limbo

of all the more than 1000 marines who were recalled to active duty with me (half went to camp lejeune, nc and half came here to camp pendleton, ca) there are only 48 who have still not deployed to iraq. that would be me and the other 47 recalled marines in my group. and all throughout our training we have been asking: where are we going? when are we leaving? who are we going with? ... and essentially getting the answer: "i don't know." this in itself has been frustrating, but there's a lot of problems for individual marines that are in this state of limbo. especially marines that have been yanked out of their lives unexpectedly for the stated purpose of being sent to iraq.

i mentioned in my facebook note that i was leaving for iraq in a few weeks. now that is uncertain. i've been going back and forth between being certain that i was leaving for iraq, that i was going to stay here in california for the rest of the year, and that i was going to be demobilized and sent back home. and now, as of friday, we're back to not knowing anything at all. a lot of us are pretty upset at being jerked around like this, and some have written letters to their congressmen. this has finally gotten our situation some attention. everyday last week somebody high up in our chain of command would come speak to us and field questions about our situation. they still don't know what to do with us, but at least now they're working on it. the commanding general is talking to headquarters marine corps about this, and there is nothing, besides some very high level stuff, being discussed at this level.

i will still be going on leave in a week from now to alabama for a few days, which i look forward to.

also, friday i went to see the silent drill team. i've seen them before and they're pretty cool to watch. if any of y'all see me when i'm on leave, get me to show you the video i took.