Of COURSE more is better!

So, a couple of weeks ago, we're all standing in a dark parking lot at 5:00 A.M., getting ready to go out into the field for a couple of days. Keep in mind, this is basically the first time that any of us have worn our own uniforms and have even seen half of the 30 lbs. of gear that's now hanging off of every available limb and being worn on our heads in the form of my personal favorite, the ballistic helmet. People are frantically running around, checking each others' gear for things that are out of place, missing, what have you, prior to Maj. C.'s scheduled arrival at 5:30. Just when people are really starting to scramble, the prior-service guy who's fixing up my pack, which I cannot reach myself because it's conveniently already loaded on my back, yells, "Hey, anybody got any 100-mile-an-hour tape?" So, I'm thinking, 100-mile-an-hour-tape...hmmm. What's the deal with that anyway? Does it unroll at 100 miles-an-hour? Does it make you go 100 miles-an-hour? Oh no, my friends: it's supposedly designed to be able to catch something going 100 miles an hour. But lucky us, not only does some guy in my platoon have 100-mile-an-hour tape, he claims that he has 110-mile-an-hour tape, and of course, I really need tape that's good to 110 miles an hour, right? Only if they're going to throw me off the bus on the I-10 on the way out of town, I'm thinking to myself. But, I'm not one to turn it down: more is probably better, right? ANYWAY, the guy who's helping me catches the tape and starts ripping pieces off, rolling up all of the loose straps and stuff on my pack and taping them down. This creates a 100-mile-an-hour tape panic among the group. All of a sudden, everybody has to have some: it must be something great, right? I mean, it can catch something going a hundred miles an hour, people! My platoon is going crazy, everybody's borrowing pieces off this stuff for their packs when finally A., in her infinite wisdom is like, "Wait a second...this is just green duct tape." Yeah, well, whatever. It was a lot more fun when it was 100-mile-an-hour tape, A.

Frequent Flier Miles for Dinosaurs

If you're from the Black Hills, you might have wondered (or already heard) what happened to Sue, the T. Rex, since she was unearthed a few years ago in west-central South Dakota near Faith. You might remember that she was housed at the Black Hills Institue of Geological Research in Hill City, SD, prior to being auctioned by Sotheby's in 1997. As most of you reading this probably know, the Field Museum successfully acquired the T. Rex and subsequently, built a really neat permanent installation to house her at the museum in Chicago, IL. So, what does any of this have to do with Texas? Well, it's Saturday afternoon, and A. and I were looking around on-line, trying to find a list of the tourism must-do's here in South Texas: we're all about partaking in anything remotely touristy. Luckily, we found just such a list on the San Antonio Convention and Visitor's Bureau website. The weird part is that one of San Antonio's "must sees" is, duh duh duh, to visit the Sue exhibit, which includes a life-size cast of the T.Rex, on loan from the Field to the local Institute of Texan Cultures museum. Here is the link: http://www.texancultures.utsa.edu/
public/communications/events_calendar.htm For more Sue trivia, you can see part of the Field Museum's Sue exhibit online at: http://www.fieldmuseum.org/sue/whosue.html. So, there really is more of South Dakota in Texas than just little ol' me.

