Tuesday – 12 Jan
Had to go to dental this morning to do the usual waiting in line (or in the lobby). I was worried, by the look at my x-ray, that I would need my wisdom teeth (4) taken out. The dentist said that they were so far in there, there was no need to disturb them. Good news I guess. I didn’t want to get profiled from the surgery and miss the PT (physical training) assessment on Friday. I did however have to go back at 12:30 pm for an appointment to get some filings done. This went well, mainly because of the three shots in my gumline. The dentist, surprisingly, did a great job with four fillings. I was so relaxed after the three shots in my gumline that I almost fell asleep on the chair for that 1.5 hr.
This doctor appointment made me miss the 1 pm session at the chaplain school but i didn’t miss too much information. Everyone helps each other out as much as possible, so I got a quick two-minute update at the break. Why can’t the meetings be that long, instead of an hour?? Later that afternoon, we went and got our TA-50 equipment. The TA-50 is our field equipment that is issued during our time here at CHBOLC. This was interesting because when we arrived we had to form our first formation by platoons. I quickly noticed that the cadre’s or NCO’s (like drill sergeants for us) started getting a little tougher on everyone for not paying attention to detail and operating quickly. As it got colder, the cadre’s got more aggravated. A friend of mine noticed that his water proof bag did not have a chord in it and asked the cadre for a replacement. He got dropped for pushups because he waiting too long to say something about. I’m sure most in the class didn’t notice whether they had one or not. Even if I don’t, I’m not saying anything about it. LOL! There was several things handed out so it did take sometime but I was glad when this was done. We were done for the night.
Went and had a chicken and salad dinner with three other chaplains, another baptist, a presbyterian, and a roman catholic chaplain. It was good just unwinding from the stress and laughing at some of the things we’ve had to go through.
Important note: the cadre’s can be real tuff but I notice right away that they are fair and do care about helping us. They want to push us to be successful in what we will do. I’m glad they are human.
Miss my family and hot water!!
