Welcome to the new home of Corporal Murphy's Web Site

Corey is in Hawaii awaiting departure to Iraq next week.

CORRECTED NEW MAILING ADDRESS

CPL MURPHY, COREY J.
1/3 H&S CO TRK PLT
UNIT 44015
FPO, AP 96607-4015

Weather banner has been updated with the closest weather station to where Corey is located.

More updates to follow.

Twentynine Palms Base, California

29 Palms Marine Web Site

Corey landed in California Friday. He will not have access to the internet the next 4 weeks. We are speaking to him via cell phone.

From Wikipedia - The Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center (MCAGCC), is the United States Marine Corps' largest base. It is a census-designated place officially known as Twentynine Palms Base, California located adjacent to the city of Twentynine Palms in southern San Bernardino County, California. As of the 2000 census, the base had a total population of 8,413. The zip code of the base is 92278. The MCAGCC has a quasi-pop culture significance among Marines, with the nickname "Twentynine Stumps" or simply "The Stumps" as a derision. Some consider Twentynine Palms an undesirable post, due to the desert climate and relative isolation; however, others have grown to enjoy their time and in some cases have returned for another tour and / or retirement.

The base is currently home to the largest military training area in the nation (and the largest US base in the world), and consequently, the largest training program. The program known as Mojave Viper has become the model of pre-Operation Iraqi Freedom deployment training. The majority of units in the Marine Corps will undergo a month at Mojave Viper before deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan. Live fire exercises, artillery, tank, and close air support training are used for training. In addition to the sprawling "Combat Town," a two-acre fabricated Middle Eastern village, complete with a mosque, native role-players, an "IED Alley," and other immersive touches.

Nearby Joshua Tree National Park

Corey continues to train, this week learning and practicing a lot of urban warfare techniques and also worked through computer simulations for truck convoys. Also got to shoot paint bullets in a "combat town".

These pictures were taken 2 weeks ago, during live round machgine gun training.

COREY on SKYPE

When Corey and I video conference on SKYPE I sometimes snap an image.

Corey's New Photo Albums are located at

http://coreymurphy.zenfolio.com/

YEAH!! PICTURES

I walked Corey through the photo editing program this evening. This week he plans to set up a ZenFolio account and start uploading his pictures.

Here are some we practiced with - from the aquarium....

Corey expects to be leaving for Camp Hansen(to the north, still on Okinawa) any day now. Future schedule includes -

May - Hawaii

June - Calif (3 weeks)

Hawaii again?

Aug-Sept - Iraq

Very soon he should know what unit his Truck Company will be assigned to.

If you have been noticing, the weather has been anything but tropical, with cool temps every day.

YEAH !! Corey has a laptop. He is on SKYPE all the time now.

Looks like he is headed to Camp Hansen in a few more days, and Hawaii might be on the schedule soon.

Everything is well in Okinawa. We hope the laptop situation has been resolved. It was re-shipped Friday and due to arrive by Feb. 14.

Corey and the boys have tomorrow off for the Super Bowl. Expect to hear from him during the game tonight.

Sometime in March or April Corey expects to be moving to Camp Hansen and then to Thailand for 'COBRA GOLD" war games.

Iraq is looking like late summer.

Here is one web site I found with information about Cobra Gold.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/cobra-gold.htm

Sorry for the gap in news. I have been busy configuring a new computer and Corey has been a bit unavailable.

I spoke with him a few days ago. They have been working overtime on truck and humvee repairs.

He might be moving to Camp Hansen for training in February and maybe off to Thailand in March(?) and California by early summmer, then Iraq.

The #$*^ laptop never showed but Circuit City has re-shipped and hopefully it wil arrive by the end of next week.

• Live Web Cam from Naha, Okinawa - you can take control of the camera, scaning from city view to ocean view.
  
  MORE OKINAWA WEB CAMS
  
  
• http://ishigaki.com/yonera/
• http://www.aokawa.com/
• http://www.sizenken.biodic.go.jp/pc/live/cgi-bin/live.cgi?camera=42&area=07

Over the holiday weekend I spoke with Corey a few times using Skype. He also was able to video chat with the Boerners in Germany and Gma and GPa in Tarboro.

I set up Skype to forward calls to my cell phone, its easy to do if you want. The charge is about $0.025 per minute, so you have to set up an account with Skype, also easy to do.

We expect his laptop to be delivered this week.

