Tim's Korea Blog: March 2009

First full day. We had to get dressed in out uniform the night before at 900pm to get our chem. gear. I took over two hours. i was so tired. But at least today we look the part and not look like a bunch of goofball reservists like we sometimes get negatively stereotyped as. Getting in the chem gear was a major pain. Very bulky. Looked like an astronaut. Started out stressfull, we got a bunch of things thrown at us, once i had time to sit down and read the procedures, it wasn't that bad. They don't play around here when it comes to fighting war. This base is very serious!! They need to be, the enemy is 50 miles away.We got some very realistic training. Unfortunately we were very slow in the passenger service department. No big news there, they weren't busy the last time i was here and the KN's (Korean Nationals) want to do all the work. job security i guess. It was a long 12 hour day. The reservists and KN's were all very cool and helpfull. On one end it was stressfull which was good, on the other it was boring which was bad. I had to finish an assignment for my Master degree internet class. We were talking about going on a tour Sunday to some island, temple, and some glass house. Sounds cool to me, i can't wait for Friday to get here!!!

Sat. 28th 12:46pm- We just took off. I have the sickest feeling in my stomach. I lost my camcorder!! I either took it off when I checked in or at the security counter. They did do an inspection of my backpack and there was about a minute where I didn’t see it. Could the security person have taken it out then not put it back in? My wife is going to call TSA and Korea air. The best I can hope for is they found it but now I won’t have it for the trip. I am floored! Now I have 13 hrs to think about it. I’m going to try to do some reading while I have some energy. Then watch some movies later. I bet people that are reading this will think I’m an idiot. Could the screener have taken it? I have the worst seat you could imagine, middle row right over the wing so I can’t see a thing. I’ll write later.

Sat.28th 3:00pm- Well, I knew I wasn’t losing my marbles. My camera was in my backpack the whole time. I just got this new backpack and it has like eight compartments . The agent was taking forever to put all my stuff back into my backpack, she put my camera in some compartment I didn’t even know existed. What a #$%%$ relief! Just had dinner. Not bad, beef something. Pretty good, I’m serious. It usually sucks. I’m so cramped trying to eat. Feel like I’m on a spaceship. My darn ipod, I have to hold it just right to get volume on both sides. It’s driving me nuts!!

Sat. 28th 6:46- We are finally halfway, I was struggling but I got up and stretched for awhile. I might make it. Already watched two movies. Slumdog Millionaire is a great movie, I never imagined it would be that good. Americans should count their blessings! I’ll read awhile and watch two more.

Sat. 28th 11:15- Oh man am I hurting!! There is just no relief! This young air force dude sitting in the isle seat has gotten up once in 11 hrs!! what his problem, doesn’t he need to go?! I hate having to squeeze by people. I’m so cramped but I can’t sleep. 90 minutes to go!

Sun. 29th 700p.m- We’re on the bus to the base. Just incredible views of the area. It’s weird, part of me feels like it’s very familiar, like I was here a few months ago. The other part is in total awe that I’m 6,600 miles away and looking at all these crazy buildings! You, know how downtown Phoenix has a lot of building in dense proximity? The Seoul area has 20 of these areas, where there is just a massive amount of buildings. My luck, the camera battery is dead, I wanted to get it on film. Oh well, I should have plenty of time to film all of it. It is pretty amazing to see, people don’t realize Seoul is one of the 10 largest cities in the entire world.

Mon. 30th 500am. I was right in the middle of sleeping, having some really weird dreams due to all the jet lag when I hear a loud noise. I’m thinking it’s my alarm when I realized it’s a firedrill. It’s 300 am!! I go outside, I’m in my shorts and t-shirt, oh man I’m freezing!! I’m getting a little nervous, if this lasts awhile, I might get hypothermia. There’s nothing I can do but wait. My luck! It ends but now I can’t go back to sleep, my body thinks it’s noon!

Mon. 30th 130pm- We’re done for the day, usual SOP is where we get welcomed by 10 higher-ups, take a tour of the flight-line and the base. We got some bad news. The Wing is just starting a major exercise! They basically act like they’re in a war-time situation, chemical war-fare, attacks, and first aid. There are evaluators everywhere and we would have to get into chem. Gear at any moment notice. We now have to go on 12 hour shifts. That is not fun, but here’s the deal. We have to go with the flow. We are getting paid to train. Sometimes you get the breaks, sometimes you don’t. The last time we were here it was slow and they were letting us off by 1230pm. Image is everything though, we can never show the actives that we are displeased, then they’ll say we whine, complain etc. It gets a lot worse unfortunately. Because of this exercise, we now cannot go off base until Friday!! You’ve got to be kidding me! So much for getting to see everything I wanted to. I mean, I’ll still get to see quite a bit, I guess it’s good to get the chem. warfare training. Who knows what’ll happen with Obama’s decision to put more troops into Afghanistan. So it looks like I won’t be able to take great Korea pics until Friday. What I’ll do is put some of my pics up from three years ago, give you all an idea what it looks like.

Mon. 30th 300pm- Interesting, listening to Hannity and Combs on CNN and guess what they’re talking about? North Korea! Talking about them getting ready to launch a long range missile for a test in the next week. We actually found out about this a few days ago during our security briefing at March. The intel officer didn’t sound too concerned but it’s weird to hear it on CNN. Actually, the same thing happened when I was here three years ago.