Racism

Some times I start to think alot and right now I guess I have been doing a lot of it. Some things I just dont understand. History will repeat its self if you dont learn from the past and understand it. I didnt write this to offend anyone. Just to get my opinion off my chest.
I didnt really understand racism till i got in the army and now it seams everywhere. Its not because I grew up in a school with all white kids cause i didnt, not because I went to a college with all white kids cause I didnt. I went to high school and college at schools were it was not a big deal. No one said " I cant play with that kid cause he looks different", My parents didnt say " you cant play her cause she is brown/black" . When I was in the hospital for burns I shared a room with a little black girl. She asked her mom why god left her in the oven longer then me. Every one laughed and just said every one is different but its ok. I am not saying minnesota is great and every body gets along.
     Its crazy, I didn't know what a cracker was until I asked a friend of mine at Fort Benning GA. I had to let my sister know what a cracker was, she didn't know either. My first experience was not of a white girl going after a black girl, it was a black girl not wanting me to braid her hair to go to the field cause I was a white girl. There was how ever a white girl in our platoon that tried to get all the black girls and some others in trouble. People getting mad and enraged thought me and my friend thomas did it. Dude we were to country girls that wanted to just get threw basic. I didnt care what people did on there own time, as long as it didn't get me in trouble.
    Fort Benning was a very interesting place, I lived in a low income area. I was a poor e-3 and didnt want to live in the barracks so I lived in a mostly black neighborhood. I didnt have much trouble at all. People stared at me at walmart and at mcdonolds on exit 4. I guess people like me dont usually go there is what i was told. I didnt know what the big deal was. I was actually surprised by lower income white people and black people. Racism seamed to be a big issue and I couldnt  figure it out but I had friends from all over so i didnt care. I had a nurse ask my NCO if I could by army standards have my hair in braides. At first i couldnt figure out why she asked then I caught on. My nco told her that army regulations were not written for race just across the board females.
    Then I got to Riley.... racism is less in Kansas sorta... soldiers are mean to each other I learned. They treated you different based on how light or dark black you are. A friend of mine pointed that out to me. She didnt like some of the Lighter ones cause they were mean to her. But all in all i really didnt experience to much here.
      Then there was this court cause of a 17 year old kid who got killed by a mexican mixed person. now every one is hollering racism. First a white person didnt do this. Second why did the 17 year old "getting candy attach someone and call him a cracker." But what ever stuff happened. The country was not there. We do not know. Media spins things the way they want. apparently this guy  who shot the kid was defending himself and he was found innocent. In this country you should be able to get a fair trial. Society shouldnt determine the outcome of a trial.
        My whole issue with this is how America responded to the out come of this trial. We are taught that you should not stereo type. But its hard no to do. When people start falling in to them that know better. If people dont want to be thought to be thugs cause there black then don't act like a thug. Work hard don't act in violence when something doesn't go your way. Change it. Martin Luther King didnt act in violence when he wante to fix a problem he used his head and used his words to get people behind him to change things for the better. People need to think about what he has done and others like him and fix things with your brain not violence. It wont solve anything.

