Is It Over Yet

Lately I have not been very good at keeping up my blog and honestly it’s because of laziness. Well right now I’m in Fort Lee, Virginia for MOS school. I’m here to re-class to a 92F, which is a Petroleum Supply Specialist, for my deployment. Pretty much it has to do anything with with fuel. The class is 2 weeks and then another 2 weeks in January. So far the class has been alright. It’s two weeks of straight PowerPoint (death by PowerPoint) and no hands on…wonderful (note the sarcasm).

It’s been nice because throughout the day I’ve been able to talk to other guys about how much the Army has changed for the worse. Let me explain a bit. Fort Lee is a training post for recruits to come here after basic to get their job training (MOS). Now when I went to AIT we had Drill Sergeants marching us around and babysitting us. Granted we had a bit more freedom then say a basic training recruit, but we still were considered recruits. Well apparently here at Fort Lee they have phased out all the Drill Sergeants and replaced them with Cadre members. I’m sure Cadre members can be tough like Drill Sergeants, but there’s just something about Drill Sergeants that make them intimating, knowing they are in charge, and will get in your face. Also I saw a few months ago that Drill Sergeants have been told to tone down the yelling because of the “stress” and the recruits were dropping out! Are you kidding me! They’re supposed to be training soldiers; I want the weak ones weeded out.  Overall standards have dropped, such as soldiers being overweight and not passing the physical fitness test (PT Test). It use to be that you could not graduate from AIT until you passed the PT Test, but now recruits can graduate without passing a PT test. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy being in the military, it’s just sad to see how the standard has dropped and the military has changed to be more acceptable tolerate.

It’s really hard to believe that December is right around the corner. Once I get home I’ll only have a few weeks left and then off to Camp Shelby. Last week at Home Fellowship Group was more than likely the last one I would make and group did something really wonderful me. They had nice cake for me and a nice gift bag with some stuff I needed of. It was really touching.

Anyways that’s all for now.

More death by powerpoint tomorrow and I miss my wife.

Really!?!

Sorry for the delay of a new entry, it keeps moving to the bottom of the pile of things to do. Last weekend I had drill with my new unit that I will be going with when I deploy. It was really a waste of a weekend for me because all of the mandatory training and briefings I did last month they were doing again. So it was three days of sitting around and doing nothing. Benson, where my unit is, is a small one traffic light town with a population of 2500. Really only one traffic light, but the people I met were really friendly. I ate lunch at some deli and the owner came and introduced himself to me and shook my hand. It was really nice.

Of course there is the big news of the economy and its condition. One hand I agree with the bailout plan because something needs to be done before we go into another depression. What I don’t agree with is that these big companies are getting bailed out because of their greed. Yes I’m talking about you ::insert bank name here:: and AIG. We here in the media is that people are buying these houses they can’t afford because of the lack of regulations on the banks and we are one of them…kinda. Affording the house was not a problem, but Bank of America talked us into taking out a second mortgage and appraised our house way over what it was actually worth. I’m not saying that BOA is totally at fault, Jen and I hold some responsibility because we should have done our research instead of depending on the bank. But BOA should be held responsible for giving out false information…like a 2 bed 2 bath house built in 1983 worth 215,000 (ya right).

Anyway the house is in foreclosure. So we got a letter a few weeks ago from AIG requesting that we write them a check for 65,000 dollars…let me go ahead and get my checkbook out. I find out that the government bailed them out with a $85 Billion dollar package so they could go to a spa resort and drop $400,000 in a weekend! Then today I find out they are requesting another $37.8 billion dollars! What the…they want me to be responsible for my debt and if not they will take me to court and take whatever I own. This whole thing just really angers me. What has our government come to too allow this? I wouldn’t be surprised if someone is getting some sort of cut under the table. As a taxpayer and now part owner of AIG, I want accountability, but I doubt I will get that.

Till next time folks…

Jen e-mailed me this to me this afternoon about AIG:

Battered by outrage over the $440,000 it spent on a luxury retreat less than a week after the federal government loaned it $85 billion dollars, the giant AIG Insurance Company says it has called off plans to hold a second retreat next week at the exclusive Ritz-Carlton Resort in Half Moon Bay, California.