Thursday, November 30, 2006


(I realized I mentioned some of this as part of a broader subject about care packages. However, for us, decent razors actually turn out to be the most important and, over the course of the tour, most expensive to pay for part of care packages.)


Operation Razor:

Since we have been away in the past few months, you back home have showed your support for soldiers of the 875th Engineer battalion by donating large amounts of material and financial contributions to our support group, exceeding all expectations. Not only where we able to send the soldiers of our unit back home to their families free of charge, but we were able to help send home our fellow soldiers attached to us from Vermont and Indiana. We are blessed to have such support on the home front. That is why I believe that you can aid us again.
As many of us here have noticed, one of the hardest things to get at our PXs is toiletries, particularly soap (would someone bring some "ivory" for me?), mouthwash, shaving cream, and particularly decent razor blades to shave. While the cheap "bic" style razors are fairly common, Gillette Mach 3 and Schick Quattro razors are impossible to find, despite the PXs rationing all the said items to only 2 of each per customer. Even when they do have them, they pretty much are worth their weight in gold.
That's why we need your help in sending care packages to the soldiers of the 875th. Our community has supported us before, so we know we can count on you again.

Sincerely,
Specialist Hunter Shumard
Armorer/ Supply Clerk
Charlie Company
875th Engineer Battalion

NOTE: This is for the Charlie company (Paragould) unit. This does not include the other company units.

send all packages to:

Specialist Hunter Shumard
C Co., 875th EN BN
APO, AE 09391

Hi, I'm Hunter Shumard, and I'm nervous as Bill Clinton in a confessional... and ooo... lobster! :P

Just a made a video clip from the military's "Holiday Shout Out" program. You know the video clips service members do in the holidays when they're overseas and have them sent to be played at their local TV station back home. Apparently, it's just as hard as it ever was for me to be comfortable on camera. We had to do a couple takes, and I'm pretty sure a campaign video of Al Gore speaking to the camera could easily defeat this little clip of me saying happy holidays to family and friends, while trying to stand the strong lights in front of me that were set to "vaporize". I'm thinking of hunting down a camera of my own and doing a clip of my own for some folks back home. In the meanwhile, just look for me and the rest of the 875th on KAIT during commercials.

To add to the interesting day, IT'S "SURF N' TURF" NIGHT!! WOO HOO!!!

Saturday, November 25, 2006


Since people keep wanting to know what I want in my care packages, I decided to make a list:

Mouthwash- don't know what the restrictions on liquids with travels applies to mail also, but if it's possible, it would be great. The stuff usually takes forever to get resupplied in our PXes apparently.

Razor Blades(& especially refills)- By the way, with all due respect, do you think you should "support the troops" with those cheap Bic razors you yourself don't use? We use Gillette Mach 3 and Schick Quattro razors like any other sensible guy would. Also, if you think nice razors are worth their weight in gold back home, it's like every day was the day before Christmas over here.

Nonperishable Food- Try peppered beef jerky, sugar, coffee creamer (as just about anyone that likes coffee has their own coffee maker around here) and, my personal favorite, microwavable popcorn.

NOTE: We are a combat unit, meaning we have few females in the Battalion, with only about 2 dozen in one company (which is not mine). While female soldiers deserve their necessities just as much as male soldiers(maybe even more so), it does not mean you should swamp my all-male company with feminine hygiene items. Save that for headquarters company. Thank you for your time.

If I think of anything else to send, I'll let y'all know.

Monday, November 20, 2006


It's amazing how things can be put in weird places. It's always a good idea to put things in their original, labeled boxes. Frankly, I don't think ammo pouches look anything like binoculars... but that's just me. The good news is that despite even an inventory, we've been able to avoid after hours work for some time now. I remember the long, long nights during our training at Ft McCoy, working 100 hour weeks and combing over same serial numbers and doing the exact same form for another again....and again...and again...those are days I don't want to revisit. It's like I'm catching up on my reasons to stay sane. Hope it keeping on going.
Also, I'm attempting to hunt down some presents for Christmas coming up, but for one thing, the PXes(Army and Air Force's shopping marts) don't exactly have a wal-mart inventory, I can't get decent advice on gifts, and people keep telling me NOT to give them gifts (strange world indeed I live in). I did find quite possibly the most original and clever present for Jonathan Carmack EVER, if not the most useful. enjoy it man when I send it to you.