Overheard Item #2

If you haven't talked to me on the phone lately, you probably haven't heard all about the wonderful Dining Facility (DFAC) here at Ft. Sam. Again, the logistical problems associated with this particular eating establishment are too numerous to cover in a post, however, I will say that the one great consistency of the DFAC is the mile long line in which you will stand, in the hot sun, for anywhere from 30-40 minutes to get in. Why the long line, you ask? Well, there are lots of reasons: some of them good, some of them not so good. One of the reasons that my group and I, in particular, wait for so long is that there are tons of enlisted soldiers training here, and as a matter of custom (and I'm sure a lot of you reading this know what I'm talking about) officers always, always let the enlisted soldiers eat first. Which means that anytime a school bus full of them pulls up to the DFAC, well, we all scoot to the back of the line, further out into the sun, and let them go in ahead of us. This particular custom is probably the singular line-standing-related thing that everyone in my OBC class agrees is 100% appropriate and we're happy to oblige. One caveat, however: it's not a completely altruistic arrangement on our part. The added bonus to all of this is for we long-line-standers is that from 12:00 until 12:30 everyday, we get to do all the people-watching you'd ever want to do. And it's usually pretty colorful people-watching, at that. Usually, you're watching drill sergeants scream at these poor EIT soldiers/kids tumbling off the bus: some of them remembered the Military ID they need to get in to the DFAC, the rest get yelled at. There's one Drill Sergeant, in particular, who I see every single day. What makes him special? Well, I'm sure there are probably lots of things that make him special, but the one that I notice is that he wears braces. I know, I know: what's more intimidating than a drill seargent with a mouthful of metal? ANYWAY, I see this guy at the DFAC practically 5 days a week, and he's usually having to yell at the same kids again and again. And it's getting old for him, you can tell: he's halfway to his houseboat in Florida, or wherever, in his mind. So, we're all waiting in line at the DFAC, and this Drill Sergeant has just finished yelling at his soldiers for, oh, the buzillionth time and he kind of rolls his eyes. Another NCO says, "Hey, Drill Sergeant, how's it going?" The poor braces-wearing DS holds out his hands, palms upward and looks from side to side at this ridiculously errant group of 18 year-olds and says wearily, "All this," followed by the dramatic pause that is also somehow customary in the Army, "and a paycheck too?" and looks skyward. Ohhhh boy.

Overheard Item #1

If you've noticed that this post was written mere hours after the last one, you're proabably wondering just what kind of a cake walk I'm doing here at OBC, given that I seem to have all this extra time to work on the computer. What's really going on is that for the next 45 minutes, I'm stranded in our academy building between the end of my last class and a formation at which I'm basically required, with the rest of my group, to go outside in the hot sun, line up in formation have our platoon leader say, "Have a good one, suckers!" and then go home. Could this have been accomplished without the 45 minute wait? Yeah, you would think so, but we have student leadership around here to organize (or fail to get organized, which is more often the case) these sorts of logistical issues. Anyway, I figure I have just enough time to pass on at least one of the funny things I overheard today that made me laugh. And laugh and laugh. Overheard Item #1 occurred as I was leaving the track after the test this morning. If you read the previous post, you know that there was an early PT group, and a late PT group. As we were leaving around 6:20 A.M., the "late group" was just lining up. The only people who were not part of either group were people who have what we call a "profile" which is basically a doctor's excuse to get out of doing the required fitness tests because you're injured, or sick, or whatever. Anyway, one guy, an M.D. who's roughly my age, is part of the late PT group. He's standing around with eight or ten other people waiting to take the test and he says, "Well, last night I seriously considered writing myself a profile...." causing all of our ears to perk up, at which point he says, "unfortunately, though, my diagnosis was fat." Buh duh da. That, the Army will not buy as an excuse, I'm afraid. In fact, they will go the extra mile to, um, encourage you by enrolling you in the Army weight control program, which just sounds unpleasant, and from what I hear, lives up to its billing. For the most part, though, I think that people did pretty well and I know that we're all really relieved to have the first hurdle out of the way.

Hey, I just passed a PT test!

For anyone who has been kind enough to humor me and listen to any combination of the various worries/hand-wringing fests/complete crazy lady freak-outs that I had about the Physical Training (PT) test that we're all required to take, well, you will be relieved to know that I will stop complaining/freaking out now: it's finally over! They split us into two groups, an early group and a late group, to stagger how many people were taking the test at any one time. The good news is, I wound up in the early group. The bad news is, I had to be there by 4:30 this morning, which kicks off the whole "if you're 15 minutes early, you're late" circus that accompanies absolutely everything in the Army, which meant that A. and I actually had to leave here around 4:15. ANYWAY, you do pushups first, then sit-ups, and then, lucky us, they top it off with a 2-mile run. If you're reading this, and you've been part of one of the aforementioned hand-wringing sessions courtesy of me, you probably know that I was most worried about the pushups, because as of May 1, 2004, I could not do even one, so, needless to say, I was pretty thrilled to be able to do 20 that met standards this morning, which is a handful more than I needed to pass...phew! So, what meets standards? Well, I won't bore you with the particulars, but let's just say that I did closer to 30 pushups, but if the drill sergeant doesn't think you went down far enough, they just keep repeating the same number over and over again until you correct yourself. Or do a faceplant in the infield, which I came dangerously close to doing, but that's a whole other story. The sit-ups went quickly, and my 2-mile time this morning, while not an award-winner, was the best I've run since spring, and came in about 3 minutes under the time I was required to get: way more than enough to keep me happy. The other bonus associated with this little test? If you pass the first physical training test (the one we took today) you only have to do PT at 5:00 A.M. 3 times a week, instead of 5. Whoo hooo! Will I be busting out a Zsa Zsa Gabor-ish satin sleep mask and pair of maribou slippers in order to properly sleep late a couple of days a week...you bet! This is really good news for me, because the weird hours that we've been keeping are, well, weird for me, and I can definitely use a little extra nappage. Amazingly enough, the offer of extra sleep as an incentive to people like us actually gets some results. Extra money? Public humiliation in the form of a drill sergeant yelling at you while you goof up your pushups in front of other students? Yes, it's all motivational, but extra sleep? Believe you me, I'm all over that.

