Every hour on the hour

so after my great weekend back in Ohio with the family, I made the trek back to Georgia. All my flights were great, on time and I didnt have to sit next to any annoying people, always a plus. Landed in Atlanta and met up with Moreno and waited for Zupo's plane to touch down. We were on a time hack to make it back to the company for recall formation which was at 1800 and as with any formation we are required to show up 15 early. My flight got in at 1400 so we had 4 hours to make a 2 hour drive back to base. No problem you say? If only life was that simple. Zupo's fight was 20 minutes putting him in at 1420 and then it took 45 minutes to get his bag. We didnt make it to our taxi untill 1515, t-minus two and a half hours. God bless our taxi driver, he never let the needle drop below 85 mph the whole way back. On the way back, we got changed into our ACU's because that is what uniform recall formation has always been. We come into base at 1740, skid to a stop behind our company and litterally run with all of our bags to formation. As we round the corner, what do we see but a formation full of people in their PT's! Oh well, no time to change. We fall into formation and my sergent comes up to and asks us where the hell we been. We were 2 minutes late. We told her about the delayed flight and baggage problem but to no avail. She proceeds to smoke us in the grass for the whole formation and then tells us our punishment. Get this: phased down to a phase 4 (no civilian clothes allowed, no off post pass, no life) for a week and for the whole week we have to check in at the CQ desk every hour on the hour from 0700-2100. So that right there gives you a good idea of how my week has been going. Basically all I do is sit in my room and wait to check in. barely have anytime to get chow and no time to see any of my friends from the other companies. Our time is up on Tuesday but we talked our sergent into shortening our sentance to Sunday night. All we have to do is remove all the furniture from her office , buff and wax, and replace the furniture. Such a small price to pay to get my life back.

However bad and unfair thepunishment is, I would of done it for a month just to get back to Ohio. It was exactly what I needed to recharge my batteries and remind myself that there is a place in this world where everyone doesnt yell and is truely happy to see you.

Thank you's go out to Gma Walker for thinking of brown bag meals and coming out to the house, Krista for the coffee and being Krista, Potts again coffee, and Amanda for the chat on the porch (again coffee was involved). Karen and Alan for the movie and blizzards, almost like Pizza Hut after softball. Everyone who came out to the house for brown bag and bringing along the kids (too many to list but thank each and everyone, soo good to see evryone in one place!) Katie ("Katie? my Katie? My sister Katie? She's there?!?) for making the riduculously long trip just to see here bro and the porchside advice. Saving the best for last, Mom and Dad. Thank from the bottom of my soul for the open arms, the spanish rice, the movies, the trips to the airport, the help on the tickets, and for making it seem like I never left. I am so blessed in so many ways. I tell evryone here about my family and how amazing they are. I have not heard of a family yet that compares to what I have in Ohio (and Mass). The support and love I get everyday is truly unmatched. Again, thank you one and all!

Till the next time guys be safe and enjoy the summer.

Memorial Day weekend pictures

An amazing time home to see all my Ohio people and family. The only problem was it was way too short.

