It's now the 12th of February and I only today received my orders for AT (Annual Training). I leave on Friday the 15th and will be gone for three weeks. One week longer than the old traditional commitment of one weekend per month and two weeks per year. I remember thinking about that during my last tour to Iraq; boy that was one long weekend. These AT's can always be a drag as they seem way too long for the amount of training. One year ago I had never heard of Ft Hunter Liggettt and this weekend will be my third trip there within 7 months or so. It’s not a bad place, about 2 hours drive from San Jose CA right in the middle of the wine country of that region but the Army base is a small little place really all by itself. I'm anticipating three weeks as being a very long time there. Earlier this week I also got my "big orders", the ones to Iraq. It's never fun to see: Purpose: Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq) on your orders. They also state the duration as 400 days. In addition to gathering things together, I have also been doing my credentialing packet for the deployment, which is something all medical providers have to do in order to do their job... I had to stop there for a minute as Jacob's binky fell out and he was crying very loudly in his swing. I was thinking of all the things that are different from civilian life to an active duty deployment in the combat zone and am thinking that my next post will be a description of trading this for that so to speak.