Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Army Commentary (No Kittens, I promise)

Not to get all corny or anything, but I just wanted to wish everyone good luck with accessions. Last I heard, the information was being released some time this week, so I hope you all get the branches you want (thanks so much for your comments). Also, a new cycle of BOLC II ("Beware the Bowlock" - people at Sill might get that one; at least I hope the Bowlock monster has maintained his notoriety) started up this week; hopefully it goes well for everyone.

The Colonel's Moment of the Day, Monday:
He walked in carrying a huge sword. Apparently he saw our skit, and actually has a sense of humor. Of course, it would have been a lot cooler if he had walked in with the sword, and left again. Instead he hung around for a while, started playing shadow puppets in front of the projector and generally pissing our instructor off. After he left, our instructor told us how unprofessional and childish the man's behavior was. Additionally, he does not like the fact that the colonel likes to test his instructors by asking the same question three or four times in slightly different ways. When he came in later that day, he was carrying some type of wooden object, and then walked down the aisles, stopping to ask random people if they were learning anything. He didn't ask me but I had my answer prepared: "Actually, sir, you're kind of distracting me." Maybe he would have taken it as a joke . . .

Speaking of humor, when I walked into the school building Monday morning, the 1SG said to me, "I didn't know you had a sense of humor. I didn't know you even talked until Friday night." I guess my performance in the skit made an impression. Where's my Oscar?

The Colonel's Moment of the Day, Halloween edition:
He walked in during our afternoon history class dressed up as a giant pumpkin and threw candy at us. If all distractions and disruptions came with candy, I'd be much happier here.

For the past few days, we've been learning about movement planning. Our fun, sarcastic instructor from somewhere that isn't the South (he forcefully told us where he wasn't from, and that he says you's guys instead of y'all - does that mean Chicago or New York?) also gave us more random, entertaining, ironic tidbits:
  • Back in the olden days when Eisenhower was a 2LT and hadn't created the interstate system yet, he participated in the first transcontinental convoy. The average march rate was 6 mph. I think they made better time on the Oregon Trail.
  • At some point in the '90s, we were giving aid to someone in a program called "Provide Comfort" or something equally lamely named. Unfortunately, when you throw pallettes of MREs out of an airplane, they can inflict quite a bit of damage when they LAND on the recipients of this comfort. Now, the MREs boxes break apart as they fall but there are still some kinks in the system: humanitarian MREs come in the same yellow packaging as a certain kind of explosive - you do the math.

This afternoon, we had a very long history lesson. Turns out those four years of high school really payed off because I seem to have retained the basic knowledge of American wars and thus was dazzling the rest of the class with my participation. Also, since I had to give a brief about TC earlier this summer, I even knew what year we were established. Transpo wasn't actually its own branch until World War II, and had been part of the Quartermaster Corps up until then. At the moment, the Army is actually working on combining Quartermaster, Ordinance and TC into a logisticians branch so we're reversing history. Our instructor is not all too happy with the idea since the past has shown that transpo needs to be separate (hence the creation of the transportation corps). I guess we'll see what happens. They are already working on combining the captain's course but I should probably be out before the changes really start occuring. By the way, why is the Army making all these changes while we are at war? Let's add BOLC, shorten OBC and completely change the branches. Isn't a complete overhaul something we might want to save for peace time? I mean, I know a lot of these changes have been inspired by the war but these are things it might be better to develop after the war. We've all seen that BOLC wasn't exactly ready for actual LTs just yet.

Also, my classmates are now describing me as a "hardcore feminist" to other people in class. I guess that means my work is done.

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