Monday, March 07, 2005

A Little Down Time

I’ve been under the weather for the last couple of days as well as spending long hours in the hangar. The two sort of go together; Long hours, lots of stress and coming down with something. I decided to take the day off as I was encouraged by several people.

I can’t believe I slept until 1030 this morning. I woke up, straightened up my hooch and disposed of some of the things I had been hanging onto. It’s sort of in my nature to hang onto almost everything that may be potentially useful out here. One never knows what may come in handy. At any rate, my stuff was threatening to take over more of my hooch than it should have. Reorganizing and redistribution of assets are on going processes here.

The weather is continuing its warming trend. Right now it’s very tolerable most days. The average temperature is somewhere close to 70 in the day and 45 at night. The use of our bullet heater in the hangar is diminishing and soon we’ll be able to put it away for good. Of course, that’s all based on the theory that I’ll be out of here before the cold season sets in again. One can only hope.

It looks like I may face the possibility of loosing up to three of my mechanics in the near future as well as some other valuable assets. The challenges of maintaining these aircraft as our mission takes its next evolutionary step is something that promises lots of headaches in the near future. I can’t go into the details of what is coming down the pike right now, so I guess you’ll just have to stay tuned to find out.

A couple of days ago, I was told that the Operational Readiness rate (OR Rate) of our Blackhawks is the highest in the nation. The OR Rate is what the Army uses to gauge A units mission capable aircraft and maintenance performance. I would like to think that my soldiers and I were instrumental in making that happen. We’ll never hear about it, even if it’s so, because that’s just the way this unit works. They hold the bait out there as an incentive to achieve and then once the goal is achieved, the promises are forgotten. The Guard is horrible about thins like that. A year and a half ago, while at our annual two weeks of training, I submitted several of my soldiers to receive military medals for superior performance. It took more than a year to get those medals awarded and even so, by the time the awards were approved, more than half of the soldiers that I had submitted, had either left the military or changed units. That’s the Guard from what I have seen. Always quick to take, always reluctant or slow to give. In my opinion, that’s one of the reasons that retention is a problem. <>

Anyway, the big wheel keeps on turning and we are constantly told to remain flexible. That’s another way of saying that this is nothing but chaos and power struggles. Politics at its best. <>

That’s all for now!

From somewhere in Northern Iraq (for the time being – hint, hint)

“MERLIN OUT!”

Merlin@rixnet.net.

posted by Merlin @ 4:29 PM