Mama I'm coming home

Wow this is weird. I am actually typing on a real keyboard! I am sitting in the USO at the Atlanta airport waiting on my flight to come back to Ohio. It has been one of the biggest ordeals I have ever had to go thru in my life. Well ok basic was bigger but this still sucks all the same. First of all, my company has been giving us the run around about going home and when we could leave for Memorial Day weekend. No you can't sign out till this time and no you can't leave because you got a FTR to a formation 3 weeks ago, stuff like that. None of us knew that our passes got approved by the company commander till 3 days ago. Hardly enough time to buy a plane ticket at a reasonable price. Most of the guys bought one a week or so ago and just been crossing their fingers. I on the other hand was trying to get a ticket from a guy I went to basic with. He used to work at Delta before he joined and he had some buddy passes he was going to give to us so we could get super discounted tickets. Well he ran out of passes by the time he got to me and Zupo so he called his friend and he aggreeed to let us buy the passes. so we sent him $60 each for the passes and he was going to let us know how much the tickets would be and how to get the money to him. My ticket, round trip, from Augusta Regional to Akron/Canton Regional was going to be $49. Thats it! I was thrilled. and then it all went down hill. We have been trying to get together with this guy all week to set up the pass and last night, litterally hours before we could fly, he texts Swoope, my battle from basic and tells him that he isnt going to give us the passes. Instead he is going to give them to a family of 3 because they want to go over seas and he could get more money for the passes off of them. I dont think I Have ever seen Zupo that mad before. You could of sharpened steel blades on his face of stone. I almost lost it when he told me about what had happened. I had to keep my military bearing because we were in a formation at the time but I felt like screaming my lungs out till I was too hoarse to swear. I just hope we dont find out where this guy is becuase if i can read Zupo right, and I like to think I can, he will find this guy and beat the $60 out of him penny by penny. Anyways we decided at 1 in the morning that we would leave and go to the airport, wear our ACU's and give the ladies at the desk our best puppy dog face. So we did and our plan went down in a blaze of fire. It looked like Fort Benning there were so many soldier there. We tried and tried our best but to no avail. Our lowest ticket price we could find was $900 roundtrip. Everybody looked like you just killed their first born sons. We had been planning and anticipating this weekend for months now, since basic, and now it was slowly slipping thru our fingers. Finally we went to the USO and got on the internet to look at prices and I got a ticket back home for $450 roundtrip. Not bad considering i had to buy it the day of the flight but still I will be coming back to Ohio without my arm and my leg. But you know what, I would have paid 4x that much just to get back to reality. I want so much to leave the Army behind for a few days and get away from these guys for a few two. Ilove them all and would do anything for them but I have been around them 24/7 for 5 months now. You can only eat steak so many days in a row. One day you are gonna want a pizza. So to conclude this ridicously long post I AM COMING HOME!!!!

Can't wait to see all my Ohio people if only for a few days. Get ready Ohio because the Nock of WAR is coming!

pie day videos - cross your fingers

Pie day

SSG MJ My platoon Sgt.

SSG Dillon - Female Type My other Platoon Sgt. ($1200)

1LT My company XO

Today we got to buy pies to smear in the face of our sergeants. Here are some videos and pics of the festivities. All the money raised went to an army fund that helps soldiers get home in emergencies for funerals and stuff along that line. All for a good cause. Just to give you an idea of how much we wanted this, sgt dillon female type's pie went for 1200$. Highest bidder got to pie the nco.

Frank Warnock

New Pictures

Left to Right. Salazar, Morano, Zupo, Woo and Me

Wolfpack in Class A uniforns in the bay at Ft. Benning

Here are some new pics I got off of Danny Woo aka The Producer


Frank Warnock

my nose is numb and its 80 degrees outside

so here is the what I think will become the normal monday post. a lot happened this weekend but I am not going to tell much of it because it involved a lot of drama between my friends and girls. never a good combo considering the ratio of male to female is around 20 to 1. odds are friends will end up going for the same girl. yeah a lot of that happened. other than the drama it was a great weekend. good times with good friends. its just getting harder to keep good friends. I think as long as we remember the bros before (forgive me mom, its just an expression) hos rule we should be fine.

so today I went to the hospital to visit mitchell. he broke his ankle in 3 places and tore some tendons sat afternoon during an impromptu combatives match in the hotel. it wasn't a fight but a good natured male macho I am showing off for the girls wrestling match. officially he broke it "falling down the stairs" at least that's what the hospital thinks. anyways I went to see him and bring his some stuff he wanted like his ipod and razor stuff like that. spent some time with him so he wouldn't be lonely and then I went to my dental appointment. boy do I hate these things. yes its great cause I am getting all this dental work done for free and I got a lot of work to be done, but all they give you is a shot of novicane that numbs half your face except for the one tooth they are working on and drill away. ahhhhh!! I hate the drill. the sound, the feeling, the way it vibrates all the way down your side thru your butt and out your toes. then after they work on 4 teeth they boot you out the door telling you to floss between the teeth they just made so sensitive it hurts to breathe with my mouth open. they people are crazy. I hope the 400 mg ib profin work. if they fail me I am going to visit mitchell again and swipe his pills off the beds when he's asleep. just kidding mom. I just ask them to hook me up to a morphine iv like they did him.

so here I sit, top lip and nose numb, gums killing and throbbing, contemplating going to chow. I am so hungry yet food scares me. maybe I will just get some coffee and pray for a caffeine buzz. anything to stop the pain.

