My Crazy But Awesome Aunts

So I went to the mailroom on post here today to check my mailbox knowing that the chances of there being anything in there not very likely since I only sent my address home about a week ago. Add that with the speed of mailing things overseas and I figured the chances of me getting anything within at least a month not very likely. Imagine my surprise when I opened my box and there was something there. I pulled out the slip of paper only to find out that I had a package waiting for me. I received my package and looked at the address and found out that it came from ....

Yes it's true, they  are wild and crazy. I walked up the stairs to my room wondering the whole way what they could have sent me. I got up to my room and opened the package up and pulled out this . . .

I couldn't help but wondering why in the world would my aunts send me a stuffed animal. Upon reading the tag attached to it I realized the purpose.

Ah. If only I had this while I was still in Virginia. It would have gotten a lot of use there. Included in the package was an assortment of other papers and pictures.

I read the included information and laughed a lot. It is a common thing for lots of laughs to be included with letters from aunt Karla and Diane.

Thank you aunt Karla and aunt Diane. I really love it. I really appreciate the thought that you put into these things and all the letters you sent me throughout AIT. Thank you for all the laughs that you provide me. Just thinking about some of the things written about in the letter makes me laugh whenever I think about it. Thanks

Hope you all have a great day.

Andy

Korean Phrases

Some of you have asked me if I have been learning to speak Korean. Well I have only really learned a few phrases. I figured I would post some of them for you and let you try to learn them as well.

1. An-nyeong-ha-se-yo. . . . . . . . .Hello

2. Kam-sa-ham-ni-da. . . . . . . . . .Thank you

3. Mi-an-ham-ni-da. . . . . . . . . . . I'm sorry

4. Sil-leh-ham-ni-da. . . . . . . . . . .Excuse me

5. Do-wa-ju-se-yo . . . . . . . . . . . .Help me

6. Wha-jangsil-e-odi-yeyo . . . . . . .Where is the restroom?

7. Jooseyo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Please give me _______

8.  Eol-ma-ye-yo . . . . . . . . . . . . .How much is this?

9. Bee-ssa-yo . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  It is expensive

10. Ggagga-jooseyo . . . . . . . . . . Give me a discount

11. Yogi, Chogi . . . . . . . . . . . . . Here, There

12. Oh-run-jok, When-jok . . . . . . Right, Left

13. Ne, Aniyo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yes, No

There you have it. You can now say you can speak Korean. Hope you all have a great day.

Andy

Memorial Day

So today is memorial day. I have to admit that in years past I never really thought about the true meaning of this holiday. I thought about it more as a day off from school and work. This year however, this holiday had taken on a new meaning for me. I realized just a portion of what it takes to be deployed and be away from your family for several months. I am so much more thankful for those that have gone before me and provided those freedoms so that others don't.

The Medal of Honor is our nations highest award for military valor. It is reserved for those soldiers whose actions are so extraordinary, risky and above and beyond the call of duty that nobody would have criticized them for choosing to do something else instead. There has only been 3,459 of these medal ever awarded since it's creation during the civil war. Here are two examples of soldiers that got awarded the Medal of Honor.   

The first being that of Marine Corporal Jason Dunham. Cpl. Dunham was on a patrol in Iraq on April 14, 2004 when an Iraqi insurgent jumped out of a car and grabbed him around the neck. They began fighting in hand to hand combat when  Cpl. Dunham saw the insurgent drop a hand grenade. Instead of moving away from it and saving his life Cpl. Dunham realized the risk to the rest of the Marines in his squad and instantly placed his own helmet over the grenade and laid on top of the helmet, in the hope of containing his blast and protecting his men. Cpl. Dunham succeeded in protecting his men but lost his own life while doing it.

The second is Army Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith. SFC Smith was leading his helping to construct a enemy POW holding area near Baghdad international airport on April 4, 2003 when his task force was attacked by a large group of insurgents. Fearing his men would be overrun SFC Smith moved under withering enemy fire to a disabled armored personal carrier to man a .50 caliber machine gun. In total disregard for his life he maintained this exposed position in order to engage the enemy. It was during this that SFC Smith was killed. His courageous actions resulted in as many as 50 enemy soldiers killed and the safe withdraw of numerous wounded American soldiers. 

I have one simple request of everyone now. I ask that you take one minute of your day and remember the soldiers who have died, the soldiers still fighting all over the world, and all the families who have lost a loved one in battle.

Andy

Not Much Going On

So as you all should know, Monday is memorial day. Since this is a federal holiday most every military post should be having a four day weekend. That means I have Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday off. I know I am going to hear about how much of a slacker I am too. But let me say I am looking forward to two days without PT. I don't mean to brag but I am actually very proud of this but on Friday for PT we ran 4 miles without stopping. In total this week I ran about 10 miles. That is something I never thought I would be able to say, so I am quite proud of myself.

