Well, my SISTER decided that I looked goofy in the picture with my EMT uniform... so how about THIS!? (I updated the picture for the last post)

This is my THIRD post! I can't believe it. I can now officially become detached from the world! Though, my sister is the only one besides my wife (and me when I'm REALLY bored) who reads the blog, I will continue to publish such masterpieces of literature!

Perhaps I should add another picture...

This picture is me (I know you couldn't tell through all the camoflage and such) at the END of survival school. We had just finished evading the enemy for the last two days of a week long "camping trip." We had no tents or sleeping bags... but blankets, tarps, and eachother... The first night we slept with a buddy under a tarp/tent laying on bed of branches covered with leaves and other foliage. I would have rather slept on the ground! The second night, when it was 24 degrees out, we ended up getting together (7 of us) in a 20 man life-raft cover that was made into a tent. I'm not sure who I slept next to, but you better believe I snuggled up to them... my canteen of water was frozen in the morning!

We spent a few days hiking and each day we only ate 600 calories. We had a power bar for breakfast... hiked all day, skipped lunch, ate some stew we made. (Stew was the name of our "pet" rabbit which we ended up killing, disassembling and eating.) The last two days we evaded our enemy. We had a few objectives. Get from point A to point B, undetected by sight, sound, smell etc. and within a certain timeframe (with two or three people in a group). Each time we got to the next point, we had a new set of objectives and a new time. We had to whip out or maps, compass and head on--quietly. Our food consisted of anything we had left over. I happened to have a ball of rice in a plast bag, a 3 day old half cooked potato in foil, and jerky that we made by cutting beef in thin slices and hanging outside for 4 days. If it was good for the flies, it was good enough for me!!

We finally met our objectives. It was actually really close. We had time limits, as I had mentioned. We had to meet at the final point at 14:00:00. We were sprinting in the shadows toward our objective at 13:59:35. We met the "friendlies" at the end, role-played a little more and then got the "congratulations, you survived" speech.

I had greasy camoflage paint on my face for a week, had been hiking for a week straight, half of it on my belly, on 600 calories per day (and one worm) with no shower, sleeping in 25 degree weather with blankets that eventually got taken away and spooned a friend named Ray... It sucked, but I would do it again! It was a satisfying kind of misery!

A picture IS worth a thousand words!