Veterans Day

Today is Veterans day. The day we honor the soldiers that served past and present. This day has made me think today about alot. As you know i don't like to think to much. I was thinking about my life before the military, and now.
        I remember before the army veterans day meant we thank the people that gave there lives and those who worked hard to have freedom of speech and the right to live the way we live and that we could live relatively safe with laws and things in place protecting us and our country as a whole. My grandpa served as a Marine in WW2, my uncles : John Othoudt, Doug Othoudt, Stacy Othoudt, and Mavin Othoudt were also in the marines during  and after Vietnam. My uncles :Ken Johnson and Leroy Johnson served in the navy during and after Vietnam. So i guess you could say I would have a strong military background. My dad wanted to join but was unable to so now he lives through me and my brother (sorta). My cousins: Phillip Meyer, Allen Screwmahorn, and Ted Harwood  all joined the navy during the 1990's and longer. My other cousin and brother: Mathrew Othoudt and Jason Johnson joined the Army right after high school and both deployed multiple times. And my friends Sherre Andrade, Jason Johnson and Andre Bodle all joined the Navy, Marines and Army after high school.  There is nothing like watching your friends and family deploy and you are watching the news and wondering if they are OK. Letting your little brother go and you cant protect him. So veterans day meant that my friends and family would get recognition for what they did and give thanks for what they gave up to serve our country. Most of these people joined the Military before 9/11/2001, so deployment was not on there minds. They joined for job security, help pay for college ect. But when our country went to war, they just went. None of them whined about it they just did there job. I have always had a strong want to join the military but they actually did it and I am so proud of them.
                 Veterans day now means even more since i joined. It doesn't really matter what I have done but what I see others do. My military family means a lot to me and I wouldn't change this experience for the world. I do not regret it. I have friends that have gave up time with there family for multiple deployments and what there family goes threw and what they go threw. I have experienced what its like being deployed and how close you get to those you deploy with and the memories you share and that no other person will possibly understand regardless of the situation. I have now realized what you give up when you raise your right hand to serve this country. In a way you give up freedom of speech and the freedom to do what you want, and go where you want. I now fill out a form to ask to go home or not go to work. Not only do I have to ask for that time off but I have to say where I am going and get permission to go home to visit my family. I had to get permission to go home and get married. When your deployed you may or may not have a lot of communication home. You miss your friends and family and me i miss my pets. You have your friends and family that support which is great and that is how you get threw the bad times. With another deployment for me around not all that far off, I will get to experience another country and another experience that I wouldn't have gotten sitting at home.

Interesting turn of events

Its been a long time since I have written in this blog. I did get kicked out of 2-1 for shoulder problems. I have been put in to a new battalion still in the CAB. I am now in 1-6 CAV, its been interesting getting involved in a new battalion and I actually like it and fit in there. I am glad that I got moved.  I have decided to get out of the Army and not reenlist anymore. I did what i set out to do and that was to serve my country and deploy. I have done that. I have one deployment left and 3 years. I know to some this maybe a waste of time but I am going back to my old life with some changes. For one I am taking a husband back to Minnesota with me. We are also taking back some new members of our family. One is a little filly with a lot of attitude that we adopted from Sunrise Equine Rescue. Her name is summer. We also have a rottie named Sadie, a rottie that was kicked out of fort Riley for being aggressive. I cant tell you how unaggressive she is. She has never growled or anything at anyone. We have also been showing a lot with peppy and shadow. Its been amazing, for 2 horses with so much time off we walked out with 2 Reserve high points and 1 champion high point. Peppy has also barrel raced for the Martha Josey trainers and improved. She has won money during the NBHA season this year. This is the first Peppy has raced in anything like that and she is 16 years old.
      With my love of horses and riding ability our plan for when i get out is opening our own stables in MN we will have breeding, showing and a small amount of boarders serious about showing. I will still be working at Animal Emergency Clinic until our barn takes off and can support ourselves. My main focus with be on barrel racing, western pleasure and english. But we will hopefully have jumps and other things for other disciplines of riders. It will be interesting if things turn out the way we are hoping. I guess time will tell. But in the mean time there is still 3 more years of the army ahead of us.

Back where i started when i got to Riley

    Life sure does take an interesting turn of events. Had a mRI done on my shoulder, I was told it would be negative because it was pain I was having for almost a year. It showed up as a partial tendon tear. I had a pt test this last week. If i took it with everyone knowing i had a torn tendon it was good (if i passed) and if i failed my out come might be the same. I opt not to take it cause i cant do push ups well. So now with out my flight doc telling me it wont heal fast or with out going to ortho yet. I get told that i am going to get transfered out of the flight company and back to my old unit. It didnt take long to get kicked out. I had a feeling it was going to happen at the start but I got put threw hell for 2 months for nothing. It was hard for me to except it but it might before the best. I get sick with the thought of getting yelled at another day during pt. I dont like getting treated like i am less then nothing because i am not as fast or as strong as others. I am hoping going back to my new unit it will be less stressful, and make me happy again. I am not sure if it will. I know my old unit has its own stressors to it but they are not like this one. I was asked by some other medics in my company now if after i get better if I am gonna come back when i am healthy and all my issues have resolved. I cant say i want to. I was thinking of this as a steping stone to the PA program. I know know i dont want to do something cool anymore in the army. I am ready for the next step regardless if its PA school or vet school i am more then ready for it. Friday is the ortho apt. Hopefully its fixable with minimal stuff to do. So i can still function well in a medical job outside of here.