Anyway, today some of my friends and I decided to go down to Yongson today to pick up some things that Camp Eagle doesn't have. Our primary goal was to take advantage of a free cell phone offer to all incoming soldiers in Korea. This however turned out to be a big letdown because you would still have to go into a contract with them which would go past your one year in country, plus you had to return the phone at the end of your time in country. So in essence I would be back in the states paying for a phone I didn't have anymore.

I had my camera with me today but only took three pictures and they are all boring but oh well.

This is a large tower near Yongson. I don't really know what it is but I believe it is another observatory.

Some random buildings on the post in Yongson.

This will take some explanation. If you zoom in you will see this is a "crossing guard". On AFN(armed forces network) there is a very cheesy commercial which features this guy telling people to be safe. When I saw this I couldn't resist taking a picture of a real TV star.

The best part of the day however was something that happened on the bus ride to Yongson. We passed by a park where I happened to see children circumvolving by body wrestling! It was one of the funniest things I've seen here.

That's about it for now. Hope you all enjoy your weekend.

Andy

A HUGE Thank You

I would just like to say thank you to everyone who posted a comment wishing me a happy birthday. I was amazed when I got on on today and saw that there was over 30 comments.

It really helped to improve my day. I will admit that when I woke up on Wednesday I was a little depressed. I have had those moments of homesickness since I got to Korea but for the most part I have been pretty good. However it really hit me when I realized that I wasn't going to see my family that day except for through webcam.

I am so blessed that God gave me the wonderful family that I have. They stay up late every night so that they can talk to me online during my lunch break. They have never hesitated to do anything for me or send me things that I may need and they have been extremely supportive over the last several months. I thank God every day for my family.

I have also received some comments asking questions about things over here so I figured I would take a moment to answer some of them.

First off, yes there are three guys that were in my class in AIT that are now with me here in Korea. One of them was one the flight over here with me and the other two came a week after me.

Second, yes aunt Cheri there is stuff on TV that is in English. There is a group of channels that is the Armed Forces Network which has ESPN, movies, regular shows etc. also we get certain HBO channels and a few Korean channels. The best part is through AFN we don't have to pay for any pay-per-view events that are on. Which means that I can watch all the UFC events that I want. Yesssss!

Third, my roommate is a good guy. He has been in country for a couple months so he knows the goings on around here and has been very helpful when I need to know anything.

I guess those are the main three. If you have any more questions feel free to ask them I will do my best to try and answer them.

Once again thank you to every one for wishing me a happy birthday and to everyone who prays for me and all the other soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. I truly appreciate it.

Andy

My Room

I have had many request from people (mainly mom) to post some pictures of my current room. So here you go.

This is my bed. It doesn't look anything like it ever did in training mainly because I had to make it to specific standards then and I don't have to worry about that now. Thank goodness for small favors.

This is looking into the room. My roommate had just done laundry and didn't have time to fold it before he had to go. just if you were wondering about the stack of clothes.

This is the small sink we have in our room. Just thought you all might like to see that.

And finally we have here our fridge, microwave and large TV. No that didn't come with the room, it belongs to my roommate.

I also have been requested to post a picture of the wonderful tea spoons I got back on culture day. Drum roll please . . .

 

Amazing!  I think they would make a wonderful decoration on the wall of kitchen back home, don't you?

And finally I took this picture of a poster of the battalion I am in now.

It's the 1st battalion, 2nd aviation regiment.

I hope you all enjoyed the tour of my humble abode. I tried not to be too flashy so you all wouldn't be jealous and want to join me here in wonderful Korea. 

Advanced Individual Training

I dont have much to say today about life in Korea because I havent done anything lately. I will say I am pretty bored because there is nothing to do here and I cant leave the post. So I figured I would share some pictures of AIT with you all.

I was at Fort Eustis, VA for my Advanced Individual Training from September 29, 2007 to April 24, 2008. I was assigned to alpha company "gators", 1 battalion of the 222nd aviation regiment "skymasters", 8th transportation battalion. I had a realativly fun time here although it did have those times when I felt like the world was out to get me.

This is a view of my barracks. Let me tell you they look pretty nice from the outside but they could have used a little bit of work on the inside.

Here is the hanger where I went to school every night. There was a total of 16 helicopters in here.

Here is a closeup of the U.S. Soldiers best friend and our enemies worst nightmare. The AH-64d Apache Longbow.

And here is a picture of class 01-08Y. My class.

The first two pics are of one of my friends, Wortham. He was always doing crazy things so I have many pictures of him like these.

This is Wortham and Chambers. They were so excited because we were graduating the next day.

This is the group that I hung out with the most. From left they are Wortham, Mackin, Chambers, me, and Kelly.

