Day 15

"He is risen!!!  He is risen, indeed!" Happy Easter, everyone. I hope you all had a great time and took the time to celebrate the real reason for today.  Of course, an indulgence of a Reese's Peanut Butter Egg doesn't hurt, either. Today was the first day off to myself since arriving at this particular stop. One would think I would've slept in but instead, I was up until after midnight last night doing lots of sweaty laundry and up for the "son"rise service this morning. The 8am service was non-denominational and I think every Army recruit was in that room. Shaved heads to my left of 18-19 year olds and the ladies to the right.  The service was OK. Some music, a "drama" one-man presentation of Resurrection Sunday, and a few more songs. They even passed the offering plates...excuse me, the offering "trash cans." Yep, white bathroom trashcans marked by number with a Sharpie. Classy. After the exactly 1hr service, I decided to give Easter Sunday service another try and crossed the street for the 9:30am Protestant Service. Here's where I desperately missed my home church. The chaplain literally read from a cue card every word. Every prayer, the sermon...everything. He even checked the time on his watch during one prayer HE was giving! To me, scripted prayer is empty and doesn't mean much to me. My apologies to those of you who believe in that...that's just not for me. At the end, I bolted just as quick as I could from the base chapel.  To my church friends back in Kansas who may be reading this, I missed you more than you know today!!!  I greatly value your friendship and support! YOU are my family. From what I hear, you had a wonderful morning.

Afterwards, I met up with a few other fellow sailors and we walked off base and grabbed some authentic Mexican for lunch and saw the early showing for "The Conspirator." This movie, directed by Robert Redford, was about the investigation after the Abraham Lincoln assassination regarding who conspired to kill him, the vice president, and secretary of state. Pretty good movie but clear-as-day agenda being pushed by the Mr. Redford. I wish I were more knowledgeable of the facts of that historical event to know where creative license was exploited. My rating: 2 1/2 out of 4 stars. You history buffs will like it and probably give it 3.

I'm writing this earlier in the day so it's nearly time for dinner now. The only things I need to get done tonight is to clean my M4 rifle and M9 pistol. They are nasty from the range yesterday. If too much time passes, that carbon will become harder to remove. I need to stay true to cleaning them after every day at the range. I might even squeeze in a sunset run in the woods. We'll see how the evening goes and if the temperature drops. Note to self: next time, bring a pair of shorts and comfortable shirt. I was doing all of that walking today in 91F heat in a The North Face fleece and jeans. Not so enjoyable but thankful it wasn't cotton.

Almost halfway done at this particular stop. This next weeks holds a multitude of things: IED training, more range shooting and eventual qualifying on the M4, convoy operations and land navigation, and a "stress" evolution. I don't know much about that but it involves running through a course and making quick stops to fire at targets through windows then moving on to the next target.  My guess is they are going to simulate some urban situations where there are hostiles around. I plan to make the best of that and make every shot count!

Have a great week everyone....choose to make it that way!  Until tomorrow...