Lifes interesting changes

            If you would ask if i would expect where my life is now i would say no. I am sitting in Manhattan Kansas outside of fort riley. I am in 2-1 C co. GSAB some place i wanted to be for a long time. But becareful for what you which for Maj Brennon told me that. Sometimes I think I should have listened.  I am still not exactly what some 1st sgts want and going to 2-1 was not really what they wanted. I was at some place where i fit in for the most part. Worked great with my docs and they taught me a lot. Hardly went to pt and for the most part had a great time. Now I am in a company that has no idea what i can do except i cant run very fast and a first Sgt that is waiting for me to mess up so she can kick me out.
            I have had many discussions with my husband what might happen if i get kicked out and he is good with it. I loved my job as a civilian and i have gotten to do some cool things while i was in the army and now i have deployed as a medic as well. There is something about medicine that is cool. I don't know what I like more the science behind it or seeing something come to you or you going to it looking like crap then after some treatment or procedure they are happy and home with there families again. Weather they be 2 legged or 4 legged or no legs. I can do that in the army or out of the army so i am good with it. I have got to ride in a black hawk, shoot some amazing weapons and i got threw basic training at 31 years old. When I defiantly thought I could not. I have been afraid of basic training since for as long as I can remember. So where ever this life takes me I think I am ready.
        
             

AIT

   Advanced Individual Training: AIT, one step closer to becoming a real soldier. When we are done with this we have a real job in the army. I picked medic, because of my background in veterinary medicine and my brother having the help of some good medics when he was in Afganistan, i thought i could use my medical skills and help soldiers get home alive to.
   So when we left Fort Jackson SC we headed for Fort Sam Houston, TX. It was funny cause like half of our battalion from 260th ended up there. One the way there people were talking about how relaxed and unbasic training like AIT was going to be. We would get our cell phones, get weekends off and go out when we wanted to. I however knew that basic training type stuff was not over. My brother warned me about having to earn your freedom with good grades and passing pt tests. Everyone else wouldnt listen. So when we arrived at Fort Sam I had to laugh. The sergeants got on the bus started yelling and when we got off the bus we got smoked. So yeah no difference. Over the next 2 days with hardly any sleep we got picked up from reception and put in to our company. It was a huge company made up of around 400 of us.
   The first 8 weeks consists of EMT training. It was so very boring. W sat through class and recieved our emt after testing out. Yes some people had trouble with the test and it does give you a good medical base to start from but when your done they tell you now forget everything you have learned here cause the whiskey side of things is done differently.
  The whiskey side of things got kinda cool, we got to do sticks lanes, go out to the field and use what we have been learning. I like actually using what we learn in practical situations. camp bolus was the best it was a set up in a fob and we lived there for 7 days. We did field exercises and ran scenarios all week. We worked out of a black hawk, striker and a fla. All the types of vehicles we would be transporting our patients in off the battlefield. We worked in a tent hospital during the day and night. We cleared houses and did a patrol. It tried getting you ready for what ever unit you were on our way to after graduation. 
    San Antonio is the city Fort Sam is located in, one the weekends when we did get to get off post was not a bad city to hang out in. The river walk is amazing and fun. It always had something to do. The only thing about it, its expensive to get a taxi off post every weekend and that is our only mod of transportation. The friends I made during AIT, I still talk to a majority of them still.
We all got moved across the us and different countries and now most of us have been deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan. The unfortunate part is most of us have all lost a friend over there to.