In case you haven't noticed, there is a web page traffic monitor down on the left, including a map locating the visitors home town and country. I see a hit from Frankfurt yesterday.

Corey's Address

LCpl, Murphy, Corey
HQBN 3D MARDIV (MT)
UNIT 35880
FPO AP 96602-5880

Uneventful week at Camp Courtney except for the Marines birthday celebration with special guest

Ronald Lee Ermey

Ronald Lee Ermey (born March 24, 1944) is a retired U.S. Marine Corps drill instructor and later Golden Globe-nominated actor, often playing the roles of authority figures, such as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket, Mayor Tilman in the Alan Parker film Mississippi Burning and Sheriff Hoyt in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He currently hosts Mail Call, a military history program on The History Channel, where Ermey answers military-related viewer questions. Ermey is also an official spokesman for Glock firearms, Tupperware, Hoover vacuum cleaners, and the Young Marines.

Latest rumors - training for Iraq begins in January or February, some might take place in California, and/or at Camp Hansen in Okinawa.

EARTHQUAKE!!! - Hey Corey, did you feel it? I told you so. Remember - if you are at the beach and the water moves away, RUN LIKE HELL! UP HILL!

Info on quake Probably too far away.

Corey reached me this morning while I was in Brevard NC looking at fish hatcheries and waste facilities. He is "finally" working on "real" vehicles and getting dirty. As I had suspected, when he gets shipped to Iraq he will probably become past of whatever unit needs new truck mechanics.

He has plans to go hiking in the hills tomorrow, a little tamer that his "experience" at a country-western club last night.

FYI - he is not able to access the Internet so do not expect responses to your messages in the guestbook or your emails for a few weeks (but please keep sending them). Next week (payday) he will order a laptop but the shipping time looks to be 3-4 weeks.

MARINE NEWS

• Motor transportation section ‘driving force’ behind TFMP 1/12
• Many troops in Pacific say their faith has been met with tolerance
• New Marine dress code transforms the look of some military communities around the country

Corey officially belongs to the Headquarters Battalion of the 3rd Marine Division. His company is H&S Company, but the company link on the HQBN web site comes up blank at this time. It appears the web site is being redesigned.

Corey's Address

LCpl, Murphy, Corey
HQBN 3D MARDIV (MT)
UNIT 35880
FPO AP 96602-5880

Pretty quiet out there. He plans to clean up his room today, which was quite dirty when he moved in. He did get off base yesterday for a little sightseeing.

His company is tentatively scheduled to ship to IRAQ in March. If you are interested in learning more about deployment check out the Deployed Units page. My guess is his company will become part of a company similar to the one listed as "3rd Transport Support Battalion of 3rd MLG" as listed under 3rd Division on that web page. You can click on MORE INFO to read about that particular unit. I think he only is a part of HQBN while on Okinawa and will be moved into a different company, such as the one mentioned above, when deployed. I also did some reading on the parent message boards for this group.

If this is your first visit here check out the links from the last posting and see what Camp Courtney looks like.

Corey's internet access is limited at this time so he might not respond to your emails immediately.

E-mail Corey

OR

you may leave him a message in the

On-Line Guestbook

Corey has been stationed at Camp Courtney. Accommodations are "ok", the view is "awesome". He spent the past few days doing paperwork and taking orientation classes. Hopefully he will be accessing the internet tomorrow and his email. In November he plans to purchase a laptop and we should then be able to video conference.

E-mail Corey OR Post a message in the Guestbook

The "SMP" Program he mentioned today sounds pretty cool. The "Single Marine Program" helps unmarried Marines explore and enjoy Okinawa better. It is well financed and will help Corey get the most out of his free time.

CAMP COURTENY INFORMATION

• Camp Courtney Mess Hall
• Wikipedia article
• Map of Camp Courtney
• Camp Courtney Photo Gallery
• Movies showing at Camp Courtney
• Aerial view - try zooming out
• Corey - check this out

Corey will send pictures soon!

This evening Corey called from Camp Foster where he is temporarily stationed until middle of the week.(see map) The food is better than Lejuene, the weather is beautiful and the trip was long and uneventful. He thinks he will be sent to either Camp Kinser or Camp Schwab.

Corey en route to Okinawa, Japan, his PDS - Marines are assigned to a PDS, or Permanent Duty Station when formal training such as boot camp, SOI, and MOS schooling are complete. Corey does not yet know what unit he will be assigned to.