Outta here for the next three weeks

We leave for JRTC today. I am so excited I can hardly wait. Oh wait, rewind, eliminate all sarcasm, and I am really really not looking forward to going. I kept hoping up until the very last minute (ie today), that this was going to be cancelled. I guess it's not. Ok, so hopefully I won't be too embittered when I return in 3 weeks. How bad can 3 weeks be, right? Hopefully, not too bad.

Delaying JRTC Packing

I hate packing. That has been confirmed many many times over the course of my life. And so, here it is Saturday morning and I'm supposed to be leaving for JRTC on Wednesday or Thursday and I haven't even begun to pack. My Soldiers had to pack by last week because we did a layout and inspected to make sure that they had everything. I suppose the benefit to being leadership is that I didn't have to have my own stuff inspected, but that means that I've also not even started to do anything about it, although I guess I did at least finally spray paint my duffle with my new unit.
I think in my delusions, I've decided that if I wait until the last minute to complete packing, I don't have to accept that I'm going. I'm not looking forward to it.

Thankful for Problems

It's been a frustrating week. I've wanted to scream, to throw a tantrum, to quit and walk out. And then I went to the eulogy pages for the 8 classmates we've lost in Iraq, and I'm reminded just how thankful I am for the problems and frustrations I've been dealing with because I'm still here.
I think it's a cathartic experience to read the emotional tributes. I'm moved every time I read through the tributes. And I'm struck by how it always seems to be the exceptional ones we've lost. Through the tears, I remember how the laughs shared with a good friend can make the darker times instantly brighter. How friends turn those downer moments into cherished memories. And so, in a backwards sort of logic, I'm grateful for the problems that life has thrown, and continues to throw at me. For it's in these times that I realize just how lucky I am with the friends I've been blessed with.

Promotion Party Shenanigans

So no shit, there I was, Friday night, asleep by 7:30 pm because it was a super long week with entirely many too hours spent out at the FUSA range (if I ever hear the word FUSA again, I swear I'll kill someone.) At 9 my phone rings and it's one of my Soldiers sounding rather tipsy, reminding me that there was a promotion party for the guy who had my platoon before I did. I wasn't going to go, but by this point I was wide awake (there was also another comment that was instrumental in my actually going, but I won't get in to that). So I found myself driving out to the Rusted Route for the promotion party.
Let's just say everyone had had a few drinks, and had a few drinks more after I got there. The party apparently rang up a $700 tab for the guy who got promoted. and when we finally left the bar around 1 in the morning, I found myself being the DD for 3 drunk NCOs. I was going to take them on post and drop them off, but we got side tracked and ended up at Denny's instead. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. After we ordered, we somehow managed to invite the CO, who was driving other drunk people home, to agree to meet us there. Well, the Denny's experience turned into almost 2 hours of people watching. And boy, there were some funny people to watch, I have never seen such a ridiculous display of bad fashion and drunken behavior. Still, it was highly entertaining, and I think I may very well find myself back at Denny's at some point in the future, if only for the therapeutic value that I now feel much, much better about myself. At least I wasn't one of the crazies out there ;-)
Well after leaving Denny's I had to drive two of the NCOs on post. The one who lived in Carthage ended up getting a ride home from the CO, and I got the two on post since I live close. Well, I pulled up to the gate around 3 am, and the guy decided that since he could smell alcohol in the car that he wanted me to get out and bring all my license, registration and whatnot. And naturally, the insurance card I had in the car was good through 2 Mar, and it was now 3 Mar 0300, so it was expired by 3 hours. He got real picky about that, as I tried to explain that I just hadn't printed out the updated card. I finally managed to diffuse the situation by striking up a conversation with the MP soldiers who were working the road by working it into the conversation that I was an MP also, and then at that point the guy stopped giving me a hard time. I was afraid I was going to have to call my CO to come pick all of us up, even though there was no way I was intoxicated. And then of course there was the conversation with one of my SLs before I dropped him off, and realizing that the relative lack of officers in the company, and especially female officers makes us the object of much speculation about our personal lives. Guess it just gives me even more incentive to live a sort of boring life because it gives them nothing to talk about.