robcasting

With me recently posting that I'm going on I/A to Iraq the question I get from most of my civilian frineds and family is, "What's an I/A?"

Well I will try to explain this in the next few paragraphs.

There are a few ways an Active Duty Sailor can end up in Iraq.

The most common way is for a Sailor's ship to deploy and sit off the cost of a certain country for a number of months. In this case Iraq.

The second way, which is becoming more and more common is to get follow on orders from a current assignment to do a year in Iraq. This is alot different from say the Army or the Marines as the Navy is just there to fill individual assignments where the Army or Marines will send entire units of people over.

Then you have the Individual Augmentee or I/A billet. The I/A billet is where you go away from your current command temporally to do a certain job. These I/A billets are normally six months long. The most common places you see I/A billets are Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba and the Horn of Africa.

So I am going to be on temporary loan to Baghdad for the next six months. Upon the end of the six months I will return to Diego Garcia for my last few months here and then...well I don't know where I am going after that, but it sure is gonna be interesting.

Labels: I/A, Iraq, MC, Navy