Day off. It felt like that today. In fact I’m glad it felt like that. For some reason or another I wasn’t on the list to go to combatives today. So I have to occupy myself with other things to do. I’m kind of self-motivated so it doesn’t take much. I really don’t like to just hang around and do nothing. I like to keep busy all the time.

After breakfast most of the company boarded the cattle trucks and headed out to the gym to begin combatives. There was hardly anyone left here at the barracks. My squad leader didn’t even say good-bye or give me any instructions on what to do. So I figured I’d start off with laundry. There were three of us left from the squad left in the bay. Since Fridays is our day to do laundry I had Holzer and Martinez do their laundry before the rest of the squad got back from the gym.

In the late morning I went to Battle Bean to send and receive my e-mails and check out my bank accounts. Battle Bean is the name of the Internet café here on North Fort. I hate using the Internet there because it’s so slow. It bogs down from everyone using the Internet at the same time. I figured they’d get the best bandwidth and router for Internet access since there is so much demand for soldiers to use the Internet but I guess not. Not only that, Battle Bean is only open until 1600 hours! So in the evening there are all these guys freezing their butts off because they have to use the wireless Internet outside. I can’t image when the fall begins and the weather gets cooler.

This afternoon Holzer and me decided to go to the South Fort. It’s the main part of Ft. Lewis. It has all the amenities like the PX, Post Office, Post Theater, Library, and Recreational Facilities. He wanted to go to the PX and I had to go to the Post Office and I also had to find a copy machine. We rode the reserve duty bus that gives free bus trips to and from the PX and Hospital area. It was a piece of cake catching the bus to go over there, getting back was the problem.

We waited for a bus for 1½ hour! And it never came! There were some other guys from the Arizona Guard that showed up to ride the bus as well. Their unit is in Tucson and they just got back from Kuwait. We told them that we had been waiting for a while and we all decided to get a taxi since there were four of us. So we got a taxi back to North Fort, which only cost us $3 each. I’m starting to hate this transit system.