WEEK ONE 18 Aug to 23 Aug

Briefings, briefings and more briefings.

I met who will be, my Detachment Commander in SWA. Don is also my Detachment Commander during training. They break up our class of forty into four 10 people detachments. Don is about 37 years old, and a former enlisted guy. He is a great guy, taking this training and our future deployment to SWA seriously. He is married with a young child. His father is a retired Marine and Don is a hard charging, determined individual. He demands punctuality and his creed is "if you are on time you are late." Those of you who know me well, understand the irony in this match up. I guess God is trying to tell me something. Needless to say, I haven't been late once. Well, by my creed anyway - "If I am on time I deserve a scooby snack." He has been with our "organization" for about 7 years. Don has a great sense of humor and he is a people person. He truly cares about his troops.

We learned how to use the GPS (which I am pretty good at already) and most of the week we were in class.

We started Krav Maga, an Israeli martial art. OH MY GOD! Unbelievable physical challenges and I held my own remarkably well. Very intense physical training. Marty Erle's (Linda Biddle's brother) training plan for me 6 months earlier had really prepared me for this challenge. And Vince Cyr lent me his P90X program for a few weeks. I now actually have 3.5 pack abs! But in all seriousness, I was complimented by many regarding my level of fitness for my age, considering the average age for the class is early thirties maybe even late twenties. I am really into this stuff and although painful, very necessary for what we will be facing in the near future.

The majority of the class (40 men and women) will be deploying to SWA or HOA.
We did our first ruck march. What is a ruck march you ask? A ruck march is when we don our 40 pound protective vest, with all attachments including a radio the size of two bricks and about as heavy, a camel bak with two liters of water, ABU's (the new Air Force battle dress uniform like the old fatigues) long sleeve, boots and sand. This march was 1 mile, and our ten people team decided to run the last half mile. Well, actually Don decided we were going to run and of course we followed. We all finished with no problems. Things are going fairly well, with little problems:

But as the Kate Smith Philly Fliers saying goes, "it ain't over til the fat lady sings." Remember those days?

HOME FOR THE WEEKEND

While at CLPC Sunday I was presented with a leather bound "The Airman's Bible," my buds bought for me. It is engraved with my name and a favorite scripture Joshua 1:9. This brought tears to my eyes. Okay enough of that.