ok sorry this one is short but I gotta get some liquid in me at least and I got class in an hour. love y'all and keep the comments coming. im loving them

your soldier in dental hell
pvt frank

Frank Warnock

Tattoo pictures

ah the weekend...a time to be normal again

the weekend. I never realized how important the weekends are until I joined the army. every other job I have had has been unorganized as in that I never had any set hours. the varied every week so I never had a weekend to look foward to or plan for that matter. but now that I am in the army, I get to be on a very strict and set in stone schedule. I know where I have to be and what is expected of me every second mon through fri. but when that weekend comes its all me time. I have become very protective and selfish with my weekend and free time. its the only time I get to be myself and show my friends how I dress and act when im not on the governments time. the best part about the weekend and being in the army is I am still getting paid. im always on the clock. I get paid to eat, sleep, shower, learn and then unlearn everything, and kill my brain cells by alcoholic beverages. ok so its only $1.67/hr (yes I actually figured it out) but its paid 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

ok getting off subject. this post is supposed to be about my awesome weekend and filling you in on what we do in our free time. well as you may know from a previous post my company had a phase up weekend...a it basically means that me, a phase 5, got all the privileges that a phase 5+ gets. they include staying out all weekend until recall formation sun instead of having to be back for 0100 bedcheck and also we could drink if and only if we were of the legal age. so guess what we did? haha we got a hotel room and played drinking games. well that is after we got out of class fri night at 0030 (gotta love third shift) we came back to the barracks, changed, signed right back out, and flagged down the first cab we could find. we managed to stuff 9 guys into the back of the minivan cab. the poor shocks. we had to be dragging and scrapping the rear bumper. we went to one of the 25 hotels near base and got a room. luckily the gas station was still selling so we loaded up and started our weekend off right. nothing like that first cold beer after a week of pt and stress with all the blue falcons we got in our company. it just felt good to hang with the guys and relive the week without having to look over our shoulders for a sergeant. not to mention all the guys I hang with either come from benning or fit in perfectly like they went to benning. so we get to relive basic and the impersonations get so much better with the aid of beer. so we just hung out and drunk fri night. got to sleep around 0400 and i'll be damned if we all woke up 4 hours later like we had an 0800 formation like we do every other morning. Not really all that bad though because we got an early start on the day and I am used to little sleep. the past 4 months I have been averaging 5 to 6 hours a night. you just get used to it after awhile but then when you want to sleep in you can never do it. anyways after we got up and showered we destroyed a dennys. good cheap food with about 3 cups of coffee and we were ready to tackle the day. first thing on the agenda: tattoo shop. Zupo, my best battle, has been wanting to get his name tattooed down his side since we got here. its all we hear when the subject comes up so all of us went with his. me, Zupo, woo (our little asian), heidelberger, mitchell (the guys so far are my base group, we basically do everything together. not like the rest of the guys are not our friends but we mainly stay together, the others scatter) miranda, salazar, and Mackey (the lone female. she acts like one of the guys so we let her tag along :)) once we got there and Zupo got in the chair it kinda snoballed. tattoos are addictive. once one person gets one everybody wants one. I had been thinking of getting another tat for awhile now. I could never settle on an idea. I had a few floating around but I could never commit. so there I was trying to decide on what I wanted if I wanted anything at all. I took off my hat to scratch my head and happened to glance at the hat. it was my old louisville leopards baseball hat with the leopard that is on the side of our football helmets and it hit me like a ton of bricks. it had been my original idea for a tattoo to get the leopard or my football number but I never went thru with it because I was still in high school and didn't want to have something I would regret if years later. but in the tattoo shop saturday I realized how much I loved football and louisville as a whole. its where I grew up. its where all my family is minus the mass. gang and Katie who will always be an ohio girl no matter where she goes. its my roots. so needless to say I got the leopard head tattooed on my left calf in full color just like the side of the helmet. it looks amazing! the guy who did it took so much care trying to get all the detail and spots in the right place. he probably took more time to draw it then to actually ink it on my leg. all in all, Zupo got his name down his left rib cage (btw a very painfully place to tattoo. he was grimincing and squirming like a girl. we never let him forget it all weekend...a we have the pictures to prove it) miranda got a dragon like creature on his right forearm, heidelberger got the word "godspeed" across his chest (apparently painful place too cause he was being a wussy too...again the pictures are the proof), Mackey got a cross above her left boob (probably painful but I would know cause I am a dude. she actually manned up better than all of us) and I got the leopard head (no they didn't get any pictures of me whining but I assure you I did. they just don't have any photographic timing). so we went in for one tattoo and came out with 5. they must of seen us coming from a mile away. anyways it was a great time that I will never forget. amazing experience that was that much better with my friends right there with me going thru the same pain. of course we each knew where each others tattoos were so the whole rest of the weekend you had to constantly be on guard against one of them trying to slap the tattoo which by the way KILLS!