The stars at night, are big and bright...

You're never in danger of forgetting exactly where you are when you live (even temporarily) in a gun-loving state like Texas, thanks to experiences like the following. To bring everyone up to speed, my poor Blazer does not like Texas, and is consequently, not doing very well service-wise. Anyway, I hauled out the phone book last night and found a Chevy dealership just up the road from my hotel. I drove over early this morning, and as I rolled up to the service department, I see this huge sign in the window. It says the following:

PLEASE REMOVE:
1) WHISKEY
2) GUNS
3) SUNGLASSES
4) CD'S
FROM YOUR VEHICLE PRIOR TO SERVICE.
THANK YOU.

I was half expecting Yosemite Sam to roll up in a Chevy Tahoe, guns and whiskey in hand. So, naturally, I grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniels that I keep underneath the passenger seat, stuck it in my purse with my guns and headed off to the waiting room to do shots with everyone else who was waiting.

Friday Fun Facts

So, there has been no shortage of Army fun facts this week. The really fun part about these obscure-seeming facts is that not knowing them can result in having to do pushups, so I'm all about memorizing the ones that I've seen other people screw up on. Here's an example: dog tags have two lengths of chain, the long one that goes around your neck and then a shorter one that hangs from the long chain. Didja know that each chain has a specific number of little metal balls? Neither did the schmo in the platoon next to mine who got dropped for not having the right answer. The long chain has 365 little balls, the short one 52. I missed Captain J.'s explanation of why this is significant, and while I'm not a Rhodes scholar, I think I could predict with reasonable certainty, as you probably can, at what each ball is supposed to represent. I think I'll just file that one away with all of the other random bits of info that I'm trying to keep from falling back out of my teeny little brain...Here's a fact that is less fun than it is a bit of a sigh of relief, although I had a feeling it was coming. Given that we are, and get reminded of this every day here, a country at war, absolutely everything we do is accomplished with that in mind. Therefore, the instructors have spent a significant amount of time on subjects that are relevant to prepare all of us for our eventual deployments, probably to a location that is sandy, windy, hot or any combination of the three. However, I am the only dentist who currently has their specialty training finished (a couple are scheduled to start next summer) and the dental officers in charge of us know that I'm just a geeky wire-bending orthodontist. So, today, we dentists are all getting the, "You might have to go to Iraq but don't worry..." speech when the Colonel points to me and says, "Except you." At which point, in front of the group, he tells me that the chance that I will ever see "action" is, oh, roughly zero, because, well, orthodontists are just, hmmm, how to say this politely, pretty useless in combat. (Guess he didn't hear about all of my Brazilian ju jitsu training yet...no, really Colonel R., I'm one seriously dangerous orthodontist!) Anyway, let me tell you how popular I am in the group now. Great, sir. Now people really want to hang out with me. No, they were okay with it, but it didn't stop half of them from finding me after class wanting to know how they can get into an orthodontic residency on the double... Ultimately, though, having someone tell me that I'm basically useless in a given situation has never sounded so good. All kidding aside, in a technical and official sense, I could be certainly be deployed at any moment just as easily as any other officer here, and I would go, and would be as capable of handling it as anyone else who's doing the training here with me. You don't get to this point in the process of joining the Army without having thoroughly examined your feelings on the topic of potential deployment to a combat zone, and while you never know exactly how you'll react to a situation, I'm willing to bet the great majority of us (myself included) would be able to handle a deployment order as capably as possible and do a good job in a tough environment. However, I thought I would include this information (however unofficial it might be) in case any of you reading this derive comfort from knowing that you will be more than likely able to find me in Darmstadt for the forseeable future, and not in a sandbox somewhere southeast of Europe. However, if they can line up a camel or two with raging malocclusions for me, well, then all bets are off...

