Camp Funston

On Thursday, I had the welcome to Camp Funston and 40 man open bay barracks. My 25 man Navy Team has been scattered throughout the different barracks. In fact, we are in 5 different barracks. Nothing like Team Building Army style. In my barracks, we have 10 Navy in 5 sets of bunks in the middle of the bay. We are sandwiched inbetween the Tennessee National Guard and another Army unit. (I can't remember where they are from).

Thursday was a complete cluster. We checked out of the barracks at 0600, then had weapons draw around 0800. The Navy went first. We each have the latest M-4 (newer version of the M-16) with a collapsible stock and new scope. We were also issued a M-9 (9mm pistol). We hung around until almost 1400 before we came to Camp Funston. We had  a brief, then moved into the barracks and turned in our weapons to the armory. We won't see them again for a few weeks. I have been issued a total of 3 seabags of gear and a full rucksack plus a seabag of my own personal gear. Good thing we are traveling light.

Friday was half a day of lectures, then off Sat & Sun. 

I am attending a 60 day course entitled Afghanistan Combat Advisor Development Course. This course will enable us to be a Foreign Security Force Advisor and a member of an Embedded Training Team (ETT). We spend the rest of our time here learning basic Dari (the Afghan language) and various aspects of the Afghan culture ontop of Army training. As I progress through the course, I will give updates on what I am learning. This week is an hour of Dari, followed by powerpoint presentations and discussions.

Today we went for our first walkabout on Camp Funston in pt gear and IBA (Individual Body Armor). It was a short 3 mile walk. We will continue to build up our conditioning and progress to full battle rattle.

This should be an interesting 2 months.....