Let's be an Army Nurse!!

Hello everyone!      I'm so sorry it's been so long since I've last posted. As soon as I arrived to our Alabama apartment, we had to pack up everything we owned and ship it the next day... only to leave an hour after the truck took off. Imagine myself, my husband, a toddler, a dog, and a grumpy large tomcat all stuffed into two vehicles with our luggage and pillows. Yikes! That was a 2 day trip from Alabama to Fort Bragg with a stop on the way. Ever since we left, it's been a whirlwind and I haven't had a chance to update everyone!  For any military folks who are following for information, reporting is SUPER confusing, but your orders will tell you on the first page where to report and by when. The military gives you a certain amount of days to arrive somewhere based on how far it is. They don't want you to drive more than 8 hours at a time, so my 1300-ish miles was a 4 day allowance. As long as you arrive by midnight on your report date, you're good! You no

 But it wasn't me!  Of note, We did not have many privileges on base during the pandemic, aside from alcohol (in your rooms alone, at first). Some hotels have pools, but during the first few weeks our BOLC class was reprimanded for "partying at the pools" and the privilege was ripped out from under us. What?! Turns out, another group attending another course was the culprit, but we still weren't allowed to swim and gather until after the field was over. The field training and the weeks following were the days we all really got to know each other and I must say I really loved my platoon and my squad. We all got along really well together and each of us brought something special to the table.  Shout outs:      The Cunninghams, a married prior service couple who were well versed in weapon handling and "the way things are done", always eager to help with our multitude of issues and questions.     CPT Bentley, My roommate from DCC and battle buddy through the who

 Hello everyone! I last left you with some pictures of my new hotel room (so grateful for that mattress after DCC), and I was just starting my 14 day quarantine here at Fort Sam. I'll briefly go over the difference between this training and my first assignment.  DCC (direct commission course) teaches you the very basic aspects of being a soldier such as marching, the Army values/Warrior Ethos, land navigation basics, and some shooting basics. There is of course some coursework in there that gets a bit more specific about things, but you get the idea. In Contrast, BOLC is a leadership course that teaches soldiers how to handle leadership positions that go along with holding a degree. BOLC at Fort Sam mainly handles medical training, so this class usually has dentists, physician assistants, nurses, NPs, and a few others. This training is NOT meant to teach you anything medical that coincides with your job-type. Instead, you learn techniques to lead and they familiarize you with how t

Fort Sill Holdover   Due to COVID, and the inability of the Army to pay to house 300 people for an extra 10 days in a hotel, we could not report to our next training location right after DCC was finished. So, we had 10 days of “free time” at Fort Sill, OK…. Woohoo. We were allowed to leave base with a weekend pass if we desired, but this girl does not want the ‘rona. So, my roommates and I stayed pretty much in our barracks with the exception of the gym, meals, and a few shopping trips. However, we did investigate the nearby Wichita wildlife refuge, which was awesome! There’s a pretty little mini-mountain called Mount Scott where you can drive to the top and take lovely pictures like these! There were also some lovely bison, longhorns, prairie dogs, and unseen elk that don’t like to be found out in the open (I don’t blame them in that heat). The refuge is HUGE and stunning, and the wildlife are all able to freely roam wherever they please on the refuge. Here I am on a dam along the bis

Testing     On arrival, each soldier is immediately swabbed and ushered into your room with roommates. The medics doing the swabbing... had never done it before, so they got to practice on you! They take their sweet time scooping your brains out of your nose, and they don't care if you cry or cough. Then they do your other nostril. Once your eyes and nose begin flooding all over your face, you haul your things inside and are given folders of paperwork (that you don't fill out and turn in until the last day apparently), and you wait in your rooms for 2 weeks! Luckily for us, all 303 people were negative on the first round, which was apparently pretty rare. Or so we thought.      On day 10, they swab everyone a second time (same amount of snot and tears) because the virus can incubate for 2 weeks before showing symptoms. Unfortunately, around day 7-8 when they got all of our negative results back, the rules were relaxed somewhat and we were all allowed to hang out in the day room