06 October 2003

Minneapolis. I spent last week in Virginia processing, mostly waiting, which can also be a process. Flew Monday afternoon to Dulles in Washington with Craig, then drove the rental Buick to Winchester, where the USACE/TAC (Trans-Atlantic Center) has a well-secured facility. We filled out forms and more forms, and then got a complete physical (including the requisite prostrate examination by Madame Physician). In total, there was one blood letting and nine inoculations (influenza, smallpox, antrax, IPV, MMR, Hepatitis A and B, Typhoid, and Tuberculosis). I speculated that the blood letting (and associated DNA testing) was for identification purposes in case we got blown to bits. The Army Captain Physician (Ma’am) said “yes, but we don’t like to talk about that”.

The biggest headache was the receipt of our CAC cards, or military identification. I think I need this for food service more than anything, although it may get me a reserve seat on the plane out of there. We heard stories that the production rate of these cards sometime approached one per day, but by the time we got ours done at the end of the day, this rate was down to about 15 minutes each. The cards have wee programmable chips embedded within them that seem to take some effort to program. They also gave us new Panasonic Toughbook laptops that, we are led to understand, are not compatible with the local network in Iraq.

Thursday we drove to Fort Belvoir, south of Alexandria, for further processing at the Army’s CRC (CONUS Replacement Center). A few more forms here, and an efficient fitting for the flack jacket, and we were done. We left Craig to fly out on Saturday, and we three (Brian, Dean, and George) flew home.

Once there, I found my house overran by a bunch of Chicagoans for the weekend. As such, my plans to relax and prepare were changed into me playing gracious host and honored guest for three days.

Monday, Bennett sends word that this Saturday is the day. My itinerary sends me through Chicago and Frankfort to Kuwait City, then off to Baghdad a few days later. Little time remains.