Respect

Respect

I already have a great deal of respect for our soldiers, but today they earned even more respect from a lowly non-infantry Captain like myself. Today, President’s Day, a day where most government employees get the day off, was our first official day of training. To simulate conditions in theater, we wore our “battle rattle”, which is something that our men and women in the military wear all the time when they are in a war zone, and in much greater temperatures than those found in Kansas in the middle of February. “Battle rattle” in Army speak means all of our issued gear, to include armor, helmet, weapons, and all the other whiz-bang gear that we get issued. Let’s just say that it’s a lot heavier than the polo shirt and khaki pants that I’m use to wearing to the office every day. The only thing we didn’t get issued today was ammo, which will add another, say, 5 to 6 lbs for a full combat load to the already 45 to 55 lbs of gear that we are carrying. Ugh! Even for those who are in shape, it takes some getting use to, but for the vast majority of the folks here, standing still with everything on was a challenge. We even had one person go to the hospital for heat exhaustion after walking only 1 mile in the stuff (mind you it only got up to 49 F today). We’ll get use to it though, as we start acclimating to it by wearing all of our gear from place to place. One thing is for sure, I will definitely have a stronger back after this experience. Either that or I will be two inches shorter.

I’d post pictures of me in my turtle outfit, but I didn’t bring my camera to training today and I wasn’t about to put it all back on since I know there will be plenty of photo ops in the future to see me in all of my gear.