Today I had a great day. And not just me, either; my entire squad and class all had a great day, to the degree that from lunchtime on we were in cringing expectation, just waiting for the other shoe to drop. It hasn't yet.
It's sort of strange, that this excellent day started with a bit of a disappointment. I was awaken a few minutes before my alarm (at 05:10) by the sound of a heavy downpour, courtesy of Tropical Storm Erin. I immediately strained to listen with rather un-soldier-like hope for the sound of thunder, which would herald the cancellation of Physical Training for the morning, but was disappointed to hear only the rain. See, the Army will still do PT in the rain. In any rain. (Once did a PT test in a freezing, blustering, sheeting downpour back in CA. Was awesome.) Lightning, on the other hand, means going back to bed. Sadly, no lightning this morning, so off we trundled to PT formation, where we stood, freezing and soaked. (Sidenote: I always imagined a tropical storm would be warm. Apparently not so.)
For a few minutes there, I thought it was going to be a pretty unpleasant morning, until our First Sergeant took us off for a run in the rain. See, among the cornerstone Army philosophies is "embrace the suck". And boy, did we. It didn't take long to be drenched to the skin, but the running warmed us up, and once you're soaked it doesn't make any difference any more, so you just choose to love it. And we did. After a few miles, we ended up back at the barracks dripping and laughing, and my squad and I headed over to the arms room to pick up our rifles for Weapons Immersion (one part of what I was referring to in this post), only to find that it was canceled the day, on account of M-16s being made of spun sugar, apparently. In any case, we headed off to the schoolhouse, happy not to be burdened with rucksacks, flakvests, helmets, and rifles for our walk back and forth to class.
Our day only got better at the schoolhouse. We took the second-to-last test of our course, which everyone passed, then found out that we would all be released three hours early due to a few classmates having a midafternoon briefing to attend. So, here I am, done with class and staring down a long, glorious afternoon of nothing to do. I can't even feel guilty that I'm not going to the gym to work out, because I've already started tapering off in preparation for my PT test next week. I can only hope that this day -- which we've all taken as karmic balance for the frustration and annoyance of the first four days of this week -- is only the introduction to a wonderfully relaxing weekend.
It's sort of strange, that this excellent day started with a bit of a disappointment. I was awaken a few minutes before my alarm (at 05:10) by the sound of a heavy downpour, courtesy of Tropical Storm Erin. I immediately strained to listen with rather un-soldier-like hope for the sound of thunder, which would herald the cancellation of Physical Training for the morning, but was disappointed to hear only the rain. See, the Army will still do PT in the rain. In any rain. (Once did a PT test in a freezing, blustering, sheeting downpour back in CA. Was awesome.) Lightning, on the other hand, means going back to bed. Sadly, no lightning this morning, so off we trundled to PT formation, where we stood, freezing and soaked. (Sidenote: I always imagined a tropical storm would be warm. Apparently not so.)
For a few minutes there, I thought it was going to be a pretty unpleasant morning, until our First Sergeant took us off for a run in the rain. See, among the cornerstone Army philosophies is "embrace the suck". And boy, did we. It didn't take long to be drenched to the skin, but the running warmed us up, and once you're soaked it doesn't make any difference any more, so you just choose to love it. And we did. After a few miles, we ended up back at the barracks dripping and laughing, and my squad and I headed over to the arms room to pick up our rifles for Weapons Immersion (one part of what I was referring to in this post), only to find that it was canceled the day, on account of M-16s being made of spun sugar, apparently. In any case, we headed off to the schoolhouse, happy not to be burdened with rucksacks, flakvests, helmets, and rifles for our walk back and forth to class.
Our day only got better at the schoolhouse. We took the second-to-last test of our course, which everyone passed, then found out that we would all be released three hours early due to a few classmates having a midafternoon briefing to attend. So, here I am, done with class and staring down a long, glorious afternoon of nothing to do. I can't even feel guilty that I'm not going to the gym to work out, because I've already started tapering off in preparation for my PT test next week. I can only hope that this day -- which we've all taken as karmic balance for the frustration and annoyance of the first four days of this week -- is only the introduction to a wonderfully relaxing weekend.
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