The first week of my mobilization is over and I'm already to the second stop at Camp McGrady, Fort Jackson, South Carolina, for Navy Individual Augmentee Combat Training (NIACT).  Navy-wise the last week was a great waste of time.  Friday we were only in uniform for an hour and the entire week could have been shrunk down to probably two days.  And really, the only thing done there that couldn't have been completed at a NOSC was the uniform and gear issue.

It was a nice boondoggle though.  It was my first trip to what I consider the real South (Jefferson Davis was buried just down the road), and I really enjoyed it.  I tried out some local eats like barbecue, shrimp, crawfish, and oysters and it was good if not healthy.  (I didn't visit the ubiquitous Waffle House that were as frequent as Starbucks in larger cities.  There's a reason why Mississippi is the fattest state!)  The coast is really nice and there are some beautiful homes even though they're still rebuilding from hurricane Katrina.

Matthew, Mike, Eric, Simon at Shaggy's

I met up with three other junior officers (JOs) at NMPS and went out with these guys in this one week more than I have with anyone for the past year.  Part of that I imagine is because only two of us had cars and I had the larger one, but I could have just handed off the keys.  I've heard whether you're an introvert or extrovert can be determined by how you relax and recharge your batteries.  Looking at it that way, I'm definitely an introvert but I repeatedly chose to go out versus stay at home in my room.  Part of it is that I'm not home and  don't have someplace to really unwind until I have my own place long enough that it's worth unpacking.  More than that though is that there is a bond amongst those of us in the military when we're traveling together.  We're all going through a shared sacrifice and all generally enjoy what we're doing and want to make the most of it.  Simon took the words out of my mouth last night when he said that when he was active duty he hated it and couldn't wait to get out, but now he loves doing Navy work as a reservist.  I got out of the Navy because I didn't want to constantly be away from my family, but I'm looking at this mobilization as a government sponsored adventure.