When the Smoke Clears

This past weekend was training with the young ones. The difference this time: I had a little brass on. In fact, due to others being called up to duty, I was one of the ranking officers in the field. The sergeants were mostly running the show, as well it should be.
They refer to me [...]

I did take a little time for the colonial triangle: Yorktown, Williamsburg, Jamestown. I even stayed on the Colonial Parkway for my travel between the sites, beautiful drives and always fascinating to look out at those old houses way off in the distance, standing solid, white along a lonely sound overlooking some river or bay. [...]

to give thanks to my friends and family for their support during and after OCS. I received letters… not as many, mind you, but we didn’t exactly get daily mail call either. We were lucky to get mail twice a week and had to pay for it with push-ups, unless, of course, we were sent [...]

(Talking on the phone)
Me: … and then I bought a tomato. Holy poop. One tomato is freakin’ expensive…
Friend: ..you still can’t curse?
Me: Yeah, something they did to us at OCS. Anyway, all I wanted was a simple tomato sandwich. Just a craving.
Friend: Simple?
Me: You know me. Simple ingredients. Sort of.
Friend: What [...]

So as a quick summary, here is how the rest of the trip went: Yorktown, Jamestown, Williamsburg, Fayetteville (spent a late night celebrating my commissioning and several friends’ promotions to CPT at an Irish pub, then up late, onto base to take care of some things, then a dash down the road to…) King’s Mountain, [...]

After a Monday night brief stop with the Blogdaddy, some expensive cheap pizza and a very fine old scotch in celebration, Tuesday involved a few stops focussed on natural beauty.First stop: The Lost Sea.
Actually it was really cool and the tour guide we had made it even better. The Lost Sea is a giant set [...]

The travel has started.
Yesterday, I did not travel too far from home. I spent the better part of a day touring the Chickamauga Battlefield. It was strange being there, free to go where I wanted, discover what I wanted when only a few weeks before I was standing on the same hills and in [...]

“What is it with you?” Adam asked me as we were leaving the Burger King a few weeks ago.
“Explain,” I ordered.
“That little girl came right up to you, out of all of us.”
“I have a way with kids?”
He countered, “You look like a psycho. Seriously. Pathological killer with that look on [...]

Officially, there are none for the next few days.
I have decided.
I have had a great deal of structure for some time. My vacation times seemed to be periods of rushing from place to place.
It is time to throw all that away. I am taking this week off. I am hitting the road. [...]

No, I don’t think I would go through that mess again, but now that I have, I know that I can handle just about every “Embrace the Suck” school the Army has out there. Seriously.
We trained every day and every night. Generally we had about 4 hours of sleep a night. Sometimes more, never [...]

that I couldn’t do 48 hours ago:
* Had sushi (made by the best sushi chef in the world who still remembers my name)
* Took my time in the shower
* Wondered what I would wear today
* Used my cell phone
* Sat on my bed
* Put on comfortable shoes
* E-mailed
* Read something other than an FM [...]

alright,
I snuck on a computer. I graduate tomorrow. This has been an amazingly long, painful, interesting, fatiguing experience. I chose the hardest route apparently to becoming an officer. It will happen in less than 24 hours.
More soon.