Visit with the Family

I know that I am a little late on this post, however, I have good reason.

Over the President's Day break I was able to visit with my family in Clarksville, TN. We all flew into Nashville and met up there. We were able to visit Ft. Campbell, look at housing options, and even visit with one of the brigade chaplains on post.

One side note, while I was at the Charlotte airport I visited the USO. These people absolutely rock! They took care of all of us who were there, and helped everyone feel welcome and appreciated.

Even if I had not been able to visit with my family, that visit with the chaplain would have made the trip worthwhile. We were able to talk about the post, the area, the brigade, the different battalions, and expectations.

I will be honest with you, PT (Physical Fitness Training) was a concern for me. The 101st Airborne are known for being in great shape. They have to be! Some of the things that they do regularly would give some people panic attacks. Therefore, they have set their own PT standards very high.

Now, I do not mind working hard, I had to drop 70 pounds just to get into the Army, and I have never been much of a runner. That being said, for me to just pass a standard PT is quite an accomplishment when you consider have far I have come in my fitness.

My main concern is that I do not want to be a liability to the battalion to which I am assigned. I know that I will be one of the older folks at the PT formation, but that is no excuse. I also know, simply because of our schedule here at school, that I will be able to continue to improve my PT a little bit, but it will not be drastically different than it is now.

I really just wanted to know how the PT standards are applied. The chaplain was able to reassure me that as long as I am demonstrating that I am continuing to try, and that I am not quitting, that I should be fine and accepted. That was an overarching concern. I want to get off to a good start in reaching the troops in my battalion. I do not want them to be disappointed in their new chaplain.

In any case, we really liked the Ft. Campbell area and the post. Everyone that we met was really nice, and authentically seemed appreciative of the Army. We also found some REALLY good restaurants. Some of them I will probably have to avoid if I am going to continue to pass my weigh-ins.

I have included some pics. We have a diagnostic PT test tomorrow AM. It is suppose to be really cold. I passed my weigh-in this morning with about 20 pounds to spare, not that I am looking to put those back on.

Blessings.

Weekly Update

I realize that I have been somewhat remiss in my duties as a blogger. I am endeavoring to do better.

This week was quite busy, and this upcoming week is not looking any better as far as workload.

The classroom presentations were so extensive that they actually broke us up into our platoons and had us all rotate through most of the material.

However, one entertaining event was an obstacle course that we tackled on Friday. Yours truly was on a medical profile for tendinitis in his right elbow and so I did not get to participate in much of it, but the road march in body armor and kevlar helmet was fun. I am including some pics.

The other great thing is that the weather has REALLY warmed up. This weekend we hit 70! Of course I was inside for most of it trying to get a leg up on our homework. No complaints though. I did step outside a couple of times and got some good workouts in, in spite of the workload.

Blessings

The End of CIMT

Well, we have completed Phase 0.

No, that is not a typo. The first portion of the chaplain school, which is known as CIMT (I think it stands for "Chaplain Initial Military Training"), is also called "Phase zero."

No matter what it is called, we're done! We are now onto Phase 1!

The final few days of CIMT were fairly busy. We all still find ourselves losing track of how long ago something occurred. For example, we will have conversations about the victory tower, and we cannot remember if it was one week or two weeks ago.

On the 28th I went to see a physical therapist about my right elbow. Since the victory tower it has been "popping" every so often. The therapist thought that it might be tendinitis. I've been following his instructions but it has not improved, so I will probably go to sick call on Tuesday.

We have started sharing our "sacred communication labs." These are basically practice labs in which a student puts together a church service according to a specific scenario, and with an assigned text. The scenario is that you are with a battalion deployed to Iraq and you are halfway through the 12 months that you are scheduled to be there. Everyone has done a really good job thus far.

We also covered using the Myers Briggs Temperament Indicator. I am an ESTJ which means according to some of the leaders of this program, that I am perfectly happy in my "list-laden life." I have to say that I agree with that because I generally have at least one list going all of the time.

Thursday we focused on pluralism and chaplain regulations. Although some may get nervous around the term "pluralism," what it means in the Army is that we as chaplains we work to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to worship in their style and tradition, as much as possible. One of our instructors put it this way, part of why we are here is to prohibit people from prohibiting the free exercise of religion.

Finally, on Friday we had a bit of a graduation ceremony that including the donning of our berets. The black beret is standard headwear when you are at a garrison. We have been wearing patrol caps until now. I kind of prefer the patrol caps, but the berets do look nice.

So, with the beginning of Phase 1 we lose some students who were here just for CIMT (keep in touch everyone), and gain a few new students. We also launch into a lot of new projects, classroom work, and papers. Should be a great learning environment.

Blessings.