It’s been a minute since the last update. Since then I’ve been hard at work remodeling our kitchen and working on a motorcycle I bought back in early December. I should have done a better job of taking before and after pictures, but it’s a definite upgrade in functionality and in looks. Below is the only older picture I could find of it next to a shot of the new look. It’s still in progress so I didn’t give you the full look.
The motorcycle got some upgrades like a cellphone charger, LED headlights, and an awesome gear rack in the back. I got a couple of rides out of it, but unfortunately, since then I killed it. I think it’s a more involved engine problem so unfortunately, it’s a problem for future me.
This is a random side story but look at the two pictures below. They are both the same house two years apart. It’s a neighborhood on the rougher east side of Saginaw that I like to walk through from time to time just to get a different perspective. This last time I caught a picture of that house before the full force of Spring had taken over the whole house with ivy. It’s a pretty interesting thing to think about how we humans just came into nature to establish our own dwellings, and how once we are gone nature will take back over. It makes me think about what a city would look like if humans just disappeared.
Besides those projects I spent a fair amount of time on active duty orders preparing my army national guard unit for a bigger summer training at Fort Polk, Louisiana. We just recently finished our rotation at JRTC (Joint Readiness Training Center). I’m actually writing the majority of his post on the backend of the training down here.
JRTC is essentially a simulated combat situation. There is a “box” that you enter to start the simulation. In the box you wear all your gear, in addition, to essentially an industrial level laser tag system. Our whole Brigade was there which is approximately 3,000 soldiers give or take. On our level, it just meant that the timeline for getting missions and guidance took longer than it typically does. Overall, it was hot, there were all sorts of bugs, snakes, and spiders, and even scorpions. It wasn’t the most fun, but we did have a couple of good missions. One mission in particular we were the only company out of the entire Brigade to take a foothold in one of the villages there. I died on that mission, which isn’t unexpected because I actually died four times throughout the rotation. For the sake of the scenario, I just happened to be a very similar replacement! We spent 15 days total in the “box” and lots of lessons learned.
Toward the end of my time in the field, I had a pretty nasty rash on my leg that actually started to grow and swell pretty bad. I toughed it out to stay in the field with my platoon until the end of our time in the box. You can see in the picture above that it got roughly twice the size of the other leg. It wasn’t fluid or anything; just really swollen. After an ultrasound determined it wasn’t a blood clot they theorized it was probably some sort of bug/scorpion/snake bite reaction. I actually had to spend 3 nights in the medical bay confined to elevating my leg while watching movies, which wasn’t the worst thing haha! Eventually, I made it back to our company and helped them close out the last couple of tasks, though I, unfortunately, missed most of the packing up process. We had some leadership meetings and then waited for our day to get out of that miserable humid environment.
We had charted flights to and from Ft. Polk which was a nice experience not having to deal with airport security. Overall, this annual training was over a month long and I spent time at Camp Grayling, Fort Custer, and Fort Polk. One of the highlights was doing the Murph (a workout named after a fallen Soldier) with some of my men on Memorial Day at Fort Custer.
Now, for me, it’s off to Ranger school starting on July 9th. I am glad to have had the tough annual training experience just before to get me in the right mental state. Physically, I am not in as good of shape as I would like, but Ranger school is probably more of a mental battle than anything. I’m a little anxious, but very excited about the opportunity. Ranger school is a challenge that I have been trying to tackle for over a year now and COVID had ruined a couple of my chances, but at last, I’m on the right track. Anxiety-wise, Ranger school has been looming unfinished over my head for too long. That’s why I am so excited to finally get there and get it done. Regardless it will be a tough and grueling experience. Prayers while I am there would be greatly appreciated!
Hopefully, the next blog post will be from a Ranger. God bless!