The breakfast they put out is almost all kosher – kosher individually packaged bagels, cream cheese, cereal, kosher individually packaged muffins, fruit… but no Fiber One (my daily breakfast of choice/necessity). We’ll work on that later.
I got to the school house and began meeting my fellow students. There are eighteen of us, and studying parallel with us is the group of Chaplain’s Assistants (enlisted troops who are assigned to… assist the chaplains!). We’ll be doing training with them at the end of the six weeks. After a half hour of schmoozing, we were all invited to the school auditorium to be introduced to the school leadership. Following that, we went down to our classroom, where we got to meet the Air Force Chaplain School director, who would be our primary teacher. Ch, Major James Hamel, a Catholic Priest, is a great teacher, a superb officer, and very decent man. I am honored to learn from him. His first lecture was on the Role of a Military Chaplain, and he just reaffirmed why I love this job.
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| The front of the Armed Forces Chaplaincy Center. It is a horseshoe, with the center part being Army, the right being Air Force and the left being Navy. |
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| This is the left side (Navy) - note the large blue anchor to the left of the door... |
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| This, of course, is the right entrance. Can we not agree that an F-22 on a bombing run is WAY cooler than a big, blue anchor? (The Army has nothing in front of their door - I suppose they would say they are too cool for anything...) |
Speaking of jobs, one of the items of the day was the assignment of class positions. While I am the oldest student (by at least 15 years), I am not the oldest in rank. So Ch Zimmerman (no, not Jewish) is the class president. As I looked down the list of positions, there was only one that jumped out at me. As Ch Hamel went down the list asking for volunteers for different roles, I waited. Finally it was my turn. “Treasurer?” he said, and my hand shot up. The whole room erupted in laughter. I sheepishly said, “Hey, I’m just trying to uphold the stereotype!”
Ch Hamel, while a devout chaplain, has been in the Air Force long enough to have picked up ALL the cool slang, and we are learning new phrases already. For example, he was trying to explain “Running from the flag pole,” which is how you describe guys who have let down their guard in terms of military customs and courtesies. To explain it, he recounted a story relating to his deployment to Afghanistan when a group of soldiers approached, “armed-up” (wearing their flak jackets and other military paraphernalia) and walking full of “battle rattle” (you get it). When they saw him, they just yelled out, “Hey, Chap!” They were “running from the flag pole.”
After class, me and two new friends went on a 2-mile run and then, after showering, we went shopping. Now that I have a kitchen, and a nice break for lunch, I will be doing all my own cooking and eating – YEAH! No more MRE’s for dinner!! Toto, we’re not at COT anymore!!
They first drove to Chik-fil-a for dinner, where I dutifully sat and mediated a debate between the Mormon and the Southern Baptist as to who is a real Christian and who isn’t. Then we went to Walmart. My primary objective was to find Morningstar Farms products – which they were out of. But then I found a kosher food aisle, and stocked up on Tradition soups, as well as fruit, tuna, salad, milk, and Fiber One (!). After that, we found a Publix, perhaps the BEST grocery store for kosher food outside of a large Jewish community. Not only did they have Morningstar Farms, but they had a whole kosher frozen food section! I stocked up on those kosher burrito things and some Meal Mart frozen foods. It was awesome. When I came home, I ate and went to sleep. Hopefully, I’ll sleep better.
If you're reading this on Facebook, be sure to check out the blog: http://rabbiofficertraining.blogspot.com/
If you're reading this on Facebook, be sure to check out the blog: http://rabbiofficertraining.blogspot.com/
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