Week 8- 1 more to go!!!

My platoon. Out of uniform...

Ha. 

My favorite picture.

EVER.  (Todd and O'Donnell)

My platoon.

Yay! 

My favorite ladies and I out to eat some delicious Mexican. Ruby and Jana :)

Read below about Six Flags :( 

It's been a while since the last post, and I wish I had a lot to say about it, however.........the last two weeks have been full of pretty boring classes. 

Last Friday was our OBLC graduation. A lot of the families came into town to watch their kids/loved ones graduate, but you all didn't miss a thing. We listened to a few speeches, recited the soldier's creed, sang the army song, and then all ran as fast as we could out of the auditorium to celebrate. It was bittersweet, sitting there, knowing we were parting ways into our separate AOC tracks, after all we had been through together. But, hopefully we'll run into each other down the road...

A few of us spent Sunday at military appreciation day at Six Flags. After a few hours we decided we're too old for roller coasters - headaches, body aches, and EXTREME nausea took us down and we headed to our last platoon social at BW3's.

We started Monday in our Nurse Track course. It's actually interesting now that we're into our speciality. We're getting Trauma Nurse certified next weekend, and a few of us have been mapping out our future Army nursing career. I figure after a few years I'll be heading into Nurse Practitioner school- it just all depends on when Todd decides to go to CRNA school. 

Well, I have to bail. I'm going upstairs to a Grey's Anatomy premier party- woo hoo!

Twelve more days til we're home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

9/11 and some pics

It is a soldier, not the journalist, who guarantees freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the politician, who guarantees our democracy.

It is the soldier, not the diplomat that becomes a tangible expression of a nation's willingness to extend its values and its ideals worldwide.

And it is the soldier whose flag-draped coffin vividly demonstrates the ultimate cost of representing our beliefs in difficult and dangerous places.

History teaches that a society that does not value its warriors will be destroyed by a society that does.

Here's a picture of the boys' tent from my platoon in the field. I'm not saying our tent smelled like roses, but I almost passed out from the stench in theirs after taking this pic...

A picture from our combatives training. Combatives was part of FTX II, so we had to get up and wrestle in these pits from about 0500 - 0630 every morning. At least we always got to see the sun rise.....

This was one of the last days out in the field. I was talking with my platoon-mates when suddenly I realized how diverse all my friends were. So we decided to take a picture to submit to the Army brochure campaign to show how cultured we've all become with all our ethnic friends....We've yet to hear back from them....

(left to right: MarcoPaulo Benito- Italian, Ruby Arcieri- Korean, Marqus Berry- African American, Moi, Jose Capellan - Puerto Rican, Harris Abbasi- Pakistani)

Update

Hi all,

Todd and I got our flights to Germany today- it's official! 

(If you want to know the dates, give one of us a call. I've since learned more than I ever thought I could about anti-terrorism and one of the key points is to keep your personal info off the internet...)

We get tomorrow of in respect for 9/11. Tim McGraw is giving a free concert here to soldiers and their dependents. We've been watching them build the stage for the past few days and start blocking off entrances to Fort Sam to keep non-military peeps from enjoying the concert. We all had signed-up for our free tickets until we were told we had to show up in our ACU's (army fatigues) and have a formation and march over to the concert. I think they lost about half the attendees just by saying we had to attend in uniform and have a formation. We figure we can just watch the concert from our building anyway. Apparently, Tim McGraw's making a music video out of the concert which is probably why they want everyone in uniform. 

I know I keep promising pictures but the days have been soooo busy I haven't been able to. Since we have tomorrow off I should be able to put some up.

xoxoxo

Updates

Just got done with another long day.
Jana and I woke up early to go cheer our friends on for PT retakes. and.....
TODD PASSED!!!! He smoked everyone, it was fun to watch.
We took midterms today and we both passed those as well :)
Since being back from the field about 400 out of 500 of us have fallen ill; most just have a heinous cold, but I have both a cold and strep, so I'm going to sleep now so I can be up for our 0500 PT tomorrow morning.
xoxoxo

AMEDD Ftx

Sorry for the delayed post, we spent most of this weekend catching up on sleep and letting our bodies rest.

Todd and I spent our four day weekend taking it easy. We went to Sea World one day because it's free to armed service personnel, but mostly hid out in our respective rooms trying to forget the 11 days of grueling work we had just experienced. This past Tuesday saw us off on another four days of field training exercise; this time around it was strictly a medical field training. Tuesday was a really challenging day for the entire battallion as it was hard to readjust to the field life after four days of glorious gluttony and laziness. It took awhile for everyone to get back into the swing of things, but once we were all on the same page, everything went smoothly. We spent each day at different levels of combat hospitals- on our Level 1 day we set up a medical "clinic" out in the wilderness that simulated the BAS (Battalion Aid Station) of war. Next was the Level 2 hospital located in the FOB where soldiers are then taken to be further stabilized until they are either flown out or can return to combat. The third level is a CSH (Combat Support Hospital) which is an intricate (and I do mean intricate) set-up of tents that include dental rooms, operating rooms, ICU's, x-ray rooms, etc...Patients from there are usually transferred to a Level 4 (Landstuhl- yay!) and then onto Level 5 hospitals (Walter Reed or here in San Antonio).
Did I mention during this week we got to sleep in until 0500? It was GLORIOUS!!!

One whole day we got to role play a day on the FOB. Per Todd's advice, who'd done it the day before our platoon did, we chose to be QRF (quick reaction force). The QRF sits around all day running to each tower when they need back-up while under fire. They even had Iraqi music playing over the loudspeakers all day to make it more realistic and bombs going off all around us. My ears always rang for awhile afterwards :( Of course, cadre had us running all around, but luckily I was never "killed."

We got back Friday afternoon and had a BBQ outside our dorms. It was good to finally get some good food and listen to music after all we had been through. This week we take our mid-term exams. It's hard to believe we're more than half-way through and we'll be living in Germany within 6 weeks. Time flies when you're having fun.....

I only have a few pictures to put up right now, hopefully I'll have many more within the next few days so keep checking.
Until then,
xoxoxo