Day 17 (Week 3)

We are back! would have posted this last night, but I was just too tired. Talked with my wife and went to bed. LOTS of good pics just posted.

Well life at chaplain basic training is MUCH different than infantry basic training! We stayed in Large tents with cots. Much lower stress. Much better treatment. Almost fun. Almost. But not bad at all. It was really interesting to see how the other half lives. But in spite of it not being stressful, it was still good training.

If things seem vague as to details on training. This is on purpose. We have to maintain operational security. We cannot give details as to times, numbers and other details that could be used to potentialy be used by our enemies.

So that being said, here we go.

Since chaplains do not handle weapons at all, what do we do "in the field"? Well we do quite a lot. We were able to spend quite a bit of time doing land navigation. Basic compass and map stuff. It was a lot of fun. I haven't done land navigation for many years. Kinda rusty. I was supposed to be an expert. Oops. go back to basics, do it the way you are trained without the "tricks" and it is amazing how well you do.

We got to see a "field" service in action. Good stuff. I really like seeing how it all works for real. Kind of a combination service. Some litergy and some contemporay elements. We call it field expedient. We want soldiers to have a worship experience no matter where you are at.

Got to have the new MRE's (meals ready to eat). Man they have changed. I had MRE's 16 years ago. They were pretty good. Today you can have all sorts of meals. Really good. Well not all are good. But you get what you get, then trade. They have vegeterian and Kosher meals. Thats pretty amazing to me. But in today's climate, you must accomidate soldiers beliefs as much as is possible.

We also got to participate (walked along during) in a live fire range with basic training soldiers. That was good stuff. It is humbling to realize that many of these kids (18-20 year olds) will be walking hostile streets in just a matter of weeks. They a have answered the call during war. The training they do is vastly improved over when I went through infantry school.