The Official Blog of Rob Smith

In the Army, FRAGO is short for Fragmentary Order. A FRAGO, when received, usually means that a part or parts of the previously planned operation or mission are changing, and the FRAGO explains that change to you.
In our case, for several reasons, our plan to move into the tent city (which is not an actual [...]

A correction to my last post – the Red Sox had already designated Mark Kotsay for assignment a day or two before I included him in my position player sludge comment. They have just now traded him for “Quadruple-A” outfielder Brian Anderson. Duncan has also been playing at Triple-A. So, at least the picture is [...]

So, today is a day off for me. Some of the unit is out training right now, but the rest of us already completed this training earlier in the year so we don’t have to do it here. I am having major problems getting connected to the internet here, and next week we are going [...]

Hello loyal readers. We’re getting into the final three weeks at Fort Dix, the busiest portion of our training schedule, so I don’t have much time to write right now. Today we were on a “convoy operations” training mission, and we’ll be there for the next couple days. Even though I am making a lot of [...]

Yesterday was probably the worst Army day I’ve ever had. I say probably because there was the day in December 2006 when I had to begin a timed 19 mile ruck march at 3am, but at least after that I got to take a little nap and relax for the rest of the day. Yesterday [...]

Just a quick post tonight, since I probably won’t get a chance to post anything tomorrow. We’re waking up at 4am to get our weapons, then we’re  going to the range to zero our weapons (making sure that the weapon’s sights are aligned properly to our personal shooting style), then qualify (hit a certain number of targets) during [...]

Well, let’s start with the important stuff. The Red Sox designated Julio Lugo for assignment today, and if they can’t find anyone to take him in a trade they will probably release him (and be responsible for the remaining $13.5 million on his deal). Originally intended to be the everyday shortstop they needed after the [...]

I’ve been very busy today, driving all around base talking to different agencies, arranging trucks to pick up our trailers at various locations, getting soldiers to load our trailers and to make sure that the correct equipment is loaded, ensuring we only pack what we need, and documenting it. All of our containers with much [...]

Because of the pace of our training here, I don’t really have time to go into the individual comment threads and answer any questions you may ask me. So – let me “answer” some of the questions that you loyal readers have asked so far. I’ll try to catch up on your questions at least [...]

We don’t have weekends off here while training at Fort Dix, but today all that is on our schedule is a briefing at 7pm tonight, so it’s pretty much a day off. Yesterday I went through all of the medical checks (vision, dental, TB test, health screening, etc.) and also the administrative checks, like making [...]