Oh you're in the Army? What are you? A Plumber?!

In the US Army, there are many Military Occupational Specialties (MOS). Many are pride filled and proud positions such as Infantry,EOD, Artillery, Armor, Medical and Aerial. For the others, there are other jobs. The jobs no one else wants such has Human Resources, Pharmacy Tech, Plumber, and others.

When I was transferred after failing EOD school to Plumbing school at Sheppard AFB I remembered back to viewing Army MOS videos on YouTube before I shipped to Basic Training. One stuck out when I  viewed "Army MOS 21K Plumber" and thinking "man, that must totally suck as a job but at least they do some regular combat engineering training." I snickered a bit then went back to watching clips of Hurt Locker, how silly I was.

Going through class was odd, a multi-branch school run mainly by the Air Force. I heard our instructor, TSgt Taylor, say many a time "I don't know what they do in the Army, but in the Air Force we do..." We actually asked our Army Platoon Sergeants/Instructors about such scenarios....we were duly informed that we will likely never plumb again after AIT and to be ready to be second hand carpenters. Along with this we will not be going to Battle Focused Training (i.e. no combat engineering/battle maneuvers training)....man I got the short end here.

This plumber is watching everything learned go down the tubes at a standard 10 degree pitch.

I was discouraged at hearing this, but we were also told to get ready to deploy because by god there is two wars going on so you will most likely deploy and wreck those Al Qaida dickheads!

You'll totally fucking deploy!

After I graduated plumbing school I took my orders to head to Fort Polk. From that point on is where I'm will chronicle the things that go on at 178 Engineering Company.