Hurry Up and Wait

Not a lot new happened this last week or so.  Maybe that's not true.  Actually, it seems like foreeeeeeever since the last time I posted, so I'm sure a ton of stuff has happened.  Here's some of it:

We (the 24 of us who arrived at the same time) were joined on Jan 23 by another 130 young, hopeful officers to be.  Most of them are either ROTC, National Guard or Reserves and so have more experience at the Army.  That's why they got to skip the first two weeks.  As a consequence of their arrival, and us having already done most of the stuff they were doing, we didn't do a whole lot for a couple days.

Friday the 25th was an exception.  Our company commander was being transferred and a new one was coming in.  There's a ceremony for this.  It's called a Change of Command!  (Though I'm sure it usually doesn't have an exclamation point.)  Basically, what this means for the soldiers is that we have to stand in formation, basically perfectly still and expressionless for about an hour.  We only had one casualty, so I'm calling it a success.  The only times we moved, and I'm not exaggerating, were when we went from parade rest (feet shoulder width apart, hands joined together in the small of your back, staring straight forward) to attention (feet together, hands at side, staring straight forward), then saluted during the National Anthem, then when we returned to parade rest.  We may also have come to attention when the outgoing commander passed the flag to the incoming commander.  I don't remember anymore (it seems like such a long time ago...).  But seriously, for an hour.

I'll explain the casualty.  Have you ever heard someone say that if you're standing still for a long time that you shouldn't lock your knees?  It's because you could pass out, right?  Well, the lone MD in our group was trying to convince us that there's absolutely no physiological reason why that should happen.  And maybe he's right, who knows?  But it happens.  About 45 minutes into our standing-still competition the girl next to me started making noise, "Hmmph."  Then a minute later, "Hmmph."  I wasn't sure it was her at first, but then I noticed out of the corner of my eye that she was slowly leaning further and further backwards.  I swear she was about to tip over, so I quickly reached out to try to grab her, but she righted herself and whispered she was okay.  (She wasn't.)  A couple minutes later she slowly started tipping forward, but managed to come back to center by herself.  I peeked over and saw that she was crying (my own shoulders were on fire from holding my hands up in the small of my back for the previous 30 minutes or so).  Another two minutes went by and she just went straight down.  Like she just decided to sit on the ground.  No one really knew the protocol here and I tried to get her to stay down, but she insisted on getting back up.  Such a trooper!!  Then we all proudly sang the Army Song and within another five minutes it was all over.  Somehow, barely anyone noticed her fall, but a few people commented that she had somehow lost her patrol cap (I'm really not sure how that part happened.)

Can you find me?

Lt Richmond made a full recovery :)

This week was way more boring.  I honestly don't even remember most of what happened.  We probably just sat in class for long periods of time and learned about writing certain kinds of reports and stuff (something that as a dentist I won't be doing much of, but I guess it's good to know, right?).

Oh.  Tuesday morning I went to the dentist.  At 5:30am.  It was my fastest dentist appointment ever.  There were about 60 or so of us that had to go get screened, and even though I was one of the last to show up, the only seats available at that point were the ones closest to the clinic, so I was one of the first to head back.  They just did some x-rays, and the dentist took about two minutes to look in my mouth before pronouncing me cavity free!  (This is always a bit of a stressful experience for me, because every time I go, I'm sure they're going to tell me that I've finally got my first cavity. (Could you detect the bragging there? ;)))  I was a little bit disappointed that he didn't ask me what I did in the Army.  I felt like we could have been friends.  A missed opportunity...

Wednesday morning I went to the optometrist.  At 6:30.  This time there were around 100 of us and it's the first time that Hurry Up and Wait became really real to me.  We all had to show up at the same time to basically sit around for ages while they saw us as quickly as possible.  Why they didn't tell us to show up in 1/2 hour increments I don't know.  It's just not the way the Army does it.  But they didn't even look at our eyes.  They just did reverse prescription off of our glasses and told us to get lost.  It's actually pretty disappointing to sit somewhere for an hour to talk to someone for about two minutes.  But I'm pretty excited to get my official Army issue glasses.  Pics to follow.  :)

Thursday morning was our PT test.  We reported to the track at 0420.  Yes, that's 4:20am.  Why?  Because that's the way the Army works.  Then we all did as many push-ups and sit-ups as we could do in two minutes, followed by running two miles as fast as we could.  And I almost qualified!  Unfortunately, I've been having trouble pushing myself to run faster, since my knee still feels like Jell-o sometimes when I run.  And, although I cut two full minutes off my time from two weeks ago, I missed qualifying by 35 seconds.  I'll just have eat a little more chili the night before my next test.

To celebrate the PT test being over (for most of us, anyway), we went out to a place called Big Lou's Pizza on Friday night.  It was featured on the show Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.  They make a 42" pizza.  It's big.  And delicious.  It was a really busy place, and from the time we got there until the time we got our pizza was probably an hour.  Maybe a little more.  Worth it?  Depends on how hungry you are.  But it was definitely a tasty pizza.  And how long does it take to eat a 42" pizza?  Well, 20 of us did it in about 5 minutes.  Then we ordered another.  Don't worry, it was only 20".  Still delicious.  :D

Everyone took a picture :)

Literally took about five minutes...

Saturday, we went out again, this time to The Cove (also featured on DDD).  It's a crazy weird place with a carwash attached to it.  In the back the have a huge outside seating area with a playground, basketball hoop and ping pong table.  It was a nice relaxed atmosphere and they had some live music going on inside as well.  I ordered the lamb burger with sweet potato fries.  Yum.

The Cove

My dinner!

I felt like I had to dig pretty deep for subject matter this week.  Hopefully more stuff happens to me in the weeks to come :)  Speaking of weeks, 4 down, 8 to go.