Victory Tower day

1-12-09

Today was an exhausting day. We were in formation at 0545 and started a long march to the obstacle course. (It must have been in the 30s, but it warmed up to a balmy 45 or so today). It was brisk, but I did all right in the cold. Tomorrow we start our official PT running as a class, and it is supposed to be even colder and rainy. Perfect for pneumonia! But the obstacle course program is actually for team development, and we were challenged to work as small teams and solve a problem by moving everyone on the team over or through or around an obstacle by using ropes, boards, each other, etc. It was pretty neat. Kind of like "Outward Bound", if you're familiar with their programs.

Then we came home for lunch and returned to the road to march to the Victory Tower-- a 4 story platform with rapelling, ropes, cargo nets, and a few other challenging stations on it. The picture of the personal falling is an actual photo I took of the demonstration by one of the staff members of how safe the course actually is. The "belay" (sp?), or the person holding his ropes at the bottom, stopped him from falling to his death. I was lucky to have caught the shot of him falling. I was able to complete all of the activities, largely because there was a female master sargeant leading the rapelling course and telling all of the Chaplains to "man-up" and do it! There was no way I was going to chicken out then.

Well, tomorrow is more of a classroom day, and Wednesday we go out to the gas chamber. They keep reminding us of this, so it must be a big deal. I'll let you know. By the way, Go Cardinals!! It was kind of nice to have some NFL bragging rights out here in S. Carolina, since many in this neck of the woods were disappointed in the outcome of the game. Not me!