Westside Crips: not such a bad suggestion after all!

Today, we spent the better part of 45 minutes revisiting the whole motto issue as a group. Now, I'm not saying that we're the Bad News Bears of the Armed Forces, but you might have started to wonder if you'd had a transcript of this whole debacle. My personal favorite moment of the meeting was the class taking a moment to ponder the following suggestion: "You down with OBC? Yeah you know me!" No? Can't yell that at a brigadier general while saluting and keep a straight face? Well, then, how about this gem: "An Army of One Too Many" [insert groan here]. This one you'd probably have to meet my group to understand. You've heard the description "it's like trying to herd cats?" Yeah, in case you'd ever wondered where that saying came from, I'm happy to report that it was first used to describe a gaggle of OBC officers such as ourselves attempting to march anywhere in formation: instant hilarity, people everywhere. Altogether, there were probably about 40 suggestions, and most of them were terrible, and the rest were even worse. I'm sure the whole "Westside Crips" thing probably isn't sounding so bad to Maj. C. at this point. Anyway, we laughed so hard at ourselves that I'm plain tuckered out tonight. However, I'm going to try to get some rest...today yielded no shortage of funny bits, including my friend A.'s Oatmeal Incident. Anyway, a retelling of the rest of the ridiculousness from today will have to wait for another night, so it's off to get some rest for me.

Rollin' with the Homies

Given how excited the Army is about mottos, it's probably not surprising that the other day, my class was given the task of coming up with our own motto to use. If you've read some of my earlier posts, you might remember the one that covered the whole "Train to Save" issue. In case you didn't see it, everyone has a motto. Soldiers from the Airborne division will salute you and yell "Airborne." Enlisted soldiers here will salute you and yell "Train to Save" (largely because this is the home of Army medicine) and you return the salute and yell "Train to Save" or, in my particular case, just whatever pops into your head at that point. Anyway, during class on Monday, Maj. C., our "class advisor" gave us a 48 hour deadline to come up with something catchy to replace "Train to Save" for use by our class. I really thought we had the motto thing all squared away until this afternoon during class when we were wearily informed by Maj. C. that, no, we will not be allowed to use "Westside Crips" as a replacement for "Train to Save." Hmmmm. Shoot. I really thought he would go for that one. You would think that a group of 303 officers, not one of them without a college degree, would be able to come up with two words to yell in unison, but alas, we remain the class with no motto (or is that no mojo?) this evening.

Leavenworth? Well, it doesn't sooouund so bad...

Not that I'm a real stickler for details, but in case you've ever wondered, I now know exactly what time it's necessary to get up to get more done before breakfast than most people do all day. Drum roll please: Yes, if you guessed 3:45 A.M., you're correct! Several people in my platoon were really questioning the wisdom of going to sleep at all last night, but given that we were scheduled to spend the entire day in a variety of lines filing paperwork and getting injections, a little sleep probably didn't hurt anyone. Oh, and did I mention that for variety (which actually was a good thing) our line-standing was occasionally punctuated by 45 minute stints of standing in formation in the midday sun, again wearing outfits that noone in their right mind should be wearing in south Texas in mid-September. When we were finally dismissed at 7:00 P.M., a mere 14 1/2 half hours after the fun began, everybody was positively loopy, with the exception of one second lieutenant nurse who just completely lost her cool, flew off the handle and loudly informed our TAC officer that she thought the Army sucked and could she "give back" her direct comission and join the Air Force instead? They would have made her a captain, you know. Hmmm. Yeah, no, you can't do that, responded the TAC officer, unless you would like to make a side trip to say, Ft. Leavenworth. I have a feeling it's going to be a piece of cake to stay under the radar around here...

Oh good grief!