ok so after the tattoo shop it was already 1500 or beer o'clock, so we went and got a different, better hotel away from the hotel party scene that we spent the last night at. it was all of us and we picked up thompson, a really cool girl we hang out with all the time and eat chow with everyday. Zupo and I have both have a crush on her so that has really tested our friendship but I am happy for it because it showed me what a really good friend he is. last weekend they ended up making out and it kinda upset me. instead of saying screw you he actually cut it off with her and stopped talking to her because he didn't want to jeopardize our friendship. he came up to me later and apologized and told me what he had done. I was floored. never before had I had a friend like that that would take friends over girls. anyways I told him that it was ok and that if he had a thing for and she obviously has it for him that he should go for it and we would still be cool. so now they are kinda together and me and her are good good friends. she is the kind of girl you can talk to about anything and not have to worry about what she thinks. its almost like having krista here in ait. we are becoming that good of friends. now no one can replace my krista but I can confide in thompson the same way I can krista. of course I tell Zupo everything, and I mean everything but there are certain things that are just easier talking to a female about.

ok off subject again. my mind is wandering today. there is just so much to tell. we picked up thompson and went to the jameson suites. we got a suite and started where we left off at 0400 the previous night. again a great time was had by all involved. no one got too out of control and there was no drama like the previous weekend...a it was everything I was hoping this weekend would be. good times with good friends aided by good drinks. I almost felt like a civilian again. but there was always this nagging voice in the back of my head reminding me that I have to go back to play soldier for another 12 weeks and then I become a true soldier in the real army. its a crazy concept that I am still trying to convince myself about. I am an american soldier. see? it still sounds funny to me. oh well it must just be one of those things I will have to get used to hear. I just don't feel like one yet. I am just frank but I have to wear a uniform to work and shoot weapons.

wow sidetracked again. so it was a good night of semi intoxication and eukure. (thompson is from michigan (save your breath dad. she hot and she roots for a team that got beat by applician state something that I never let her forget) so she knows how to play and we taught 2 others that knew how to play spades...me and thompson won multiple times. she knows all the cheater signs. I know I know she's amazing). we ended up hitting the hay around 0300. 9 guys, 2 beds, 1 couch. you do the math. since im a kinda big guy and woo was passed out on the bed I kinda picked him up and put him on the floor. he's asian and weighs 130 dripping wet it was nothing Plus Zupo and I paid for the room. where I come from that means you at least get to sleep on the bed. sunday we got up and went back to dennys. they were not happy to see us. we almost had to put a deposit before they would seat us. I just wanted coffee so I just got some to go and I sat outside to drink it with Zupo. we talked about how our nights went and laughed about mitchell's pathetic attempt to hit on the hotel receptionist. he almost got tasered it was that good. I am still laughing about that. after dennys we went to the mall so Zupo could get some shoes and I got an ohio state hat to pissed off thompson and cause I needed a black hat. we basically spent the whole day being mallrats and eating chinese food. we went back for our 1800 recall formation and that was it for my weekend. I definitely needed that weekend.

ok so you think that was long to read? I just typed that all on my cell phone. my thumbs are gonna be stronger that my biceps by the end of ait. also aunt gail, for some reason when I am typing in this box for my blog site it doesn't capitalize the first word of every sentence like it does when I am texting. I am trying to fix it but for right now this will have to do. I will try to put up some pictures of the tattoo session if I can ever get on woo's computer. typical asian haha you know im only kidding woo. ok till the next time be safe and I love you all.

your soldier-in-training
The Nock of WAR

HOOAH!

