Day 29

Twenty Ninth Day:

Excitement is in the air! This afternoon we head off for our “Overnight”! This really IS Camp COT now! But first, we spent the morning back out on the parade ground practicing for Graduation.  It is SO hot. The “parade” consists of about 15 minutes of standing at attention (with sweat pouring down your face, but – seeing as you are at attention – you cannot wipe it away) and then “pass and review” where we march before the reviewing party, re-form up on the parade ground, march forward again, take the oath of office (which I did in December – why again?), throw our hats in the air, and that’s it. Not much “parading” in this parade!

At 1100, we had an address by Brig Gen Budzik, who is the base commander.  I actually like her presentation, but most of my classmates were suffering from general/heat exhaustion, and way too many people were sleeping during her speech. Not a great reflection on COT  Class 10-04!

After lunch, each functional specialty (chaplains, medical, legal) met as a group with representatives of the function. The chaplains and chaplain candidates met with Chaplain Col  Guin, the Base Chaplain for Maxwell Air Force base. I had spoken with Ch Guin before my arrival and he is a wonderful man. We have a mutual friend. Rabbi Abie Weschler was an Air Force chaplain (he has since made Aliyah and teaches at a Yeshiva in Israel) and was with him at the Academy in Colorado, and he was with me in Norfolk when he was a chaplain at Langley Air Force base in VA.  As for the meeting, there was little said that I didn’t know – after all, I have already been serving as a chaplain, albeit for a short while, while 90% of the people in the room were chaplain candidates – they have not been ordained and don’t even know if they will pursue this as a career. There was only one exciting moment – when one of the candidates kept questioning why the military will not allow him to pray in the name of Jesus. He said, “There is only one truth and one way, and that that truth and way is Jesus. If I cannot witness to everyone I speak to I am not helping them. I don’t want to “touch” people’s lives – I want to change them.”  Guys like that, for the most part, are weeded out before they get in…

We then had a lecture on Field Sanitation, in preparation of our “deployment,” followed by a lecture on our upcoming MRIC (I have NO idea what it stands for, but it is a field hospital) exercise.  It was then time to leave. Our bags (which we packed the night before) had to have EXACTLY what we were instructed to pack. That meant NO SNACKS! We loaded on to the buses and were transported to Blue Thunder.  For those of you who may remember, Blue Thunder was the area where the obstacle course was held the second week, the one I couldn’t do because my back was out. In any event, besides the obstacle course, there is also an AMAZING ropes course, as well as an entire encampment – rows and rows of hootches (12-man tent structures, in our case) and latrines and showers.  There was also the MRIC complex of three connected tent/huts – exactly like in M*A*S*H, but updated.

The male members of the flight in our "tent" sans cots

Rows of tents - there were four rows like this

Setting up the tent

We got off the buses, and the first thing we had to do was, by flight, empty our entire well-packed bag onto the floor and show that we packed what we were told.  

Showing what we brought...

Part of my pile - note all the "My Own Meals" kosher MREs...

And then repack. Then go to the toasty hot tent, turn on the ridiculously meaningless A/C unit, put down our bags, get in line at the warehouse for our cot, go back and set up out cot, and then realize that one item that was NOT on the packing list was a PILLOW! And they did not SUPPLY A PILLOW! And I cannot sleep WITHOUT A PILLOW! More on that later.

Dinner - some of my kosher MRE can be seen at the front left of the table. That's Lt Hakala, our FOIC (flight officer in charge - student leader) ripping open a pouch with his teeth! 

Everyone was issued their MRE’s before departure, and we all showered before dinner (remember, we are still wearing the same clothes from this morning’s parade practice!), changed into our PT gear, set up our folding tables and chairs, and enjoyed a wonderful MRE dinner. I was exhausted, and by 2000 I was ready for bed.  My bed providentially ended up under the AC unit (!) and I took the sleeping bag, folded it flat, put it in my extra T-shirt, and slept, without a blanket, like that. The only problem was that by 0400 it was freezing! That’s okay, the alternative was worse…