My Version of basic training

        After I signed my papers the following weeks went fast.... Soon it was Sept 22nd 2008. My parents were to drop me off with one bag at the hotel in Minneapolis the night before I shipped out. Its kinda hard to forget that day.... a bunch of us met at Red Lobster and my mom cried most of the time. The thing was i was only going to basic training. My friends showed up and hung ou with us as well.  So my last night as a civilian i got to hang out with my friends and family. Staying up almost until i had to catch the bus to go to meps the next day.
        Sept 23rd was now here, early morning wake up call and hurry eat and get on the bus. Then we spent all morning getting looked over by a doc again and height and weight making sure we were still with in regulation to go to basic training. Even the first day of the army was a sucky day.... The army doc told me that that i wasnt going to make it past the first week of basic and i would be right back at meps telling him about my injuries so i can get releived of duty. I wanted to put my foot in his ass i was so mad. But he medically cleared me and just called me a fat soldier. Then we got on another bus and was taken to the airport. Next stop was suppose to be Fort Jackson SC. There was about 10 of us on our way there and we came fast friends hoping we would all be in the same company. Due to the weather we ended up staying in kentucky for the night. Which made us happy, we heard rumers that if you got to basic in the evening then they kept you up all night and smoked you and then made you do stuff all day with out any sleep. So we got our last good night sleep at a hotel they put us up in and then flew out the next day. 
        The 1st day at Fort Jackson, SC we were put in to platoons and barracks to sleep in. Then the day began, we were given our gear, uniforms and met our drill sergeant. Her name was Drill Sergeant Jackson. She liked to make you squirm. She had it in for me from the beginning. I was not the typical age fo a soldier, i didnt look like a soldier and i didnt act like a soldier. She called me over to her and asked my age i told her i was 31, she asked how tall i was and i said 63 inches and she asked how much i weighed and i said 168. She called me a lier and told me i would be out of the army in a week. I had an issue with people telling me what i cant do with out letting me try. So i told her i would see her at graduation. She laughed and said i was dismissed.
        We went through improssessing for 2 days, getting shots, seeing doctors, going over paperwork in case we die and what goes to our families when we die. We got on the bus to get brought to our company to start basic training. Drill sergeants every where yelling "Get on the bus! Put your head down in your bags" "get on the bus". I got on the bus as fast as i could took my seat and buried my head in the bag just like i was told. 
     Getting off the bus, DS yelling that we had 10 sec to get off. There is no way 40+ people to get off a bus in 10 sec, so we are going to get smoked. We were then lined up and DS Johnson and DS Jackson put us in 4 lines to divide us in to plts. We were all given a number and told where that number was to go. I was given number 4. Later I learned i was in 4th Plt. My new DS are now DS Fetters, DS Manly and DS Madison. We got smoked with our duffle bags, we did push ups, sit ups and other things i never did before. We stood at attention while DS got in our faces to see if we would flinch they said crap to make you break. A female next to me took something personal that DS Madison said and yelled at him. I stood at parade rest wishing for her to shut up. Eyes forward trying not to get his attention my way. I couldnt believe that people here were not told that  DS try and get under your skin. If you do as they say and work hard they leave you alone. But no to many people couldnt hold it together. We filled out paper work, got our bunks, and got smoked most of the day. Found that going to the chow hall means 5 min of eating if that and back out side in formation as fast as you can. You run everywhere, you dont talk and you do as your told. Not hard.
      The next two weeks is considered red phase, we get smoked for every little thing wrong. We do everything as a plt or company and we have to ask for everthing including using the bathroom. For me that was the hardest part. Getting told what and when to do things.  Pt sucked for me to, but i got better everyday. I wasnt the worst at pt and surly wasnt the best. I was the 2nd oldest person in our plt. and the 3rd oldest in my company. It was weird being so much older and a little harder for me then the others. i was always sore in the morning when we got up at 0430 every day. Muscles hurt that i never knew i had.
