Day 31: Go Army!

During our training at Ft. Riley there are Navy personnel and Army personnel all mixed together in classes. The Navy has mostly medical folk while the Army has infantry, intelligence, etc. Basically, the Navy is the "how do you shoot this weapon?", "how do you turn on this radio?", type of soldiers while they are the "what can we blow up", "who can we shoot" type of soldiers. We obviously have different backgrounds and experience. Today I was glad for the difference.

We started a Combat Life Saver course today, which is basically simple life saving measures every soldier needs to be familiar with. For example we are taught tourniquet use, basic airway techniques, how to expand a collapsed lung, etc. This is a review for the medical types but a new idea for most of the Army guys. So when they asked for volunteers to demonstrate placement of a nasopharyngeal airway (a.k.a. long tube stuck in your nose), a bunch of Army arms went up, while all the Navy guys kept their hands hidden and looked away hoping not to be called upon. We knew better than to volunteer for this job. The poor unsuspecting Army guys survived but I think next time they will wait a second longer before they jump in and volunteer. I was just glad they were around because 6 inches of plastic shoved in the nose doesn't sound like fun.

Anyway, only 1 week to go until I get to come home for the 4th! We will see you all then.