Day 10

Woo Hoo, I just successfully tethered my laptop to my phone for internet access.  Not too shabby!  It has a couple limitations as the "lite" version, but it's free!  I would actually consider buying this software...

Today was another day.  It wasn't too bad really, and I think it made many people feel more at ease.  We have more details on the shooting procedures and the distances we'll be firing.  With the 9mm, it's only 3, 7, and 15 meters, so that should be fine.  With the rifle we'll be shooting 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, and 300 meters, which will be more challenging, I'd expect.  A couple of us Academy kids are hoping to still qualify expert so we don't actually lose medals!

We broke up into smaller groups this afternoon based upon our destination country.  Our briefer had spent 4 years in Afghanistan (I don't think all at one time), and he told us his experiences.  He said he'd go back to Afghanistan in a heartbeat before setting foot in Iraq again.  So that was nice to hear.  I still think I'll be mostly isolated from the local population, but it was all good information.  We also each took a little book on Afghanistan if we wanted, so I can read about the country at my leisure.

The food is decent, and there is plenty of it.  Although I feel like a handful of meals have already been recycled as something else.  Tonight's 'meatballs' sure tasted like meatloaf pressed into spherical shape.  I'm just saying.

And I wanted to tell Chester that I hope he recovers quickly.  Helo sympathizes and thinks you'll be fine.

Well, that's about it for today.  Tomorrow we're supposed to do some emergency medical training, which will be good.  We're also supposed to go practice more rifle shooting techniques at some point, so I guess we'll see.  Hopefully everyone is enjoying the updates!  And who is this Glick guy who keeps commenting? (smile)