The Next 455 Days

The next 3 months are going to be a bit chaotic.

31 MAR - Sign out on leave.
Approx 1 APR - Come in to work while on leave in order to get promoted. Provided, of course, that my name actually shows up on the April promotion list. The list is supposed to come out today. I'm checking the website obsessively to find out when the list shows up.
11 APR - Sign in off of leave. Some time before then, I need to get my security clearance periodic review squared away and all blocks checked and forms filled out. I will likely do this while on leave also.
17 APR - Report to BNCOC at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
5 JUN - Graduate BNCOC.
Some time in JUN - Deploy back to Iraq. Embrace the Suck.

Right now, the deployment is scheduled for 12 months only. I won't be out kickin' ass and looking for IEDs on the side of the road. Instead, my assignment will be to a training team that is going to go teach other Engineers to go looking for IEDs. Translation: I'll be moving around a lot, and probably have a fair bit of time for blogging. But everything I DO will classified up to the gills (enemy and friendly Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures, which are the ultimate no-go territory for milbloggers) and I won't be able to actually blog about it. No fun outside the wire missions, no shakey photography of controlled detonations, nothing cool in any way.

To say that I am less than thrilled is a bit of an understatement. I love leading Soldiers, for all that Momma's Precious Darlings and Special Snowflakes give me a pounding headache on occasion. Leading Soldiers in combat is an honor and a privilege and one of the few things that I can honestly say that I love fiercely.

However, this is something the Army wants to form teams to do. So I shall go forth and do. It's a decision way above my paygrade. I'm an NCO. I don't write policy, I just execute it. Whatever.

Anyway, there is also something else in the way of format modification in the works for this blog. We'll see how that pans out.