DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS
TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL
(U) Deployment Sketches - Part 2
FROM:
Unknown
Run Date: 12/23/2003
(U//FOUO) This is the conclusion of TSgt
article.)
TSgt, USAF
's two-part
(U//FOUO) What I learned during my NIST deployment:
Always call first: if the supporting unit doesn't know your space
requirements, they will give you a card table, a laptop, and one
chair next to the coffee mess.
You can sleep through a "SCUD Drill" even with all of your gear
on... but when you know it's real, there's no way you can sleep
through it.
There's no padding in the seats of a "hum-vee." And the back
seats aren't meant for people with long legs.
There are those in the SIGINT/Intell community who don't know
what NSA is, or what we do. And those people are either scary in
their ignorance, or excited in their innocence.
In what used to be the Sherezade Bar in the Al Rasheed Hotel
There's no such thing as "a dry heat." Hot is hot!
Army chow halls will call boiled beef, carrots, and cabbage "stew"
if it is served with potatoes, but "stir fry" if they serve it with rice.
I can only stay awake for 48 hours before I shut down.
Somehow, I never got the coveted Hamburger Patty MRE. I think
I ate maybe 50 MRE's, but not once did I get the hamburger.
When they say the tent sleeps 10, they are lying. We had 8 cots
in there, and two guys were hot-racking, and we still had to go
outside to change our minds.
Clean is a relative term - Gunny was right. All I could get was
clean-er, but I was never clean...
It's easier to leave than be left behind. Working 12+ hour days
(or night shift), in a combat situation, there's no extra time to
think - you shower (if possible), eat, go to work, and sleep. That's
it. I didn't have the luxury of a lot of free time to think about my
family. (On the upside, I was able to talk to my husband who
works here via the NSTS, and email him, as well.)
The Army burns everything - trash, latrines, everything. I have
never been so glad to be an NCO (non-commissioned officer) with
NSA, as we were not required to perform a particularly nasty
detail. Porta-johns were a luxury.
When you set up a tent, and shower, make sure you don't put it
SERIES:
(U//FOUO) IA Interns
Abroad
1. Coming Soon: IA
Interns Abroad
2. 3 1/2 Months in
Qatar: Supporting
CENTCOM
3. 3 1/2 Months in
Qatar: Outside of
Work
4. Deployed to
Afghanistan
5. Camp Virginia to
Camp Victory: In
Kuwait
6. Camp Virginia to
Camp Victory: Into
Baghdad
7. NISTing in Kabul and
Baghdad - Part One
8. NISTing in Kabul and
Baghdad - Part Two
9. Working at Prince
Sultan Air Base, SA
10. Deployment
Sketches - Part 1
11. Deployment
Sketches - Part 2
12. Dispatch from CSG
Baghdad
next to a heli-pad. The rotor wash will knock over your shower, and
the dust gets all over your stuff.
When evicting sheep from your living spaces, you must make
sure they have somewhere else to go, or they'll keep coming back.
And back, and back.
It rains mud in Baghdad... The dust is so fine, that by the time
rain hits the ground, it is mud.
The Quartermaster can make your uniform so wrinkly and small,
that it is easier to wash it in a bucket. Also, they can turn white
clothes a variety of colors: gray, green, black, and brown!
Pringles rarely survive the mail. And a bar of Irish Spring soap
will make every thing in the box taste like it.
(U//FOUO) Would I do it again? Absolutely! This is what I'm
supposed to do - I'm in the military... we kill people, and blow
things up. It's our job. It's my job to make sure that the people
doing the overall mission do it with the best intelligence in the
world. And NSA has it. I owe a big thanks to all of the people who
produced the intelligence so we could support V Corps, and I owe a
big thanks to my team who kept me safe, to the GEOCELL who
gave me the training and opportunity to use it, and to my husband
who I knew would take such good care of the boys that I never had
to worry about them, and could concentrate on the job.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid comms)."
DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS
TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL
DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108