No son, that isn't Gatorade

The Army. A couple of initial observations, I’m sure I will have more. First off I think there is a disproportionate number of short NCO’s and officers in the Army. Yes, I’m tall and everyone probably seems short to me, but I’m not kidding; it seems like most of the Army guys here are very short. I swear that I haven’t seen an Army NCO or officer who is taller than about 5’7”. It seems like height is normally distributed among USAF personnel and the junior enlisted Army. I don’t know if it’s this part of the country or if the Army attracts and keeps short men. I just think it’s weird. Yes, I have an interpretation for that but I’ll keep it to myself. My brother in law will love these comments.

The second Army thing I’ve noticed (and just as funny) is that everything Army has to be stated in excruciatingly concrete terms. A few examples:

From tactical combat casualty care:
“Determine if the casualty is alive or dead. Provide tactical care to the LIVE casualty.

From the “Law of War”:
“Soldiers treat civilians humanely”.

The funniest one was at the gym (the last one isn’t funny). The spray bottles of bright blue cleaning solution hanging near all the exercise equipment say in hand written big black letters: “DO NOT DRINK”.

I think all of this has to do with the Army recruiting standards, or maybe it’s just Army. Now that’s funny. Hooah.

In all fairness, I am looking forward to seeing what they do right, which is without a doubt the combat side of things.

PT

Okay. It’s been a slow day. We had a morning formation (stood in a huge group) in the snow and got briefed by key personnel. You could only hear 50% of what was said due to the wind. In the morning, people who were missing gear were bussed out to some warehouse to get what they needed. The rest of us were left to occupy ourselves so I went to the base gym with a group of guys, ran 5k and rode the stationary bike for 15k. Tomorrow we start unit PT at 0600. I think it will be a formation run, breaking into two groups: those who run slower or faster than an 11 minute mile. That basically means that the Air Force runs really really slow, if 11 minutes is what delineates fast from slow.

Words say it all

I mentioned this in an earlier post, but I thought it was interesting so I will revisit it. We were told to drill on these “15 phrases” so we know them. What I found so fascinating was what the actual phrases say about our current military operations in OEF and OIF, mostly OIF. They sound like phrases from all the old WWII movies I saw when I was a kid—delivered in German accented English. I saw some irony in it, but I must be fair and point out that the phrases include the phrases “excuse me I’m sorry” and "do you need help", etc? I like the last one... There's so much that's funny about this, but I better keep my mouth shut--

Partial list of the “15 Common Phrases”
Stop!
Do you have an identification card?
What is your name?
Let me search your car.
Hands up!
Drop your weapons!
Put your weapons down.
Do you need help?
Do you need medical attention?
Excuse me I’m sorry
You can leave.

Waiting for "chow"

Long line at 0600 for breakfast. Apparently a bunch of guys just came in from the FOB. They served 700 soldiers and airmen in 1.5 hours.