This is another one of my friends, Debolt and me.

All in all AIT wasnt that bad. At the time I thought it was but looking back I have a lot of great memories and met a lot of people that I will be friends with forever.

Culture Day

Wednesday was our Korean cultural tour. We started the day with, what else, more briefings. We learned about the partnership between the ROK army and the U.S. Army, we watched a video about twae kwon do, and a little bit about the Korean war. Then we had a short class on Korean phrases, that we could use during our tour through the city.

We boarded the buses after this and headed out into the city of Uijongbu to go to the authentic restaurant. I wasn’t all to sure about this since I am not big on oriental food, however I cant really complain about it. Most of it wasn’t bad. I wont list all the things we ate, mainly because I don’t remember them and I probably couldn’t spell them anyways. It was very, very spicy food. One of the things I ate was a soup that (I wasn’t keyed in on this little tip until after I had ate most of it) had sushi and seaweed in it. Yum!

After the restaurant we went over to a place called Home Plus. It is basically a three story Wal-Mart. Nothing special. Then we went over to the Gyeonggi-do government building where we watched a short movie that explained to us how the Gyeonggi province is one of the leading technology producers and how it affects the rest of the world. Just for going here everyone got a complimentary tea spoon set. Awesome.

Then it was over to our final stop. The Mt. Odu Unification Observatory. From here we could look out across the river into North Korea. We watched another short video about the observatory and North Koreas reaction to it. Korea is the only country in the world that is still divided.

This is looking out over the river into North Korea. You can see a small farming village along the shore. The observation tower was built in 1992. North Korea responded by building this villahe along with others like it along the river to show the ROK that the Norths economy was thriving. Funny because no one lived in these villages for several years until farmers eventually moved in.

This is looking back into Seoul South Korea from the observation point. Seoul is only an hours drive from the DMZ.

Here is a building in South Korea that was near the observation tower. I dont know what it was I just thought it was cool looking.

One of the buildings in the North Korea village was open al the time so that the villagers could go there and idolize Kim Jung Ill. That was all there was for that day.

On Thursday we shipped out to our permanent duty station. I ended up going to Camp Eagle. It is a very small post with out a lot to do but it is one of the more laid back places which is nice.

Here is a view out my window. You can see part of the flightline in the corner with th Apaches.

Here is a better view of all the Apaches. It's cool to be able to look out your window and see them all right there. We also have a ROK air force base right to the left of camp eagle and it gets pretty noisy with the jets takeing off and landing but it's cool to see them flying around.

Here is a view of the motor pool from my window. That is where all the trucks and humvees get parked. Not very exciting but still part of the post.

Wow, that was a long one. I think that this is all for now so let me sign off saying stay agile, mobile, and hostile. Hooah!

Andy

In Processing

So my first day in Korea began with some very boring briefings about things like what to expect in Korea and so on. Then I got put on another bus that took me to the base I am at currently, Camp Stanley. This is where I am doing all of my initial in-processing.

One of the things I have to do here is get several shots. Two of them that I am not looking forward to are smallpox and anthrax. The pictures we saw of the smallpox were disgusting. The anthrax shot I have to get is the second in a series of 6. When I got the first shot it didn’t really hurt till the day after I got it. I could barely lift my arm to shoulder level cause it hurt plus it gave me a huge welt. Needless to say I am not looking forward to it.

Anyway Wednesday we are going on a cultural tour of the ROK. We are going to eat lunch at a restaurant that serves normal Korean food and then go up a mountain that we will be able to see for miles all around including into North Korea. So I am going to try to take some pictures to post for you all.

On a side note, Korea kind of reminds me off Guatemala. There are mountains all over, though not as many as Guatemala. It has more plains. But the scenery is somewhat the same. The roads are much better too. However the people driving, well that’s another story.

Andy

You All Requested It . . .

Well You all requested it and here it is. I am going to do my best to keep up to date but it may take some time getting things rolling here in the beginning.

As you all know I left for the Republic of Korea or the ROK as it is affectionately called on Tuesday 06 May 2008. Mom, Dad, Heather and I got to the airport around 0430 for my flight at 0630. I took off from GR and arrived in Atlanta at roughly 0830. I spent some time waiting and soon boarded my flight for the ROK. We took off around 1130 and proceeded halfway around the world.

It was a crazy experience for me. It never got dark outside the aircraft even though to me still going on eastern time it was midnight. We landed at Incheon International Airport in Seoul at 1530 Korean time however 0230 eastern time. When I went to bed that night it was like I had said goodbye to my family that morning but in all actuality it was 1 day and a half ago. Thinking about that really threw me for a loop.

Since I don’t want to bore you all to bad with my first post I will wrap it up here for today. I will try to post again soon with more stories.

Stay Agile, Mobile, and Hostile

Andy