matter what time it really is!  I have been asking some of the old timers where these names originated from and no one really seems to know.

So far, my training here at Fort Dix has been far superior to the training I received before deploying to Iraq. Fort Dix is what is called a mobilization base, so every soldier, and even some sailors, marines and airmen, have to come to Fort Dix before they leave the country.  With that being said, you can basically just come to New Jersey and get the whole Iraq experience!  There is a FOB (Forward Observing Base) here that looks exactly like the FOB I was stationed at in Iraq. It is fully equipped with port-a-johns, foort operated hand washing stations and even Muslim prayer broadcasted 5 times a day throughout the camp!  Who knew?  Part of the training at the FOB is to go out on missions into a simulated village in “Baghdad” and interact with the local populace. The local populace in this case are hired role players that only speak Arabic, and we have to do our full assessments of the village through an interpreter.  It is great Civil Affairs training actually, and it is refreshing to know that all of the soldiers deploying to Iraq are being trained now to interact with the locals, and do a little bit of Civil Affairs themselves.

My team in training!

My team in training!

But I digress. “Civil Affairs Specialist” is my actual job title, and I work on a five man team including myself.  Once I get to Africa, my team will be responsible for integrating with the public through providing humanitarian assistance.  For example, some of the past projects that have been done by CA teams in Africa are the construction of wells, food and water assistance, and Medical readiness and awareness.  We build rapport with the locals, uncover and assess their needs and ultimately implement necessary infrastructure or resources to meet those needs!

I am also realizing that my original assignment to Madagascar, Mauritius and the Seychelles Islands are a thing of the past. According to the State Department, the only countries that have open borders right now to the military are Ethiopia and Djibouti.  I am now slotted to go to Ethiopia and replace a team that has been operating there for 9 months.  We will have a cross over period with that team for a while.

Today we had our “yellow ribbon ceremony” that marked our official send off to Africa!  It was very nice actually, and almost made me cry!  My whole company was given a yellow ribbon that will hang over Fort Dix until we return!  It will hang with the other 20 ribbons of all the units that have mobilized through Fort Dix and it was the only ribbon up for the Horn of Africa!

I have started taking my Malaria medication and hope the nausea will wear off soon.  I am expecting to be in Africa by the end of the week, and I will send another update upon arrival as soon as I get the chance.

Bye for now!

SGT Loope, McKenzie