One Weekend a Month… My Ass!  is a wonderful way to see into the mind of an ordinary soldier serving in the U.S. Army National Guard. This multitude of small stories and descriptive life events are told in his own words, peppered with jokes, photographs, other soldiers' comments, and stream-of-consciousness observations. Robert Pepin both witnessed and took part in these incidents throughout his twenty-year career; all events are true or believed to be so. During both deployments to Iraq (over two and a half years), he compiled nearly 1,000 pages of handwritten entries in journals that he carried with him everywhere he went. He brought the journals home and kept them safely tucked away until he was moved to transcribe them. The non-deployment accounts are taken completely from his memory.

As a young man, Robert Pepin always wondered what type of experiences and missions his grandfather Paul Pepin had endured while serving in WWII with the Army Air Corps, but never really knew any details except that he worked with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). This lack of information propelled Robert to write this book so that his sons and future generations of the Pepin family would know more about his own life. Without any formal writing classes or professional help, he started typing up his stories, from the journals and from memory, to convey his experiences the best way he could.

Throughout the narrative, Pepin can be interpreted as sarcastic, cynical, silly, brave, stupid, honest, bitchy, and even sad, but he has always been proud to have served. You will read that he did not receive the medal of honor, purple heart, or anything equally prestigious, nor did he retire at a high rank such as general. This book generates no hype and never embellishes events. Simply put, Pepin is just an ordinary soldier who does ordinary things. His personality is easily understood through the narrative; you feel as if he is speaking directly to you. Enjoy this book! And thank you.

One Weekend a Month… My Ass!  takes you on an up-and-down journey through the interesting military life of the author, Robert Pepin. It encompasses twenty years of service in the U.S. Army National Guard. This 700-page book has been broken down into five distinct phases:

• Phase 1 starts at the beginning: Robert Pepin decides to join the military, shortly after his brother Dave did. First comes basic training in Kentucky, then Advanced Individual Training (AIT) in Virginia, and time spent in the Massachusetts National Guard as a generator mechanic. It finishes up with Pepin transferring to Rhode Island as a forward observer.
• Phase 2 describes everything about Pepin's first deployment in 2003 as a military police officer (MP). It starts with training at Fort Drum, in upstate New York, before flying off to  Iraq with the 115th MP Company as combat support for 220th MP Company, 3rd Infantry Division, and 3rd Armored Cavalry. Some but not all missions detailed in Phase 2 are house raids, convoy security details, traffic control points, and security for the CENTCOM commander.
• Phase 3 is a short section covering three years of annual training between deployments, which also includes accounts of the St. Barbara award and the Rhode Island air show.
• Phase 4 is the largest phase in the book. Pepin's second deployment is served with the 1/103rd Field Artillery. They start training on a mock Forward Operating Base (FOB) at Fort Dix, in New Jersey. Then off to Baghdad, Iraq for detainee operations missions, which involve the care and custody of Sunni and Shia juveniles.
• Phase 5 is much like Phase 3, describing those wonderful annual training exercises, and closing with a brief description of Pepin's retirement at the final drill in September of 2012.

Oh, and about the title: One stereotypical name for National Guard soldiers is "Weekend Warriors," implying that all they contribute to the nation is a measly one weekend a month of time, yet here was our soldier Pepin in Iraq, away from his family, living in miserable conditions, being shot at by everything from bullets to rockets. So the graffiti on the wall in Fallujah rang true for him: One Weekend a Month… My Ass!

Robert Pepin was born in Providence, Rhode Island in October of 1971. He lived there with his mother and younger brother, Matt, until the summer of 1985, at which time he moved to Seekonk, Massachusetts to live with his father and stepmother. He joined the Massachusetts Army National Guard in 1992. Two years later, he married his wife, Nancy, and in 1996 they moved back to Rhode Island.

He was first deployed to Iraq as a military police officer (MP) in 2003 for combat support missions, then was deployed once again as an MP in 2007 for detainee operations, spending two and a half years overseas. In September of 2012 he retired as a sergeant.

Robert is a high school graduate with a trade certificate in graphic arts. He took some college classes and then worked hard in a rubber and plastics factory for ten years on the night shift, while simultaneously working various part-time jobs before exploring a career in corrections. It was in 2001 that he sought a change from industrial labor and became a correctional officer for a private company in Central Falls, Rhode Island. In 2005 he left the private sector to be an officer employed by the state. He is currently a correctional officer for the Rhode Island Department of Corrections at their maximum-security facility, and a member of CERT (Correctional Emergency Response Team), the prison's version of SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics). He also volunteers as a member of his department's search and rescue team, solely comprised of correctional officers, to find missing persons on recovery missions organized by the state police.

Robert enjoys going to music concerts, hiking, fishing, and hunting. He currently resides in Pawtucket, Rhode Island with his wife and two sons.