23 April 2007
Let my just start by saying this...the wool beret is the most ridiculous and most impractical head gear for the Army - which is an out door activity, yes, even for a medical company it's an outdoor activity. I hadn't ever really thought about the head gear too hard before - it is what it is, I still have to wear it daily even though I find the beret a dumb idea, but when one is expected to complete a mission even if it is raining like Noah should re-build his ark, that beret is just insult to injury. I say all this mainly because I was bitter last week when it was indeed raining in a manner that gives monsoon season it's name and I had to stay in the rain with the impressively soaked beret on laying out equipment for our new commander to check. But on the plus side, we have a commander - so at least we're not lost at sea, just at sea. And something else that made me happy that day was that my socks were the only thing on me dry when I finally came in from the rain. Gortex boots really are waterproof, so that was cool.
This weekend I taught at the elementary school again, if you can really call it teaching. 40 minutes twice a month hardly constitutes teaching, but my partner and I tried to teach the sixth graders some states. We only taught them big famous ones, Florida, Texas, California, New York, Illinois. It was a little hard to try and figure out how really to distinguish between ocean's and lakes - we taught them Florida was by the Atlantic Ocean, California by the Pacific, and Illinois by Lake Michigan, but we were lost on a translation for Lake. The sixth graders were a lot better than trying to teach the fourth graders, the whole Govenator scenario didn't even present itself since with two years more maturity, the sixth graders were more behaved. Then again, I haven't taught fifth grade yet so maybe that's where Arnold is in Korea.
On Thursday I was the Officer In Charge (OIC) of an M16 qualification range our company ran. I'm still not sure if the Geneva Conventions really promote a medical company being proficient at the M16, but from what I understand as long as it's smaller than a 50cal we're okay. I'll have to look that one up though. Because I have an extremely good Staff Sergeant and an overzealous but proficient 1SG, the range ran very smoothly. The only problem we really had was the staple guns didn't work. The Sergeant Major made fun of me for that when he came to check on the range, then proceeded to make fun of me for going to an all girls Catholic school and told me about his days as an alter boy. Interesting guy. But at the end of the day, most of the people in our company qualified and there were no serious problems, so I get to mark that off on my 'things to do' list the Colonel gave all his 2LTs.
Other than that, our company building is in it's final eviction, we have to be moved out by Friday, so we've been busy moving all our offices to a warehouse in the motor pool of another company. Not by any means ideal or even very practical, but we have to move and there's no where else. This week there's a 25 mile road march called the Manchu Mile. Manchu is what the Infantry Battalion here is called. I'm not sure that the march commemorates anything, but I'll do it anyways. We get a belt buckle if we finish - not that I wear belt buckles, but apparently a lot of people in the Army know about the march and that you get a belt buckle. I'm hoping to get to a baseball game here one of these weekends, I've heard they're very entertaining, cheerleaders and everything. Next week we leave for EFMB - the Expert Field Medical Badge. It's a two week deal - one week of standardization where the graders tell you what they're looking for, then a week of testing.
The first picture is our line in the motor pool with the cherry blossoms behind the vehicles - and the poo-poo plant that smells awful now that it's warmer. The next couple are of at the range, then the last two are the inventories in the rain. Our Commander is on the right leaning against the conex and Ben and Becca hiding out with him while I stupidly stayed in the rain and got soaked.
This weekend I taught at the elementary school again, if you can really call it teaching. 40 minutes twice a month hardly constitutes teaching, but my partner and I tried to teach the sixth graders some states. We only taught them big famous ones, Florida, Texas, California, New York, Illinois. It was a little hard to try and figure out how really to distinguish between ocean's and lakes - we taught them Florida was by the Atlantic Ocean, California by the Pacific, and Illinois by Lake Michigan, but we were lost on a translation for Lake. The sixth graders were a lot better than trying to teach the fourth graders, the whole Govenator scenario didn't even present itself since with two years more maturity, the sixth graders were more behaved. Then again, I haven't taught fifth grade yet so maybe that's where Arnold is in Korea.
On Thursday I was the Officer In Charge (OIC) of an M16 qualification range our company ran. I'm still not sure if the Geneva Conventions really promote a medical company being proficient at the M16, but from what I understand as long as it's smaller than a 50cal we're okay. I'll have to look that one up though. Because I have an extremely good Staff Sergeant and an overzealous but proficient 1SG, the range ran very smoothly. The only problem we really had was the staple guns didn't work. The Sergeant Major made fun of me for that when he came to check on the range, then proceeded to make fun of me for going to an all girls Catholic school and told me about his days as an alter boy. Interesting guy. But at the end of the day, most of the people in our company qualified and there were no serious problems, so I get to mark that off on my 'things to do' list the Colonel gave all his 2LTs.
Other than that, our company building is in it's final eviction, we have to be moved out by Friday, so we've been busy moving all our offices to a warehouse in the motor pool of another company. Not by any means ideal or even very practical, but we have to move and there's no where else. This week there's a 25 mile road march called the Manchu Mile. Manchu is what the Infantry Battalion here is called. I'm not sure that the march commemorates anything, but I'll do it anyways. We get a belt buckle if we finish - not that I wear belt buckles, but apparently a lot of people in the Army know about the march and that you get a belt buckle. I'm hoping to get to a baseball game here one of these weekends, I've heard they're very entertaining, cheerleaders and everything. Next week we leave for EFMB - the Expert Field Medical Badge. It's a two week deal - one week of standardization where the graders tell you what they're looking for, then a week of testing.
The first picture is our line in the motor pool with the cherry blossoms behind the vehicles - and the poo-poo plant that smells awful now that it's warmer. The next couple are of at the range, then the last two are the inventories in the rain. Our Commander is on the right leaning against the conex and Ben and Becca hiding out with him while I stupidly stayed in the rain and got soaked.
2 comments:
Hope you are feeling 100% by now, I love the pix and your stories, they make your life there seem so real to us.
I hope you get to go to Alaska, you will get a real winter there for sure. As for our winter I am glad it is over, I fell on ice in January, did not break anything but I was all shook up, and then I slid into Bear Creek on ice again on Valentine's day, got my SI joint out of place so I still hurt a bit, but nothing like poor Gregory. I visit him often and play games, last week he beat me
6-0 on backgammon, so we had to switch to cribbage where I have a better chance, we'll see what we'll do this week.
hugs, Dora
Caitlin, I finally caught up on your blogs. I like your writing. the information is slightly mindboggling late at night. It sounds like you're busy enough (but with dumb stuff sometimes) and get to be a tourist once in awhile. I love the pics. i'm enjoying my job and getting to see plenty of good live music, my favorite recreation. spring is finally here. ooh, I would hate to be in a monsoon. I'm glad you're safe and may get a civilian type location eventually. ironic that you're taking risks by being in the Army and Greg gets hurt. weird. thank goodness he'll be ok. Troy finishes his associate degree in June and is planning a trip to NY to see Rage Against the Machine the end of July. Hopefully we'll have moved into the house in June. thanks for the communicques. El
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