What'll get us out of here faster?

That's the answer we've had to the main question around Ft. Dix this week.

Ft. Dix is halfway between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New York Giants so there is a good balance of fans from both teams here. So, as we've moved through inprocessing and people have asked us "are you Eagles or Giants fans?" we respond with "what'll get us out of here faster?"

Or if we see a jersey from that team we start talking about how wonderful Donovan McNabb is or how talented Eli Manning is...hoping that we'll be done just a bit quicker.

It has been crazy busy here since we arrived late Tuesday. The mob process used to be 3 months long...now it's about 21 days so the minute we got up Wednesday morning everyone wanted a piece of the 211th and its staff. I was expected to defy physics and be in no less than 4 places at one time! As usual, we handled everything with our usual mix of humor, inside jokes, and a touch of sarcasm.

So far we've worked our way through finance, family support, and medical...including yet another typhoid shot for me! I don't know how the Army continues to find shots to give me.

Next week we start our MRE...Mission Readiness Exercise. We deploy to "Camp Victory" (otherwise known as the Ft. Dix Public Affairs Office) and run our Media Operations Center 24/7. This is the first time our journalists have been able to get out and do real stories on real Soldiers doing real things so it's going to be nice to see their talent. We've got 4 - 5 days of that and then we go into range operations. We qualified with our M16 rifles when we were here in October but since then we have acquired M4 rifles so we have to requalify. Considering it's going to be about 4 degrees outside when we do, that's going to be a fun day. Not.

Keep us in your thoughts and prayers...we're doing a fine job and all of our friends and families should be proud of us!