Whew, between morning PT and my evening workout, I must have ran a total of about 12 miles today. This morning we had a battalion run and they're always about an hour of running. Random note: Our new Sergeant Major is the coolest cadence caller I've ever run with.

Another school week. This week it was Armour school. Shoot, I never got to finish my Humvee/LMTV/Styker classes which started last week and ran into this week. I overheard Sergeant Chastain (my platoon sergeant) was talking about me to somebody this week about me and he said something like "I don't think I've seen Neblock in three weeks." But it's good. I like having classes. They give me a good learning foundation for tasks, they get me out of work, I get to go home early, they equal promotion points, and they give me certifications and qualifications that allow me to perform new tasks and take on new responsibilities, which equals job experience. Anyway, armour school has been really good. Basically this course teaches you the basics of how to run and maintane an arms room. This includes how to take weapons apart further than the operator is allowed to, how to fix common problems, and the administrative/paperwork aspect. So far, we've gotten hands on learning with all the common weapons you see in the Army. This includes the M16/M4 rifles, M203 Grenade Launcher, The M9 and M11 pistols, M240B, MK19 grenade Launcher, M249 SAW, and the M2 .50 Cal machine gun. Fun stuff. This school came at an especially good time too. My battalion is leaving to go to Yakima for training on Sunday, but my school runs through Tuesday, so I'll only be there for a week or so while everyone else will be there for 10 days :P. They haven't even given me any information as to when I'm getting a ride out there next week, so I'm wondering if I'll be going at all. I kinda want to but I kinda don't. My lazy side wants to stay home and relax, but my hooah side says that it's going to be a good week of training that I don't want to miss. We're firing all of our weapons systems with focus for our platoon on mortars, which is fun. We'll see what happens. I'm sure my squad leader Hall will give me a call at some point during the week to tell me to get my stuff and get to the base so I can get a ride.

It's official as of yesterday! Iraq deployments have been shortened to from 15 to 12 months as of yesterday. As it stands, we're still going to deploy in September of 2009. I've got to admit, I'm excited and nervouse all at the same time. I'm not afraid to die at this point (though I'm sure that will change once the IED's start exploding and the bullets are flying), I worry more about missing Sarah and home. But I'm also excited to get the combat experience and become a veteran. Another thing to look forward to is that I'll probably have the oportunity to re enlist while in Iraq. This is really good because you have a lot more leverage there. I haven't decided what to ask for yet, but I keep going back and forth between re uping as an officer or staying enlisted but joining the 75th Ranger Reg. I'm glad I still have a while to decide. :P