The Final Days of O4'

The stepped up security has certainly altered the way Mayor Cell and IPP are done. (If you're not familar with those terms glance back to prior blogs) I won't give very many details as to exact operations, you can certainly understand why. I will say that the level of the seriousiness of those duties has gone up significantly. Daily there are briefings on the rules of engagement, so as guards we're empowered to "deploy, engage and destroy our enemies in close combat" (http://www.108soc.com/soldiers_creed.html). Should we be confronted by them while at our post. Additionally large numbers of guards are posted around post at key locations that weren't guarded as such in the past.

I bring this up because I was assigned to Mayor Cell for Seven of the last Eight days, including today. I actually volunteered, I really liked Mayor Cell before all the changes and additional duties that were added on. Another side effect of doing Mayor Cell all those days was my personal free time was eaten up. Mayor Cell is a twelve hour dutie, that's 6am to 6pm. So when I sign-in at 5:45 (early sign-in is required) it's still very dark and at 6:15 in the evening when we're released the sun has long set for the day. So I've gotten no daytime hours to do anything basically. My laundry has piled up, I need to pack to prepare to move, I'm backed up on emails, and just a whole host of things have simply gone undone.

For all my complaining I really do enjoy the actual tasks I've gotten this week. My least favorite was being apart of a team that stood in front of the PX for extended hours checking ID's and conducting frequent body searches. Besides that I got several tasks that I liked I got to work with the electricians as a security escort for one last time and things like that.

In the morning I leave my room at about 4:45 am and I don't return till the end of the day at around 7:00 pm. And normally when I get back I head straight for the shower, from there head straight to bed and hit the sack at about 8:00 pm so I can get my 8 hrs in by 4:00am. Aside from not being able to get anything done, this schedule is great for me. I love this early to bed, early to rise routine. However, with all this I haven't seen or held a conversation with anyone in my unit in the last week. And since mid week last week our units main office (called the TOC) has been staffed by people from the new unit that's replacing us. So when I sign out in the morning and in at night I've had no contact with unit members their either. So I haven't been keeping up the news of what's happening with our unit in terms of redeployment. On friday I got wind that some big changes are happening and we're getting out of here this week. I'll fill you in on that and write and entry looking back on 04 and forward to 05 next time I get a chance. For now it's 5:35 am and I have ten minutes to get over to Mayor Cell and sign in.