So, here's one of the multitude of funny things that happened over two days in the field. At the start of day two, roughly 4:45 A.M., we're all wandering around when an instructor we've never seen before appears in camp. He's an NCO, I'm guessing, about 5'5" and Hispanic, not that it's all that relevant, but at any rate, he's a friendly guy, all smiles. So what's funny about that? Well, just to bring everyone up to speed, from what I gather, pretty much everyone in the Army has their own pre-prepared motto to yell back at you if you yell one in their general direction, or salute, or whatever. Sometimes, if you're of high enough rank, just walking into a room is enough to get everybody to stand up in unison and yell. I know, I know: I'm not totally on board with this whole custom myself, but I'm a team player, and hey, yelling isn't rocket science, so I'm willing to go along with it. Anyway, an example of this lovely custom: if you acknowledge an enlisted solider-in-training around Ft. Sam, they will salute you and yell, "Train to Save!" Why "Train to Save"? Well, this is the training site for pretty much everybody who has anything to do with the Army medical companies, so that part seems appropriate. All of the yelling? Yeah, I'm still working out why that's necessary. ANYWAY, back to the OBC field instructor. So here's his deal: any time you pass him on post, he leans forward and says, with this ridiculous amount of sincerity, "Ma'am...staaaaay motivated!" What? There is something so hilarious about that, and I don't even know what it is. Do I look unmotivated? Is he trying to taunt me? Worse yet, is he being totally genuine, which is entirely possible? So, by the time 7:00 A.M. rolls around, I've passed this guy and gotten, oh, probably three or four "Ma'am...staaaaay motivated!"-s, and I'm having a harder and harder time not laughing with each successive time because he is just so sincere about the whole thing, which makes it extra hilarious. So, I got a reprieve when each of us headed out into the Blackjack-filled wilderness for individual navigation exerises around 7:30 A.M. So like I mentioned in the previous post, my exercise went really well: I found all my points, and life is good. However, what I skimmed over in that version of the story is that even after finding all four points, I was still roughly over a mile from camp, it was 90 degrees outside and I was wearing that blasted Kevlar helmet with an outfit that no one in their right mind should be wearing in the summer in Texas. Anway, I took off walking back to camp, but needless to say, at that point I was hot, and tired and I knew I had a good 30 minute walk in the hot sun over rough terrain ahead of me. So, 15 minutes into it, and really far away from any chance of getting out of the hot sun, I see a Humvee turn the corner and come towards me, slowing down as it approaches. Seriously, I was so delirious that this was my thought process: "Yes! I'm going to get a ride back to camp! This is so awesome...how lucky can I be! I knew I couldn't stand one more minute in the hot sun...praise the Lord!" Needless to say, by this point, I'm mentally halfway into the Humvee, as it pulls up alongside of me. I look up and see Mr. Happy Go Lucky Instructor driving the vehicle. He leans out the window and addresses me: "Ma'am?", followed by this dramatic pause, which I'm thinking, surely, is going to be followed up by, "Hey, it's too hot out here: we'll give you a ride back," or, "Hop in!", right? Ohhhh nooooo. Instead, he leans out the window and yells, "Staaaaay motivated!" AND DRIVES AWAY! Doh! So needless to say, anytime something crappy happens from now on, you can totally count on someone around here to yell, "Staaaaaaay motivated!" in your general direction. Oh good grief!

