It's Thursday of the first week. Tomorrow I'll receive my weapons and we'll be turned over to the Army for the beginning of training. This next week is supposed to be Language and Cultural awareness training. We have an introduction to Dari language on Saturday.
Saturdays are supposed to be half-days. Well, the Army's idea of a half-day is 1 day = 24 hours. Half day = 12 hours. No worries, just glad to be starting training, finally. I'm curious about the language training. I know that we aren't going to be fluent, but it should still be interesting. The theory is that if you already have learned a second language, then a 3rd isn't as difficult. I'm sure that's all relative. I speak German fairly well. I lived in Germany for two years and had to teach Naval Officer Candidates about Naval Science in German. We'll see how this goes.
I took a picture of me in my ballistic vest (called: Battle Rattle...). This stuff is heavy!! When you add the helmet, pistol, rifle, and back pack, it will be a significant amount of weight to carry around. I'm considering having my team start doing some marches with all of this gear. I'll start out with some short marches and gradually build up the distance. They need, and me, need to get used to carrying this stuff around. It's what we'll have to do when we are in theater ('down range'), so we might as well get used to it now.
I have to get going. Meetings with the battalion commander this afternoon. I should have more info later.