test results

just got out of class and I got some good news...i got a 98 out of 102! only missed one question that I really shouldn't of missed. I miss read the question and gave the wrong ip address. oh well I still got the 2nd highest score and kept my name at the top of the list for the class. that's all I really wanted. we had 10 guys out of the 27 in our class fail. it wasn't really that hard of a test I thought. there was no trick questions or anything that wasn't covered. I think the reason that so many failed is that this class is supposed to be taught in 7 days and we got it in 2 and a half. they are trying to fast track us thru the course add get us to our units faster.that is just fine with me. I can't wait to get the check out of here and get to the real army. this training and TRADOC control is driving me nuts. I am really looking foward to this weekend.

yeah for mass punishment...NOT!!

alright so welcome officially to the blog. this is an actual post. mom said it was up and running just fine so here goes...

so far I have been at my advanced individual training (ait) for little over 5 weeks now. it is at fort gordon, georgia right by augusta. everything you heard about georgia I can now confirm. it is hot. very hot. and just like ohio its not the heat but the humidity that gets you. its not uncommon for the humidity to reach 100%. at least I am sweating off some pounds here. if the army has taught me anything, it has been to just roll with the hits because they keep on coming. you just got to learn how to duck. enough about the weather. how come all my conversations start with the weather? I just noticed that. did the same thing with mom on the phone the other day. must be an ohio thing.

my job (military occupation specialty/mos in military terms) is signal support system specialist. still trying to figure out what all that means. so far we have been learning about computers and how they work. not just the physical components but also the software and how information travels and communicates with the hardware. all really confusing still but im sure by the end of it I can finally get mom and dad a computer and confuse the heck out of them telling them what is actually happening inside that metal box. this week we started learning about networks and how to set them up, IP addresses and all that jazz. got a test tomorrow on it. gonna be sweating that one. I got to keep my average up if I want to stay the standard setter for my class. oh yeah I guess I get to brag a little bit...i have the highest test average in the class. 95% which means I can miss 2 on the test tomorrow and not jeopardize it. yeah right that is gonna happen. they say that this is the hardest test all training where the most of the people have to recycle and retest. so cross your fingers for me. ill let you know how it went in the next post.

ah mass punishment. what a retarded idea. one guy screws up and all 300 soldiers in the company get to pay for it. we just had to clear the barracks 2 nights ago (at 0230 mind you) because one genius decided to bring a fifth of jack daniels back into the barracks and throw away the bottle in the latrine trash. I thought they had an iq requirement for the army? must of slipped under the radar. needless to say we were all ticked and lucky for him we have a no torture rule. we almost lost our weekend because of that. the reason we got it back was because today we had a barracks inspection from the battalion command sergeant major and he said our company set the standard for the whole battalion. that's because we have been cleaning for 3 days straight now but hey ill take it. anything for a weekend pass. especially this weekend cause it is a phase up weekend which means that everybody gets phased up...um oh yeah y'all don't really know what our phases are. well the short version. phase 4 is the first 4 weeks and you can't do anything during off duty hours without a pass from a sergeant. literally can't cross the street. phase 5 is weeks 5 to 12 and we can wear civilian clothes during off duty hours and can go anywhere on post during the week and off post on the weekends until 0100 each night which is our bedcheck. phase 5 plus is weeks 13 till to leave and same stuff as phase 5 except you can stay off post all weekend till recall formation on sunday. so this weekend I get phase 5 plus and you can bet they won't see my butt till recall. me and my batts (battle buddies) have tons of plans. hell we been planning it since the first week of basic. heres what we are going to do. sit by the pool, drink beer, and hit on any poor female that crosses our path. that's really all we want to do. be lazy. you guys take it for granted I know I sure did. but you can not imagine how awesome it will be to just lounge around for the day and do what we want to instead of be at the end of our sergeants leashes. I just hope some blue falcon (military slang for a person who screws his battle buddies) doesn't mess it up for everyone and get the weekend cancelled.

ok well that's enough for now. its now 0208 and I got a stupid dog tag, id card and orders papers inspection at 0300. I swear the stuff they think of in this army... I just hope it is quick and they let us third sisters sleep in. probably not but hey a soldier can dream right? so good night and take a nap for me today.

Hooah!