Thirty Third Day

Wake up at 0600 – Maj Haigh came to do our room inspection (make sure we hadn’t burned our dresser or anything) and when it was over, he called us all into the Common Area where he gave us our diplomas and our final RMO (round metal object) as a graduation present. We gave him our graduation present. He was so excited about deploying this fall, and he had just qualified on the M-4 rifle. He also had told us about one of his most prized possessions, his great-grandfather’s bayonet.  So we bought him a bayonet for the M-4.  He was truly touched. SCORE!
 

We went to breakfast, came back and chilled until 0915 when we began forming up for the parade. It was REALLY hot out there, and within minutes we were all sweating, staining our blue shirts in most unattractive ways. As I have shared before, I am a column leader which means that I am first in the column (out of the four columns). I love being in front, seeing all that is going on. But I also can’t sneak a quick sweat-wipe, so the sweat just poured forth unchecked.

Marching onto the parade ground - not that you can tell, but if you look at the front row, I am the second person from the right (next to the tall guy)

Standing at attention on the parade ground - not that you can tell, but that's me, indicated by the arrow...

Up until this morning, we had been practicing to a recording, and we had our march cadence down cold. This morning, we had a live band – and they must have had quite a bit of coffee today; their cadence seemed twice as fast! Totally threw us off!

The band - SLOW DOWN!!!

The bleachers were full of family and friends (not for me… boohoo) and we did an acceptable job. As we passed the reviewing stand we suddenly heard someone yell, “I love you, Papa!” – it was Major Haigh giving us his send-off. We reformed, marched forward, repeated our oath and threw our caps – and it was ALL OVER! We gathered around for pictures and good byes, and we couldn’t get off that parade field fast enough. I ran back to my room, took a quick shower, changed into civilians (it felt SO weird), grabbed my bag (I had packed everything else yesterday), and took off. Did I mention previously that my freon was gone and I had no A/C? And that it was 96 degrees? I drove to a service station that was recommended by Maj Haigh’s wife – and they were closed. I spent an hour looking for someone else who would do it, but they all said they needed at least 1.5 hours… so I just left. After the last five weeks, what’s another day of sweat? I can handle it - I just want to get home…