Haute Couture the polyester way

We had a day off today, so of course we went shopping. Where? Saks? Macy's? J. Crew, perhaps? Uh, not exactly. Gluttons for punishment as usual, we hit the clothing sales store on post to pick up more uniforms-I just can't get enough of Army fashion, lovely as it is. However, it's required, like about everything else I do these days. So, we don't complain and just do it. I had to buy my Class A uniform today, which is basically the green suit that you see Army folk wearing. The pants that supposedly fit me were super baggy in the hips and the rear end, but apparently everybody just gets them taken in anyway. So I'm checking my oh-so-hot green woolen self out in the three-way mirror and I said, "Geez, these are huge!" out loud, prompting my friend C. to pop out of her dressing room and ask in disbelief, "Uh, did you just say that those were cute?" Uh, no, I'm pretty clear on the fact that there's nothing cute about this whole getup. In fact, I'm pretty sure that cute doesn't factor into the Army's uniform regulations. In fact, the single OBC girls and I have decided that the Army has successfully managed to come up with uniforms that camoflauge any shred of cute that we were previously capable of mustering up. Case in point: the camoflauge get-ups, more commonly known as "battle dress uniforms" or BDUs. A couple of years ago, these babies had waist take up tabs, so you could put a little shape in them, say, if you have a waist like most of we girls do. This lovely feature was apparently deemed too sexy by the Army and done away with. Trust me, the Army had nothing to worry about: anyone wearing this uniform is in absolutely no danger whatsoever of looking anything approaching sexy, which my friend and fellow OBC-er A. loves to emphasize by sarcastically yelling "I look hot!" into the three-way mirror at the clothing sales store while we punish ourselves by trying on more and more uniforms instead of just throwing in the towel and hitting Banana Republic on a Saturday afternoon like most normal twenty-something girls would do. Which brings me to the mother of all Army-related fashion offenses, better known as BCGs. That's right: Birth Control Glasses, for those of you not familiar with these lovely specs. Just to paint a picture in case you don't know what I'm talking about, they are those heinous Army-issue eyeglasses with brown plastic frames and pancake-sized square lenses. Yeah, those are BCGs. People who need glasses of any sort are actually required to wear them during field training. Unfortunately, my glasses-wearing friend A. found this out the other day. This is seriously, really horrible news for any girl, especially a single girl because it is so hard to look at these glasses and not laugh. They are about the most comical thing ever...I know, I know they were fashionable in 1968, but this is ridiculous! To make matters worse, she was asking our instructor, Seargent R., if wearing the BCGs were, you know, a required thing, and if there was any way she could get out of it, or wear her own glasses, or whatever. Seargent R. thinks for a second and says, "Well, Lieutenant, look on the bright side: if some guy falls in love with you while you're wearing those, then you know it's for real." Great, sir. That's just great.

Sure I can do this: I went to summer camp, you know...

We've just arrived back from field training, and while it turned out to be a lot more fun than I had expected, I'm not one to turn down a hot shower after breaking in the ol' combat boots by hiking through cacti and up steep hills covered with Blackjack for 12 hours each of a couple of 90 degree-plus days. What's Blackjack, you ask? Fellow northerners, I got some additional botanical training last night in the form a just about losing an eye to this stupid form of tree. They are nasty trees with thick, inflexible branches that are sharp and stick straight out from the trunk from ground level to the top of the tree and they were put on earth to prevent poor OBC students, such as myself, from walking in a straight line with compass in hand. The instructors really packed a lot of stuff into a couple of days worth of field training, and I have to admit that I learned some stuff that, while not particularly practicable in my life at the moment (and hopefully not anytime in the forseeable future) it was still some pretty interesting stuff, because absolutely all of it is news to me. Take Brazilian ju jitsu, for instance. Never heard of it until today. Weapons training? Sure. All I can say is that not only can I now assemble an M-16, but I also picked up a couple of self-defense moves of the aforementioned South American variety over the course of the two days. For all of you who are reading and laughing at the thought of me, your sweet orthodontist friend/daughter/sister tossing people around, well, I thought it was pretty funny, too, but required, so I don't laugh and do the best I can...yep, just tossin' people around. Man, I'm going to be dangerous down at the Riverwalk this weekend... The M-16 assembly exercise, to be honest, was actually pretty interesting. It's probably not going to surprise anyone that there are requirements about the speed at which you can complete this task, and it's actually kind of a challenge, but I'm positive that I will be able to do it in the time allowed- it's a surprisingly easy task to pick up. The thing that we spent the absolute most time on, though, was land navigation, which is basically orienteering, as my friend A. would call it ("Of course I can do this: I did go to summer camp, you know...") Anyway, you're issued a map, a compass and four coordinates for the points that you need to find...and this exercise yields so many hilarious stories that I'm going to have to post them later. However, just to end the suspense, I rocked out on my first individual navigation exercise and got the maximum number of points. While B.S.-ing with my classmates this evening, I heard one guy go, "No way, some girl found all four points? Wow." Actually, sir, there were two girls who found all four points, which is more than I can say for a pretty high percentage of the guys in my platoon. Hooah! However, right now the feet that made my successful land nav possible are super tired, so it's off to the bathtub and some rest...