Sunday, November 12, 2006





Sorry for the sudden disappearance, but I saw a dirt cheap price on the first 5 seasons of "Family Guy" a few days ago and got distracted from my normal off-duty hours activity of blogging. Now that I got done (kind of wish there was more episodes, but they'll be more), I am back to business as usual.
The rains apparently have a way of making dust into nice puddles of mud. As you can see in the picture before you, one night our conex area flooded and caused the metal panels that were supposed to keep the mud down to float away and scatter all over the place. Thankfully, we have not had a rain since.
Also, the postal service decided to damage one of my letters from my girlfriend. This foolish and vile act will not be tolerated, and I will be hunting down the mailman responsible for this... like a dog.
(Crickets chirping in audience)
Oh well, till next time.

Sunday, November 05, 2006


The inevitable finally happens. Saddam Hussein, along with 2 more defendants including his half-brother Barzan al Tikriti, were all sent to death by hanging today. He had wanted to face a firing squad - that request was refused.
I am glad the Iraqi people have been able to take another step in the search for justice. At the very least, we finally have something once everything but the biggest kooks can agree on. However, I’m afraid though what the Sunni extremists will do now in the immediate aftermath of this. While I couldn’t tell immediate events to you, anyone that seriously thinks that our unit’s time here in the next few days will be a cake walk would be lying.
We have reached another highlight in this war, and should not forget that, but also not forget that it is not the end as well. This war has seen great ups and downs. Don’t forget either of them. Sure, it’s tempting to say “This is crazy, I’m out of here”, but remember that we would not be here now if we had finished this 15 years ago, because I will promise you, if we do leave again before our job is done, we will be doing it again in 15 years once more.

Saturday, November 04, 2006


A perfect example of some of the better aspects of my job. This here would be a nicely modified M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, or SAW for short. In this case, this one is much more compact,making it hard for many soldiers even to notice it is actually a SAW. Why on earth these modifications couldn't be done. Back home, it was a joke to give the SAW to the smallest (and usually lowest ranking) guy in a squad. I remember being forced to carry it my very first AT (Annual Training) in Fort Chaffee, AR. Carrying around the thing was terrible, but oddly enough I was better at it than an M16, qualifying on with it on the Camp Robinson SAW range in the summertime. It being hard since the drought that goes on months before we go there makes tracer rounds stir up massive amounts of dust within a few rounds, plus it's tendency for the whole range to be set on fire every 10 minutes. Despite that, me and one other guy in the company managed to qualify. While I still sort of miss the weapon, I'll always remember the pain of carrying the thing with about 400 rounds of ammo.

Friday, November 03, 2006


Since I have said little about what it's like here(some of it I can't tell you, for reasons mentioned in one of the previous blogs about Army web search teams looking for possible OPSEC violations), I figure I'd talk about my living quarters for now. This would be my part of one 3 man room, which I actually do like. It includes 3 small drawer sets, a closet drawer, a single size bed, a night stand, a 13 inch tv/dvd player, a fridge, and a computer with a table.
It's nice to have something other than a dirt, tarp, or simple concrete floor. It's such a small place I can reach any point of it with at least one foot in the bed, but I can at least clean the floor in less than half a minute with a swiffer (which I am slowly but surely mastering. The only possible bad part about it is dealing with two other people with different 8-10 hour duty shifts while I have 10-12, so I have one person waking me up half the time about an hour too early for me while another wakes me up getting in after midnight. But as long as they dodge my thrown alarm clocks, everyone concerned will continue the routine unhurt.

Thursday, November 02, 2006


Long day at work again. Doing a complete renovation of our work area, and it looks like a mess. It's hard to make tough compromises, like setting the furniture to make work easier, and at the same time have a good place to put the large flat screen tv (that was already here when we got to Iraq, major score there) as such so we would be able to see "Special Report with Brit Hume" from any position of our room. When that happens, I will consider half of my life complete(the half when I get more decent spot for internet). Bah... times up again... must... get... sleep...

Wednesday, November 01, 2006


The now-famous line former senator John Kerry said:

"You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

That's funny... you went to Yale, and then wound up in Vietnam. As for some brilliant guardsmen from Minnesota, they have their own reply.
(Link to Stars and Stripes article about this blog entry here)
Wouldn't you know it, a story about the military having a team of soldiers who go around searching through blogs for possible OPSEC violations comes out a day after I had started blogging. I figured it was going on to some degree. They've went through about 500 blogs so far, but I'm sure there's a whole lot more to go. The question that's been on my mind for a while is: What exactly counts as an OPSEC violation? I know saying things like "Hey, we're about to go on a mission in...." counts, but what about something that happened months ago? What if it's something that has became irrelevant? Is there any point in not mentioning when and if we leave when you can read it in the latest edition of "Stars and Stipes? There are many, many variations of that example, but the point is this: can't there be a consistant (and lets face it, feasable) set of regulations that could be based on OPSEC? Sorry to get on the rant, but it's frustrating to only be able to say "Fine, and how was your day?"
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