Back from Block leave

So, we're back in Camp Shelby. There are things to do here and there to get ready for shipping off to Afghanistan. One very important thing we had to do was have a big parade. And we had to practice for it too, because what good is a parade without rehearsal?

That rehearsal literally took 5 hours on Friday. We also did some silly-sounding "human patch formation" thing that I'll reserve judgement on until I see the picture. After all, if it looks cool, it might have been worth it. The parade itself lasted from 1000 to about 1145 Saturday, but of course we had to be there an hour and 30 minutes early. After all, this is the ARMY. Oh, and we had to wear our body armor, helmets, and carry our weapons, although we weren't wearing the actual protective plates in the body armor (so it was essentially worthless).

I'm hearing that we will have more mortar firing exercises before going overseas, which is good. Not that we don't have our skill level where it should be, but we're to the point where you have to work at maintaining your skills. Supposedly we will also be having a PT test at some point. I hope not, since I seem to have pulled a tendon in my ankle, and it probably would hurt a good bit after a PT test.

With the laptop here, I'm able to put together slide shows for my email update list, but haven't focussed yet on preparing notes for the blog. Hopefully I'll get to that soon, but honestly, not much has happened yet.

I'll post more later.