     I got to do things i never knew i could even do. We did a ruck march, I had Blisters on my feet so bad my feet were bleeding even before we got started because my boots didnt fit right. We did Victory tower, We repelled, crawled across ropes bridges, and other obsticals. It was fantastic and so much fun. I did the whole day, my arms hurt and my legs hurt to. But i had fun. We also did the gas chamber, which i hated that was the worst day of red phase. We also did a 2 mile opstical course, it was DS Manlys baby for the PLT to win. One of my fellow people told me to tell them I was hurt and couldnt run it because they said if we won we could have our cell phones for 4 hours to talk to our families. I went to talk to DS Manly and asked him if i could not be in the Fit to Win compatition. I didnt want our PLT to loose cause I am slow. He said "No, you have never given up on anything we told you to do yet and you always try hard. So No." I ran that 2 mile opstical course, low crawled, ran, jumped, climbed and all that other crap. I wanted to die in the end. i was pissed cause our team came in 2nd and i blamed myself.
At the end of red phase we had to take a writen test on our military knowledge. After we took the test we had a performance review with our DS's. I didnt want to be face to face with any of them but now i had to be. My name got called and i reported to DS Fetters. He first commented on my pt. Which was bad. My run time wasw off by 2 min, i could do my push ups and sit ups but i am no runner. He told me i had to get better and we would work on it. But then after that he suprised me. He told me that i suprised them every day. They all sized me up the first day and figured I would not make it past 1 week. I never give up and always finish what they give me to do. I stay under there radar which is good and i am not a trouble maker. He says the day we did Fit to win it looked like i was gonna die, but i finished, I never walked and never stopped like others in our plt did.
      Now i come from a small town in MN, and while i was learning to push my self physically, I also ran in to a few road blocks that i never would have expected. I have never experienced racism before. The females in my plt were majority black. That never bothered me, they were louder then what i was use to but i stayed with a girl from virginia named Thomas, she was a great battle. She was much younger then me but i always told her she had a old sole. We were inseperable. We kept to ourselves and stayed by our lockers on down time.  One day we were all braidin hair to get ready to go out to the field, I can braid as good as any black girl. So no one cared who was braiding hair except one black female from 3rd plt. She told me she was not letting a white girl touch her. Later a white female from our plt wrote a very racest letter and gave it to the DS. Well you dont do that. The DS let the girls that were being called out in the letter read it. There was a uprising in the bay. They black girls got pissed and wanted to find out who wrote it. Thomas and i were automatic suspects cause we kept to ourselfs It was crazy. Thomas started to cry and i was surrounded by 15 chicks wanting to kick my ass. I told them to try but i didnt know anything about no damn letter. Another good friend of mine Black first name cherry. She stood up for me. She told them i didnt care what people did in our plt and how could i know what was said cause i didnt pay attention to what others did. I just wanted to get through this. It took a bit but they got over it. Still pissed about who might have wrote it, the girl being gutless and racest never came forward. But adventually we found out who did it.
    As time went on somethings got easier, we began using weapons and shooting a lot.Which i loved. I have been waiting to do things like this since i was a little kid. I watched this stuff in war movies, now it was my turn. I got to sit behind a 50 cal and shoot it, a M240 B, that was amazing. Learn to set up a claymore mine. We did vehicle convoys, learned how to clear houses. One day must have been like a DS fun day, they got to play haggi and blow us up.... we had to make it to the LZ and clear houses as we went. Our Plt SGT had to much fun, they set up booby traps in the houses and had hand granades (fake ones) thrown at us, and land mines to look out for. It was a day of fun. I had been waiting to try and do real things for a while. We also had a night of live fire and low crawling through lots of sand. we were told the live gun fire was just above our heads so dont stand up and dont stop. That was so not very fun. we had a 12 mile ruck march to graduate, and out in the field for 7 days. It was a very cold week.
       With all this stuff and more, we had a celebration when we got out of the field for all of us who qualified to graduate. Not everyone graduated. If you didnt pass your Pt test or one of the other list of things needed to graduate you didnt attend the ceramonie. I did attend the ceramonie and i was relieved. Graduation came about a week later 6 Dec 2008. My parents were coming all the way from MN.
the day before was family day, we got to spend time with our families all day. We had a great time. Walked around Fort Jackson and i showed my parents some of the stuff we got to do. The next day was graduation day. After the ceramonie was over we got released to our parents. When my parents came down to the parade field I never saw my dad so happy and so proud that i saw that day. It was amazing. i have never seen him look at me like that ever.
      The next day we got bussed off to the airport and i was on my way to Fort Sam Houston for AIT.