Blogging is Hard

So, I'm gonna pretend I wrote this post a couple weeks ago. :)

Hmm, what's even happened?

Well, for starters, my platoon (1st platoon, that is) won a couple of banners!  Each platoon has a flag called a guidon (pronounced like guide-on) and onto this flag we place the banners of honor that will one day set us apart as the Honor Platoon (Apparently in the last two classes, 1st platoon was honor platoon).  The first one we won was for the Physical Fitness Test (no help from me, but hey, I'll ride the wave!).  That just means that our average score was the highest of all the platoons.  The second one was for our midterm exam.  Again, I don't feel like my 84% really helped us out much, but at least I passed this one. ;)  (I guess this is a good time to mention that I did finally pass the PT test by improving in all areas, pushups, sit-ups, and shaving another minute off my run time.  Hooah!!)

Most of our days at this point involve sitting in class, usually being subjected to one Powerpoint after another.  If we feel like we're going to fall asleep, it's pretty much required of us to move to the back of the room and remain standing until we feel like we can return to our seats.  There have definitely been a few days when I stood up pretty much the whole day.  Army life is rough!  ;)  It doesn't help that we get up for PT (working out) at 5:00am just about every day.  I guess it wouldn't be as bad if I could convince myself to go to bed at a reasonable hour, but that's always been a struggle for me.  But really, 5:00am?!?

What else?  I got my first paid-for massage the other day.  I decided that since I've been having so much trouble with soreness and knots in my upper back/shoulder region, that I needed a deep tissue massage. If you've ever had one of those, you might be groaning a little inside right now.  I was sore for three days after.  It was... uncomfortable, to say the least.  And that was after I asked the guy (who already said he was going light cause it was my first time) to lighten it up a bit.  Picture a guy standing above you and putting most of his weight on his elbow and then dragging it up and down your back next to your spine.  Over and over and over.  Why did I pay for this?  Why did I tip the guy?  If he was trying to get information from me I would have told him anything he wanted to know, I swear...

The "spa" where I got my "massage".  The soothing music and warm ambience almost made me forget I was in a torture chamber.

But for real...

I got this weird thing on my finger that I was pretty sure was some form of skin cancer.  I didn't notice it at all until it was in this stage.  It was a day or two after my massage and when I consulted the doc that lives down the hall, he asked if the guy gave me a hand massage.  He did (it was awesome!), and then the doc joked that I was going to have these all over my body!!  This was the only one though.  Just a small little infection, who knows what from.  It cleared up after about a week.

Notice the very frightening hollowed out appearance.

Also, I got bit by a fire ant for the fist time ever.  So painful for such a tiny little creature.  And the bite lasts for several days and gets inflamed and looks very similar to the infection on my other hand.

Tiny little ant bite.

One day after class we went over to the Army hospital (SAMMC.  It's actually multi-service, but whatever) and toured a place called the Center for the Intrepid.  It was a pretty amazing place.  It's entirely devoted to rehabbing amputees, and with the way these two wars have been going, there are a lot of them.  The soldiers that are there rehabbing are actually assigned to the center as their station, sometimes just temporary, sometimes long-term, and are given housing nearby.  Their duty while there, is to attend all their appointments, and they have several daily.  It was amazing to see so many brave soldiers, some of them missing both legs, walking around on their prosthetics, smiling and just learning to live and be normal.  It was a really amazing facility.  Upstairs they have a shooting simulator similar to the one that I showed you in a previous post.  They use it to try to find PTSD-related triggers in soldiers, to see how they respond to combat-like situations.  While I was up there, I saw this little guy.

Go Caldwells!!

On the 23rd I went to a celebration of the 102nd birthday of the Army Dental Corps.  I didn't get that many pictures, but it was a formal, black tie event, so everyone was dressed to the nines.  For the active military guys, that means dress blues.  It was a neat event (although very long) and I've never seen so much glassware on a table.

I only used one glass.  For water.  Although there was a gift wine glass in the middle with the dental corps birthday emblem on it that I got to take home.  Yippee for free wine glasses!!

Just chillin'.

We also took our final exam recently.  And although we haven't been awarded the ribbon yet, we've been told that it belongs to 1st platoon!  We're on our way to Honor Platoon!

So that's pretty much all that's been going on recently.  I'll write another post soon about my adventures in Field Training Exercises or FTX.  Oh, and I guess before I go, there was this other thing that happened on Valentine's Day.  I went to visit Noelle in Philly.  The army gave us a four-day weekend for Presidents' Day, and it just happened to nicely coincide with Valentine's Day.  I was originally scheduled to fly out early Friday morning (the 15th), because we had class scheduled until about 5pm on Thursday.  But they let us out of class early, so I booked it down to the airport and caught an early flight and surprised her by showing up to Institute, where she usually goes to class on Thursday nights. I think it was effective.  In fact, she was so surprised all she could do was ask how I was in Philly, and then she draped herself on me like a blanket.  Not awkward at all... :)  Unfortunately I didn't plan ahead to have anyone take pictures of the surprise, so we only have a couple of candid shots that neither of us were aware of.

