Cause you just might get it, and all of it. So even as a young private I'd been pinning for a sweet combat patch for a while. Mind you, as I write this I'm on year 4 of 6 and have been a speclist since Oct 07. I asked and asked my unit admin to send me over as filler or something. "No, you’re too valuable here in rear." He'd keep telling me, so later that year while in my second semester of college, I get this phone call at lunch, and its my section leader, "Hey Mansell, get your stuff, be here at the Armory at 0600, you’re going to Mexico." "What?!? No I... I can't, I'm in school" I say, but to no avail, I find myself in the back of C-130 after a quick and rushed SRP (Solder Readiness Process) or something like that. So we get to New Mexico, land in some Air Force Base, and we get greeted by this CSM. And all I can think is nothing is better then and old school safety brief to put your mind at ease. So we do our train up at the RTI in Santa Fe, and then head down south to this abandon corporate town kind of like the one from the movie, 'November Sky' So we do our month on the border... well everyone else does, I guess cause I was the High Speed E-2, who had gotten promoted to E-3 and not known about it. I get picked up to attend this counter-terror class that is being put on for SWAT teams. So hey cool deal, 15 soldiers and 5 SWAT teams in one class. Talking about lessons learned, from domestic terror acts and the current conflict in Iraq, this is 2006 and the height of the troop surge is at its highest, and still I don't have a combat patch. So, needless to say we do our 30 days on the border, come back and get ready for a fielding of a new weapon system in 2007. That summer we get our WARNO, Mind you again, that the IBCT had already been in country for 6 months. So we are thinking sweet, we just got new toys, maybe... just maybe we'll get to go play with them, I mean we're pretty high speed, 3rd unit in the entire Army to get this system, and the only National Guard unit tested and deployable with this the M142 HIMARS. Oh no, FORSCOM says... your going on an infantry mission. You're gonna play PSD for Department of State personal, and HVP (High Value Personal) I started to feel like the TRIX Rabbit, "Silly Rabbit, rocket artillery isn't for Iraq" So two thumbs up, let’s go this sweet combat patch, and this year of hell over with. And oh man was it ever. Not to say that total experience wasn't bad, but giving the Bronze Star to the guy who cuts open the IED, or the squad leader, for doing his job, not a good idea... and when I get blown up by a sperate IED, and get an ARCOM denied and instead get my 3rd AAM and a CAB in the same day. But hey got my sweet Combat Patch out the deal. And with my combat service I got this job with the 1st Army. Oh by the way, we were told they guess what, we're moving to Ft. Hood this summer boys and girls. Back to good ole North Fort...