Mmmm...Kevlar

For the second day of OBC, my true love, wait, I mean, the Army gave to me: 3 camo outfits, two combat boots and a partridge in a pear tree. Oh, and did I mention the ridiculous looking beret? This I'm having a tough time with. Patrol caps (think camoflauge baseball-hat type jobbie) have the capacity to look intimidating: pulling it down low over your eyes and glaring out from beneath it does the trick nicely. However, a beret, well that takes a certain amount of, what shall we say, je ne sais quoi to pull off...If I asked you what the fiercest item of clothing you can imagine is, I'm willing to bet the beret doesn't make it into your top 50. Maybe not even the top 100. Oh, and just to clarify, NO, I don't mean fierce like fierce in the Isaac Mizrahi way, either, because in that case, I think that a sassy little beret just might qualify in Isaac world. But as I was reminded many times today, this is Army world for the next few weeks. Today was pretty good, one of the bigger obstacles being looking in the mirror at your camoflauge-covered self and trying to get over the shock of seeing yourself looking like someone that you've only seen on CNN up until now. Which brings me to something else that I've only seen on cable news: Kevlar. And how to put it together. I should be an expert by tomorrow night, so, if you have any burning questions about why an orthodontist needs Kevlar, I'm just going to say that unless the 12-year olds in Germany are way more militant than in the US, well, I don't need Kevlar, but I'm sure it will be another adventure, among the many so far in my short journey in the Army.

Ho-tel, Mo-tel, Holiday Inn

Aw yeah, I've finally arrived: a mere 1,360 miles and three days later, I have officially arrived at my temporary duty station, lovely (and humid) San Antonio, TX. From what little I can tell, this looks like a great place to explore, and the people have been great. But doing the tourist thing is going to have to wait, because today was "Straighten out your accomodations day." So, one of the many little known facts about boot camp: your accomodations may just be at the Holiday Inn. Really, if more people knew this, the whole concept might not be as intimidating. "Combat boots? Running? Doing push-ups? As much screaming as I can handle? Well, as long as I can stay at the Holiday Inn, not a problem: sign me up!" So, today's adventure ensued when I somehow failed to secure the proper address for the hotel in which I knew I'd be staying for a few weeks, just until more rooms open up on post. Just stayin' at the Holiday Inn, no big deal. Just boot camp, nothing special. However, instead of finding the right place, I inadvertently checked myself into potentially the scariest Holiday Inn that I've had the pleasure of visiting. Not the Bates Motel, to be sure, but as I checked into my room, strategically located between I-35 and about eight sets of railroad tracks, I started to pray very, very hard, and tried to envision myself making the best of my little room. Resigned to my tiny bathroom, complete with a freshly kicked-in door, I decided to wander over to the base to let them know I'd arrived. What else did I have to do? And that's when a miracle occurred. Presenting my orders to the lovely lodging lady, she said, "Oh, you're staying at the Holiday Inn Select,"to my great relief, because I can assure you, there was nothing select about Holiday Inn #1...other than selecting which deadbolt to lock. After the advance housing scare that I gave myself, and having checked into the correct hotel, life is, indeed, pretty good this evening.

Humidity and the other joys of North Texas

So, I've started my journey to San Antonio, TX. Actually, it's almost over. I've traveled a little over 1,100 miles in the last two days and have a scant 150 to go tomorrow. So, where am I now? Scenic Waco, TX, home of the Baylor Bears. For a lifelong northerner, the last day and a half has been a good chance to see a lot more of some places that I've only flown into up until now, if I've been there at all. Let's just say the density of two story high white crucifixes visible from I-35 has been steadily increasing the further south I've driven. Gigantic white steel cross count to date: 5, as I sit here tonight. As an added bonus, I've been treated to Iowa-style humidity here in Waco. Ah, the good old days. As I was sweating through my t-shirt, wrestling a suitcase out of my strategically-packed-to-avoid-theft car, I was reminded of the good ol' days in Iowa City when, not only was it outrageously humid (the kind of humid where ink will literally run off a handwritten page if carried outdoors), but I happily sweated it out with my roomates on the top floor of our creaky old Tudor house...sans air conditioning. That's right kids, you heard it here first: I walked uphill, in the snow, both ways. For eight years. Ah, youth...