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Thursday, May 23, 2019
Monday, February 7, 2011
DEPLOYMENT COMES TO AN END WITH JOYOUS AIRPORT REUNION WITH FAMILY.
11:29 PM
Zach Schiffman
After five days of processing at Fort Benning and another day of delay due to the snow I returned home on February 03, 2011.
I had been on active duty a total of 112 day. This was a very long time to be away from family and my practice but I couldn't help think of the soldiers who have had deployments that lasted over a year and many of them had several deployments.
The war in Afghanistan & Iraq has been going on for so many years it was all starting to feel like it was yesterdays news. I found the very thought of tuning out of a war was particularly frightening and especially unfair to the many thousands of...
Thursday, February 3, 2011
I'M BACK IN THE USA
10:21 PM
Zach Schiffman
Last Wednesday, 01/26/2010 I flew from Tallil Air Force Base, Iraq to Ali Al Salem Air Force Base, in Kuwait. I'm assigned a bunk in a tent where I will sleep while waiting for my flight home that departs Saturday night. I can't believe that after working for almost 100 days in Iraq without a day off I now have two days with nothing to do except get ready for this flight. Working endlessly with very little rest and then having nothing to do for days has always been standard operating procedure (SOP) in the military.
The flight home is on a real commercial jet chartered by the military which leaves from the Kuwaiti International...
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
MISCELLANEOUS STORIES
10:27 PM
Zach Schiffman
"THE HOUSE OF PAIN"
The only sanctioned after hours establishment at COB Adder is our gym which stays open 24/7 and does a good job of meeting the needs of a garrison in a combat zone. Before I arrived, the gym held a contest for the best name for the gym and some creative soldier came up with the brilliant and winning suggestion: "The House of Pain" which described it perfectly. Soldiers have to continuously meet physical training standards so one of the first semi-permanent structures that gets built at a base, even in a combat zone, is a gym. Although aerobic training is also emphasized at a military gym, weight...
