Almost Done!!!!

Oh, Boy! It feels so incredible to be done with all of our field training for the Army Officer Basic Leadership Course! It felt just as good to take a shower when we returned to post Friday evening! Although baby wipes and liberal amounts of medicated Gold Bond (the menthol is a real treat!) do wonders, nothing can beat a real shower! What a week it was, though! This whole week focused on AMEDD operations, or medical related simulations. We were given a full OPORD (operations order), which describes in detail the simulated situation and mission. It was pretty funny that we were sent in to protect the newly liberated Southern Republic of Texas (SRT) from the communist People's Republic of Austin (PRA). We also had to be aware of SRT insurgents who called themselves the Texas Unification Front (TUF). We were charged with the challenge to provide medical support to the US troops sent to protect the SRT from the PLA and TUF. On one day, my group was in charge of setting up a battalion aid station, which is a level 1 station. This is typically acts as a casualty collection point for injured soldiers. Casualties are brought in and are triaged, treated, and, with minor bumps and bruises, are usually returned to battle, or in more serious cases, are taken to a level 2 hospital. I was in charge of triage, where I had to evaluate and rank the severity of the casualties coming in, which determined who was treated first. Another day included setting up an AXP (Ambulance Exchange Point). This is an intermediary point between level 1 and level 2 stations in order to cut down traveling distances for the vehicles. An ambulance from the battalion aid station would bring the casualties to the AXP where they would be taken off, quickly triaged and then placed on the ambulance belonging to the level 2 hospital where it would return. The key with the AXP and level 1 is that these are unestablished areas that need to be secured and cleared before they could be set up. The last task dealt with setting up a level 2 hospital, which is set up within the FOB (forward operating base). This was split into two parts. The first was concerned with running a level 2 hospital, which received and treated casualties from both the level 1 via the AXP, as well as the FOB, which was concurrently under attack. I was part of the quick response force (QRT) aid and litter team. the 4 of us were the first responders to immediate casualties on the FOB. It was pretty intense to go into hot areas to retrieve the injured soldiers and take them to treatment. It was hard work, too! I got pretty tired after carrying a few 200 lb soldiers a few hundred yards! The second part focused on FOB operations. My duty was as the lead radio transmission officer, where I relayed all incoming radio messages from all posts on the FOB to the company commander. It's really hard to try to relay a message as three more are coming in! The whole day was crazy as we were dealing with insurgent fire, mortar attacks, angry civilians, and injured soldiers, but it was a great learning experience!

Overall, I thought this week was very beneficial. We had some breakdown in leadership that caused a lot of moaning and groaning, as they decided to enforce rules that were never mentioned before. And then on the last night, they went crazy on us as we were cleaning our M-16 rifles! They were given to us in pretty poor condition, but they acted like they were brand new and expected us to return them as such! We cleaned them for hours on end and were up past 1am! Then we had to get up at 4:30am to do a 3 mile road march. Little did we know that we would end up doing over 5 miles due to the cadre's miscalculation. It was a good march, though. I was given the charge of keeping everyone in the back of our platoon together. This was very rewarding indeed, as I was able to motivate my platoon, keeping morale up. This was especially important toward the end, as we began to realize that our march was going to cover much more than 3 miles. Some of the platoon was pretty frustrated, and the lack of sleep did not alleviate the matter in the least! But in the end, we stayed together and it we made it through our last week of field training!

This weekend was pretty relaxing for me. I had pretty good food, especially as opposed to MREs! The best part about it was that I had an opportunity to attend a session at the San Antonio Temple for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The little Ft. Sam Houston branch made a little temple trip. It was so wonderful to escape the world, escape the vulgarities of the Army for a few hours and find true peace in the temple. It was revitalizing and refreshing. On Sunday, the investigator family returned to church, this time bringing 2 more members of the family in tow! They are wonderful people and it is a shame that I will never know what paths their lives will take, but I hope that they were able to feel the sincerity of my heart as I testified to them of how I found my place in this world.

This week should prove to be relatively uneventful. We have a lot of lectures, but not much else until our final exam and graduation on Friday! I can't wait to get back to my beautiful family in Arizona! I began to cry as I talked to Braylei on the phone Saturday night, as she kept asking me to color with her. She wanted to see me through the webcam, which is unfortunately blocked from streaming while I am on post. She says, "Daddy! Cue-per!" Meghan said that she also has taken up the pastime of tickling! She will run up to people and just start tickling, saying "Tickle, tickle, tickle!" Tayscen is still eating well, and beginning to go longer than 2 hours between feeding at night, allowing Meghan to get a little more sleep! I miss them all so much! I can't wait until 9:21 Saturday morning when my plane arrives and I am reunited with them once more!