Al Asad

Wow, so craziness ensues. First though let’s see got promoted in December to Specialist, which was exciting. I have been learning a lot of medical things and seeing a lot of things, nothing really traumatic though. Just mostly sick call things. I went on leave at the end of January, which was fabulous and great to get away from all this useless drama here. I think anyone looking to be a leader needs to realize that this is the complete opposite anyone should lead. They are all about themselves and kissing up to their bosses so much that they forget or purposely try to make things harder than they need to be. I will say though that SFC Fuller who used to be over us, is a tremendous leader and that is someone we should strive to be like. He has a quote on his email that reads, "Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership." Colin Powell. And the thing is he lives that. When I saw him last it was all about what can he do for me, and building me up telling me all the good things I have done. Don’t get me wrong of course a leader is going to have to reprimand at times, and be unpopular. I realize that. Trust me; SFC Fuller would be the first to get after someone if they needed it. The fact is that we have good medics that strive to work hard and do the right thing, and it goes unnoticed by leadership. The only thing that gets noticed is the small mistakes, which quite frankly have no bearing on a successful mission or not. Small things are important when it comes to a lot of things, but going out of your way to find a mistake I may have made is a complete waste of time and energy. Plus it makes me very angry. When I get put in a greater leadership position I am going to strive to be like SFC Fuller. Other news, I have moved bases. I am know on the largest Air Base in Iraq, Al Asad. There is like 100-200 Air Cav soldiers here and after 3 previous medics all left for different reasons, I was next in line to finish the job. I am ecstatic to be here. It is much more laid back; I don’t have anyone over me. I do what I need to do; I see way less people here, and most of them I Do see aren’t coming in just to get out of something. I am actually in an NCO position here. Since I am the Senior Medic I run the clinic, which is pretty exciting I can use that with great benefits in the future. So, here I sit the last month of my first tour in Iraq. I hope I can get into PT school with Baylor before the unit gets deployed again. That is my next goal on the table. I just completed my Bachelors Degree with Excelsior College and need to finish up 3-4 science classes before I can apply, so hoping by the end of the year I will be good to go. There are a lot of decisions to be made in the near future and I am not sure where my life will end up. I can only hope that I make the best decision for whatever is going to happen in the future. Being deployed has taught me a lot, some things I would rather not have cared to learn. I hope though that in the long run this deployment becomes a blip in the map, and I never have to go through another one. I still question why I joined in the first place. If it wasn’t for the kids I don’t think I would be in this situation.