Day 21 at NTC

[aadler]

 

So then, after finishing yesterday’s entry, I sat down to write more on “Queen’s Gambit”, bumping the day’s total up to 2,000 words. And I think I may be getting into a real compositional flow, instead of having to force my way through every page.

I lay down for the night fully dressed, expecting a night attack. There wasn’t one. In the morning, quite a few cots were gone from the barracks tent and quite a few trucks from the exterior: people were starting to leave already. Among the departed were the cooks, so breakfast was little packaged snacks they’d left behind.

After that, we waited. Our OC had said he’d show up to get us between 10:30 and 11:00 AM; he arrived five minutes before the outer limit of his deadline. From there, it was a ten-minute drive back to main post, literally just the other side of a set of hills. I’d had no idea we were so close.

We’d sat in line for almost an entire day to get the MILES system installed on our vehicle; it took half an hour to remove it. (Helped that we were near the front of the line.) Then we went to the conex to turn in our sensitive items. Longer for that, because by now there were five trucks’ worth of gear that had to be verified by serial number on a single checklist. We broke for a meal (early supper), then returned to finish; after that, over to our newest billeting tent — more room, and better placement, than on our way in — and got cots set up and vehicles placed.

From there, we went to the designated spot for an after-action review, which lasted almost two hours. We’d done well and we knew it (the entire detachment, not just my team), and the OCs confirmed that we’d done well, but an AAR is designed to find areas of potential improvement as well as those where things went well, and various weak points were discussed in detail.

Back at the billeting tent, I pulled out my PT clothes — packed away before I left FOB King — and availed myself of my first shower in almost two weeks. (The opportunity had been available, but what was the point if I was just going to put the same unwashed uniform back on?) Then, feeling newly human, I pulled out my cell phone, fresh from a half-hour of charging, and called Susan. We talked for about twenty minutes. Time well spent.

And now it’s time for bed.