Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Life Lessons

Through my life, I have always tried to find an older man to be a close friend to me because well, I never really had a father around. Unfortunately, in recent years, I have been unable to find someone that I could rely on to be there for me when I have questions or problems. With this realization, I believe that God has put certain people in my life to help me through certain problems that I have to deal with. Sometimes these people are just brief moments in my life and other times I have found some truly unique and lifelong friendships. In any case, I find myself just amazed sometimes of what I have learned from them and what I learned about myself that I could not do on my own. I believe that with almost everyone I meet, I can learn something from them and I hope to continue to do so.

I think I am in need of a major change in my life and I’m not quite sure how I am going to go about doing this because recently I have been living a very stale life. I have done a number of things with my college experience that I love, but I believe that God has something a lot more in store for me if I would only step up to the plate. I need to talk to someone and I don’t know how I am going to do that.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Dell Inspiron E1505

Well, last week I somehow managed to slam my laptop closed and ended up breaking my display; it shows a white screen that changes color to red and back! Thankfully, that was it and the laptop still functions, so I just plugged her into my LCD tv and got business done. This was a very inefficient was of conducting business so I went ahead a bought a new Dell laptop with Windows Vista! I love my new laptop with its large hard drive, gigs of RAM, and an Intel Core 2 Duo processor! Hey, I used to be a big geek years back and I still have a little in me!

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Long Nights

In recent weeks, I have been having sleeping problems again and tonight I thought what better way to spend my sleeping time than to blog! Since I have not really posted much material in the last few months, I think I need to get an update out there for people who don’t see me very often. Here it goes...

Last quarter I was dealing with a number of issues and a lot of stress and sickness. Yet after skipping at least half my classes, I still managed a 3.33 GPA for that quarter (this is why I call it Wright High and not Wright State). This quarter, I have decided to go only half-time since I was anticipated another active duty stint in the Corps, but since they don’t want me, I guess I will have to stick it out around here for a bit longer.

In the meantime, I try to fill a lot of my free time with road trips to wherever I feel like going. In December, I drove to Niagara Falls, Canada and Quantico, Virginia. I mostly went to the Falls just to get out of the country for a bit, even if it is Canada and Quantico was for a visit to the National Museum of the Marine Corps. I strongly recommend that trip to anyone interested in military history. In addition, last month I made a trip out to Atlantic City just to check it out; it is nowhere near as nice as Las Vegas. Here are just a few photos of my recent travels (you must go to my flickr page to see them all):

National Museum of the Marine Corps Christmas Tree The Forgotten War

So this is just a brief on the surface update of what I’ve been up to lately.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Navy and Marine Corps Achievment Medal

Last month, I was also awarded my combat award and this is the citation:

For meritorious achievement as fire team leader, 1st Platoon, Company L, 3D Battalion, 25th Marines, Regimental Combat Team 2, 2D Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (forward) in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom 03-05 and 04-06 from 11 March to 20 September 2005 in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. On 20 April 2005 during a civil affairs mission in Barwana, Corporal McCauley participated in a raid on a high value target which captured the individual, his substantial weapons cache, and stopped his distribution of harmful anti-coalition propaganda. Later in the same day, Corporal McCauley and his team provided overwatch as his platoon reacted to an enemy ambush. His team’s actions allowed the platoon to force the insurgents to break contact and flee the battlefield. On 8 May 2005 during Operation Matador in the town of New Ubaydi, Corporal McCauley directed his team under heavy enemy fire to a rooftop position to provide effective suppression on an insurgent machine gun position. Corporal McCauley’s initiative, perseverance, and total dedication to duty reflected credit upon him and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Sergeant

In case no one noticed my new headline, I was promoted to Sergeant last month. I was really somewhat surprised to pick it up faster than Corporal, but you will hear no complaints from me. I look forward to being a squad leader and the training of junior Marines.

Unfortunately, I am also unable to volunteer to serve another tour because my battalion will not let anyone go. I am not very pleased with this at all but will have 4 weeks in Australia this summer for our annual training to look forward to.