Utng Reception
Home sweet home – and straight to work.
Touching down in Utah was met with a sincere gratitude. I gazed out the window of my commercial flight and immediately noticed the iconic Rocky Mountains. I never appreciated their natural beauty until now. Nothing says home like being surrounded by sheer elevation of rock.
The first weekend home I was to report to drill at the RSP site at Camp Williams. Here I was surprised with yet another promotion to Private First Class (PFC). I said goodbye to my once proud mosquito wings, and enjoyed a little rocker on my rank.
Immediately following the promotion, I met SFC Craudell, the readiness NCO at my unit, 2/211 GSAB. He gave me my first unit patch (I was disappointed), I asked “Are you ready to deploy?”. “Yeah! Let’s do it, Sergeant” I replied at parade rest. He proceeded to tell me that a deployment to Afghanistan was in the works and I was on the list to go. This however would change as I was left behind as one of two fuelers to run the state mission, while the others left. Coming in and out of deployment lists are common, it happened to me multiple times in my enlistment.
SFC Craudell informed me that Drill was next weekend and that he would call me with time and location.