THEY SAY THAT IN THE ARMY... THEY LIED

HERE'S A LITTLE LOOK AT MY TIME IN THE ARMY

I enlisted in the U.S Army on 10 July 1989, at the New York MEPS. This picture was taken a few days before I left home.

My Basic training was at Fort Dix Maryland. It was eight weeks of pleasure and pain, heaven and hell.. But I had fun learning to shoot move and communicate. Here are a couple dumb photos from Basic Training

My next adventure was AIT (Advanced Initial Training)where I learned how to do my job(thats classified, If I tell you I have to kill you) hint, I fix weapons

My first assignment was to 708th SPT Bn, Baulmholder, Germany Strange though it may seeem, my fondest memories are from field trainig exercises. Here are a few pics from The Baulmholder Era.

In July 1992 I was reassigned to Fort Knox Kentucky where I pretty much chilled for 15 months before I returned to Deutchland in December 1993.

Life in the Marne Division was rather unique. I was assigned to the 3rd support Battallion where I served a brief stint with the base armament shop. I got promoted to Sergeant in may 1994 and was promptly reassigned to 5/41 FA MST (Maintenance Support Team). After about months I was sent to the illustrious TEAM CAV.where I would serve te rest of my tour in Germany. They say "if you ain't CAV you aint SH.." I say, "if you are, you are." The Cav is truly a state of mind. One thing that remained constant in the Marne Division though was field time. Here are some pics from some of our numerous grafenwoer and Hoenfels rotations.

In October 1996 I went to BNCOC (Basic NCO Course) at Aberdeen Proving Grounds Maryland. BNCOC was fun despite the snow and marching to school in it. I was fortunate to go to school at the same time as my brother Martin, which helped make it more fun. There were only 9 people in my class so over the 6 months of the course we got pretty tight. We spent the majority of our free time playing dominoes and poking fun at each other.

After Bncoc I returned to Germany and chilled for about for a month before deploying to Bosnia for nine months.

Believe it or not Bosnia was actually fun. Some of the other camps were not as developed as Camp Angella (All the Camps were apparently named after the wife of the first commander there) We lived 6 to 8 deep in sixteen person tents with wooden frames and floors. We had bathrooms with showers and a dining facility with excellent caterers. Yes you heard right we had contracted cooks to prepare our food. We wore full battle rattle whenever we left the camp and sometimes even in the camp depending on the Threat. The daily convoys were particularly fun as we got to leave the camp and go out into the communities. Come december it was time to leave and we had to make it look like we had never been there. It was almost a shame to tear it all down but the autobahn was calling and I couldn't wait to answer.

The rest of my time in Germany was spent making up for lack of civilization. In July 97 I got orders to go to Fort Irwin California. I didn't actually report till October. Fast Forward to present era. I am now with the Materiel(that's how we spell it in Logistics Circles)Management Center. It's actuallyone of the better assignments here; I finally got a break from all that field time. Here are some of the people I work with.

Links to other sites on the Web

SGT GRIFF'S MAIN PAGE
US ARMY HOME PAGE
FORT IRWIN HOME PAGE
SGT MOM'S SOLDIER SUPPORT SITE
US ARMY PERSONNEL COMMAND
MILITARY PAY