My Army Experience (So Far…)

Preparing for the gas chamber…

I’m back! I’m at the tail end of a very enjoyable 2 week leave from basic training in Fort Jackson, SC. I guess Drill Sergeants want to spend time with their families for the holidays too, so we were allowed to book a flight home form Dec 19th – Jan 3rd.

Basic training, honestly, had been pretty fun up until this point. I was fortunate that because of our starting date we crammed all our graduation requirements before leave. So after 8 weeks of training I’ve undergone the soldier ceremony and have “earned” the right to wear my rank and my beret. The week before leave had the Forge. The Forge was the final field exercise of basic training. We spent 4 days outside in the cold with some of the lows reaching into the 20s at night. We started with a long ruck march of a little over 10 miles. 10 miles isn’t as fun with a 65lb pack. However, I really enjoyed rucking because of the challenge, but mostly because I was warm when I was moving! Sleep was hard to come by as we spent a lot of our time rucking at night. In the cold conditions you could see the moisture on your boots ice over. That was a little depressing, but when it came time to actually get a little sleep I was really impressed by the warmth of our sleeping system. Without a good sleeping system I don’t know if I could have done it! The night before the soldier ceremony we had to sit outside in the cold for hours before it started. No sleep and it may have been the coldest I’ve ever been in my life.

I’ve been asked a lot what a standard day looks like for me in basic training. We start the day typically around 5am with a wake up call. 5:30am formed up outside gives 30 minutes for morning hygiene and making your bed. Then we stand outside in the cold (sensing a theme?) until a Drill Sergeant comes out and runs us through physical training. Days typically alternate between running days and “strong” days which is essentially pushups, situps and other related exercises. After our workout we usually head to the dining facility for breakfast and then back to the bays for a shower depending on time. The rest of the morning until lunch is dependant on where we are in our training cycle. For most of basic we would spend this time getting to the range, either by walking or bus, and then shooting until lunch. Lunch is in the dining facility if we are on the battalion footprint otherwise we eat MREs (meals ready to eat). MREs aren’t terrible, especially if you are good at trading for things you want. I always end up with extra food since I know who likes what and more importantly who doesn’t like what. Then after lunch more shooting and then transport back to the battalion. Then another workout before or after dinner depending on timing. Then after dinner or after the workout we typically spend some time cleaning the classrooms, our bays, or whatever they can find for us to clean. Then if we didn’t mess up to badly we might get 45 minutes of personal time to read and write letters. Then lights out is at 9pm. And then it happens all over again…

I’ve made a lot of friends and have enjoyed learning and getting better at a lot of the different types of training. So for me I’ve really enjoyed it and always found a way to have a little fun each day. There’s always something that a Drill Sergeant yells at another trainee that will make you laugh.

I came home to lots of needed time with family and friends. I also came home to a puppy German shepherd living at my house. So much happiness!

Next, I’ll be headed to Fort Benning, Georgia for 12 weeks of Officer Candidate School. Who knows if I’ll be able to update you from there, but just know I’ll be continuing adventuring and learning!

My Army Experience (So Far…)

Getting Good at Saying Goodbye

I have definitely been slacking on the blog posts, and I will continue to slack…

I will be slacking because of some big news. I joined the Army National Guard! I joined back in June and have been going to drills one weekend a month since then. I meant to post about it sooner, but just never got around to it. Now, I am leaving on Tuesday, October 16th. So I definitely won’t be able to update the blog for a while because of basic training.

To fill you in, here is my schedule. I’ll be headed to Fort Jackson in South Carolina for 12 weeks to start with those 12 weeks including a 2 week break for Christmas. I guess drill Sergeants want to be with their families too during the holidays. Then after the completion of basic I will immediately be headed to Fort Benning in Georgia. There, I will spend another 12 weeks and this does not include any breaks. This 12 week training is going to be Officer Candidate School for me. So what that means, God willing, if I pass and don’t get injured I’ll be headed back home to Michigan around May, but not before being commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant!

I am pretty excited for everything but I know it will be tough. It will especially tough to say goodbye to all the amazing friends and family I have been blessed with. However, this is another one of those things I feel compelled to do. It’s something I’ve thought a lot about and something I think have the skill set to accomplish great things in.

In the gallery above you can see I already started saying goodbye. I had a fun weekend at CMU’s homecoming tailgating and going out with friends one last time before I leave. The one picture of me hugging in the parking lot was on my last day of work saying bye to one of my work friends. I seem to be making a habit out of saying so many goodbyes, but I look forward to a day where I don’t have to do that as much. However, I feel this is the best time in my life, being at this age, to do all these things. It still doesn’t make it any easier.

In other news from me, I bought a house in the Saginaw area. It a big house over 2,000 square feet. I already have 3 friends moved in helping me cover the mortgage. It’s a little nerve racking leaving right after buying a house, but I trust the guys who live here so that is nice. It will be really nice to be able to come back from training and have somewhere to settle.

So that’s a quick update on everything I’ve been up to. I’ll be back around Christmas hopefully with another update!

Getting Good at Saying Goodbye

Exploring East Side Saginaw

A couple friends and I have been on the house search lately. We’ve probably looked at about 20 houses at this point, all in the Saginaw and the Bay City area. Of the Saginaw houses, a couple have been on Saginaw’s east side. For those unfamiliar with Saginaw, Saginaw is a city that frequently graces the FBI’s top 10 most dangerous cities in America with several appearances in the top 5 in this decade. The majority of crimes response for that rank happen on the east side. With that said I am super intrigued by the east side.

Some people might not know, but I have owned a house on the east side for about 2 years now. It’s been a good rental property because the value is so low any rent equates to an abnormally large return on investment. When I first purchased the house those were some of my first experiences on the east side. It’s such an interesting place. In some spots it looks just like a normal safe area. Then in others you see half burnt houses, overgrown vacant lots, and boarded up blocks. An interesting fact is that there is not a single full blown grocery store on the east side. There is no Meijer. No Walmart. No Kroger. The closest thing you’ll find is a Dollar General with no name dollar stores being even more frequent.

Driving on East Gennesse one would see a 10 story apartment complex and right across the street acres of abandoned land former home of the Saginaw County Fair. Due to crime and the general decline of the area the fair was moved in 2002. Left is the unkempt Saginaw Raceway. The raceway was popular before casinos were legalized in Michigan in the late 80s. With competition from casinos horse race betting fell out of popularity. Yet the grandstand remains. How there is a 10 story apartment complex across the road with no grocery stores on that side of the river is another mystery to me. I have so many economic questions raised from things that seem like inconsistencies like the situation above.

My photographer friend Kaitlyn wanted to practice shooting some more rustic, urban scenes so she turned to me to find a place. I decided to check out that abandoned raceway.

The structure was in surprisingly good shape. In the stadium we met two other people who were into urban exploration. They were doing some pretty cool graffiti. It really wasn’t that hard to get in. There were giant holes in the fences everywhere. I reckon it is probably a lot for the police to constantly patrol and repair the area. Really it provides the kids something interesting to explore and hopefully sparks an interest in history and how this happened.

It was a fun little exploration and it really peaked my interest even more in the east side. Not once did I feel unsafe. Even as we left we saw a bunch of young guys playing around in the old fair grounds. It really is a shame to see something that is so cool just completely neglected, but I’m taking it as a cautionary tale and maybe more optimistically as a symbol of hope.

Next post I’ll talk a little about some big commitments I’m making in my life. A little soon after that I’ll be headed out West to see some National Parks in the Washington, Oregon, California area. And who knows maybe there will be a post highlighting my move into a house on the east side (not if my roommates have anything to say about it)!

Exploring East Side Saginaw