Our missions have been slow lately with the changes since June 30th, and many of our Soldiers have been partaking in training classes to keep sharp on existing skills and training on some new ones.  Some of the classes that have been going on lately are:

Combat Life Saver: A class where Soldiers learn basic medical skills to treat things like treating shock, temperature ailments, rescue breathing, controlling bleeding and bracing broken bones.

Combatives: Soldiers learn basic unarmed hand to hand self defense techniques similar to some of those found in Brazilian Jui-Jitsu.

Fire Warden: In this class Soldiers learn about the rules and regulations regarding keeping their living areas safe and hazard free to prevent fires.  Soldiers also get to utilize a fire extinguisher to properly put out a test fire.

Now TOA, is the second part of the process and the most exciting for us. It happens when RIP is complete, on the last day we have a TOA ceremony where we Transfer (of) Authority over to the oncoming unit. Once this is complete our mission is over and we head home. Now currently our date for this is November 13th.

However please understand this is NOT the day we will be home as there has been much confusion on this as many soldiers and NCOs, yes ya’ll too, have told their families back home about “November 13th”, and whatever went along with that story got lost in translation and many of them think we will be home around then.

To clarify the process on when we will be home, we TOA on * REMOVED *, hopefully weather permitting we should fly out the next day, if not it could be a day or two as there are sand storms here that will shut down all air assets. Once we do leave Iraq, we have several days (4 – 6 days) still on this side of the world, which will be chock full of boring briefings, personal records and medical checks. The names of these ’stations’ have been withheld for security purposes.

Once we get through the first out processing we have an almost 24hr trip home with awaiting the initial flight, loading the plane, layover, flight time, and unloading the plane. Here we arrive back on American soil, we will be there for several days again ( 4 – 6 days) doing medical and personal records checks. If anyone got hurt while on deployment or in transit home they could be held up on this station.

Once we are ready to leave that stationn we will have been out of Iraq for at least a week, probably 9 – 10 days at this point. So now it is probably * REMOVED * by the time we get ‘Home’ in Ocala and the surrounding areas. Our Soldiers from the 450th MP CO in Alabama, Tennessee and other areas, I have no idea when you will be home from Ocala, as there has been no word of the plan for that yet.

I hope this clarifies the mystery of when we will be home and helps people understand that as with everything else in the ARMY, to get home is a process just like it was to leave. It is not as simple as past deployments, there are many more records and medical checks now and it takes a few days to get almost 200 people through all the stations. If you have any further questions please post your comments below and I will do my best to answer them.