Thursday, December 31, 2009

NMPS Day 3

Done. Wednesday was our final day since they are on leave for the rest of the week. It was a busy day. Where busy includes a lot of standing in line of course. I managed to finish a novel that I started on the flight out here.

First thing in the morning we got fitted for our gas masks. I recommend showing up early for that if you can. It takes a while. Since I finished that early I was able to get my travel claim and most everything else finished early. I was with the first couple of people to goto supply to get my seabag of ACU's. With the seabag comes 9 tshirts and 9 pair of socks. So you don't actually need to bring anything besides underwear and one pair of civilian clothes. They recommend that we mail all our other uniforms and clothes home. You can claim the shipping costs on your travel claim they do there. So, my recommendation is to plan to bring one backpack of stuff to your next mob site and ship the rest home. Also, we got a Navy sweatshirt and sweatpants for cold-weather PT so don't bother to bring your own.

On Liberty until I show up at Ft Jackson on Sunday. Later.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

NMPS Day 2

Briefings all morning, Medical all afternoon. Briefings were things like Stress Management, Fleet and Family Support, Legal, etc. The Legal department is not effective. Don't wait until you get here to create or notarize a will or medical power of attorney.

Medical was more interesting. They are much more cautious here about going over your medical records and not sending you into theatre if there are problems. It took a long time to get everyone though. The good news is that for many of us they delayed the smallpox shot until our next duty station so it won't interfere with any liberty. Medical is the key issue here. That is about the only thing that would keep someone from deploying. I think a couple of people had to stick around because of high blood pressure or something.

I gave up on the JIAT training. I doesn't make much sense for me to take it. It must be for people deploying to joint headquarters. Instead I think my time would be better spent playing Dragon Age and exploring the deep roads of Orzammar.

P.S.
Its cold here - especially at 0700. I'm glad I brought the sweater that goes with my DCU and a pair of gloves.

P.P.S.
Also, we got a brief on the sins of sharing knowledge such as blogging and giving our enemies too much information. Clearly that briefer hasn't transitioned into the internet age. If you read the presentation and ignore the presenter, the take away is don't say anything that you wouldn't want an adversary to know.

NMPS Day 1

Medical at 0600 was a non-issue. I didn't need any bloodwork so they just took my medical records and sent me off to get chow. I reported to the NMPS building at 0700. Medical is across the street from my berthing. The NMPS building is about a 9 minute walk. Most of the day was lectures on mundane things like how to fill out your travel form. There are about 50 people there mobilizing so they went over every possible combination of travel steps. There was a tricare brief and lots of questions about that. I will say that the tricare select program for reservists looks like a nice deal if you need to buy into a health insurance program. It's about $200/month for a family and the benefits look normal.

We were fitted for uniforms. Another non-event for me since the ACU's fit the same as the DCU's I'm wearing. Most people had to try them on though so it took a while.

The good news is that they accelerated the schedule because of New Years so that we will be finished by Wednesday afternoon. They'll give us special liberty for the holidays as long as we show up for our next duty assignment on time. For me that means I need to be at Ft Jackson on Sunday. If this is the accelerated schedule, the normal one must be mind numbingly slow. We got our medical records back in the afternoon. Mine is mostly complete so I can skip the dental section and some other things. I am scheduled to get the smallpox shot tomorrow. They gave a talk about having a scab for 4 weeks and to not let anything touch that area for the entire time.

I finished at 1500 (since my medical wasn't deficient) so I spent the afternoon working on the JIAT training which my orders say is required for E7-E9 and O3-O6. It's about as boring at the NKO training. All ppt based. Looks like there are 25 courses I need to complete. This is going to take forever.

I continue to be overwhelmed by how manual and human-driven the military machine is. I knew this of course from my Reserve experience but the Active component isn't much better off. I continue to fill out more paperwork providing duplicate information, or just plain identical forms. It doesn't look like any military/government databases talk to each other. Even the pay systems for Reserve and Active are incompatible. For example, when they switch us to active status this week, if we haven't been paid yet for our last reserve drill, we won't get paid because DFAS locks out the reserve side. And medical is so sad it's humorous. Most people are walking around with a two inch thick medical record that contains a paper trail of everything medical that's ever happened to them. The Executive Branch has been talking about pushing an electronic health care standard for a decade. They should start with their own military.

At least my room is nice. Maybe they remodelled it after the last hurricane. The Kurig coffee maker and Green tea is quite agreeable. Not looking forward to the open-bay Army training at Ft. Jackson.


Monday, December 28, 2009

Travel to NMPS


Imagine my surprise when I arrived at the Austin Airport and they wouldn't let me check-in because my ticket had been refunded. Good thing I arrived a couple of hours early. After 45 minutes of phone calls to SATO and the NOSC, they told me I'm confirmed on the flight, I just needed to pay for it myself and get reimbursed. Easy enough, though they never explained why the ticket was refunded in the first place.

Landed in Gulfport around 1620. The passenger ramp that connects the plane to the terminal broke so we had to deplane using some stairs, then take some stairs up to the terminal. Never heard of that happening before.

There were five other people on the flight traveling to NMPS. All enlisted, I think, going to Afghanistan. The duty van picked us up about 1650 and we arrived at the NMPS base around 1715. Checked in at the Gateway Inn, building 314, and my room was across the street in building 313. The room is actually very nice. Single occupancy and there is free Wifi so I thought I'd start this blog.

Because of the holiday, they told us we have a modified schedule. They didn't tell us the schedule other than to start fasting at 1900 and reporting to medical at 0600. The only place to eat was subway. I managed to make it to the commissary before they closed at 1800 to get some juice and snacks, then got a sub for dinner.

Not much else to report. Watched MiB2 and ironed my uniform. I'm going to try and hit the rack early. Maybe I'll start on the JIAT training, that should put me to sleep.

Regards,
LT Beyer

P.S.

NMPS link: https://www.cnic.navy.mil/Gulfport/Service_Organizations/NMPS/index.htm