End of Week #1

Here is a picture I took of the courtyard located within the Navy berthing area.

Ding Ding, Ding Ding ... Colorado Sailor, arriving. And with the tick of the clock, I was back on active duty. (You have to pretend you are hearing a boatswain's whistle and a bell ringing for the tradition of being piped aboard ship to make sense.)

The first week back on active duty went as advertised. I reported to the local reserve center, completed my paperwork and departed for San Diego, CA and the mobilization in-processing center. There were a couple of immediate adjustments that I went through.

First, as an airline employee I forgot what a hassle it can be to navigate through an airport as a generic passenger. Especially because I am carrying all of my gear and equipment in sea bags and duffle bags. I never imagined I would be missing my airline roller suitcase as much as I did over the last seven days. I anticipate that this longing for luggage will only continue as I will receive another 50 pounds of equipment to go with the 100 pounds of gear I am already schlepping around the nation. Mind you, the only "personal items" I have are two civilian shirts and two civilian pants, my trusty laptop, ipod and cellphone. The remainder of this 150 pounds of materials is required equipment.

Second, I had to abandon the "time is money" approach to the workday that was so important while working in the private sector. The Navy is a big organization; the Army is even bigger; the DoD/Federal government obviously dwarfs them both. Which explains why my "time is money" mindset is quickly being replaced with the "big wheels turn slowly" mindset. When the Navy or the Army is ready for little ole me to jump, then I jump. Until then, I should just "shut up and color."

Despite all of this minor whining, I could not overstate how impressed I have been with the mobilization staff in San Diego, and the Navy's current personnel in general. The sailors I have encountered this week are superb and are even more talented and professional than the hard-charging superstars I was lucky to serve with back in Japan in the early 1990s.

The weather was great and the sky was blue all week. Typical southern California weather. The weather easily mitigated the hassle of getting all of the "exciting" vaccinations required to deploy to the middle east.

The only surprise of the week was that the Army decided my group needed to start training earlier than planned, so I raced through the rest of Navy in-processing and left for the pacific northwest yesterday morning - still cursing the fact that I didn't have suitcase with wheels.