We usually get done early each day, as our civilian and military instructors tend to go through our daily material much faster than the allotted time. Great for us! I was very productive this week during down time. I found the JAG office on my lunch break and got a POA (power of attorney) for my HHG (household goods). So the movers have permission to get my stuff from my parents house and move it to Maryland and store it until I get there. I also went to clothing and sales and got my ASU (Army Service Uniform or dress blues). I had no idea what I needed going in, fortunately, one of the ladies working was extremely helpful. I told her I needed everything for the uniform and we walked around and she picked up all the necessary items, got the correct sizes and then we went over and got the uniform tailored. I can go pick it up this coming Tuesday and once I have all the correct pins and accessories in the right places I will take a picture and post that as well...it should look something like this...
My uniform will have maroon shoulder boards and braids on it as that signifies medical, and I won't have as many ribbons or pins and we wear the beret instead of the cap but you get the idea. The shoes are horribly uncomfortable...and each pair I tried on was worse than the one before it. We have to have this uniform for one inspection. We don't even wear it for graduation. It ended up costing me close to $500, all for one inspection. All new officers are given a one time clothing allowance of $600 but I blew that a long time ago on ACU's (Army Combat Uniform--the camo). Other than my exciting errands, I had a very uneventful week.
One of our squad members is permanent party (meaning she is stationed at Fort Sam). For those soldiers who are stationed at Fort Sam, they are not authorized to live on-post with the rest of us in the hotel, they are required to find their own housing. So our squad member living off-post invited the squad over for floating the river and bbq. There is the Comal river in New Braunfels (just outside of San Antonio) and you can rent toobs (as the Texans spell it). A bus picks you up and takes you to the river where you hop in and float down to an end point where the bus picks you back up again. They have special "toobs" with coolers tied down so you can bring all your booze along. It took about 3 hours to float down the river, we all tied our tubes together to stay as a group. A new city law was passed that drinking is no longer allowed on the river, fortunately for us, the law hasn't gone into effect yet. We wanted to make sure we got our floating in before it did! The bbq was great as well. Nice to have real food, and not chow from the DFAC or a frozen dinner from our room.
One of our squad members is permanent party (meaning she is stationed at Fort Sam). For those soldiers who are stationed at Fort Sam, they are not authorized to live on-post with the rest of us in the hotel, they are required to find their own housing. So our squad member living off-post invited the squad over for floating the river and bbq. There is the Comal river in New Braunfels (just outside of San Antonio) and you can rent toobs (as the Texans spell it). A bus picks you up and takes you to the river where you hop in and float down to an end point where the bus picks you back up again. They have special "toobs" with coolers tied down so you can bring all your booze along. It took about 3 hours to float down the river, we all tied our tubes together to stay as a group. A new city law was passed that drinking is no longer allowed on the river, fortunately for us, the law hasn't gone into effect yet. We wanted to make sure we got our floating in before it did! The bbq was great as well. Nice to have real food, and not chow from the DFAC or a frozen dinner from our room.
(This is our group!)
We have Monday off this coming week as it is an SRP day. SRP is Soldier Readiness Program. Half of the company, Platoons 1-3 have stuff tomorrow and platoons 4-6 have stuff Tuesday. So we get the day off tomorrow. Basically, we have to get our CAC cards (military ID's) and immunizations and other random admin stuff taken care of. It's going to be a long day of 'hurry up and wait', good thing I have my Kindle to read!! Thanks mom and dad, I really like my birthday present! So far, since we've been here, we haven't had a full 5-day work week yet. I could really get used to having 3-day weekends all the time! It's going to be strange when we finally do have to go all week but not a big deal.
Tips: If you have to go to any of the offices on post for something (like JAG) and you have extra time at lunch, get it taken care of as soon as you can. Many times there is quite a wait and the offices usually close around 1600 and aren't open on the weekends. It can be a challenge to get things you need when you're working more hours than they are open. I waited about an hour at JAG for my POA, we had an extended lunch that day though because we got done early with our morning briefs.
Everyone needs to float the river at least once when you are in San Antonio. Make sure you leave any valuables in the car though, especially expensive sunglasses! Glass isn't allowed on the river so make sure you have cans. Lots of things were lost from the tubes when we went through the tube shoots and over the waterfall. We used the booze tube for all of our flip flops and other random stuff and that worked well. We did have to swim after one persons shoes when they tried to float away.
Everyone needs to float the river at least once when you are in San Antonio. Make sure you leave any valuables in the car though, especially expensive sunglasses! Glass isn't allowed on the river so make sure you have cans. Lots of things were lost from the tubes when we went through the tube shoots and over the waterfall. We used the booze tube for all of our flip flops and other random stuff and that worked well. We did have to swim after one persons shoes when they tried to float away.
No comments:
Post a Comment