Cutest blanket ever.

:D

In case you didn't notice this small detail in the other picture. :)

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.

Two weeks down, ten to go!

This is a shadow from a bench in the atrium of the AMEDD Center & School, showing our motto.

Apparently there are a lot of princesses in San Antonio.

See?

 Princesses require lighting on the trees as well.

Went to a nice Tex-Mex place last weekend called Ácenar. 

 They had some very nice looking outdoor seating.  The restaurant is right on the river walk, so there's water right down below the veranda.

   

Inside was nice too.

The Alamo!  Smaller than you think, especially amongst the other buildings in San Antonio.  It's right downtown!

 Our class advisor wanted us all to run the 5 miles to the Alamo together (the first of what she hopes is a recurring event).  It was something I was dreading, since I've never run more than about 3 miles at any time.  And considering the whole knee surgery, stupid leg thing I've got going, I didn't think it would go well.  But I finished!  And I only stopped when the rest of the group stopped as well, so it was a big accomplishment for me!  Also, we started just after 5:30am, so it was early and around 50 degrees.  Perfect for running.  Our reward was Denny's for breakfast, with our class advisor footing the bill.  And while this was better than I thought, I'd say the Army hasn't quite made a runner out of me yet... :)

(Our class advisor is on the front left, and the two gentlemen in the back corners are two of our awesome instructors who drove the support vehicles for us this morning.)

Choi, Ramsey and I in our ASUs, or Dress Blues.  First time we wore them was for inspection this morning, just to make sure everything was in order.

Glamour Shot?

Our class for the last 2 weeks was just 24 people from all different professions, and we've been in a pre-BOLC class (Basic Officer Leader Course) offered to new officers by AMEDD (Army Medical Department).  Tomorrow we'll be joined by about another 120 or so students to do the real class, learning all kinds of Army stuff.  I think most of the new students are ROTC guys, but there are others as well.  I just got a roommate today, too.  He's from Alabama and he's got a great accent :)

Ft. Sam Houston

So, my original intent was to totally be a blogger and write all kinds of interesting stories.  But, as it turns out, I'm no more a writer today than I was when I was seven years old.  So you're gonna get some pictures and captions.  That's the best I can do.  And, since I'm not the biggest picture taker in the world, you're only gonna get a few pictures.  Deal with it. :)

 This was my first stop at Ft Sam Houston (at least I thought it was supposed to be).  The only location I could find on my orders was Building 592.  Turns out that's a hotel, and I needed to go to the AMMEDD Center & School to check in first.  Army efficiency?  What?

 These are shots of my actual room.  Turns out I pretty much live in a hotel.  Maybe crossed with a dorm room.  But theres TV, WiFi, and a refrigerator and a microwave.  There's even an iron and a hair dryer!

 Can't have too much TP, I guess.

 First time I got all gussied up in my ACUs (Army Combat Uniform).  I was probably about to head off to class.

Issuing us all our gear.

 Don't be jealous of my sexy overboots and my super-trendy-wearing-them-on-the-wrong-feet style!

 My first Army experience with MREs.  Of course, my brother and I thought we were army men growing up, so we've had them before.  :)  

 This picture is sideways.

 Fajitas.  Just like you get at Chilis!

 This is actually a cool thing.  That green envelope is a chemical heater.  You slip the foil pouch inside, then add a tiny bit of water, being careful not to overfill, then it gets really hot.  Good stuff.

This was our Land Navigation group.  Choi, Allen, Ramsey (I used to live with his brother in Seattle. Weird), Me, and Patel.  We learned to plot 8 digit coordinates on a map and then we were given a set of 7 points to plot.  Then the trick was finding them.  We did pretty well for the most part, but one time I ended up waaaay off in the bushes.  :)

 The last two points we had to wait for night time to find.  We were on top of a hill.  It was pretty.

 I didn't use any editing software.  This is really what it looked like.  I promise.

 M-16 simulators.  Pretty realistic as far as the recoil and feel of it.  They're all computerized too, so when the magazine is empty, the bolt locks open, etc.

 Learning to use the M-40 gas mask.  Getting ready to go to the gas chamber.  Get excited!

 Three tough guys.

This video is probably difficult to watch.  The camera moves around a bit.  My apologies.  Also, it's mostly kind of boring.  Oh well.  If only we had smellovision... >:)

 The M-9 simulator.  Just like the M-16 but with pistols.  Don't feel like you need to critique my stance. I'm aware of my backwards-leaning tendencies.

After learning how to disassemble and reassemble the Beretta M-9, we had a tournament to see who could do it faster.  Nadeau dropped his recoil spring on the ground, but Richmond didn't fully separate her spring from the spring guide.  You can decide who the winner is.

You can send me stuff at this address.  If you do, I promise to send you something from Texas.  It might be a rock, but it'll be a Texan rock!!