SERE school was....let's just say it was excellent training...to complete. It's not something I want to do again, but not something I would want to go to war without. I gained an awful lot of respect for John McCain and all past POWs for what they've gone through.
One thing I wrestled with throughout the course was the existence of this blog. I also fought with my Facebook account, and if I had one it would have been a MySpace account as well. There is a lot of information on these websites -- information that I probably wouldn't want to fall into the wrong hands. Not that any of it is all that sensitive in nature, but it's information that other people don't need to know. I finally came to the conclusion that my Facebook account would get deleted and the blog would stay with moderate censorship. What I mean by that is that we're going to try to keep our last name off the site, as well as anything that might identify us from an outside search. Let us know if you see something that might be a little too specific (full names, addresses, social security numbers, bank account numbers...).
On with the good stuff. SERE ended on a Sunday, and I had most of the week to recover. I had a temporary limited duty profile which got me out of PT for that week. All I had to do was go to a 5 minute formation each day. Most of what I did besides that was eat and hang out with Johnni (and Chaz!) -- it was great to be home.
My parents came down that Thursday evening and spent the weekend with us. My dad and I played a good bit of golf to include our first Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail course. The four of us went golfing together on that Sunday before my parents took off the next day. I had a couple of days of PT and formation (PT is at 0615 for an hour and formation is at 1100 for about 5 minutes) before starting Dunker training on Wednesday.
Dunker, flight school slang for HOST - Helicopter Overwater Survival Training, was a two day course that taught me how to get out of a helicopter if it goes down in water. It was efficient, to-the-point training that I enjoyed -- it was also my first SCUBA experience. This led into a 4 day weekend. Johnni and I got to spend some great time together that weekend...and if I remember right, there was a lot of football watched and a few walks through the neighborhood. Pretty relaxing.
Coming off the 4-day I had to start my next course which would last 3 weeks. BOLC IIIa is a 3 week introduction to being an aviation officer. The only problem about starting it after the 4 day, which had been predeced by 2 days of dunker, was that I never got the word. Apparently the course started at 0645...but for me it started at 1100 (big thanks to Ryne K. or I probably wouldn't have even gotten there that early). Good stuff...but I was told I didn't miss out on much. Since I had already gone through BOLC III for Medical Service (my branch), about half of the course was old stuff. We did have several tests during the course, including a vehicle ID test. Ever wonder what the difference is between a Russian T-72 tank and a T-80? I haven't either, but now I know.
In between weeks 2 and 3 of BOLC IIIa I took a motorcycle safety course on post. It's a 2.5 day course that's required for any service member to ride a motorcycle (and it's free -- bikes included!). It was a pretty good course, and now I'm qualified to ride my new 1981 Honda CB650 that I bought from Aaron R. as he left flight school. I've been riding that around post for the last few days and it's been good to be back on a motorcycle.
BOLC III finished last Friday, and now I'm on hold for the start of "actual flight school." I've heard anything from 2 to 4 months wait to start, so I'll be on hold for that whole time. Being on hold means it's back to PT and formation every day. Thankfully I'm not paid by the hour! Of course I say that now....
That's the play-by-play of the last two months to catch everyone up. Now for some of the "color" commentary....
-Joe and Leslie are having a baby! We're sooo excited for them and can't wait to have a niece or nephew. They're going to be awesome parents, and "little TR" is going to be a cute one! We're really excited to see them at Christmas/New Years.
-Deb and Craig couldn't live without a Sheltie after Chaz left (he went to Iowa with Johnni while I was in SERE)...so in came Mac. Now Chaz has an uncle. We're excited to see him in a couple months.
-Chaz has become a rascal. He's smart and a great dog, but he can be pretty mischievous at times. He got neutered last week, but is back to his normal self by now.
-Matt got a motorcycle.
-Johnni was thrown head-first into running stubsinhand.com -- and she did great! Things are finally winding down a bit there for the year.
-We found out that the post library rents movies for free...we like movies...and free is good
-We got DishNetwork. I can finally watch Monday Night Football again, and we get to watch John and Kate plus 8 together. It wasn't long before we realized that it is easy to watch too much TV if we aren't careful.
-We made a slight modification to our family room. And if you were wondering, Johnni did make it all the way up...
And, any blog post wouldn't be complete without a good action shot of Chaz.
2 comments:
if chaz was neutered i doubt he is back to his "normal" self. if you neutered me i wouldn't be "normal." i'd be pissed. and you would have a bad bad day after i beat you up.
Glad to see you're black online! That's SO cool Joe and Leslie are expecting :)
Post a Comment