Fire in the Hole!

This week has turned out to be very interesting as far as things to do here at ODS. For the most part, our chiefs have stopped yelling at us all the time, and we are under the leadership of our division officer. Although we do manage to mess up the easiest things. We had some "pain and discipline" for one of our guys not shaving. And some more pain and discipline for yours truly not stowing his officer's crest outboard on my belt loop when my garrison cap is not being worn. Oops!

Sunday was a good day. Our chief was on quarterdeck watch so he was around a lot and taught us some things in the classroom that day. The nice thing was that each of the staff corps officers were able to share their stories about what drew them into the Navy. It was very touching. It was also nice to hear that our chief thoroughly enjoyed his graduation. We also got to hear about his career in the Navy as well.

Monday, I don't really remember what we did. So it must not have stood out! Oh that's right. I think we did Dental that day. It involved sitting and waiting. I found out I have a cavity. But since I'm not going to a duty station (as of yet), I will probably have to pay to have it filled on my own (Thank you Apple for Health insurance) After dental, I believe we had some drill and some lectures and not much else. I actually was able to sleep quite a bit!

Tuesday was a fun day, though not so much in the morning. Since it was raining, we did PT indoors. This involved two minutes of pushups, curlups and lots of laps around the P-way's of King Hall. After PT was breakfast, followed by me driving the students from base to the medical center for their audiograms. Since I had mine done in Meridian, MS last year, I think it was already in the system so I didn't need to go! THANK YOU LORD! After four hours of sitting in the van, getting to know my new roomate, we returned for lunch and then headed off to the USS Buttercup!

I know, the name doesn't inspire fear, shock and terror in the hearts of the enemy. But it is the Navy's only underwater boat trainer. This boat allows sailors to train for the unthinkable. Shoring up and stopping leaks if the structure of the ship were compromised. After a few hours of lecture, we headed for the boat. The water was a nice 80 degrees and after our 75-80 minutes and two different drills we did manage to save the ship from sinking!

Today was a nice day. After a 1.5 mile of 30-90's (Running for 90 seconds sprinting for 30) we came back for breakfast and then headed off for firefighter training. As you know this was something that piqued my interest. After many lectures about SCBA, Fire extinguishers and everything else we got to don our turnout gear and go fight fire. Unfortuntely, my back was hurting very bad today. I had to get my SCBA off as soon as I could. (For those of you in LVFD, they had some cool masks but their tanks were about 15 pounds heavier than ours--Tell Chief, I'm still training even up here!)

Tonight I went to Chaplain Drakes services on base. They were wonderful. Just what I needed. The worship service was great, the Bible study was expositional. Another shipmate (aka Sea Warrior) of mine went to Clearwater Christian and him and I both liked it. So if two "enemies" can come together anything can happen right?

Tomorrow is supposed to be lectures all day! We'll see what happens! Off to study my Navy Knowlege. Everyone wish my son a Happy Birthday! He turns five tomorrow! What a big boy!!